[Footnote 19:  You will observe that neither the French nor the English sovereigns of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries went to much personal expense over the creation of colonies.  They simply gave a charter or a monopoly, which cost them nothing, but which made other people pay.]

The greater part of the little colony had to leave Port Royal and make its way in small boats along the Nova Scotia coasts till they reached Cape Breton Island.  Here fishing vessels conveyed them back to Brittany.  It was in this boat journeying along the coast of Nova Scotia that Champlain discovered Halifax Harbour, then called by the Indian name of Shebuktu.  As they passed along this coast with its many islands, they feasted on ripe raspberries, which grew everywhere “in the greatest possible quantity”.

Poutrincourt, however, had succeeded in taking back with him samples of the corn, wheat, rye, barley, and oats which had been so successfully grown on the island of Sainte Croix and at Port Royal, and also presented to that monarch five brent-geese[20] which he had reared up from eggs hatched under a hen.  The king was so delighted at these presents that he once more veered about and gave to De Monts the monopoly of the fur trade for one more year, in order to enable him to renew his colonies in New France.

[Footnote 20:  Branta canadensis, a handsome black-and-brown goose with white markings, which the French pioneers in Canada styled “outarde” or “bustard”, and whose eggs were considered very good eating.]

The Sieur de Monts was again appointed by Henry IV Lieutenant-General in New France.  The latter engaged Champlain as his lieutenant, and also sent out Du Pont Grave in command of the second vessel, as head of the trading operations.  This time, on the advice of Champlain, the expedition made its way directly to the St. Lawrence River, stopping first at Tadoussac, where Du Pont Grave proceeded to take very strong measures with the Basque seamen, who were infringing his monopoly by trading with the natives in furs.  Apparently they were still allowed to continue their whale fishery.

Once more Champlain heard from the Montagnais Indians of the great Salt Sea to the north of Saguenay, in other words, the southern extension of Hudson’s Bay; and in his book he notes that the English in these latter years “had gone thither to find their way to China”.  However, he kept his intent fixed on the establishment of a French colony along the St. Lawrence, and may be said to have founded the city of Quebec (the site of which was then covered with nut trees) on the 4th of July, 1608.  Then his enterprise was near being wrecked by a base conspiracy got up between a surgeon and a number of French artisans, who believed that by seizing and killing Champlain, and then handing over the infant settlement to the Spanish Basques, they might enable these traders and fishermen with their good strong ships to overcome