[26] All that relates to the formation of the Company of New France is contained in a series of documents entitled, Edits, Ordonnances royaux.  The first document is entitled, Compagnie du Canada, establie sous le titre de Nouvelle France, par les articles du vingt-neuf auril et sept May, mil six cens vingt-sept.  We find it in the Mercure Francois (t. xiv., part ii., p. 232) and also in the Memoires sur les possessions Francoises en Amerique (t. iii., pp. 3, 4, and 5).  This document is double, the first containing twenty articles, and the second thirty-one, which essentially differ.  The act of April 29th, 1627, exposes the designs which had engaged the king to establish a new company, its obligations, and the advantages which it will get from Canada.  The act of May 7th is the deed of association, which contains the whole organization of the company, its rules, and all that concerns the administration of its funds.  The acceptation of the articles of April 29th, 1628, was officially known by an act passed on August 5th, 1628, and the acceptation of the articles of May 7th took place on August 6th, of the same year.  These articles had been confirmed by an order-in-council, on May 6th, 1628, at La Rochelle.  On the same day Louis XIII had issued patents confirming the order-in-council.  On May 18th Richelieu had ratified the articles of April 29th and of May 7th.

These various documents were published in 1628, one part of them in the Mercure Francois, and the other in a pamphlet, large in quarto of twenty-three pages.  The list of the Hundred Associates was also printed in a small pamphlet of eight pages, bearing as title:  Noms, surnoms et Qualitez des Associez En la Compagnie de la Nouvelle France, suyvant les jours et dates de leurs signatures.

[27] About the year 1596 Gervase Kirke, of Norton, county of Derby, married Elizabeth Goudon, of Dieppe, and had issue five boys and two girls.  The eldest boy was named David, the second son was Louis; and the third, Thomas; the fourth, John; and the fifth, James.  In the year 1629 David was thirty-two years of age, Louis was thirty, and Thomas twenty-six years of age.  These are the three heroes of the Quebec assault.

Gervase Kirke was a member of the Company of Adventurers, and he died on December 17th, 1629.  In 1637 David received as a concession the New-found-land.  After some difficulties which he had to suffer, David Kirke died in the year 1656.  His widow claimed the sum of L60,000 for the part that the Kirkes had taken in bringing about the capitulation of Quebec, but the king paid no attention to these claims, and the Kirke family became poor.

CHAPTER X

THE CAPITULATION OF QUEBEC, 1629