Champlain’s own statement regarding the motive of De Monts’ expedition is that it lay in the desire ’to find a northerly route to China, in order to facilitate commerce with the Orientals.’  After reciting a list of explorations which began with John Cabot and had continued at intervals during the next century, he continues:  ’So many voyages and discoveries without results, and attended with so much hardship and expense, have caused us French in late years to attempt a permanent settlement in those lands which we call New France, in the hope of thus realizing more easily this object; since the voyage in search of the desired passage commences on the other side of the ocean and is made along the coast of this region.’

A comparison of the words just quoted with the text of De Monts’ commission will serve to illustrate the strength of Champlain’s geographical instinct.  The commission begins with a somewhat stereotyped reference to the conversion of the heathen, after which it descants upon commerce, colonies, and mines.  The supplementary commission to De Monts from Montmorency as Lord High Admiral adds a further consideration, namely, that if Acadia is not occupied by the French it will be seized upon by some other nation.  Not a word of the route to the East occurs in either commission, and De Monts is limited in the powers granted to a region extending along the American seaboard from the fortieth parallel to the forty-sixth, with as much of the interior ’as he is able to explore and colonize.’

This shows that, while the objects of the expedition were commercial and political, Champlain’s imagination was kindled by the prospect of finding the long-sought passage to China.  To his mind a French colony in America is a stepping-stone, a base of operations for the great quest.  De Monts himself doubtless sought honour, adventure, and profit—­the profit which might arise from possessing Acadia and controlling the fur trade in ’the river of Canada.’  Champlain remains the geographer, and his chief contribution to the Acadian enterprise will be found in that part of his Voyages which describes his study of the coast-line southward from Cape Breton to Malabar.

But whether considered from the standpoint of exploration or settlement, the first chapter of French annals in Acadia is a fine incident.  Champlain has left the greatest fame, but he was not alone during these years of peril and hardship.  With him are grouped De Monts, Poutrincourt, Lescarbot, Pontgrave, and Louis Hebert, all men of capacity and enterprise, whose part in this valiant enterprise lent it a dignity which it has never since lost.  As yet no English colony had been established in America.  Under his commission De Monts could have selected for the site of his settlement either New York or Providence or Boston or Portland.  The efforts of the French in America from 1604. to 1607 are signalized by the character of their leaders, the nature of their opportunity, and the special causes which prevented them from taking possession of Norumbega.