It was not until 1614 that the new programme in its entirety could be carried out.  This time the delay came, not from the court, but from the merchants.  Negotiations were in progress when the ships sailed for the voyage of 1613, but Champlain could not remain to conclude them, as he felt that he must keep faith with the Indians.  However, on his return to France that autumn, he resumed the effort, and by the spring of 1614. the merchants of Rouen, St Malo, and La Rochelle had been brought to terms among themselves as participants in a monopoly which was leased from the viceroy.  Conde received a thousand crowns a year, and the new company also agreed to take out six families of colonists each season.  In return it was granted the monopoly for eleven years.  De Monts was a member of the company and Quebec became its headquarters in Canada.  But the moving spirit was Champlain, who was appointed lieutenant to the viceroy with a salary and the right to levy for his own purposes four men from each ship trading in the river.

Once more disappointment followed.  Save for De Monts, Champlain’s company was not inspired by Champlain’s patriotism.  During the first three years of its existence the obligation to colonize was wilfully disregarded, while in the fourth year the treatment accorded Louis Hebert shows that good faith counted for as little with the fur traders when they acted in association as when they were engaged in cut-throat competition.

Champlain excepted, Hebert was the most admirable of those who risked death in the attempt to found a settlement at Quebec.  He was not a Norman peasant, but a Parisian apothecary.  We have already seen that he took part in the Acadian venture of De Monts and Poutrincourt.  After the capture of Port Royal by the English he returned to France (1613) and reopened his shop.  Three years later Champlain was authorized by the company to offer him and his family favourable terms if they would emigrate to Quebec, the consideration being two hundred crowns a year for three years, besides maintenance.  On this understanding Hebert sold his house and shop, bought an equipment for the new home, and set off with his family to embark at Honfleur.  Here he found that Champlain’s shareholders were not prepared to stand by their agreement.  The company first beat him down from two hundred to one hundred crowns a year, and then stipulated that he, his wife, his children, and his domestic should serve it for the three years during which the grant was payable.  Even at the end of three years, when he found himself at liberty to till the soil, he was bound to sell produce to the company at the prices prevalent in France.  The company was to have his perpetual service as a chemist for nothing, and he must promise in writing to take no part in the fur trade.  Hebert had cut off his retreat and was forced to accept these hard terms, but it is not strange that under such conditions colonists should have been few.  Sagard, the Recollet missionary, says the company treated Hebert so badly because it wished to discourage colonization.  What it wanted was the benefit of the monopoly, without the obligation of finding settlers who had to be brought over for nothing.