The recital of these intricate events will at least illustrate the difficulties which beset Champlain in his endeavour to build up New France.  There were problems enough even had he received loyal support from the crown and the company.  With the English and Dutch in full rivalry, he saw that an aggressive policy of expansion and settlement became each year more imperative.  Instead, he was called on to withstand the cabals of self-seeking traders who shirked their obligations, and to endure the apathy of a government which was preoccupied with palace intrigues.

At Quebec itself the two bright spots were the convent of the Recollets [Footnote:  The Recollets were a branch of the Franciscan order, noted for the austerity of their rule.] and the little farm of Louis Hebert.  The Recollets first came to New France in 1615, and began at once by language study to prepare for their work among the Montagnais and Hurons.  It was a stipulation of the viceroy that six of them should be supported by the company, and in the absence of parish priests they ministered to the ungodly hangers-on of the fur trade as well as to the Indians.  Louis Hebert and his admirable family were very dear to the Fathers.  In 1617 all the buildings which had been erected at Quebec lay by the water’s edge.  Hebert was the first to make a clearing on the heights.  His first domain covered less than ten acres, but it was well tilled.  He built a stone house, which was thirty-eight feet by nineteen.  Besides making a garden, he planted apple-trees and vines.  He also managed to support some cattle.  When one considers what all this means in terms of food and comfort, it may be guessed that the fur traders, wintering down below on salt pork and smoked eels, must have felt much respect for the farmer in his stone mansion on the cliff.

We have from Champlain’s own lips a valuable statement as to the condition of things at Quebec in 1627, the year when Louis Hebert died.  ‘We were in all,’ he says, ‘sixty-five souls, including men, women, and children.’  Of the sixty-five only eighteen were adult males fit for hard work, and this small number must be reduced to two or three if we include only the tillers of the soil.  Besides these, a few adventurous spirits were away in the woods with the Indians, learning their language and endeavouring to exploit the beaver trade; but twenty years after the founding of Quebec the French in Canada, all told, numbered less than one hundred.

Contrast with this the state of Virginia fifteen years after the settlement of Jamestown.  ‘By 1622,’ says John Fiske, ’the population of Virginia was at least 4000, the tobacco fields were flourishing and lucrative, durable houses had been built and made comfortable with furniture brought from England, and the old squalor was everywhere giving way to thrift.  The area of colonization was pushed up the James River as far as Richmond.’