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and in 1669 the New England captain, Gillam, returned to England with Chouart and the first cargo of furs from Hudson's Bay. This cargo so completely met the expectations of those who had promoted the venture that it led in 1670 to the foundation of the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, a company chartered by Charles II and presided over by Prince Rupert, and an association which proved to be the germ of British North America, of the vast three-quarters of the present Dominion of Canada. CHAPTER IV Champlain and the Foundation of Canada From the first voyage of Cartier onwards, Canada was called intermittently New France, and its possibilities were not lost sight of by a few intelligent Frenchmen on account of the fur trade. Amongst these was Amyard de Chastes, at one time Governor of Dieppe, who got into correspondence with the adventurers who had settled as fur traders at Tadoussac, prominent amongst whom was Du Pont-Grave. De Chastes dispatched with Pont-Grave a young man whose acquaintance he had just made, SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN.[1] This was the man who, more than any other, created French Canada. [Footnote 1: Afterwards the Sieur de Champlain. The title of _Sieur_ (from the Latin _Senior_) is the origin of the English "sir", and is about equivalent to an English baronetcy.] Champlain had had already a most adventurous life. He was born about 1567, at Brouage, in the Saintonge, opposite to the Island of Heron, on the coast of western France. From his earliest years he had a passion for the sea, but he also served as a soldier for six years. His father had been a sea captain, and his uncle as an experienced navigator was commissioned by the King of Spain to transport by sea to that country the remainder of the Spanish soldiers who had been serving in Brittany. The uncle took his nephew with him. Young Champlain when in Spain managed to ingratiate himself so much with the Spanish authorities that he was actually commissioned as a captain to take a king's ship out to the West Indies. No sooner did he reach Spanish America than he availed himself of the first chance to explore it. For two years he travelled over Cuba, and above all Mexico. He visited the narrowest part of Central America and conceived the possibility of making a trans-oceanic canal across the Panama isthmus. When he got back to France he placed before Henry IV a report on Spanish Central America,
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