been for men who were on the coasts or rivers of the New World, who had
already been engaged in the traffic, and who had opportunities to trade
constantly inviting them! An Indian, let us say, paddled alongside with
a bundle of valuable furs, eager to get the things which the white men
had and beseeching them to barter. But no; they must not deal with him,
because they were not employed to buy and sell for the one man who
controlled the business.

Of course, many evaded the law, and there was a vast deal of illicit
trading in the lonely forests of New France which the watchful eye of the
{122} monopolist could not penetrate. Often there were violent and
bloody collisions between his employees and the free-traders.

Now, when Champlain reached Tadoussac he found his associate, Pontgrave,
who had sailed a week ahead of him, in serious trouble. On arriving at
Tadoussac, he had found some Basques driving a brisk trade with the
Indians. These Basques were fierce fellows. They belonged to one of the
oldest races in the world, a race that has inhabited the slopes of the
Pyrenees, on both the Spanish and the French sides, so far back that
nobody knows when it came thither; moreover, a sullen and vengeful race.
They were also daring voyagers, and their fishing-vessels had been among
the earliest to visit the New World, where their name for cod-fish,
baccalaos, had been given to Newfoundland, which bears that title on the
oldest maps. They had traded with the Indians long before any grant of
monopoly to anybody, and they felt that such a grant deprived them of a
long-established right.

When Pontgrave showed the royal letters and forbade the traffic, these
men swore roundly that they would trade in spite of the King, and backed
{123} up their words by promptly opening fire on Pontgrave with cannon
and musketry. He was wounded, as well as two of his men, and a third was
killed. Then they boarded his vessel and carried away all his cannon,
small arms, and ammunition, saying that they would restore them when they
had finished their trading and were ready to return home.

Champlain's arrival completely changed the situation. The Basques, who
were now the weaker party, were glad to come to terms, agreeing to go
away and employ themselves in whale-fishing. Leaving the wounded
Pontgrave to load his ship with a rich cargo of furs, Champlain held his
way up the St. Lawrence.

A place where the broad stream is shut in betwe