Company of One Hundred Associates was formed. In this company any of
the seaport traders could buy shares. Indeed, they were promised
patent of nobility if they did buy shares. Exclusive monopoly of furs
was given to the company from Florida to Labrador. In return the
Associates were to send two ships yearly to Canada. Before 1643 they
were to bring out four thousand colonists, support them for three
years, and give them land. In each settlement were to be supported
three priests; and, to prevent discord, Huguenots were to be banished
from New France.

To Champlain it must have seemed as if the ambition of his life were to
be realized. Just when the sky seemed clearest the bolt fell.

Early in April, 1628, the Associates had dispatched colonists and
stores for Quebec; but war had broken out between France and England.
Gervais Kirke, an English Huguenot of Dieppe, France, who had been put
under the ban by Cardinal Richelieu, had rallied the merchants of
London to fit out privateers to wage war on New France. The vessels
were commanded by the three sons, Thomas, Louis, and David; and to the
Kirkes rallied many Huguenots banished from France.

Quebec was hourly looking for the annual ships, when one morning in
July two men rushed breathless through the woods and up the steep rock
to Castle St. Louis with word that an English fleet of six frigates lay
in hiding at Tadoussac, ready to pounce on the French! Later came
other messengers--Indians, fishermen, traders--confirming the terrible
news. Then a Basque fisherman arrives with a demand, from Kirke for
the keys to the fort. Though there is no food inside the walls, less
than fifty pounds of ammunition in the storehouse, and not enough men
to man the guns, Champlain hopes against hope, and sends the Basque
fisherman back with suave regrets that he cannot comply with Monsieur
Kirke's polite request. Quebec's one chance lay in the hope that the
French vessels might {59} slip past the English frigates by night.
Days wore on to weeks, weeks to months, and a thousand rumors filled
the air; but no ships came. The people of Quebec were now reduced to
diet of nuts and corn. Then came Indian runners with word that the
French ships had been waylaid, boarded, scuttled, and sunk. Loaded to
the water line with booty, the English privateers had gone home.

[Illustration: QUEBEC (From Champlain's map)]

For that winter Quebec lived on such food as the Indians brought