Pontgrave and Chauvin attempted a settlement at Tadoussac, the dismal
wilderness at the mouth of the Saguenay, thenceforward the rendezvous of
European and Indian traders. All these were preliminary anticipations of
the real occupancy of New France. Champlain, Poutrincourt, and
Lescarbot, in 1607, established at Port Royal the first agricultural
colony in the New World. Then began that series of futile and vexatious
dealings on the part of the French court, in granting and withdrawing
monopolies, conflicting commissions and patents, with confused purposes
of feudalism and restricted privilege, which embarrassed all effective
progress, and visited chagrin and disappointment on every devoted
adventurer.
The great picture on Mr. Parkman's canvas is Champlain. That really
noble-souled, heroic, and marvellous man, whom our author appreciates,
yet with sagacious discrimination presents to the life, is a splendid
subject for his admirable rehearsal. At the age of thirty-three he
becomes the most conspicuous, and, on the whole, the most intelligent,
agent of the French interest in these parts of the world.
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