ing all the principal
ports and pushing inland from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. The MS.
account of his adventures, _Bref Discours des Choses plus remarquables
que Samuel Champlain de Brouage a recognues aux Indes Occidentales_, is
in the library at Dieppe. It was not published in French until 1870,
although an English translation was printed by the Hakluyt Society in
1859. It contains a suggestion of a Panama Canal, "by which the voyage
to the South Sea would be shortened by more than 1500 leagues." In 1603
Champlain made his first voyage to Canada, being sent out by Aymar de
Clermont, seigneur de Chastes, on whom the king had bestowed a patent.
Champlain at once established friendly relations with the Indians and
explored the St Lawrence to the rapids above Montreal. On his return he
published an interesting and historically valuable little book, _Des
sauvages, ou voyage de Samuel Champlain de Brouage fait en la France
Nouvelle_. During his absence de Chastes had died, and his privileges
and fur trade monopolies were conferred upon Pierre de Guast, sieur de
Monts (1560-1611). With him, in 1604, Champlain was engaged in exploring
the coast as far south as Cape Cod, in seeking a site for a new
settlement, and in making surveys and charts. They first settled on an
island near the mouth of the St Croix river, and then at Port Royal--now
Annapolis, N.S.

Meanwhile the Basques and Bretons, asserting that they were being ruined
by de Monts' privileges, got his patent revoked, and Champlain returned
with the discouraged colonists to Europe. When, however, in modified
form, the patent was re-granted to his patron Champlain induced him to
abandon Acadia and establish a settlement on the St Lawrence, of the
commercial advantages of which, perhaps even as a western route to China
and Japan, he soon convinced him. Champlain was placed in command of one
of the two vessels sent out. He was to explore and colonize, while the
other vessel traded, to pay for the expedition. Champlain fixed on the
site of Quebec and founded the first white settlement there in July
1608, giving it its present name. In the spring he joined a war party of
Algonquins and Hurons, discovered the great lake that bears his name,
and, near the present Ticonderoga, took with his arquebus an important
part in the victory which his savage friends obtained over the Iroquois.
The Iroquois naturally turned first to the Dutch and then to the English
for allies. "Th