us did new France rush into collision with the redoubted
warriors of the Five Nations. Here was the beginning, and in some
measure doubtless the cause, of a long suite of murderous conflicts,
bearing havoc and flame to generations yet unborn" (Parkman). Champlain
returned to France and again related to Henry IV.--who had previously
learned his worth and had pensioned him--his exciting adventures. De
Monts failed to secure a renewal of his patent, but resolved to proceed
without it. Champlain was again (1611) in Canada, fighting for and
against the Indians and establishing a trading post at Mont Royal (see
MONTREAL). He was the third white man to descend, and the second to
descend successfully, the Lachine Rapids. De Monts, now governor of
Paris, was too busy to occupy himself in the waning fortunes of the
colony, and left them entirely to his associate. An influential
protector was needed; and Champlain prevailed upon Charles de Bourbon,
comte de Soissons, to interest himself to obtain from the king the
appointment of lieutenant-general in New France. The comte de Soissons
died almost immediately, and was succeeded in the office by Henri de
Bourbon, prince de Conde, and he, like his predecessors and successors,
retained Champlain as lieutenant-governor. "In Champlain alone was the
life of New France. By instinct and temperament he was more impelled to
the adventurous toils of exploration than to the duller task of building
colonies. The profits of trade had value in his eyes only as means to
these ends, and settlements were important chiefly as a base of
discovery. Two great objects eclipsed all others,--to find a route to
the Indies, and to bring the heathen tribes into the embraces of the
Church, since, while he cared little for their bodies, his solicitude
for their souls knew no bounds" (Parkman).

In 1613 Champlain again crossed the Atlantic and endeavoured to confirm
Nicolas de Vignau's alleged discovery of a short route to the ocean by
the Ottawa river, a great lake at its source, and another river flowing
north therefrom. That year he got as far as Allumette Island in the
Ottawa, but two years later, with a "Great War Party" of Indians, he
crossed Lake Nipissing and the eastern ends of Lakes Huron and Ontario,
and made a fierce but unsuccessful attack on an Onondaga fortified town
a few miles south of Lake Oneida. This was the end of his wanderings. He
now devoted himself to the growth and strengthening of Quebec