the French and forced to serve against the Spaniards. Broken in health
and fortune, he spent his remaining years in London, dying there in
1631. There is a portrait of him, showing him as a handsome, bearded
man, with nose and mouth bespeaking will and spirit--just such a man as
one would imagine this gallant soldier of fortune to have been.

While the English, under the guiding hand of John Smith, were fighting
desperately to maintain themselves upon the James, the French were
struggling to the same purpose and no less desperately along the St.
Lawrence. We have seen how Jacques Cartier explored and named that
region, but civil and religious wars in France put an end to plans of
colonization for half a century, and it was not until 1603 that Samuel
Champlain, the founder of New France, and one of the noblest characters
in American history, embarked for the New World.

Samuel Champlain was born at Brouage about 1567, the son of a sea-faring
father, and his early years were spent upon the sea. He served in the
army of the Fourth Henry, and after the peace with Spain, made a voyage
to Mexico. Upon his return to France in 1603, he found a fleet preparing
to sail to Canada, and at once joined it. Some explorations were made of
the St. Lawrence, but the fleet returned to France within the year,
without accomplishing anything in the way of colonization. Another
expedition in the following year saw the founding of Port Royal, while
Champlain made a careful exploration of the New England coast, but he
found nothing that attracted him as did the mighty river to the north.
Thither, in 1608, he went, and sailing up the river to a point where a
mighty promontory rears its head, disembarked and erected the first rude
huts of the city which he called by the Indian name of Quebec, or "The
Narrows." A wooden wall was built, mounting a few small cannon and
loopholed for musketry, and the conquest of Canada had begun. A