But whether considered from the standpoint of exploration
or settlement, the first chapter of French annals in
Acadia is a fine incident. Champlain has left the greatest
fame, but he was not alone during these years of peril
and hardship. With him are grouped De Monts, Poutrincourt,
Lescarbot, Pontgrave, and Louis Hebert, all men of capacity
and enterprise, whose part in this valiant enterprise
lent it a dignity which it has never since lost. As yet
no English colony had been established in America. Under
his commission De Monts could have selected for the site
of his settlement either New York or Providence or Boston
or Portland. The efforts of the French in America from
1604. to 1607 are signalized by the character of their
leaders, the nature of their opportunity, and the special
causes which prevented them from taking possession of
Norumbega.

[Footnote: There appears in Verrazano's map of 1529 the
word Aranbega, as attached to a small district on the
Atlantic seaboard. Ten years later Norumbega has become
a region which takes in the whole coast from Cape Breton
to Florida. At intervals throughout the sixteenth century
fables were told in Europe of its extraordinary wealth,
and it was not till the time of Champlain that this myth
was exposed. Champlain himself identifies 'the great
river of Norumbega' with the Penobscot.]

De Monts lacked neither courage nor persistence. His
battle against heartbreaking disappointments shows him
to have been a pioneer of high order. And with him sailed