inhabitants, and the doors of Catholics and Huguenots
alike were closed against them. Prisoners on the ship,
at the very gate of the promised land, no course seemed
open to them but to return on the same vessel to France.
But they were suddenly lifted by kindly hands from the
depths of despair. A boat rowed by men attached to the
Recollets approached their vessel. Soon several friars
dressed in coarse grey robes, with the knotted cord of
the Recollet order about their waists, peaked hood hanging
from their shoulders, and coarse wooden sandals on their
feet, stood before them on the deck, giving them a
wholehearted welcome and offering them a home, with the
use of half the buildings and land on the St Charles.
Right gladly the Jesuits accepted the offer and were
rowed ashore in the boat of the generous friars. On
touching the soil of New France they fell on their knees
and kissed the ground, in spite of the scowling traders
about them.

The disappointment of these aggressive pioneers of the
Church must have been great as they viewed Quebec. It
was now seventeen years since the colony had been founded;
yet it had fewer than one hundred inhabitants. In the
whole of Canada there were but seven French families and
only six white children. Save by Louis Hebert, the first
to cultivate the soil at Quebec, and the Recollets, no
attempt had been made at agriculture, and the colony was
almost wholly dependent on France for its subsistence.
When not engaged in gathering furs or loading and unloading
vessels, the men lounged in indolence about the