settlement under the command of Captain Pierre Chauvin, an officer of great experience. CHAMPLAIN was well received on his arrival by Henry IV., who invited him to an interview at Fontainebleau ; and received from him an exact account of all that had been done in New France, with a statement of the advantages to be expected from the new establishment on the St. Lawrence, at which recital the King expressed great satisfaction. De Monts, however, by whose means the settlement of Quebec had been formed, could not obtain a renewal of his privilege, which had now expired :— notwithstanding which, he was once more enabled by the assistance of the company of merchants, to fit out two vessels in the spring of 1610, under the command of Champlain and Pontgravé. The latter was instructed to continue the fur trade with the Indians at Tadoussac, while Champlain, having with him a reinforcement of artisans and laborers, was to proceed to Quebec. He sailed from Honfleur on the 8th April, and arrived at Tadoussac in the singularly short passage of eighteen days. Thence ascending the river to Quebec, he had the gratification of finding the colonists in good health, and content with their situation. The crops of the previous year had been abundant, and every thing was in as good order and condition as could be expected. To pursue further the proceedings of CHAMPLAIN, and his discoveries in the interior, does not properly fall within the scope of this work, but belongs to the History of CANADA. It may be well, however, to observe in this place, that owing to the political error committed by this otherwise sagacious chief, when he taught the natives the use of fire-arms, and joined them in an offensive league against the Iroquois, who were at first supported by the Dutch, and afterwards by the English Colonists of New-York,CHAMPLAIN not only laid the foundation of that predatory and cruel warfare which subsisted with little intermission between his countrymen and the five nations, notwithstanding the conciliatory efforts of the Jesuits-but he may with reason be considered as the remote, although innocent cause, of the animosity afterwards engendered between the Provincialists and the French, owing to the excesses of the Indians in the interest of the latter, and of a war which terminated only with the subjugation of Canada by the British arms in 1760. CHAMPLAIN, who made frequent voyages to France in order to promote the interests of the rising Colony, and who identified himself with its prospects by bringing out his family to reside with him, was wisely continued, with occasional intermission, in the chief command until his death. In 1620, he erected a temporary fort on the site of the Castle of St. Lewis; which he rebuilt of stone, and fortified in 1624. At that time, however, the Colony numbered only fifty souls. It appears from the Parish Register then commenced to be regularly kept, that the first child born in Quebec of French parents was christened Eustache on the 24th October, 1621, being the son of Abraham Martin and Margaret L'Anglois. In 1629, Champlain had to undergo the mortification of surrendering Quebec to an armament from England under Louis Kertk, who on the 22d July planted the English Standard on the walls, just one hundred and thirty years before the battle of the Plains of Abraham. Champlain was taken as a prisoner of war to England, whence he returned to France, and subsequently to Canada in 1633. The inhabi tants were well treated by Kertk, who was himself a French Huguenot Refugee, and none of the settlers left the country; which was restored to France by the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, on the 29th March, 1632. CHAMPLAIN, who combined with superior talents and singular prudence a temperament of high courage and resolution, after a residence in New France of nearly thirty years, died full of honors, and rich in public respect and esteem, in the bosom of the settlement of which he was the founder, about the end of December, 1635. His memoirs are written in a pleasing and unaffected style; and show that he was deficient in none of the qualities which are so essential in the leader of difficult enterprises, and the discoverer of new countries. His obsequies were performed with all the pomp which the colony could command; and his remains were followed to the grave with real sorrow by the Clergy, Officers, and the civil and military inhabitants, Father Le Jeune pronouncing an appropriate funeral oration. At the death of CHAMPLAIN the French possessions in Canada consisted of the fort of Quebec, surrounded by some inconsiderable houses, and barracks for the soldiers, a few huts on the Island of Montreal, as many at Tadoussac, and at other places on the St. Lawrence, used as trading and fishing posts. A settlement had just been commenced at Three Rivers; and in these trifling acquisitions were comprised all that resulted from the discoveries of Verazzano, Jacques Cartier, Roberval, Champlain, and the vast outlay of De la Roche, De Monts, and other French adventurers. At the time we are writing, the Colony or Province of Lower Canada contains nearly six hundred thousand inhabitants-Quebec possesses over three thousand houses, and a population of near thirty thousand souls. That of Montreal is as numerous ; and Three-Rivers is progressively improving in wealth and resources. The social and commercial intercourse between these flourishing towns is maintained by means of magnificent steamboats of unrivalled safety and expedition-those floating palaces, in which a thousand human beings are often transported from city to city. The trade of the Province, instead of being limited to a few small craft engaged in the fisheries or the fur trade, employs more than a thousand vessels of burthen, enriching the Province with an annual immigration of from twenty-five to fifty thousand souls, the aggregate of whose capital is immense; and conveying in return the native produce of the Canadas to almost every part of the empire. PITT must have been prophetically inspired when he gave to the great seal of CANADA its beautiful legend, for nothing could be more applicable to the double advantages of one extensive branch of its commerce -the Timber trade AB IPSO DUCIT OPES ANIMUMQUE FERRO Gains power and riches by the selfsame steel. Instead of a few huts on the River's side, the country on each bank of the St. Lawrence has been long divided into rich Seigniories, and the fertile soil cultivated by an industrious, a virtuous and contented population by a people to whom foreign dominion, instead of deteriorating their former condition, has been the herald of all that can render life precious. It has given to them the unrestricted enjoyment of their rights, language and religion-protection against external foes, together with the full security of their domestic usages, customs, laws and property-perfect exemption from the burthens of taxation, and a state of rational happiness and political freedom unequalled on the face of the globe. The following beautiful passage from Virgil will strike every one, as singularly applicable to the condition of the Canadian farmer, or habitant : O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nôrint, At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita, O happy, if he knew his happy state, But easy quiet, a secure retreat, A harmless life, that knows not how to cheat, |