Brebeuf
embarked with his companions, and, after months of toil, reached the
barbarous scene of his labors, his sufferings, and his death.
Meanwhile the Viceroy had been deeply scandalized by the contumacious
heresy of Emery de Caen, who not only assembled his Huguenot sailors at
prayers, but forced Catholics to join them. He was ordered thenceforth
to prohibit his crews from all praying and psalm-singing on the river
St. Lawrence. The crews revolted, and a compromise was made. It was
agreed that for the present they might pray, but not sing. "A bad
bargain," says the pious Champlain, "but we made the best of it we
could." Caen, enraged at the Viceroy's reproofs, lost no opportunity to
vent his spleen against the Jesuits, whom he cordially hated.
Eighteen years had passed since the founding of Quebec, and still the
colony could scarcely be said to exist but in the founder's brain. Those
who should have been its support were engrossed by trade or
propagandism. Champlain might look back on fruitless toils, hopes
deferred, a life spent seemingly in vain. The population of Quebec had
risen to a hundred and five persons, men, women, and children. Of these,
one or two families only had learned to support themselves from the
products of the soil. All withered under the monopoly of the Caens.
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