Should
she, the centre of civilization, remain cooped up within her own narrow
limits, while rivals and enemies were sharing the vast regions of the
West? The commerce and fisheries of New France would in time become a
school for French sailors. Mines even now might be discovered; arid the
fur-trade, well conducted, could not but be a source of wealth.
Disbanded soldiers and women from the streets might be shipped to
Canada. Thus New France would be peopled and old France purified. A
power more potent than reason reinforced such arguments. Richelieu seems
to have regarded it as an act of personal encroachment that the subjects
of a foreign crown should seize on the domain of a company of which he
was the head; and it could not be supposed, that, with power to eject
them, the arrogant minister would suffer them to remain in undisturbed
possession.
A spirit far purer and more generous was active in the same behalf. The
character of Champlain belonged rather to the Middle Age than to the
seventeenth century. Long toil and endurance had calmed the adventurous
enthusiasm of his youth into a steadfast earnestness of purpose; and he
gave himself with a loyal zeal and devotedness to the profoundly
mistaken principles which he had espoused. In his mind, patriotism and
religion were inseparably linked.
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