Several new attempts were made at this time, none
of which was very successful. The fur trade, however, held out great
inducements to private enterprise, and stimulated the cupidity of the
merchants of Dieppe, Rouen and St Malo. In the heart of one of them
something nobler than cupidity was aroused. In 1603, M. De Chastes,
Governor of Dieppe, obtained a patent from the King conferring upon him and
several of his associates a monopoly of the fur trade of New France. To M.
De Chastes the acquisition of wealth--of which he already had enough, and
to spare--was a matter of secondary importance, but he hoped to make his
patent the means of extending the French empire into the unknown regions of
the far West. The patent was granted soon after Champlain's return from the
West Indies, and just as the pleasures of the court were beginning to pall
upon him. He had served under De Chastes during the latter years of the war
of the League, and the Governor was no stranger to the young man's skill,
energy, and incorruptible integrity. De Chastes urged him to join the
expedition, which was precisely of a kind to find favour in the eyes of an
ardent adventurer like Champlain.
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