what help they could, internal dissensions were of such frequent
occurrence in France during this period that no systematic or
continuous governmental aid was available. Hence the French
enterprises both in the East and in the West were on a small
scale, and achieved little success. The French East India Company
was all but extinct when Colbert took it in hand in 1664; it was
never able to compete with its Dutch or even its English rival.

But the period saw the establishment of two French colonies in
North America: Acadia (Nova Scotia) on the coast, and Canada, with
Quebec as its centre, in the St. Lawrence valley, separated from
one another on land by an almost impassable barrier of forest and
mountain. These two colonies were founded, the first in 1605 and
the second in 1608, almost at the same moment as the first English
settlement on the American continent. They had a hard struggle
during the first fifty years of their existence; for the number of
settlers was very small, the soil was barren, the climate severe,
and the Red Indians, especially the ferocious Iroquois towards the
south, were far more formidable enemies than those who bordered on
the English colonies.

There is no part of the history of European colonisation more full
of romance and of heroism than the early history of French Canada;
an incomparable atmosphere of gallantry and devotion seems to
overhang it. From the first, despite their small numbers and their
difficulties, these settlers showed a daring in exploration which
was only equalled by the Spaniards, and to which there is no
parallel in the records of the English colonies. At the very
outset the great explorer Champlain mapped out the greater part of
the Great Lakes, and thus reached farther into the continent than