It happened, however, that the first fleet the company
dispatched in 1628 did not reach Canada. The ships were
attacked and captured, and in the following year Quebec
itself fell into English hands. After its restoration in
1632 the company, greatly crippled, resumed operations,
but did very little for the upbuilding of the colony.
Few settlers were sent out at all, and of these still
fewer went at the company's expense. In only two ways
did the company, after the first few years of its
existence, show any interest in its new territories. In
the first place, its officers readily grasped the
opportunity to make some profits out of the fur trade.
Each year ships were sent to Quebec; merchandise was
there landed, and a cargo of furs taken in exchange. If
the vessel ever reached home, despite the risks of wreck
and capture, a handsome dividend for those interested
was the outcome. But the risks were great, and, after
a time, when the profits declined, the company showed
scant interest in even the trading part of its business.
The other matter in which the directors of the company
showed some interest was in the giving of seigneuries
--chiefly to themselves. About sixty of these seigneuries
were granted, large tracts all of them. One director of
the company secured the whole island of Orleans as his
seigneurial estate; others took generous slices on both
shores of the St Lawrence. But not one of these men lifted
a finger in the way of redeeming his huge fief from the
wilderness.
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