Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/603

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
CHAMPLAIN
CHAMPLIN
669

ing day they engaged in battle, which resulted in the defeat of the hostile Indians. This result was largely due to Champlain. who killed two Iroquois chiefs with his arquebus, and mortally wounded another. The war, thus begun by the French and their allies against the Iroquois, continued with occasional intermissions until the French suprem- acy in Canada was ended. In September, Cham- plain returned to France, and in March, 1010, sailed again for America, taking with him a num- ber of mechanics. Soon after his arrival he and his Montagnais allies made war again upon the Iroquois, but, while attacking and demolishing their fort on the Sorel, he was severely wounded by an arrow. Leaving Du Pare in his place, he re- turned to France in 1(511, and while there married Helen Boulle, a Protestant, who, after his death, became an Ursuline nun. De Monts having lost his influence in consequence of the death of Henry •IV., and the merchants who had previously inter- ested themselves in the colonization scheme having concluded to spend no more money on it, Cham- plain induced the Count de Soissons to take an in- terest in the project. That nobleman obtained, 8 Oct., 1612, a commission appointing him governor and lieutenant-general of New France, and Cham- plain was appointed his lieutenant, which ofiice he retained, when the Prince de Conde succeeded shortly afterward to the rights of De Soissons. A short time after his appointment he sent several vessels to Canada, and in 1613 sailed himself, prin- cipally with the intention of exploring the Ottawa, which a sailor named Vignaud had claimed to have ascended to a lake and 1:hence reached the North sea. On 27 May, 1613, he left St. Helen's island near Montreal, and, upon entering the Ottawa, discovered that Vignaud's statements were false. After arranging more favorable terms for the fur trade, he returned to France, formed a trading company, and returned to the colony in 1615, taking with him Pere Denis Jamay and two other Recollect priests, together with a lay brother. Pere Caron, one of these ecclesiastics, soon after his arrival, proceeded to the country of the Hurons on the Georgian bay. Champlain the same year ascended the Ottawa for some distance, and, leaving the river, went partly overland and partly by canoe to the eastern shore of Lake Huron, where, embarking, he sailed to its southern extremity : then going overland to the western extremity of Lake Ontario, he explored that lake and the St. Lawrence until he arrived at the Sorel. Soon afterward, on territory now included in the state of New York, he attacked a town held by a tribe belonging to the Iroquois league ; but, through the insubordination of the Hurons, was repelled and received two severe wounds. He was carried back to a town of the Hurons, and after his recovery visited several tribes of Indians, and returned to France in the spring. Notwithstanding the en- deavors of Champlain, both in Canada and in France, the colony did not flourish, and the indif- ference of the authorities at home threatened it with ultimate extinction. At this critical period (1620) the Duke de Montmorency succeeded Conde, and Champlain, becoming more hopeful, brought over his wife, who remained with him until 1624, though often forced to submit to great hardships. The trade had now been acquired by the merchants, and Quebec was fortifled, began to enlarge its boundaries, and increased in population, entering upon a career of prosperity. In 1625 the Duke de Ventadour became viceroy, and at once set to work to develop the country, and sent over the first Jesuit missionaries to aid in converting the natives. In July, 1628, a British fleet under Sir David Kirk and his two brothers appeared before Quebec and summoned Champlain to surrender. His answer was a defiance, and the British retired, after committing some depredations. The Canada company, -which had been organized by Cardinal Richelieu, sent oiit provisions and settlers at this time ; but the fleet conveying them was captured by Kirk, and, as Champlain had depended upon the intercepted vessels for his supplies, he, after pass- ing the winter in great distress in Quebec, sur- rendered to Louis and David Kirk on 19 July, 1629. Champlain was conveyed to England as a prisoner, and was not set at liberty until 1632. By the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, concluded in that year, between Great Britain and France, Canada, together with Acadia and Cape Breton, was restored to France, and Champlain, being at once reinstated as governor, in 1633 sailed with three well-equipped vessels from Dieppe. On his arrival he was warmly welcomed by> the settlers and Indians, and, the Jesuit missionaries having resutned tiieir labors among the natives, he did all in his power to strengthen and develop the colony, and erect ed a fort at Richelieu island and founded Three Rivers. He also established a college at Quebec, in which the children of the Indians were trained and taught the use of the French lan- guage. In addition to the volume " Des sauvages " (1603) and his "Voyages " (1613 and 1619), he pub- lished a volume containing an inditterently exe- cuted abridgment of his previous voyages, which included a continuation from 1619 to 1632. Inter- esting features of this volume were prayers and a catechism in two of the languages of the aborigi- nes. Some copies bear the date of 1640. In 1830 it was reprinted in Paris. The Abbes Laverdier and Casgrain, of Quebec, have published the whole series of his works, including his Mexican voyage, with notes and fac-similes of all the maps and illustrations (4 vols., 4to, 1870). The "Mercure Frangais," vol. xix., contains also what is appar- ently an account of the voyage of 1633.


CHAMPLIN, Christopher Grant, senator, b. in Newport, R. I., 12 Api'il, 1768 ; d. there, 28 March, 1840. He was graduated at Harvard in 1786, and lived several years in Europe, where he studied in the college of St. Omer, France. He served in con- gress as a representative from Rhode Island from 15 May, 1797, till 3 March, 1801, and was afterward chosen U. S. senator in place of Francis Malbone, deceased. He took his seat 12 Jan., 1810, and re- signed it in 1811. He was for many years presi- dent of the Rhode Island bank, and held that office when he died. — His uncle, GrCorge, b. in 1738; d. in 1809, was a merchant of Newport, an officer of the revolution, member of the Continental congress from 1785 to 1786, and of the convention that adopted the federal constitution.


CHAMPLIN, James Tift, educator, b. in Colchester, Conn., 9 June, 1811 ; d. in Poilland, Me., 15 March, 1882. He was graduated, with the valedictory, at Brown in 1834, and was a tutor there from 1835 till 1838. He was pastor of the Federal street Baptist church in Portland, Me., from 1838 till 1841, when he was chosen professor of ancient languages at Waterville (now Colby university). He became president of that institution in 1857, and held the ofiice till 1873, when he removed to Portland and devoted himself to literary work till his death. He published a large number of educational works, among them English and Greek grammars, and editions of " Demosthenes on the Crown" (1843); "Demosthenes' Select Orations" (1848); and "Æschines on the Crown" (1850); a