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Written Expressly for Rapid Reference: English

The Plymouth Company sent out a colony the same year, 1607. It settled at the mouth of the Kennebec, Maine, but owing to the severity of the climate, the colonists returned to England the following year. The charter granted the companies conferred on them no political rights, though the settlers and their posterity were declared English subjects. The church of England was the established religion in the colonies.

After suffering many severe hardships to which they would probably have succumbed but for the energy and sagacity of their president, Captain John Smith, the colony succeeded in sustaining itself. 1608-Samuel de Champlain founded the city of Quebec, which was the first permanent French settlement in Canada; and in the following year he discovered the beautiful lake that bears his name. He is termed "The Father of New France," as the French possessions were then known, as it was he who firmly founded the authority of France in the valley of the St. Lawrence. 1609-For some time the Dutch and English had vainly sought to discover a northwest passage to India.