The powers of the new Company, moreover, were as imposing as its personnel.  To it was granted a perpetual monopoly of the fur trade and of all other commerce with rights of suzerainty over all the territories of New France and Acadia.  It was to govern these lands, levy taxes, establish courts, appoint officials, and even bestow titles of nobility.  In return the Company undertook to convey to the colony not less than two hundred settlers per year, and to provide them with subsistence until they could become self-supporting.  It was stipulated, however, that no Huguenots or other heretics should be among the immigrants.

The Hundred Associates entered upon this portentous task with promptness and enthusiasm.  Early in 1628 a fleet of eighteen vessels freighted with equipment, settlers, and supplies set sail from Dieppe for the St. Lawrence to begin operations.  But the time of its arrival was highly inopportune, for France was now at war with England, and it happened that a fleet of English privateers was already seeking prey in the Lower St. Lawrence.  These privateers, commanded by Kirke, intercepted the Company’s heavily-laden caravels, overpowered them, and carried their prizes off to England.  Thus the Company of the One Hundred Associates lost a large part of its capital, and its shareholders received a generous dividend of disappointment in the very first year of its operations.

A more serious blow, however, was yet to come.  Flushed with his success in 1628, Kirke came back to the St. Lawrence during the next summer and proceeded to Quebec, where he summoned Champlain and his little settlement to surrender.  As the place was on the verge of famine owing to the capture of the supply ships in the previous year, there was no alternative but to comply, and the colony passed for the first time into English hands.  Champlain was allowed to sail for England, where he sought the services of the French ambassador and earnestly advised that the King be urged to insist on the restoration of Canada whenever the time for peace should come.  Negotiations for peace soon began, but they dragged on tediously until 1632, when the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye gave back New France to its former owners.

With this turn in affairs the Company was able to resume its operations.  Champlain, as its representative, once more reached Quebec, where he received a genuine welcome from the few Frenchmen who had remained through the years of Babylonian captivity, and from the bands of neighboring Indians.  With his hands again set to the arduous tasks, Champlain was able to make substantial progress during the next two years.  For a time the Company gave him funds and equipment besides sending him some excellent colonists.  Lands were cleared in the neighborhood of the settlement; buildings were improved and enlarged; trade with the Indians was put upon a better basis.  A post was established at Three Rivers, and plans were made for a further extension of French influence to the westward.  It was in the midst of these achievements and hopes that Champlain was stricken by paralysis and died on Christmas Day, 1635.