Abstract
In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, claims to vast areas on the North-American continent were established by a few intrepid European travellers. The colonies that developed from some of those claims were an extension of the European countries and served to introduce their long established customs, institutions and laws into the New World. "New France" was the name of the vast French Empire in North America. When Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608, he had explored the coast almost to the very place where later on New York was to rise.
