David Kirke

Sir David Kirke (c. 1597–1654) (a.k.a. David Ker) was an adventurer, colonizer and governor for the king of England. He is best known for his successful capture of New France in 1629 during the Thirty Years' War and his subsequent governorship of lands in Newfoundland. A favourite of Charles I of England, the fall of the Crown during the English Civil War led to Kirke's downfall. It is believed he died in prison.

David Kirke was the son of Gervase (Jarvis) Kirke, a wealthy London-based merchant, and Elizabeth Goudon, a French Huguenot woman. He was raised in Dieppe, in Normandy. David was the eldest of five sons, followed by Lewis, Thomas, John and James.

A second English invasion fleet, of six ships and three pinnaces, left Gravesend in March 1629 with Jacques Michel, a deserter from Champlain, to act as pilot on the St. Lawrence River. Champlain sent a party from Quebec, whose residents were on the point of starvation, to meet an expected relief fleet under Émery de Caën. Unknown to Champlain, de Caën was also bringing word that peace had been declared in April in Europe by the Treaty of Susa. Although Champlain's party met de Caën in the Gulf, they were captured by the English on their way upriver to Quebec. Kirke, now aware of the desperate conditions at Quebec, sent his brothers Lewis and Thomas to demand surrender. Having no alternative, Champlain surrendered on 19 July 1629.

As a consolation, Kirke was knighted in 1633.

Kirke is believed to have visited Ferryland, as he published a report on the island of Newfoundland in 1635. Kirke was impressed by the island's fisheries, and in 1637 he asked King Charles for a land grant. In November 1637 Kirke and his partners were granted a royal charter for co-proprietorship of the entire island. A portion of Newfoundland, the Avalon Peninsula, had already been granted to George Calvert, but he was accused of abandoning his colony (before his death in 1632), and the lands were transferred to Kirke. The charter of this grant had stipulations designed to reduce conflict with migratory fishermen; there was to be no settlement within six miles of the shore, fishing rooms were not to be occupied before the arrival of the summer fishing crews, and a five per cent tax was to be collected on all fish products taken by foreigners.

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