Canada Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: The "Dauphin Map" of Canada, _circa_ 1543, showing Cartier's Discoveries.]

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Cartier is said to have returned on a fourth voyage to Canada in 1543--though no record exists--for the purpose of bringing back Monsieur Roberval, otherwise known to the history of those times as Jean Francois de la Roque, who had been appointed by Francis his lieutenant in Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay (St. Lawrence), and Baccalaos, as well as lord of the mysterious region of Norumbega--an example of the lavish use of t.i.tles and the a.s.sumption of royal dominion in an unknown wilderness. Roberval and Cartier were to have sailed in company to Canada in 1541, but the former could not complete his arrangements and the latter sailed alone, as we have just read. On his return in 1542 Cartier is said to have met Roberval at a port of the Gulf, and to have secretly stolen away in the night and left his chief to go on to the St. Lawrence alone. But these are among historic questions in dispute, and it is useless to dwell on them here. What we do know to a certainty is that Roberval spent some months on the banks of the St.

Lawrence,--probably from the spring of 1542 to late in the autumn of 1543,--and built a commodious fort at Charlesbourg, which he renamed France-Roy. He pa.s.sed a miserable winter, as many of the colonists he had brought with him had been picked up amongst the lowest cla.s.ses of France, and he had to govern his ill-a.s.sorted company with a rigid and even cruel hand. Roberval is said to have visited the Saguenay and explored its waters and surrounding country for a considerable distance, evidently hoping {46} to verify the fables of Donnacona and other Indians that gold and precious stones were to be found somewhere in that region. His name has been given to a little village at Lake St. John, on the a.s.sumption that he actually went so far on his Saguenay expedition, while romantic tradition points to an isle in the Gulf, the Isle de la Demoiselle, where he is said to have abandoned his niece Marguerite,--who had loved not wisely but too well--her lover, and an old nurse. This rocky spot appears to have become in the story an isle of Demons who tormented the poor wretches, exposed to all the rigours of Canadian winters, and to starvation except when they could catch fish or snare wild fowl. The nurse and lover as well as the infant died, but Marguerite is said to have remained much longer on that lonely island until at last Fate brought to her rescue a pa.s.sing vessel and carried her to France, where she is said to have told the story of her adventures.

After this voyage Roberval disappeared from the history of Canada.

Cartier is supposed to have died about 1577 in his old manor house of Limoilou, now in ruins, in the neighbourhood of St. Malo. He was allowed by the King to bear always the name of "Captain"--an appropriate t.i.tle for a hardy sailor who represented so well the heroism and enterprise of the men of St. Malo and the Breton coast.

The results of the voyages of Cartier, Roberval, and the sailors and fishermen who frequented the waters of the Great Bay, as the French long called it, can be seen in the old maps that have come down to us, and show the increasing geographical knowledge. {47} To this knowledge, a famous pilot, Captain Jehan Alfonce, a native of the little village of Saintonge in the grape district of Charente, made valuable contributions. He accompanied Roberval to Canada, and afterwards made voyages to the Saguenay, and appears to have explored the Gulf and the coasts of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and even Maine as far as the Pen.o.bscot, where he believed was the city of Norumbega.

After the death of Francis there came dark days for France, whose people were torn asunder by civil war and religious strife. With the return of peace in France the Marquis de la Roche received a commission from Henry the Fourth, as lieutenant-general of the King, to colonise Canada, but his ill-fated expedition of 1597 never got beyond the dangerous sandbanks of Sable Island. French fur-traders had now found their way to Anticosti and even Tadousac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, where the Indians were wont to a.s.semble in large numbers from the great fur-region to which that melancholy river and its tributary lakes and rivers give access, but these traders like the fishermen made no attempt to settle the country.

From a very early date in the sixteenth century bold sailors from the west country of Devon were fis.h.i.+ng in the Gulf and eventually made the safe and commodious port of St. John's, in Newfoundland, their headquarters. Some adventurous Englishmen even made a search for the land of Norumbega, and probably reached the bay of Pen.o.bscot. Near the close of the century, Frobisher attempted to open up {48} the secrets of the Arctic seas and find that pa.s.sage to the north which remained closed to venturesome explorers until Sir Robert McClure, in 1850, successfully pa.s.sed the icebergs and ice-floes that barred his way from Bering Sea to Davis Strait. In the reign of the great Elizabeth, when Englishmen were at last showing that ability for maritime enterprise which was eventually to develop such remarkable results, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, the founder of Virginia, the Old Dominion, took possession of Newfoundland with much ceremony in the harbour of St. John's, and erected a pillar on which were inscribed the Queen's arms. Gilbert had none of the qualities of a coloniser, and on his voyage back to England he was lost at sea, and it was left to the men of Devon and the West coast in later times to make a permanent settlement on the great island of the Gulf.

The first years of the seventeenth century were propitious for important schemes of colonisation and trade in the western lands. The sovereign of France was Henry the Fourth, the intrepid Prince of Bearn, as brave a soldier as he was a sagacious statesman. Henry listened favourably--though his able minister, Sully, held different views--to the schemes for opening up Canada to commerce and settlement that were laid before him by an old veteran of the wars, and a staunch friend, Aymar de Chastes, governor of Dieppe. Pontgrave, a rich Breton merchant of St. Malo, had the charge of the two vessels which left France in the spring of 1603, but it is a fact that a great man, Samuel Champlain, accompanied the {49} expedition that gives the chief interest to the voyage. Champlain, who was destined to be the founder of New France, was a native of Brouage in the Bay of Biscay, and belonged to a family of fishermen. During the war of the League he served in the army of Henry the Third, but when Henry of Navarre was proclaimed King of France on the a.s.sa.s.sination of his predecessor, and abjured the Protestant faith of which he had previously been the champion, Champlain, like other Frenchmen, who had followed the Duke of Guise, became an ardent supporter of the new regime and eventually a favourite of the Bernese prince. He visited the West Indies in a Spanish s.h.i.+p and made himself well acquainted with Mexico and other countries bordering on the Gulf. He has described all his voyages to the Indies and Canada in quaint quarto volumes, now very rare, and valuable on account of their minute and truthful narrative--despite his lively and credulous imagination--and the drawings and maps which he made rudely of the places he saw. His accounts of the Indians of Canada are among the most valuable that have come to us from the early days of American history. He had a fair knowledge of natural history for those times, though he believed in Mexican griffins, and was versed in geography and cartography.

In 1603 Pontgrave and Champlain ascended the River St. Lawrence as far as the island of Montreal, where they found only a few wandering Algonquins of the Ottawa and its tributaries, in place of the people who had inhabited the town of Hochelaga in the days of Cartier's visits. Champlain attempted to {50} pa.s.s the Lachine rapids but was soon forced to give up the perilous and impossible venture. During this voyage he explored the Saguenay for a considerable distance, and was able to add largely to the information that Cartier had given of Canada and the country around the Gulf. When the expedition reached France, Aymar de Chastes was dead, but two months had hardly elapsed after Champlain's return when a new company was formed on the usual basis of trade and colonisation. At its head was Sieur de Monts, Pierre du Guast, the governor of Pons, a Calvinist and a friend of the King. After much deliberation it was decided to venture south of Canada and explore that ill-defined region, called "La Cadie" in the royal commission given to De Monts as the King's lieutenant in Canada and adjacent countries, the first record we have of that Acadia where French and English were to contend during a century for the supremacy.

For a few moments we must leave the valley of the St. Lawrence, where France was soon to enthrone herself on the heights of Quebec, and visit a beautiful bay on the western coast of Nova Scotia, where a sleepy old town, full of historic a.s.sociations, still stands to recall the efforts of gentlemen-adventurers to establish a permanent settlement on the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic.

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V.

THE FRENCH OCCUPATION OF ACADIA AND THE FOUNDATION OF PORT ROYAL.

(1604-1614.)

In the western valley of that part of French Acadia, now known as Nova Scotia, not only do we tread on historic ground, but we see in these days a landscape of more varied beauty than that which so delighted the gentlemen-adventurers of old France nearly three centuries ago. In this country, which the poem conceived by Longfellow amid the elms of Cambridge has made so famous, we see the rich lands reclaimed from the sea, which glistens a few miles to the north, and every day comes rus.h.i.+ng up its estuaries. There to the north is dark, lofty Blomidon--whose name is probably a memorial of a Portuguese voyager--with its overhanging cliff under which the tumultuous tides struggle and foam. Here, in a meadow close by, is a long row of Lombardy poplars, pointing to another race and another country. There, on a slight acclivity, among the trees, is a pile of white college buildings, there a tall white spire {52} rises into the pure blue sky.

We see cottages covered with honeysuckle and grapevine; with their gardens of roses and lilies, and many old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers. In the spring, the country is one ma.s.s of pink and white blossoms, which load the pa.s.sing breeze with delicate fragrance; in autumn the trees bend beneath rosy and yellow apples.

We drive through a fertile valley, where runs a placid river amid many meadows, gardens, and orchards, until at last it empties into a picturesque basin, where the landscape shows a harmonious blending of mountain and water, of cultivated fields and ancient forest trees.

Here we see a quiet old town, whose roofs are green with the moss of many years, where willows and gra.s.sy mounds tell of a historic past, where the bells of ox-teams tinkle in the streets, and commerce itself wears a look of reminiscence. For we have come to the banks of that basin where the French, in the first years of the seventeenth century, laid the foundations of a settlement which, despite all its early misfortunes, has lasted until the present time, though it is the English tongue that is now spoken and the Englishman who is now the occupant.

Early in the leafy month of June, 1604, the French under De Monts sailed into this s.p.a.cious basin, and saw for the first time its gra.s.sy meadows, its numerous streams, its cascades tumbling from the hills, its forest-clad mountains. "This," said Champlain, who called it Port Royal, "was the most commodious and pleasant place that we had yet seen in this country."

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It appears that the adventurers left France in the early part of April.

When the King had been once won over to the project, he consented to give De Monts and his a.s.sociates an entire monopoly of the fur-trade throughout the wide domain of which he was to be the viceroy. The expedition was chiefly supported by the merchants of the Protestant town of La Roch.e.l.le, and was regarded with much jealousy by other commercial cities. Protestants were to enjoy in the new colony all the advantages they were then allowed in France. The Catholics were appeased by the condition that the conversion of the natives should be reserved especially for the priests of their own church.

The man of most note, after De Monts and Champlain, was Jean de Biencourt, a rich n.o.bleman of Picardy, better known in Acadian history as the Baron de Poutrincourt, who had distinguished himself as a soldier in the civil wars. A man of energy and enterprise, he was well fitted to a.s.sist in the establishment of a colony.

De Monts and his a.s.sociates reached without accident the low fir-covered sh.o.r.es of Nova Scotia, visited several of its harbours, and finally sailed into the Bay of Fundy, which was named Baie Francaise.

The French explored the coast of the bay after leaving Port Royal, and discovered the river which the Indians called Ouigoudi, or highway, and De Monts renamed St. John, as he saw it first on the festival of that saint. Proceeding along the northern sh.o.r.es of the bay the expedition came to a river which falls into Pa.s.samaquoddy Bay, and now forms the {54} boundary between the United States and the eastern provinces of Canada. This river ever since has been called the river of the Holy Cross (Sainte-Croix) though the name was first given by De Monts to an islet, well within the mouth of the stream, which he chose as the site of the first French settlement on the northeast coast of America.

Buildings were soon erected for the accommodation of some eighty persons, as well as a small fort for their protection on the rocky islet. [1]

While the French settlement was preparing for the winter, Champlain explored the eastern coast from the St. Croix to the Pen.o.bscot, where he came to the conclusion that the story of a large city on its banks was evidently a mere invention of the imaginative mind. He also was the first of Europeans, so far as we know, to look on the mountains and cliffs of the island--so famous as a summer resort in these later times--which he very aptly named Monts-Deserts. During the three years Champlain remained in Acadia he made explorations and surveys of the southern coasts of Nova Scotia from Canseau to Port Royal, of the sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Fundy, and of the coast of New England from the St. Croix to Vineyard Sound.

Poutrincourt, who had received from De Monts a grant of the country around Port Royal, left his companions in their dreary home in the latter part of August and sailed for France, with the object of making arrangements for settling his new domain in {55} Acadia. He found that very little interest was taken in the new colony of which very unsatisfactory reports were brought back to France by his companions though he himself gave a glowing account of its beautiful scenery and resources.

While Poutrincourt was still in France, he was surprised to learn of the arrival of De Monts with very unsatisfactory accounts of the state of affairs in the infant colony. The adventurers had very soon found St. Croix entirely unfitted for a permanent settlement, and after a most wretched winter had removed to the sunny banks of the Annapolis, which was then known as the Equille,[2] and subsequently as the Dauphin. Poutrincourt and De Monts went energetically to work, and succeeded in obtaining the services of all the mechanics and labourers they required. The new expedition was necessarily composed of very unruly characters, who sadly offended the staid folk of that orderly bulwark of Calvinism, the town of La Roch.e.l.le. At last on the 13th of May, 1606, the _Jonas_, with its unruly crew all on board, left for the new world under the command of Poutrincourt. Among the pa.s.sengers was L'Escarbot, a Paris advocate, a poet, and an historian, to whom we are indebted for a very sprightly account of early French settlement in America. De Monts, however, was unable to leave with his friends.

On the 27th July, the _Jonas_ entered the basin of Port Royal with the flood-tide. A peal from the rude bastion of the little fort bore testimony to the {56} joy of the two solitary Frenchmen, who, with a faithful old Indian chief, were the only inmates of the post at that time. These men, La Taille and Miquellet, explained that Pontgrave and Champlain, with the rest of the colony, had set sail for France a few days previously, in two small vessels which they had built themselves.

But there was no time to spend in vain regrets. Poutrincourt opened a hogshead of wine, and the fort was soon the scene of mirth and festivity. Poutrincourt set energetically to improve the condition of things, by making additions to the buildings, and clearing the surrounding land, which is exceedingly rich. The fort stood on the north bank of the river--on what is now the Granville side--opposite Goat Island, or about six miles from the present town of Annapolis.

L'Escarbot appears to have been the very life of the little colony. If anything occurred to dampen their courage, his fertile mind soon devised some plan of chasing away forebodings of ill. When Poutrincourt and his party returned during the summer of 1606 in ill spirits from Malebarre, now Cape Cod, where several men had been surprised and killed by the savages, they were met on their landing by a procession of Tritons, with Neptune at their head, who saluted the adventurers with merry songs. As they entered the arched gateway, they saw above their heads another happy device of L'Escarbot, the arms of France and the King's motto, "_Duo protegit unus_," encircled with laurels. Under this were the arms of De Monts and Poutrincourt, with their respective mottoes--"_Dabit deus {57} his quoque finem_," and "_In vid virtuti nulla est via_,"--also surrounded with evergreens.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Champlain's plan of Port Royal in Acadia in 1605. Key to ill.u.s.tration: A, Workmen's dwelling; B, Platform for cannon; C, Storehouse; D, Residence for Champlain and Pontgrave; E, Blacksmith's forge; F, Palisade; G, Bakehouse; H, Kitchen; I, Gardens; K, Burying ground; L, St. Lawrence River; M, Moat; N, Dwelling of De Monts; and O, s.h.i.+ps' storehouse.]

L'Escarbot's ingenious mind did not fail him, even in respect to the daily supply of fresh provisions, for he created a new order for the especial benefit of the princ.i.p.al table, at which Poutrincourt, he himself, and thirteen others sat daily. These fifteen gentlemen const.i.tuted themselves into _l'Ordre de Bon Temps_, one of whom was grandmaster for a day, and bound to cater for the company. Each tried, of course, to excel the other in the quant.i.ty of game and fish they were able to gather from the {58} surrounding country, and the consequence was, Poutrincourt's table never wanted any of the luxuries that the river or forest could supply. At the dinner hour the grandmaster, with the insignia of his order, a costly collar around his neck, a staff in his hand, and a napkin on his shoulder, came into the hall at the head of his brethren, each of whom carried some dish. The Indians were frequent guests at their feasts, especially old Membertou, a famous Micmac or Souriquois chief, who always retained a warm attachment for the pale-faced strangers. Songs of La Belle France were sung; many a toast was drunk in some rare vintage,--the flames flew up the huge chimney,--the Indians squatted on the floor, laughing like the merry Frenchmen. When the pipe went around--with its lobster-like bowl and tube elaborately worked with porcupine quills--stories were told, and none excelled the Indians themselves in this part of the entertainment. At last, when the tobacco was all exhausted, the grandmaster resigned his regalia of office to his successor, who lost no time in performing his duties. Thus the long winter evenings pa.s.sed in that lonely French fort at the verge of an untamed continent.

Then came bad news from France. Late in the spring of 1607, a vessel sailed into the basin with letters from De Monts that the colony would have to be broken up, as his charter had been revoked, and the Company could no longer support Port Royal. The Breton and Basque merchants, who were very hostile to De Monts's monopoly, had {59} succeeded in influencing the government to withdraw its patronage from him and his a.s.sociates. Soon afterwards the little colony regretfully left Port Royal, which never looked so lovely in their eyes as they pa.s.sed on to the Bay of Fundy, and saw the whole country in the glory of mid-summer.

The Indians, especially Membertou, watched the departure of their new friends with unfeigned regret, and promised to look carefully after the safety of the fort and its contents.

As soon as Poutrincourt reached his native country he did his best to make friends at the Court, as he was resolved on returning to Acadia, while Champlain decided to venture to the St. Lawrence, where I shall take up his memorable story later. Poutrincourt's prospects, for a time, were exceedingly gloomy. De Monts was able to a.s.sist him but very little, and the adventurous Baron himself was involved in debt and litigations, but he eventually succeeded in obtaining a renewal of his grant from the King, and interesting some wealthy traders in the enterprise. Then some difficulties of a religious character threatened to interfere with the success of the expedition. The society of Jesuits was, at this time, exceedingly influential at court, and, in consequence of their representations, the King ordered that Pierre Biard, professor of theology at Lyons, should accompany the expedition.

Though Poutrincourt was a good Catholic, he mistrusted this religious order, and succeeded in deceiving Father Biard, who was waiting for him at Bordeaux, by taking his departure from Dieppe in company with {60} Father Fleche, who was not a member of the Jesuits.

The s.h.i.+p entered Port Royal basin in the beginning of June, 1610. Here they were agreeably surprised to find the buildings and their contents perfectly safe, and their old friend Membertou, now a centenarian, looking as hale as ever, and overwhelmed with joy at the return of the friendly palefaces. Among the first things that Poutrincourt did, after his arrival, was to make converts of the Indians. Father Fleche soon convinced Membertou and all his tribe of the truths of Christianity. Membertou was named Henri, after the king; his chief squaw Marie, after the queen. The Pope, the Dauphin, Marguerite de Valois, and other ladies and gentlemen famous in the history of their times, became sponsors for the Micmac converts who were gathered into mother church on St. John's day, with the most imposing ceremonies that the French could arrange in that wild country.

Conscious of the influence of the Jesuits at Court, and desirous of counteracting any prejudice that might have been created against him, Poutrincourt decided to send his son, a fine youth of eighteen years, in the s.h.i.+p returning to France, with a statement showing his zeal in converting the natives of the new colony.

When this youthful amba.s.sador reached France, Henry of Navarre had perished by the knife of Ravaillac, and Marie de' Medici, that wily, cruel, and false Italian, was regent during the minority of her son, Louis XIII. The Jesuits were now {61} all-powerful at the Louvre, and it was decided that Fathers Biard and Ennemond Ma.s.se should accompany Biencourt to Acadia. The ladies of the Court, especially Madame de Guercheville, wife of Duke de la Rochefoucauld de Liancourt, whose reputation could not be a.s.sailed by the tongue of scandal, even in a state of society when virtue was too often the exception, interested themselves in the work of converting the savages of Acadia. The business of the Protestant traders of Dieppe was purchased and made over to the Jesuits. Thus did these indefatigable priests, for the first time, engage in the work of converting the savage in the American wilderness.

The vessel which took Biencourt and his friends back to Port Royal arrived on the 22nd of July, 1611, off the fort, where Poutrincourt and his colonists were exceedingly short of supplies. His very first act was to appoint his son as vice-admiral, while he himself went on to France with the hope of obtaining further aid about the middle of July.

The total number of persons in the colony was only twenty-two, including the two Jesuits, who immediately commenced to learn Micmac, as the first step necessary to the success of the work they had in hand. The two priests suffered many hards.h.i.+ps, but they bore their troubles with a patience and resignation which gained them even the admiration of those who were not prepossessed in their favour. Ma.s.se, who had gone to live among the Indians, was nearly starved and smoked to death in their rude camps; but still he appears to have persevered in that course of life as long as he possibly {62} could. About this time the priests had the consolation of performing the last offices for the veteran Membertou, the staunch friend of the French colonists. On his death-bed he expressed a strong desire to be buried with his forefathers, but the arguments of his priestly advisers overcame his superst.i.tion, and his remains were finally laid in consecrated ground.

Matters looked very gloomy by the end of February, when a s.h.i.+p arrived very opportunely from France with a small store of supplies. The news from Poutrincourt was most discouraging. Unable to raise further funds on his own responsibility, he had accepted the proffer of a.s.sistance from Mme. de Guercheville, who, in her zeal, had also bought from De Monts all his claims over the colony, with the exception of Port Royal, which belonged to Poutrincourt. The King not only consented to the transfer but gave her a grant of the territory extending from Florida to Canada. The society of Jesuits was therefore virtually in possession of North America as far as a French deed could give it away.

But the French king forgot when he was making this lavish gift of a continent, that the British laid claims to the same region and had already established a colony in Virginia, which was then an undefined territory, extending from Florida to New France. Both France and England were now face to face on the new continent, and a daring English adventurer was about to strike in Acadia the first blow for English supremacy.

Such was the position of affairs at the time of the {63} arrival of the new vessel and cargo, which were under the control of Simon Imbert, who had formerly been a servant to Poutrincourt. Among the pa.s.sengers was another Jesuit father, Gilbert Du Thet, who came out in the interests of Mme. de Guercheville and his own order. The two agents quarrelled from the very day they set out until they arrived at Port Royal, and then the colony took the matter up. At last the difficulties were settled by Du Thet receiving permission to return to France.

A few months later, at the end of May, 1613, another French s.h.i.+p anch.o.r.ed off Port Royal. She had been sent out with a fine supply of stores, not by Poutrincourt, but by Mme. de Guercheville, and was under the orders of M. Saussaye, a gentleman by birth and a man of ability.

On board were two Jesuits, Fathers Quentin and Gilbert Du Thet and a number of colonists. Poutrincourt, it appeared, was in prison and ill, unable to do anything whatever for his friends across the ocean. This was, indeed, sad news for Biencourt and his faithful allies, who had been anxiously expecting a.s.sistance from France.

At Port Royal the new vessel took on board the two priests Biard and Ma.s.se, and sailed towards the coast of New England; for Saussaye's instructions were to found a new colony in the vicinity of Pentagoet (Pen.o.bscot). In consequence of the prevalent sea-fogs, however, they were driven to the island of Monts-Deserts, where they found a harbour which, it was decided, would answer all their purposes on the western side of Soames's Sound. Saussaye and {64} his party had commenced to erect buildings for the new colony, when an event occurred which placed a very different complexion on matters.

A man-of-war came sailing into the harbour, and from her masthead floated, not the fleur-de-lis, but the blood-red flag of England. This new-comer was Samuel Argall, a young English sea captain, a coa.r.s.e, pa.s.sionate, and daring man, who had been some time a.s.sociated with the fortunes of Virginia. In the spring of 1613 he set sail in a stout vessel of 130 tons, carrying 14 guns and 60 men, for a cruise to the coast of Maine for a supply of cod-fish, and whilst becalmed off Monts-Deserts, some Indians came on board and informed him of the presence of the French in the vicinity of that island. He looked upon the French as encroaching upon British territory, and in a few hours had destroyed the infant settlement of St. Sauveur. Saussaye was perfectly paralysed, and attempted no defence when he saw that Argall had hostile intentions; but the Jesuit Du Thet did his utmost to rally the men to arms, and was the first to fall a victim. Fifteen of the prisoners, including Saussaye and Ma.s.se, were turned adrift in an open boat; but fortunately, they managed to cross the bay and reach the coast of Nova Scotia, where they met with some trading vessels belonging to St. Malo. Father Biard and the others were taken to Virginia by Argall. Biard subsequently reached England, and was allowed to return home. All the rest of the prisoners taken at St.

Sauveur also found their way to France.

But how prospered the fortunes of Poutrincourt {65} whilst the fate of Port Royal was hanging in the scale? As we have previously stated, he had been put into prison by his creditors, and had there lain ill for some months. When he was at last liberated, and appeared once more among his friends he succeeded in obtaining some a.s.sistance, and fitting out a small vessel, with a limited supply of stores for his colony. In the spring of 1614 he entered the basin of Annapolis for the last time, to find his son and followers wanderers in the woods, and only piles of ashes marking the site of the buildings on which he and his friends had expended so much time and money. The fate of Port Royal may be very briefly told. The Governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale, was exceedingly irate when he heard of the encroachments of France on what he considered to be British territory by right of prior discovery--that of John Cabot--and immediately sent Argall, after his return from St. Sauveur, on an expedition to the northward. Argall first touched at St. Sauveur, and completed the work of destruction, and next stopped at St. Croix, where he also destroyed the deserted buildings. To such an extent did he show his enmity, that he even erased the fleur-de-lis and the initial of De Monts and others from the ma.s.sive stone on which they had been carved. Biencourt and nearly all the inmates of the fort were absent some distance in the country, and returned to see the English in complete possession.

The destruction of Port Royal by Argall ends the first period in the history of Acadia as a French colony. Poutrincourt bowed to the relentless fate that {66} drove him from the sh.o.r.es he loved so well, and returned to France, where he took employment in the service of the king. Two years later he was killed at the siege of Meri on the upper Seine, during the civil war which followed the successful intrigues of Marie de' Medici with Spain, to marry the boy king, Louis XIII., to Anne of Austria, and his sister, the Princess Elisabeth, to a Spanish prince. On his tomb at St. Just, in Champagne, there was inscribed an elaborate Latin epitaph, of which the following is a translation:

"Ye people so dear to G.o.d, inhabitants of New France, whom I brought over to the Faith of Christ. I am Poutrincourt, your great chief, in whom was once your hope.