volume 3, pages 1-9.

CANADA: A. D. 1610-1613. The Acadian colony revived, but destroyed by the English of Virginia.

Port Royal was left uninhabited till 1610, when Poutrincourt returned at the instance of the king to make the new settlement a central station for the conversion of the Indians,--a work which made some Jesuit missionaries prominent in the history of the New World. His son followed in 1611, with fathers Pierre Biard, and Enemond Masse. Madame la Marquise de Guercheville, a pious Catholic, to whom De Monts had ceded his title to Acadia, and to whom afterwards the French king granted the whole territory now covered by the United States, was the chief patroness of these voyages. Desiring to make another settlement, she despatched a vessel in 1613 with two more Jesuits, father Quentin and Gilbert Du Thet, and forty-eight men under La Saussaye. "When they arrived at Port Royal, they only found five persons--fathers Biard and Masse, their servant, the apothecary Hébert, and another. All the rest were absent, either hunting or trading. They showed the Queen's letter to Hébert, who represented Biencourt in his absence, and taking the two Jesuits, with their servant and luggage aboard, again set sail. It was their intention to establish the colony at Pentagoet, which father Biard had visited the year previous, but when off Grand Manan a thick fog came on, which lasted for two days, and when it became clear, they put into a harbor on the eastern side of Mount Desert Island, in Maine. The harbor was deep, secure and commodious, and they judged this would be a favorable site for the colony, and named the place St. Sauveur. ... La Saussaye was advised by the principal colonists to erect a sufficient fortification before commencing to cultivate the soil, but he disregarded this advice, and nothing was completed in the way of defence, except the raising of a small palisaded structure, when a storm burst upon the colony, which was little expected by its founders. In 1607 a company of London merchants had founded a colony on the James River, in Virginia, where, after suffering greatly from the insalubrity of the climate and want of provisions, they had attained a considerable degree of property. In 1613 they sent a fleet of eleven vessels to fish on the coast of Acadia, convoyed by an armed vessel under the command of Captain Samuel Argal, who had been connected with the colony since 1609. Argal was one of those adventurers formed in the school of Drake, who made a trade of piracy, but confined themselves to the robbery of those who were so unfortunate as not to be their own countrymen. ... When Argal arrived at Mount Desert, he was told by the Indians that the French were there in the harbor with a vessel. Learning that they were not very numerous, he at once resolved to attack them. All the French were ashore when Argal approached, except ten men, most of whom were unacquainted with the working of a ship. Argal attacked the French with musketry, and at the second discharge Gilbert Du Thet fell hack, mortally wounded; four others were severely injured, and two young men, named Lemoine and Neveau, jumped overboard and were drowned. Having taken possession of the vessel, Argal went ashore and informed La Saussaye that the place where they were was English territory, and included in the charter of Virginia, and that they must remove; but, if they could prove to him that they were there under a commission from the crown of France, he would treat them tenderly. He then asked La Saussaye to show him his commission; but, as Argal, with unparalleled indecency, had abstracted it from his chest while the vessel was being plundered by his men, the unhappy governor was of course unable to produce it. Argal then assumed a very lofty tone. ... When Argal arrived in Virginia, he found that his perfidious theft of the French governor's commission was likely to cause his prisoners to be treated as pirates. They were put into prison and in a fair way of being executed, in spite of Argal's remonstrances, until struck with shame and remorse, he produced the commission which he had so dishonestly filched from them, and the prisoners were set free. But the production of this document, while it saved the lives of one set of Frenchmen, brought ruin upon all the others who remained in Acadia. The Virginia colonists ... resolved to send Argal to destroy all the French settlements in Acadia, and erase all traces of their power. ... The only excuse offered for this piratical outrage of Argal--which was committed during a period of profound peace--was the claim which was made by England to the whole continent of North America, founded on the discoveries of the Cabots more than a century before. That claim might, perhaps, have been of some value if followed by immediate occupancy, as was the case with the Spaniards in the South, but that not having been done, and the French colony being the oldest, it was entitled to, at least, as much consideration as that of Virginia. Singularly enough, this act produced no remonstrance from France."

_J. Hannay, History of Acadia, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, Popular History of the U. S.,