Under the circumstance, quarrels were to be expected; and quarrels enough came. The Jesuits at Court, finding Poutraincourt insubordinate, seized the trading vessels destined for Port Royal on one pretext or another, and brought about so many imprisonments and lawsuits, that at last Poutraincourt was ruined. No longer could he send out supplies of provisions, and his people at Port Royal had to subsist through a whole winter upon acorns, beech-nuts, and wild roots. When Madame de Guercheville and her Jesuit friends had thus crippled poor Poutraincourt, she withdrew the priests to other localities named in her charter, over which she really supposed she had control. As for the sturdy old sagamore, Membertou or Chief Henri, he soon breathed his last. On his deathbed he prayed to be buried with his forefathers, but of course the priests overcame his scruples, and his wrinkled body was laid in the little cemetery at Port Royal.
You may be interested to know what were the French Jesuit rights in North-America. The charter the young king, or rather the Queen Dowager, gave to Madame de Guercheville actually included nearly all the territory from the St. Lawrence River to Florida. Was there no one at hand to remind the crafty Marie that the continent she thus complacently handed over was not hers or her son's to bestow; that the English had a far better right than the French to its possession; that in that very year an English colony had been settled in Virginia, chartered by King James the First of England? Curious to relate, the land which the English king granted was as wide in extent, in truth it was almost the very same region as that claimed by the French. So here we have the cause and beginning of a quarrel which occasioned seas of bloodshed, and was to last, very nearly without interruption, for just a century and a half, between the French and the English colonists in North-America.
In the spring of 1613 the Jesuits despatched a new expedition under a courtier named La Saussaye, who, having landed at Port Royal to take on board the two priests there, sailed on and founded a new colony at Mount Desert, now in the American State of Maine. They had just commenced to erect buildings and put up the walls of a fort, when, greatly to their surprise, a strange war-ship appeared in the little harbour. It drew nearer, and they saw, with misgivings, the blood-red cross of St. George floating from the mast-head. The captain of the war-ship turned out to be Samuel Argall, a young and daring English mariner, who had joined his fortunes to those of Virginia. While he was cruising with sixty men off the coast of Maine on the lookout for codfish, some friendly Indians boarded the ship and told him that French intruders were hard by, building a fort. By no means a kind, indulgent young man was Argall, and his eyes kindled angrily.
"Oho!" he exclaimed, with an oath, "how dare these rascals venture into King James, my master's territory!" Whereupon, stimulated by hopes of plunder, he unmuzzled his fourteen cannon and assaulted and sacked the yet defenceless French settlement, killing several, including one of the priests, and making prisoners of the rest. This done, he destroyed every trace of the colony. Fifteen Frenchmen, including La Saussaye, he turned adrift in an open boat, while the others he took back with him to Virginia. Those whom Argall abandoned to their fate would surely have perished had it not been for friendly Indians, who gave them food and helped them on their way north. There they eventually met a trading vessel and were carried back to France. As to the prisoners, on landing at Jamestown they were treated as pirates by the English settlers there. Although afterwards released, the Virginian governor, Sir Thomas Dale, was so incensed at hearing from one of them about Port Royal, that he bade Argall return, with three armed ships, and sweep every Frenchman out of Acadia. Argall carried out his instructions only too well; he set fire to the fort and settlement of Port Royal, and in a few hours the entire place, the gallant Poutraincourt's hope and pride, was a mass of smoking ruins. Luckily for themselves, most of the French happened to be away in the forest at the time, and so saved their lives. Some took permanent refuge with the Indians, and amongst these was young Biencourt. Others found their way to the colony which, as we shall now narrate, Champlain had by this time formed far away at Quebec. But it was all over with Port Royal, at least for the present. With a heavy heart Poutraincourt sailed away to France, and soon afterwards in battle laid down his life for his sovereign.
So ends the first chapter in the story of that part of Canada then called Acadia. We will return to it again, for the adventurous young Biencourt is still there roaming in the woods with a handful of faithful followers, ready to found Port Royal anew. In the meantime what was happening to Champlain, who a few years before had sailed a thousand miles up the mighty St. Lawrence to found a colony? It is high time that we should now turn to his adventures.
CHAPTER III
OF THE DOINGS OF GALLANT CHAMPLAIN
When the Sieur de Monts abandoned Acadia, thinking, as indeed it seemed, an evil spell had been cast upon it, he turned his attention to Quebec and the river St. Lawrence. Here, far inland, was a fair region which promised wealth and glory, and over this region he appointed Champlain his lieutenant. Of the two ships which De Monts fitted out one was for the fur trade, of which King Henry, ere his heart was pierced by the dagger of Ravaillac, gave him a monopoly for one year; the other was to carry colonists to found a new French settlement. You have seen how one after another the French colonies had, from this cause or that, come to destruction; but with such a wise and strong head as Samuel de Champlain, one now was expected to bear better and more lasting fruit. Truly, whatever their faults, the founders of New France were very determined men, arising fresh after each disaster, resolved to people with their countrymen the great Western wilderness. When Champlain's ships, once safely through the Straits of Belle Isle, reached Tadoussac, Champlain left there his associate Pontgravé to barter for furs with the Indians. He himself continued his voyage up the river until he came to the spot where Jacques Cartier had passed the winter of 1535, and with his men consumed a whole spruce-tree in order to drive away the scurvy.