To cap the Englishmen’s difficulties they were unsuccessful in driving a trade of their own with the Indians. For one thing, their disgraceful personal conduct turned the savages against them. A licentious lot of brawlers to begin with, the Sagadahoc venturers went native without restraint, and the Indians who were certainly never prudish about lending their women recoiled in contempt. For another thing, the Frenchmen offered more for pelts, so the natives hid their furs from the Englishmen.
When spring came the Sagadahoc settlement was abandoned and the survivors returned to England with nothing to show for their efforts. It was all so discouraging that no money could be raised among the merchant adventurers of the Plymouth Company for further attempts at colonization, although each year thereafter Gorges sent trading vessels to the vicinity for pelts. To compete with the French these vessels had to be plentifully supplied with a variety of goods, trinkets, hatchets, colored cloths, and eventually even with guns and powder to exchange for furs.
Several years after Sagadahoc was evacuated the Vice-Admiral of Acadia, Saint Just, came down the coast and set up the arms of France on the most conspicuous height he could find near the Englishmen’s abandoned fort. Having thus officially proclaimed his jurisdiction over Maine, he returned to his headquarters at Port Royal in the Bay of Fundy, where it was his practice to exact a one-fifth share of all the furs collected.
Saint Just’s father, Sieur de Poutrincourt, had been granted the country originally by de Monts, and now held it under an independent patent from the king. Although, all in all, Poutrincourt and his son made a pretty profit from their patent, they met with difficulty in getting their full share of the furs being collected. Taxes of course are always unpopular, especially among frontiersmen. The traders across the bay at St. Croix were recalcitrant, and there were even more serious dissensions at Port Royal itself on this score.
Among the inhabitants of Port Royal were two lately-arrived Jesuit priests who had purchased part ownership in a trading vessel and were stirring up no end of trouble for Saint Just. One of these fathers, Pierre Biard, was particularly obstreperous, objecting to the vice-admiral’s profits, giving unwanted advice on trading, and even trying to take over control of the colony according to his enemies. He was accused of pitting Catholics against Huguenots, and he did actually bring about the excommunication of Saint Just. Some said he partook too freely of the bottle.
In any event, Father Biard accompanied Saint Just on his voyage along the southern coast and liked the lay of the country. He thought it offered special opportunities for a profitable trade in furs, and he felt that if he could but have a colony of his own there he would use the profits of trade with the savages for the maintenance of the Jesuits rather than let it be “lost in the hands of the merchants.”
Upon his return to Port Royal, Biard and his brother priest proceeded to do something about it. Writing to their patron at the French court, Madame deGuercheville, the Jesuits told her of their troubles and their aspirations. Whereupon that well-connected lady acquired a patent to the southern coast, granted the fathers their wish for a colony of their own and sent over a ship to settle them there at her expense. In the spring of 1613 the Jesuit colony was planted—Saint Sauveur it was called—on Mt. Desert Island in Maine.
But no sooner were the Frenchmen seated than they were murderously surprised by the English.
Captain Samuel Argall out of Jamestown in his heavily armed ship, the Treasurer, happened to be trading and fishing in the vicinity. Learning from the Indians of the presence of the French vessel at Mount Desert and the colony being planted there, he attacked so suddenly that he met with practically no resistance. Two Frenchmen were killed. Father Biard and fourteen others were taken to Jamestown as prisoners and the remainder were ordered by Argall to find their way home as best they could in any fishing or trading vessels they might happen upon along the coast.
There was great excitement at Jamestown when Captain Argall arrived there with his prisoners and the news about the French infringement on “English territory.” There was even more excitement when Father Biard proffered the information that Saint Just, after capturing an English ship, was fortifying Port Royal with thirty cannon. A “pirates’ nest,” Biard called it in his anger at Saint Just. Certainly it was a menace to the English the Virginia Council concluded.