Encountering a strong wind, approaching a gale, they were again forced to return to Stage Harbor, where they lingered two or three days, awaiting favoring winds for their return to the colony at the bay of Annapolis.
We regret to add that, while they were thus detained, under the very shadow of the cross they had recently erected, the emblem of a faith that teaches love and forgiveness, they decoyed, under the guise of friendship, several of the poor savages into their power, and inhumanly butchered them in cold blood. This deed was perpetrated on the base principle of lex talionis, and yet they did not know, much less were they able to prove, that their victims were guilty or took any part in the late affray. No form of trial was observed, no witnesses testified, and no judge adjudicated. It was a simple murder, for which we are sure any Christian's cheek would mantle with shame who should offer for it any defence or apology.
When this piece of barbarity had been completed, the little French barque made its final exit from Stage Harbor, passed successfully round the shoals of Monomoy, and anchored near Nauset, where they remained a day or two, leaving on the 28th of October, and sailing directly to Isle Haute in Penobscot Bay. They made brief stops at some of the islands at the mouth of the St. Croix, and at the Grand Manan, and arrived at Annapolis Basin on the 14th of November, after an exceedingly rough passage and many hair-breadth escapes.
ENDNOTES:
50. On Lescarbot's map of 1609, this elevation is denominated Mont de la
Roque. Vide also Vol. II. note 180.
51. Lescarbot locates Poutrincourt's fort on the same spot which he called
Manefort, the site of the present village of Annapolis.
52. "Doncques l'an 1607, tous les François estans reuenus (ainsi qu'a esté dict) le Sieur de Potrincourt présenta à feu d'immortelle memorie Henry le Grand la donnation à luy faicte par le sieur de Monts, requérant humblement Sa Majesté de la ratifier. Le Roy eut pour agréable la dicte Requeste," &c. Relations des Jésuites, 1611, Quebec ed., Vol. I. p. 25. Vide Vol. II. of this work, p 37.
53. This scene is well represented on Champlain's map of Beauport or Gloucester Harbor. Vide Vol. II. p. 114.
54. Le Port aux Huistres, Barnstable Harbor. Vide Vol. II. Note 208.
55. Port Fortuné In giving this name there was doubtless an allusion to the goddess FORTUNA of the ancients, whose office it was to dispense riches and poverty, pleasures and pains, blessings and calamities. They had experienced good and evil at her fickle hand. They had entered the harbor in peril and fear, but nevertheless in safety. They had suffered by the attack of the savages, but fortunately had escaped utter annihilation, which they might well have feared. It had been to them eminently the port of hazard or chance. Vide Vol. II Note 231 La Soupçonneuse. Vide Vol. II, Note 227.