Champlain observed their method of cultivating Indian corn, which the experience of two hundred and seventy-five years has in no essential point improved or even changed. They planted three or four seeds in hills three feet apart, and heaped the earth about them, and kept the soil clear of weeds. Such is the method of the successful New England farmer to-day. The experience of the savage had taught him how many individuals of the rank plant could occupy prolifically a given area, how the soil must be gathered about the roots to sustain the heavy stock, and that there must be no rival near it to draw away the nutriment on which the voracious plant feeds and grows. Civilization has invented implements to facilitate the processes of culture, but the observation of the savage had led him to a knowledge of all that is absolutely necessary to ensure a prolific harvest.

After lingering two days at Saco, our explorers proceeded on their voyage. When they had advanced not more than twenty miles, driven by a fierce wind, they were forced to cast anchor near the salt marshes of Wells. Having been driven by Cape Porpoise, on the subsidence of the wind, they returned to it, reconnoitred its harbor and adjacent islands, together with Little River, a few miles still further to the east. The shores were lined all along with nut-trees and grape-vines. The islands about Cape Porpoise were matted all over with wild currants, so that the eye could scarcely discern any thing else. Attracted doubtless by this fruit, clouds of wild pigeons had assembled there, and were having a midsummer's festival, fearless of the treacherous snare or the hunter's deadly aim. Large numbers of them were taken, which added a coveted luxury to the not over-stocked larder of the little French barque.

On the 15th of July, De Monts and his party left Cape Porpoise, keeping in and following closely the sinuosities of the shore. They saw no savages during the day, nor any evidences of any, except a rising smoke, which they approached, but found to be a lone beacon, without any surroundings of human life. Those who had kindled the fire had doubtless concealed themselves, or had fled in dismay. Possibly they had never seen a ship under sail. The fishermen who frequented our northern coast rarely came into these waters, and the little craft of our voyagers, moving without oars or any apparent human aid, seemed doubtless to them a monster gliding upon the wings of the wind. At the setting of the sun, they were near the flat and sandy coast, now known as Wallace's Sands. They fought in vain for a roadstead where they might anchor safely for the night. When they were opposite to Little Boar's Head, with the Isles of Shoals directly east of them, and the reflected rays of the sun were still throwing their light upon the waters, they saw in the distance the dim outline of Cape Anne, whither they directed their course, and, before morning, came to anchor near its eastern extremity, in sixteen fathoms of water. Near them were the three well-known islands at the apex of the cape, covered with forest-trees, and the woodless cluster of rocks, now called the Savages, a little further from the shore.

The next morning five or six Indians timidly approached them in a canoe, and then retired and set up a dance on the shore, as a token of friendly greeting. Armed with crayon and drawing-paper, Champlain was despatched to seek from the natives some important geographical information. Dispensing knives and biscuit as a friendly invitation, the savages gathered about him, assured by their gifts, when he proceeded to impart to them their first lesson in topographical drawing. He pictured to them the bay on the north side of Cape Anne, which he had just traversed, and signifying to them that he desired to know the course of the shore on the south, they immediately gave him an example of their apt scholarship by drawing with the same crayon an accurate outline of Massachusetts Bay, and finished up Champlain's own sketch by introducing the Merrimac River, which, not having been seen, owing to the presence of Plum Island, which stretches like a curtain before its mouth, he had omitted to portray. The intelligent natives volunteered a bit of history. By placing six pebbles at equal distances, they intimated that Massachusetts Bay was occupied by six tribes, and governed by as many chiefs. [45] He learned from them, likewise, that the inhabitants of this region subsisted by agriculture, as did those at the mouth of the Saco, and that they were very numerous.

Leaving Cape Anne on Saturday the 16th of July, De Monts entered Massachusetts Bay, sailed into Boston harbor, and anchored on the western side of Noddle's Island, now better known as East Boston. In passing into the bay, they observed large patches of cleared land, and many fields of waving corn both upon the islands and the mainland. The water and the islands, the open fields and lofty forest-trees, presented fine contrasts, and rendered the scenery attractive and beautiful. Here for the first time Champlain observed the log canoe. It was a clumsy though serviceable boat in still waters, nevertheless unstable and dangerous in unskilful hands. They saw, issuing into the bay, a large river, coming from the west, which they named River du Guast, in honor of Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, the patentee of La Cadie, and the patron and director of this expedition. This was Charles River, seen, evidently just at its confluence with the Mystic. [46]

On Sunday, the 17th of July, 1605, they left Boston harbor, threading their way among the islands, passing leisurely along the south shore, rounding Point Allerton on the peninsula of Nantasket, gliding along near Cohasset and Scituate, and finally cast anchor at Brant Point, upon the southern borders of Marshfield. When they left the harbor of Boston, the islands and mainland were swarming with the native population. The Indians were, naturally enough, intensely interested in this visit of the little French barque. It may have been the first that had ever made its appearance in the bay. Its size was many times greater than any water-craft of their own. Spreading its white wings and gliding silently away without oarsmen, it filled them with surprise and admiration. The whole population was astir. The cornfields and fishing stations were deserted. Every canoe was manned, and a flotilla of their tiny craft came to attend, honor, and speed the parting guests, experiencing, doubtless, a sense of relief that they were going, and filled with a painful curiosity to know the meaning of this mysterious visit.

Having passed the night at Brant Point, they had not advanced more than two leagues along a sandy shore dotted with wigwams and gardens, when they were forced to enter a small harbor, to await a more favoring wind. The Indians flocked about them, greeted them with cordiality, and invited them to enter the little river which flows into the harbor, but this they were unable to do, as the tide was low and the depth insufficient. Champlain's attention was attracted by several canoes in the bay, which had just completed their morning's work in fishing for cod. The fish were taken with a primitive hook and line, apparently in a manner not very different from that of the present day. The line was made of a filament of bark stripped from the trunk of a tree; the book was of wood, having a sharp bone, forming a barb, lashed to it with a cord of a grassy fibre, a kind of wild hemp, growing spontaneously in that region. Champlain landed, distributed trinkets among the natives, examined and sketched an outline of the place, which identifies it as Plymouth harbor, which captain John Smith visited in 1614, and where the May Flower, still six years later landed the first permanent colony planted upon New England soil.

After a day at Plymouth, the little bark weighed anchor, swept down Cape Cod, approaching near to the reefs of Billingsgate, describing a complete semicircle, and finally, with some difficulty, doubled the cape whose white sands they had seen in the distance glittering in the sunlight and which appropriately they named Cap Blanc. This cape, however, had been visited three years before by Bartholomew Gosnold, and named Cape Cod, which appellation it has retained to the present time. Passing down on the outside of the cape some distance, they came to anchor, sent explorers on the shore, who ascending on of the lofty sand-banks [47] which may still be seen there silently resisting the winds and waves, discovered further to the south, what is now known as Nauset harbor, entirely surrounded by Indian cabins. The next day, the 20th of July, 1605, they effected an entrance without much difficulty. The bay was spacious, being nine or ten miles in circumference. Along the borders, there were, here and there, cultivated patches, interspersed with dwellings of the natives. The wigwam was cone-shaped, heavily thatched with reeds, having an orifice at the apex for the emission of smoke. In the fields were growing Indian corn, Brazilian beans, pumpkins, radishes, and tobacco; and in the woods were oak and hickory and red cedar. During their stay in the harbor they encountered an easterly storm, which continued four days, so raw and chilling that they were glad to hug their winter cloaks about them on the 22d of July. The natives were friendly and cordial, and entered freely into conversation with Champlain; but, as the language of each party was not understood by the other, the information he obtained from them was mostly by signs, and consequently too general to be historically interesting or important.

The first and only act of hostility by the natives which De Monts and his party had thus far experienced in their explorations on the entire coast occurred in this harbor. Several of the men had gone ashore to obtain fresh water. Some of the Indians conceived an uncontrollable desire to capture the copper vessels which they saw in their hands. While one of the men was stooping to dip water from a spring, one of the savages darted upon him and snatched the coveted vessel from his hand. An encounter followed, and, amid showers of arrows and blows, the poor sailor was brutally murdered. The victorious Indian, fleet as the reindeer, escaped with his companions, bearing his prize with him into the depths of the forest. The natives on the shore, who had hitherto shown the greatest friendliness, soon came to De Monts, and by signs disowned any participation in the act, and assured him that the guilty parties belonged far in the interior. Whether this was the truth or a piece of adroit diplomacy, it was nevertheless accepted by De Monts, since punishment could only be administered at the risk of causing the innocent to suffer instead of the guilty.

The young sailor whose earthly career was thus suddenly terminated, whose name even has not come down to us, was doubtless the first European, if we except Thorvald, the Northman, whose mortal remains slumber in the soil of Massachusetts.

As this voyage of discovery had been planned and provisioned for only six weeks, and more than five had already elapsed, on the 25th of July De Monts and his party left Nauset harbor, to join the colony still lingering at St. Croix. In passing the bar, they came near being wrecked, and consequently gave to the harbor the significant appellation of Port de Mallebarre, a name which has not been lost, but nevertheless, like the shifting sands of that region, has floated away from its original moorings, and now adheres to the sandy cape of Monomoy.

On their return voyage, they made a brief stop at Saco, and likewise at the mouth of the Kennebec. At the latter point they had an interview with the sachem, Anassou, who informed them that a ship had been there, and that the men on board her had seized, under color of friendship, and killed five savages belonging to that river. From the description given by Anassou, Champlain was convinced that the ship was English, and subsequent events render it quite certain that it was the "Archangel," fitted out by the Earl of Southampton and Lord Arundel of Wardour, and commanded by Captain George Weymouth. The design of the expedition was to fix upon an eligible site for a colonial plantation, and, in pursuance of this purpose, Weymouth anchored off Monhegan on the 28th of May, 1605, new style, and, after spending a month in explorations of the region contiguous, left for England on the 26th of June. [48] He had seized and carried away five of the natives, having concealed them in the hold of his ship, and Anassou, under the circumstances, naturally supposed they had been killed. The statement of the sachem, that the natives captured belonged to the river where Champlain then was, namely, the Kennebec, goes far to prove that Weymouth's explorations were in the Kennebec, or at least in the network of waters then comprehended under that appellation, and not in the Penobscot or in any other river farther east, as some historical writers have supposed.

It would appear that while the French were carefully surveying the coasts of New England, in order to fix upon an eligible site for a permanent colonial settlement, the English were likewise upon the ground, engaged in a similar investigation for the same purpose. From this period onward, for more than a century and a half, there was a perpetual conflict and struggle for territorial possession on the northern coast of America, between these two great nations, sometimes active and violent, and at others subsiding into a semi-slumber, but never ceasing until every acre of soil belonging to the French had been transferred to the English by a solemn international compact.

On this exploration, Champlain noticed along the coast from Kennebec to Cape Cod, and described several objects in natural history unknown in Europe, such as the horse-foot crab, [49] the black skimmer, and the wild turkey, the latter two of which have long since ceased to visit this region.

ENDNOTES:

34. De Monts's Island. Of this island Champlain says: "This place was named by Sieur De Monts the Island of St. Croix."—Vide Vol. II. p. 32, note 86. St. Croix has now for a long time been applied as the name of the river in which this island is found. The French denominated this stream the River of the Etechemins, after the name of the tribe of savages inhabiting its shores. Vide Vol. II. p. 31. It continued to be so called for a long time. Denys speaks of it under this name in 1672. "Depuis la riviere de Pentagouet, jusques a celle de saint Jean, il pent y avoir quarante a quarante cinq lieues; la premiere riviere que l'on rencontre le long de la coste, est celle des Etechemins, qui porte le nom du pays, depuis Baston jusques au Port royal, dont les Sauvages qui habitent toute cette etendue, portent aussi le mesme nom."—Description Geographique et Historique des Costes de L'Amerique Septentrionale, par Nicholas Denys, Paris, 1672, p. 29, et verso.

35. Champlain had, by his own explorations and by consulting the Indians, obtained a very full and accurate knowledge of this island at his first visit, on the 5th of September, 1604, when he named it Monts-deserts, which we preserve in the English form, MOUNT DESERT. He observed that the distance across the channel to the mainland on the north side was less than a hundred paces. The rocky and barren summits of this cluster of little mountains obviously induced him to give to the island its appropriate and descriptive name Vide Vol. II. p. 39. Dr. Edward Ballard derives the Indian name of this island, Pemetiq, from peme'te, sloping, and ki, land. He adds that it probably denoted a single locality which was taken by Biard's company as the name of the whole island. Vide Report of U. S. Coast Survey for 1868, p. 253.

36. Penobscot is a corruption of the Abnaki pa'na8a'bskek. A nearly exact translation is "at the fall of the rock," or "at the descending rock." Vide Trumball's Ind. Geog. Names, Collections Conn. His. Society, Vol. II. p. 19. This name was originally given probably to some part of the river to which its meaning was particularly applicable. This may have been at the mouth of the river a Fort Point, a rocky elevation not less than eighty feet in height. Or it may have been the "fall of water coming down a slope of seven or eight feet," as Champlain expresses it, a short distance above the site of the present city of Bangor. That this name was first obtained by those who only visited the mouth of the river would seem to favor the former supposition.

37. Dr. Edward Ballard supposes the original name of this stream, Kadesquit, to be derived from kaht, a Micmac word, for eel, denoting eel stream, now corrupted into Kenduskeag. The present site of the city of Bangor is where Biard intended to establish his mission in 1613, but he was finally induced to fix it at Mount Desert—Vide Relations des Jesuites, Quebec ed., Vol. I. p. 44.

38. The other gentlemen whose names we have learned were Messieurs d'Orville, Champdore, Beaumont, la Motte Bourioli, Fougeray or Foulgere de Vitre, Genestou, Sourin, and Boulay. The orthography of the names, as they are mentioned from time to time, is various.

39. Kennebec. Biard, in the Relation, de la Nouvelle France, Relations des Jesuites, Quebec ed., Vol. I. p. 35, writes it Quinitequi, and Champlain writes it Quinibequy and Quinebequi; hence Mr. Trumball infers that it is probably equivalent in meaning to quin-ni-pi-ohke, meaning "long water place," derived from the Abnaki, K8 ne-be-ki.—Vide Ind. Geog. Names, Col. Conn. His. Soc. Vol. II. p. 15.

40. Vide Vol. II. note 110.

41. Sagadahock. This name is particularly applied to the lower part of the Kennebec. It is from the Abnaki, sa'ghede'aki, "land at the mouth."—Vide Indian Geographical Names, by J. H. Trumball, Col. Conn. His. Society, Vol. II. p. 30. Dr. Edward Ballard derives it from sanktai-i-wi, to finish, and onk, a locative, "the finishing place," which means the mouth of a river.—Vide Report of U. S. Coast Survey, 1868, p. 258.

42. Bacchus Island. This was Richmond's Island, as we have stated in Vol. II. note 123. It will be admitted that the Bacchus Island of Champlain was either Richmond's Island or one of those in the bay of the Saco. Champlain does not give a specific name to any of the islands in the bay, as may be seen by referring to the explanations of his map of the bay, Vol. II p. 65. If one of them had been Bacchus Island, he would not have failed to refer to it, according to his uniform custom, under that name. Hence it is certain that his Bacchus Island was not one of those figured on his local map of the bay of the Saco. By reference to the large map of 1632, it will be seen that Bacchus Island is represented by the number 50, which is placed over against the largest island in the neighborhood and that farthest to the east, which, of course, must be Richmond's Island. It is, however, proper to state that these reference figures are not in general so carefully placed as to enable us to rely upon them in fixing a locality, particularly if unsupported by other evidence. But in this case other evidence is not wanting.

43. Vide Vol. II. pp. 64-67.

44. Nicotiana rustica. Vide, Vol. II. by Charles Pickering, M.D. Boston, note 130. Chronological His. Plants, 1879, p. 741, et passim.

45. Daniel Gookin, who wrote in 1674, speaks of the following subdivisions among the Massachusetts Indians: "Their chief sachem held dominion over many other petty governours; as those of Weechagafkas, Neponsitt, Punkapaog, Nonantam, Nashaway, and some of the Nipmuck people."—Vide Gookin's His. Col.

46. Vide Vol. II. note 159. Mushauiwomuk, which we have converted into Shawmut, means, "where there is going-by-boat." The French, if they heard the name and learned its meaning, could hardly have failed to see the appropriateness of it as applied by the aborigines to Boston harbor.—Vide Trumball in Connecticut Historical Society's Collections, Vol. II. p. 5.

47. It was probably on this very bluff from which was seen Nauset harbor on the 19th of July, 1605, and after the lapse of two hundred and seventy four years, on the 17th of November, 1879 the citizens of the United States, with the flags of America, France, and England gracefully waving over their heads, addressed their congratulations by telegraph to the citizens of France at Brest on the communication between the two countries that day completed through submarine wires under the auspices of the "Compagnie Francaise du Telegraph de Paris a New York."

48. Vide Vol. II. p 91, note 176.

49. The Horsefoot-crab, Limulus polyphemus. Champlain gives the Indian name, siguenoc. Hariot saw, while at Roanoke Island, in 1585, and described the same crustacean under the name of seekanauk. The Indian word is obviously the same, the differing French and English orthography representing the same sound. It thus appears that this shell-fish was at that time known by the aborigines under the same name for at least a thousand miles along the Atlantic coast, from the Kennebec, in Maine, to Roanoke Island, in North Carolina. Vide Hariot's Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, Hakluyt, Vol. III. p. 334. See also Vol. II. of this work, notes 171, 172, 173, for some account of the black skimmer and the wild turkey.



CHAPTER IV.

ARRIVAL OF SUPPLIES AND REMOVAL TO PORT ROYAL.—DE MONTS RETURNS TO FRANCE.—SEARCH FOR MINES.—WINTER.—SCURVY.—LATE ARRIVAL OF SUPPLIES AND EXPLORATIONS ON THE COAST OF MASSACHUSETTS.—GLOCESTER HARBOR, STAY AT CHATHAM AND ATTACK OF THE SAVAGES.—WOOD'S HOLL.—RETURN TO ANNAPOLIS BASIN.

On the 8th of August, the exploring party reached St. Croix. During their absence, Pont Grave had arrived from France with additional men and provisions for the colony. As no satisfactory site had been found by De Monts in his recent tour along the coast, it was determined to remove the colony temporarily to Port Royal, situated within the bay now known as Annapolis Basin. The buildings at St. Croix, with the exception of the store-house, were taken down and transported to the bay. Champlain and Pont Grave were sent forward to select a place for the settlement, which was fixed on the north side of the basin, directly opposite to Goat Island, near or upon the present site of Lower Granville. The situation was protected from the piercing and dreaded winds of the northwest by a lofty range of hills, [50] while it was elevated and commanded a charming view of the placid bay in front. The dwellings which they erected were arranged in the form of a quadrangle with an open court in the centre, as at St. Croix, while gardens and pleasure-grounds were laid out by Champlain in the immediate vicinity.

When the work of the new settlement was well advanced, De Monts, having appointed Pont Grave as his lieutenant, departed for France, where he hoped to obtain additional privileges from the government in his enterprise of planting a colony in the New World. Champlain preferred to remain, with the purpose of executing more fully his office as geographer to the king, by making discoveries on the Atlantic coast still further to the south.

From the beginning, the patentee had cherished the desire of discovering valuable mines somewhere on his domains, whose wealth, as well as that of the fur-trade, might defray some part of the heavy expenses involved in his colonial enterprise. While several investigations for this purpose had proved abortive, it was hoped that greater success would be attained by searches along the upper part of the Bay of Fundy. Before the approach of winter, therefore, Champlain and the miner, Master Jaques, a Sclavonian, made a tour to St. John, where they obtained the services of the Indian chief, Secondon, to accompany them and point out the place where copper ore had been discovered at the Bay of Mines. The search, thorough as was practicable under the circumstances, was, in the main, unsuccessful; the few specimens which they found were meagre and insignificant.

The winter at Port Royal was by no means so severe as the preceding one at St. Croix. The Indians brought in wild game from the forests. The colony had no want of fuel and pure water. But experience, bitter as it had been, did not yield to them the fruit of practical wisdom. They referred their sufferings to the climate, but took too little pains to protect themselves against its rugged power. Their dwellings, hastily thrown together, were cold and damp, arising from the green, unseasoned wood of which they were doubtless in part constructed, and from the standing rainwater with which their foundations were at all times inundated, which was neither diverted by embankments nor drawn away by drainage. The dreaded mal de la terre, or scurvy, as might have been anticipated, made its appearance in the early part of the season, causing the death of twelve out of the forty-five comprising their whole number, while others were prostrated by this painful, repulsive, and depressing disease.

The purpose of making further discoveries on the southern coast, warmly cherished by Champlain, and entering fully into the plans of De Monts, had not been forgotten. Three times during the early part of the summer they had equipped their barque, made up their party, and left Port Royal for this undertaking, and as many times had been driven back by the violence of the winds and the waves.

In the mean time, the supplies which had been promised and expected from France had not arrived. This naturally gave to Pont Grave, the lieutenant, great anxiety, as without them it was clearly inexpedient to venture upon another winter in the wilds of La Cadie. It had been stipulated by De Monts, the patentee, that if succors did not arrive before the middle of July, Pont Grave should make arrangements for the return of the colony by the fishing vessels to be found at the Grand Banks. Accordingly, on the 17th of that month, Pont Grave set sail with the little colony in two barques, and proceeded towards Cape Breton, to seek a passage home. But De Monts had not been remiss in his duty. He had, after many difficulties and delays, despatched a vessel of a hundred and fifty tons, called the "Jonas," with fifty men and ample provisions for the approaching winter. While Pont Grave with his two barques and his retreating colony had run into Yarmouth Bay for repairs, the "Jonas" passed him unobserved, and anchored in the basin before the deserted settlement of Port Royal. An advice-boat had, however, been wisely despatched by the "Jonas" to reconnoitre the inlets along the shore, which fortunately intercepted the departing colony near Cape Sable, and, elated with fresh news from home, they joyfully returned to the quarters they had so recently abandoned.

In addition to a considerable number of artisans and laborers for the colony, the "Jonas" had brought out Sieur De Poutrincourt, to remain as lieutenant of La Cadie, and likewise Marc Lescarbot, a young attorney of Paris, who had already made some scholarly attainments, and who subsequently distinguished himself as an author, especially by the publication of a history of New France.

De Poutrincourt immediately addressed himself to putting all things in order at Port Royal, where it was obviously expedient for the colony to remain, at least for the winter. As soon as the "Jonas" had been unladen, Pont Grave and most of those who had shared his recent hardships, departed in her for the shores of France. When the tenements had been cleansed, refitted, and refurnished, and their provisions had been safely stored, De Poutrincourt, by way of experiment, to test the character of the climate and the capability of the soil, despatched a squad of gardeners and farmers five miles up the river, to the grounds now occupied by the village of Annapolis, [51] where the soil was open, clear of forest trees, and easy of cultivation. They planted a great variety of seeds, wheat, rye, hemp, flax, and of garden esculents, which grew with extraordinary luxuriance, but, as the season was too late for any of them to ripen, the experiment failed either as a test of the soil or the climate.

On a former visit in 1604, De Poutrincourt had conceived a great admiration for Annapolis basin, its protected situation, its fine scenery, and its rich soil. He had a strong desire to bring his family there and make it his permanent abode. With this design, he had requested and received from De Monts a personal grant of this region, which had also been confirmed to him [52] by Henry IV. But De Monts wished to plant his La Cadian colony in a milder and more genial climate. He had therefore enjoined upon De Poutrincourt, as his lieutenant, on leaving France, to continue the explorations for the selection of a site still farther to the south. Accordingly, on the 5th of September, 1606, De Poutrincourt left Annapolis Basin, which the French called Port Royal, in a barque of eighteen tons, to fulfil this injunction.

It was Champlain's opinion that they ought to sail directly for Nauset harbor, on Cape Cod, and commence their explorations where their search had terminated the preceding year, and thus advance into a new region, which had not already been surveyed. But other counsels prevailed, and a large part of the time which could be spared for this investigation was exhausted before they reached the harbor of Nauset. They made a brief visit to the island of St. Croix, in which De Monts had wintered in 1604-5, touched also at Saco, where the Indians had already completed their harvest, and the grapes at Bacchus Island were ripe and luscious. Thence sailing directly to Cape Anne, where, finding no safe roadstead, they passed round to Gloucester harbor, which they found spacious, well protected, with good depth of water, and which, for its great excellence and attractive scenery, they named Beauport, or the beautiful harbor. Here they remained several days. It was a native settlement, comprising two hundred savages, who were cultivators of the soil, which was prolific in corn, beans, melons, pumpkins, tobacco, and grapes. The harbor was environed with fine forest trees, as hickory, oak, ash, cypress, and sassafras. Within the town there were several patches of cultivated land, which the Indians were gradually augmenting by felling the trees, burning the wood, and after a few years, aided by the natural process of decay, eradicating the stumps. The French were kindly received and entertained with generous hospitality. Grapes just gathered from the vines, and squashes of several varieties, the trailing bean still well known in New England, and the Jerusalem artichoke crisp from the unexhausted soil, were presented as offerings of welcome to their guests. While these gifts were doubtless tokens of a genuine friendliness so far as the savages were capable of that virtue, the lurking spirit of deceit and treachery which had been inherited and fostered by their habits and mode of life, could not be restrained.

The French barque was lying at anchor a short distance northeast of Ten Pound Island. Its boat was undergoing repairs on a peninsula near by, now known as Rocky Neck, and the sailors were washing their linen just at the point where the peninsula is united to the mainland. While Champlain was walking on this causeway, he observed about fifty savages, completely armed, cautiously screening themselves behind a clump of bushes on the edge of Smith's Cove. As soon as they were aware that they were seen, they came forth, concealing their weapons as much as possible, and began to dance in token of a friendly greeting. But when they discovered De Poutrincourt in the wood near by, who had approached unobserved, with eight armed musketeers to disperse them in case of an attack, they immediately took to flight, and, scattering in all directions, made no further hostile demonstrations. [53] This serio-comic incident did not interfere with the interchange of friendly offices between the two parties, and when the voyagers were about to leave, the savages urged them with great earnestness to remain longer, assuring them that two thousand of their friends would pay them a visit the very next day. This invitation was, however, not heeded. In Champlain's opinion it was a ruse contrived only to furnish a fresh opportunity to attack and overpower them.

On the 30th of September, they left the harbor of Gloucester, and, during the following night, sailing in a southerly direction, passing Brant Point, they found themselves in the lower part of Cape Cod Bay. When the sun rose, a low, sandy shore stretched before them. Sending their boat forward to a place where the shore seemed more elevated, they found deeper water and a harbor, into which they entered in five or six fathoms. They were welcomed by three Indian canoes. They found oysters in such quantities in this bay, and of such excellent quality, that they named it Le Port aux Huistres, [54] or Oyster Harbor. After a few hours, they weighed anchor, and directing their course north, a quarter northeast, with a favoring wind, soon doubled Cape Cod. The next day, the 2d of October, they arrived off Nauset. De Poutrincourt, Champlain, and others entered the harbor in a small boat, where they were greeted by a hundred and fifty savages with singing and dancing, according to their usual custom. After a brief visit, they returned to the barque and continued their course along the sandy shore. When near the heel of the cape, off Chatham, they found themselves imperilled among breakers and sand-banks, so dangerous as to render it inexpedient to attempt to land, even with a small boat. The savages were observing them from the shore, and soon manned a canoe, and came to them with singing and demonstrations of joy. From them, they learned that lower down a harbor would be found, where their barque might ride in safety. Proceeding, therefore, in the same direction, after many difficulties, they succeeded in rounding the peninsula of Monomoy, and finally, in the gray of the evening, cast anchor in the offing near Chatham, now known as Old Stage Harbor. The next day they entered, passing between Harding's Beach Point and Morris Island, in two fathoms of water, and anchored in Stage Harbor. This harbor is about a mile long and half a mile wide, and at its western extremity is connected by tide-water with Oyster Pond, and with Mill Cove on the east by Mitchell's River. Mooring their barque between these two arms of the harbor, towards the westerly end, the explorers remained there about three weeks. It was the centre of an Indian settlement, containing five or six hundred persons. Although it was now well into October, the natives of both sexes were entirely naked, with the exception of a slight band about the loins. They subsisted upon fish and the products of the soil. Indian corn was their staple. It was secured in the autumn in bags made of braided grass, and buried in the sand-banks, and withdrawn as it was needed during the winter. The savages were of fine figure and of olive complexion. They adorned themselves with an embroidery skilfully interwoven with feathers and beads, and dressed their hair in a variety of braids, like those at Saco. Their dwellings were conical in shape, covered with thatch of rushes and corn-husks, and surrounded by cultivated fields. Each cabin contained one or two beds, a kind of matting, two or three inches in thickness, spread upon a platform on which was a layer of elastic staves, and the whole raised a foot from the ground. On these they secured refreshing repose. Their chiefs neither exercised nor claimed any superior authority, except in time of war. At all other times and in all other matters complete equality reigned throughout the tribe.

The stay at Chatham was necessarily prolonged in baking bread to serve the remainder of the voyage, and in repairing their barque, whose rudder had been badly shattered in the rough passage round the cape. For these purposes, a bakery and a forge were set up on shore, and a tent pitched for the convenience and protection of the workmen. While these works were in progress, De Poutrincourt, Champlain, and others made frequent excursions into the interior, always with a guard of armed men, sometimes making a circuit of twelve or fifteen miles. The explorers were fascinated with all they saw. The aroma of the autumnal forest and the balmy air of October stimulated their senses. The nut-trees were loaded with ripe fruit, and the rich clusters of grapes were hanging temptingly upon the vines. Wild game was plentiful and delicious. The fish of the bay were sweet, delicate, and of many varieties. Nature, unaided by art, had thus supplied so many human wants that Champlain gravely put upon record his opinion that this would be a most excellent place in which to lay the foundations of a commonwealth, if the harbor were deeper and better protected at its mouth.

After the voyagers had been in Chatham eight or nine days, the Indians, tempted by the implements which they saw about the forge and bakery, conceived the idea of taking forcible possession of them, in order to appropriate them to their own use. As a preparation for this, and particularly to put themselves in a favorable condition in case of an attack or reprisal, they were seen removing their women, children, and effects into the forests, and even taking down their cabins. De Poutrincourt, observing this, gave orders to the workmen to pass their nights no longer on shore, but to go on board the barque to assure their personal safety. This command, however, was not obeyed. The next morning, at break of day, four hundred savages, creeping softly over a hill in the rear, surrounded the tent, and poured such a volley of arrows upon the defenceless workmen that escape was impossible. Three of them were killed upon the spot; a fourth was mortally and a fifth badly wounded. The alarm was given by the sentinel on the barque. De Poutrincourt, Champlain, and the rest, aroused from their slumbers, rushed half-clad into the ship's boat, and hastened to the rescue. As soon as they touched the shore, the savages, fleet as the greyhound, escaped to the wood. Pursuit, under the circumstances, was not to be made; and, if it had been, would have ended in their utter destruction. Freed from immediate danger, they collected the dead and gave them Christian burial near the foot of a cross, which had been erected the day before. While the service of prayer and song was offered, the savages in the distance mocked them with derisive attitudes and hideous howls. Three hours after the French had retired to their barque, the miscreants returned, tore down the cross, disinterred the dead, and carried off the garments in which they had been laid to rest. They were immediately driven off by the French, the cross was restored to its place, and the dead reinterred.

Before leaving Chatham, some anxiety was felt in regard to their safety in leaving the harbor, as the little barque had scarcely been able to weather the rough seas of Monomoy on their inward voyage. A boat had been sent out in search of a safer and a better roadway, which, creeping along by the shore sixteen or eighteen miles, returned, announcing three fathoms of water, and neither bars nor reefs. On the 16th of October they gave their canvas to the breeze, and sailed out of Stage Harbor, which they had named Port Fortune, [55] an appellation probably suggested by their narrow escape in entering and by the bloody tragedy to which we have just referred. Having gone eighteen or twenty miles, they sighted the island of Martha's Vineyard lying low in the distance before them, which they called La Soupconneuse, the suspicious one, as they had several times been in doubt whether it were not a part of the mainland. A contrary wind forced them to return to their anchorage in Stage Harbor. On the 20th they set out again, and continued their course in a southwesterly direction until they reached the entrance of Vineyard Sound. The rapid current of tide water flowing from Buzzard's Bay into the sound through the rocky channel between Nonamesset and Wood's Holl, they took to be a river coming from the mainland, and named it Riviere de Champlain.

This point, in front of Wood's Holl, is the southern limit of the French explorations on the coast of New England, reached by them on the 20th of October, 1606.

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 Francois estans reuenus (ainsi qu'a este dict) le Sieur de Potrincourt presenta a feu d'immortelle memorie Henry le Grand la donnation a luy faicte par le sieur de Monts, requerant humblement Sa Majeste de la ratifier. Le Roy eut pour agreable la dicte Requeste," &c. Relations des Jesuites, 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 Fortune 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 Soupconneuse. Vide Vol. II, Note 227.



CHAPTER V.

RECEPTION OK THE EXPLORERS AT ANNAPOLIS BASIN.—A DREARY WINTER RELIEVED BY THE ORDER OF BON TEMPS.—NEWS FROM FRANCE.—BIRTH OF A PRINCE.—RUIN OF DE MONTS'S COMPANY—TWO EXCURSIONS AND DEPARTURE FOR FRANCE.—CHAMPLAIN'S EXPLORATIONS COMPARED.—DE MONTS'S NEW CHARTER FOR ONE YEAR AND CHAMPLAIN'S RETURN IN 1608 TO NEW FRANCE AND THE FOUNDING OF QUEBEC.—CONSPIRACY OF DU VAL AND HIS EXECUTION.

With the voyage which we have described in the last chapter, Champlain terminated his explorations on the coast of New England. He never afterward stepped upon her soil. But he has left us, nevertheless, an invaluable record of the character, manners, and customs of the aborigines as he saw them all along from the eastern borders of Maine to the Vineyard Sound, and carefully studied them during the period of three consecutive years. Of the value of these explorations we need not here speak at length. We shall refer to them again in the sequel.

The return of the explorers was hailed with joy by the colonists at Annapolis Basin. To give eclat to the occasion, Lescarbot composed a poem in French, which he recited at the head of a procession which marched with gay representations to the water's edge, to receive their returning friends. Over the gateway of the quadrangle formed by their dwellings, dignified by them as their fort, were the arms of France, wreathed in laurel, together with the motto of the king.—

DVO PROTEGIT VNVS.

Under this, the arms of De Monts were displayed, overlaid with evergreen, and bearing the following inscription:—

DABIT DEVS HIS QVOQVE FINEM.

Then came the arms of Poutrincourt, crowned also with garlands, and inscribed:—

IN VIA VIRTVTI NVLLA EST VIA.

When the excitement of the return had passed, the little settlement subsided into its usual routine. The leisure of the winter was devoted to various objects bearing upon the future prosperity of the colony. Among others, a corn mill was erected at a fall on Allen River, four or five miles from the settlement, a little east of the present site of Annapolis. A road was commenced through the forest leading from Lower Granville towards the mouth of the bay. Two small barques were built, to be in readiness in anticipation of a failure to receive succors the next summer, and new buildings were erected for the accommodation of a larger number of colonists. Still, there was much unoccupied time, and, shut out as they were from the usual associations of civilized life, it was hardly possible that the winter should not seem long and dreary, especially to the gentlemen.

To break up the monotony and add variety to the dull routine of their life, Champlain contrived what he called L'ORDRE DE BON TEMPS, or The Rule of Mirth, which was introduced and carried out with spirit and success. The fifteen gentlemen who sat at the table of De Poutrincourt, the governor, comprising the whole number of the order, took turns in performing the duties of steward and caterer, each holding the office for a single day. With a laudable ambition, the Grand Master for the time being laid the forest and the sea under contribution, and the table was constantly furnished with the most delicate and well seasoned game, and the sweetest as well as the choicest varieties of fish. The frequent change of office and the ingenuity displayed, offered at every repast, either in the viands or mode of cooking, something new and tempting to the appetite. At each meal, a ceremony becoming the dignity of the order was strictly observed. At a given signal, the whole company marched into the dining-hall, the Grand Master at the head, with his napkin over his shoulder, his staff of office in his hand, and the glittering collar of the order about his neck, while the other members bore each in his hand a dish loaded and smoking with some part of the delicious repast. A ceremony of a somewhat similar character was observed at the bringing in of the fruit. At the close of the day, when the last meal had been served, and grace had been said, the master formally completed his official duty by placing the collar of the order upon the neck of his successor, at the same time presenting to him a cup of wine, in which the two drank to each other's health and happiness. These ceremonies were generally witnessed by thirty or forty savages, men, women, boys, and girls, who gazed in respectful admiration, not to say awe, upon this exhibition of European civilization. When Membertou, [56] the venerable chief of the tribe, or other sagamores were present, they were invited to a seat at the table, while bread was gratuitously distributed to the rest.

When the winter had passed, which proved to be an exceedingly mild one, all was astir in the little colony. The preparation of the soil, both in the gardens and in the larger fields, for the spring sowing, created an agreeable excitement and healthy activity.

On the 24th May, in the midst of these agricultural enterprises, a boat arrived in the bay, in charge of a young man from St. Malo, named Chevalier, who had come out in command of the "Jonas," which he had left at Canseau engaged in fishing for the purpose of making up a return cargo of that commodity. Chevalier brought two items of intelligence of great interest to the colonists, but differing widely in their character. The one was the birth of a French prince, the Duke of Orleans; the other, that the company of De Monts had been broken up, his monopoly of the fur-trade withdrawn, and his colony ordered to return to France. The birth of a prince demanded expressions of joy, and the event was loyally celebrated by bonfires and a Te Deum. It was, however, giving a song when they would gladly have hung their harps upon the willows.

While the scheme of De Monts's colonial enterprise was defective, containing in itself a principle which must sooner or later work its ruin, the disappointment occasioned by its sudden termination was none the less painful and humiliating. The monopoly on which it was based could only be maintained by a degree of severity and apparent injustice, which always creates enemies and engenders strife. The seizure and confiscation of several ships with their valuable cargoes on the shores of Nova Scotia, had awakened a personal hostility in influential circles in France, and the sufferers were able, in turn, to strike back a damaging blow upon the author of their losses. They easily and perhaps justly represented that the monopoly of the fur-trade secured to De Monts was sapping the national commerce and diverting to personal emolument revenues that properly belonged to the state. To an impoverished sovereign with an empty treasury this appeal was irresistible. The sacredness of the king's commission and the loss to the patentee of the property already embarked in the enterprise had no weight in the royal scales. De Monts's privilege was revoked, with the tantalizing salvo of six thousand livres in remuneration, to be collected at his own expense from unproductive sources.

Under these circumstances, no money for the payment of the workmen or provisions for the coming winter had been sent out, and De Poutrincourt, with great reluctance, proceeded to break up the establishment The goods and utensils, as well as specimens of the grain which they had raised, were to be carefully packed and sent round to the harbor of Canseau, to be shipped by the "Jonas," together with the whole body of the colonists, as soon as she should have received her cargo of fish.

While these preparations were in progress, two excursions were made; one towards the west, and another northeasterly towards the head of the Bay of Fundy. Lescarbot accompanied the former, passing several days at St. John and the island of St. Croix, which was the westerly limit of his explorations and personal knowledge of the American coast. The other excursion was conducted by De Poutrincourt, accompanied by Champlain, the object of which was to search for ores of the precious metals, a species of wealth earnestly coveted and overvalued at the court of France. They sailed along the northern shores of Nova Scotia, entered Mines Channel, and anchored off Cape Fendu, now Anglicised into the uneuphonious name of Cape Split. De Poutrincourt landed on this headland, and ascended a steep and lofty summit which is not less than four hundred feet in height. Moss several feet in thickness, the growth of centuries, had gathered upon it, and, when he stood upon the pinnacle, it yielded and trembled like gelatine under his feet. He found himself in a critical situation. From this giddy and unstable height he had neither the skill or courage to return. After much anxiety, he was at length rescued by some of his more nimble sailors, who managed to put a hawser over the summit, by means of which he safely descended. They named it Cap de Poutrincourt.

They proceeded as far as the head of the Basin of Mines, but their search for mineral wealth was fruitless, beyond a few meagre specimens of copper. Their labors were chiefly rewarded by the discovery of a moss-covered cross in the last stages of decay, the relic of fishermen, or other Christian mariners, who had, years before, been upon the coast.

The exploring parties having returned to Port Royal, to their settlement in what is now known as Annapolis Basin, the bulk of the colonists departed in three barques for Canseau, on the 30th of July, while De Poutrincourt and Champlain, with a complement of sailors, remained some days longer, that they might take with them specimens of wheat still in the field and not yet entirely ripe.

On the 11th of August they likewise bade adieu to Port Royal amid the tears of the assembled savages, with whom they had lived in friendship, and who were disappointed and grieved at their departure. In passing round the peninsula of Nova Scotia in their little shallop, it was necessary to keep close in upon the shore, which enabled Champlain, who had not before been upon the coast east of La Heve, to make a careful survey from that point to Canseau, the results of which are fully stated in his notes, and delineated on his map of 1613.

On the 3d of September, the "Jonas," bearing away the little French colony, sailed out of the harbor of Canseau, and, directing its course towards the shores of France, arrived at Saint Malo on the 1st of October, 1607.

Champlain's explorations on what may be strictly called the Atlantic coast of North America were now completed. He had landed at La Heve in Nova Scotia on the 8th of May, 1604, and had consequently been in the country three years and nearly four months. During this period he had carefully examined the whole shore from Canseau, the eastern limit of Nova Scotia, to the Vineyard Sound on the southern boundaries of Massachusetts. This was the most ample, accurate, and careful survey of this region which was made during the whole period from the discovery of the continent in 1497 down to the establishment of the English colony at Plymouth in 1620. A numerous train of navigators had passed along the coast of New England: Sebastian Cabot, Estevan Gomez, Jean Alfonse, Andre Thevet, John Hawkins, Bartholomew Gosnold, Martin Pring, George Weymouth, Henry Hudson, John Smith, and the rest, but the knowledge of the coast which we obtain from them is exceedingly meagre and unsatisfactory, especially as compared with that contained in the full, specific, and detailed descriptions, maps, and drawings left us by this distinguished pioneer in the study and illustration of the geography of the New England coast. [57]

The winter of 1607-8 Champlain passed in France, where he was pleasantly occupied in social recreations which were especially agreeable to him after an absence of more than three years, and in recounting to eager listeners his experiences in the New World. He took an early opportunity to lay before Monsieur de Monts the results of the explorations which he had made in La Cadie since the departure of the latter from Annapolis Basin in the autumn of 1605, illustrating his narrative by maps and drawings which he had prepared of the bays and harbors on the coast of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and New England.

While most men would have been disheartened by the opposition which he encountered, the mind of De Monts was, nevertheless, rekindled by the recitals of Champlain with fresh zeal in the enterprise which he had undertaken. The vision of building up a vast territorial establishment, contemplated by his charter of 1604, with his own personal aggrandizement and that of his family, had undoubtedly vanished. But he clung, nevertheless, with extraordinary tenacity to his original purpose of planting a colony in the New World. This he resolved to do in the face of many obstacles, and notwithstanding the withdrawment of the royal protection and bounty. The generous heart of Henry IV. was by no means insensible to the merits of his faithful subject, and, on his solicitation, he granted to him letters-patent for the exclusive right of trade in America, but for the space only of a single year. With this small boon from the royal hand, De Monts hastened to fit out two vessels for the expedition. One was to be commanded by Pont Grave, who was to devote his undivided attention to trade with the Indians for furs and peltry; the other was to convey men and material for a colonial plantation.

Champlain, whose energy, zeal, and prudence had impressed themselves upon the mind of De Monts, was appointed lieutenant of the expedition, and intrusted with the civil administration, having a sufficient number of men for all needed defence against savage intruders, Basque fisher men, or interloping fur-traders.

On the 13th of April, 1608, Champlain left the port of Honfleur, and arrived at the harbor of Tadoussac on the 3d of June. Here he found Pont Grave, who had preceded him by a few days in the voyage, in trouble with a Basque fur-trader. The latter had persisted in carrying on his traffic, notwithstanding the royal commission to the contrary, and had succeeded in disabling Pont Grave, who had but little power of resistance, killing one of his men, seriously wounding Pont Grave himself, as well as several others, and had forcibly taken possession of his whole armament.

When Champlain had made full inquiries into all the circumstances, he saw clearly that the difficulty must be compromised; that the exercise of force in overcoming the intruding Basque would effectually break up his plans for the year, and bring utter and final ruin upon his undertaking. He wisely decided to pocket the insult, and let justice slumber for the present. He consequently required the Basque, who began to see more clearly the illegality of his course, to enter into a written agreement with Pont Grave that neither should interfere with the other while they remained in the country, and that they should leave their differences to be settled in the courts on their return to France.

Having thus poured oil upon the troubled waters, Champlain proceeded to carry out his plans for the location and establishment of his colony. The difficult navigation of the St. Lawrence above Tadoussac was well known to him. The dangers of its numberless rocks, sand-bars, and fluctuating channels had been made familiar to him by the voyage of 1603. He determined, therefore, to leave his vessel in the harbor of Tadoussac, and construct a small barque of twelve or fourteen tons, in which to ascend the river and fix upon a place of settlement.

While the work was in progress, Champlain reconnoitred the neighborhood, collecting much geographical information from the Indians relating to Lake St. John and a traditionary salt sea far to the north, exploring the Saguenay for some distance, of which he has given us a description so accurate and so carefully drawn that it needs little revision after the lapse of two hundred and seventy years.

On the last of June, the barque was completed, and Champlain, with a complement of men and material, took his departure. As he glided along in his little craft, he was exhilarated by the fragrance of the atmosphere, the bright coloring of the foliage, the bold, picturesque scenery that constantly revealed itself on both sides of the river. The lofty mountains, the expanding valleys, the luxuriant forests, the bold headlands, the enchanting little bays and inlets, and the numerous tributaries bursting into the broad waters of the St. Lawrence, were all carefully examined and noted in his journal. The expedition seemed more like a holiday excursion than the grave prelude to the founding of a city to be renowned in the history of the continent.

On the fourth day, they approached the site of the present city of Quebec. The expanse of the river had hitherto been from eight to thirteen miles. Here a lofty headland, approaching from the interior, advances upon the river and forces it into a narrow channel of three-fourths of a mile in width. The river St. Charles, a small stream flowing from the northwest, uniting here with the St. Lawrence, forms a basin below the promontory, spreading out two miles in one direction and four in another. The rocky headland, jutting out upon the river, rises up nearly perpendicularly, and to a height of three hundred and forty-five feet, commanding from its summit a view of water, forest and mountain of surpassing grandeur and beauty. A narrow belt of fertile land formed by the crumbling debris of ages, stretches along between the water's edge and the base of the precipice, and was then covered with a luxurious growth of nut-trees. The magnificent basin below, the protecting wall of the headland in the rear, the deep water of the river in front, rendered this spot peculiarly attractive. Here on this narrow plateau, Champlain resolved to place his settlement, and forthwith began the work of felling trees, excavating cellars, and constructing houses.

On the 3d day of July, 1608, Champlain laid the foundation of Quebec. The name which he gave to it had been applied to it by the savages long before. It is derived from the Algonquin word quebio, or quebec, signifying a narrowing, and was descriptive of the form which the river takes at that place, to which we have already referred.

A few days after their arrival, an event occurred of exciting interest to Champlain and his little colony. One of their number, Jean du Val, an abandoned wretch, who possessed a large share of that strange magnetic power which some men have over the minds of others, had so skilfully practised upon the credulity of his comrades that he had drawn them all into a scheme which, aside from its atrocity, was weak and ill-contrived at every point It was nothing less than a plan to assassinate Champlain, seize the property belonging to the expedition, and sell it to the Basque fur-traders at Tadoussac, under the hallucination that they should be enriched by the pillage. They had even entered into a solemn compact, and whoever revealed the secret was to be visited by instant death. Their purpose was to seize Champlain in an unguarded moment and strangle him, or to shoot him in the confusion of a false alarm to be raised in the night by themselves. But before the plan was fully ripe for execution, a barque unexpectedly arrived from Tadoussac with an instalment of utensils and provisions for the colony. One of the men, Antoine Natel, who had entered into the conspiracy with reluctance, and had been restrained from a disclosure by fear, summoned courage to reveal the plot to the pilot of the boat, first securing from him the assurance that he should be shielded from the vengeance of his fellow-conspirators. The secret was forthwith made known to Champlain, who, by a stroke of finesse, placed himself beyond danger before he slept. At his suggestion, the four leading spirits of the plot were invited by one of the sailors to a social repast on the barque, at which two bottles of wine which he pretended had been given him at Tadoussac were to be uncorked. In the midst of the festivities, the "four worthy heads of the conspiracy," as Champlain satirically calls them, were suddenly clapped into irons. It was now late in the evening, but Champlain nevertheless summoned all the rest of the men into his presence, and offered them a full pardon, on condition that they would disclose the whole scheme and the motives which had induced them to engage in it. This they were eager to do, as they now began to comprehend the dangerous compact into which they had entered, and the peril which threatened their own lives. These preliminary investigations rendered it obvious to Champlain that grave consequences must follow, and he therefore proceeded with great caution.

The next day, he took the depositions of the pardoned men, carefully reducing them to writing. He then departed for Tadoussac, taking the four conspirators with him. On consultation, he decided to leave them there, where they could be more safely guarded until. Pont Grave and the principal men of the expedition could return with them to Quebec, where he proposed to give them a more public and formal trial. This was accordingly done. The prisoners were duly confronted with the witnesses. They denied nothing, but freely admitted their guilt. With the advice and concurrence of Pont Grave, the pilot, surgeon, mate, boatswain, and others, Champlain condemned the four conspirators to be hung; three of them, however, to be sent home for a confirmation or revision of their sentence by the authorities in France, while the sentence of Jean Du Val, the arch-plotter of the malicious scheme, was duly executed in their presence, with all the solemn forms and ceremonies usual on such occasions. Agreeably to a custom of that period, the ghastly head of Du Val was elevated on the highest pinnacle of the fort at Quebec, looking down and uttering its silent warning to the busy colonists below; the grim Signal to all beholders, that "the way of the transgressor is hard."

The catastrophe, had not the plot been nipped in the bud, would have been sure to take place. The final purpose of the conspirators might not have been realized; it must have been defeated at a later stage; but the hand of Du Val, prompted by a malignant nature, was nerved to strike a fatal blow, and the life of Champlain would have been sacrificed at the opening of the tragic scene.

The punishment of Du Val, in its character and degree, was not only agreeable to the civil policy of the age, but was necessary for the protection of life and the maintenance of order and discipline in the colony. A conspiracy on land, under the present circumstances, was as dangerous as a mutiny at sea; and the calm, careful, and dignified procedure of Champlain in firmly visiting upon the criminal a severe though merited punishment, reveals the wisdom, prudence, and humanity which were prominent elements in his mental and moral constitution.

ENDNOTES:

56. Membertou. See Pierre Biard's account of his death in 1611. Relations des Jesuites. Quebec ed, Vol. I. p. 32.

57. Had the distinguished navigators who early visited the coasts of North America illustrated their narratives by drawings and maps, it would have added greatly to their value. Capt. John Smith's map, though necessarily indefinite and general, is indispensable to the satisfactory study of his still more indefinite "Description of New England." It is, perhaps, a sufficient apology for the vagueness of Smith's statements, and therefore it ought to be borne in mind, that his work was originally written, probably, from memory, at least for the most part, while he was a prisoner on board a French man-of-war in 1615. This may be inferred from the following statement of Smith himself. In speaking of the movement of the French fleet, he says: "Still we spent our time about the Iles neere Fyall: where to keepe my perplexed thoughts from too much meditation of my miserable estate, I writ this discourse" Vide Description of New England by Capt. John Smith, London, 1616.

While the descriptions of our coast left by Champlain are invaluable to the historian and cannot well be overestimated, the process of making these surveys, with his profound love of such explorations and adventures, must have given him great personal satisfaction and enjoyment It would be difficult to find any region of similar extent that could offer, on a summer's excursion, so much beauty to his eager and critical eye as this. The following description of the Gulf of Maine, which comprehends the major part of the field surveyed by Champlain, that lying between the headlands of Cape Sable and Cape Cod, gives an excellent idea of the infinite variety and the unexpected and marvellous beauties that are ever revealing themselves to the voyager as he passes along our coast.—

"This shoreland is also remarkable, being so battered and frayed by sea and storm, and worn perhaps by arctic currents and glacier beds, that its natural front of some 250 miles is multiplied to an extent of not less than 2,500 miles of salt-water line; while at an average distance of about three miles from the mainland, stretches a chain of outposts consisting of more than three hundred islands, fragments of the main, striking in their diversity on the west; low, wooded and grassy to the water's edge, and rising eastward through bolder types to the crowns and cliffs of Mount Desert and Quoddy Head, an advancing series from beauty to sublimity: and behind all these are deep basins and broad river-mouths, affording convenient and spacious harbors, in many of which the navies of nations might safely ride at anchor.... Especially attractive was the region between the Piscataqua and Penobscot in its marvellous beauty of shore and sea, of island and inlet, of bay and river and harbor, surpassing any other equally extensive portion of the Atlantic coast, and compared by travellers earliest and latest, with the famed archipelago of the Aegean." Vide Maine, Her Place in History, by Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL D, President of Bowdoin College, Augusta, 1877, pp. 4-5.



CHAPTER VI.

ERECTION OF BUILDINGS AT QUEBEC.—THE SCURVY AND THE STARVING SAVAGES.— DISCOVERY OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN, AND THE BATTLE AT TICONDEROGA.—CRUELTIES INFLICTED ON PRISONERS OF WAR, AND THE FESTIVAL AFTER VICTORY.— CHAMPLAIN'S RETURN TO FRANCE AND HIS INTERVIEW WITH HENRY IV.—VOYAGE TO NEW FRANCE AND PLANS OF DISCOVERY.—BATTLE WITH THE IROQUOIS NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE RICHELIEU.—REPAIR OF BUILDINGS AT QUEBEC.—NEWS OF THE ASSASSINATION OF HENRY IV.—CHAMPLAIN'S RETURN TO FRANCE AND HIS CONTRACT OF MARRIAGE.—VOYAGE TO QUEBEC IN 1611.

On the 18th of September, 1608, Pont Grave, having obtained his cargo of furs and peltry, sailed for France.

The autumn was fully occupied by Champlain and his little band of colonists in completing the buildings and in making such other provisions as were needed against the rigors of the approaching winter. From the forest trees beams were hewed into shape with the axe, boards and plank were cut from the green wood with the saw, walls were reared from the rough stones gathered at the base of the cliff, and plots of land were cleared near the settlement, where wheat and rye were sown and grapevines planted, which successfully tested the good qualities of the soil and climate.

Three lodging-houses were erected on the northwest angle formed by the junction of the present streets St. Peter and Sous le Fort, near or on the site of the Church of Notre Dame. Adjoining, was a store-house. The whole was, surrounded by a moat fifteen feet wide and six feet deep, thus giving the settlement the character of a fort; a wise precaution against a sudden attack of the treacherous savages. [58]

At length the sunny days of autumn were gone, and the winter, with its fierce winds and its penetrating frosts and deep banks of snow, was upon them. Little occupation could be furnished for the twenty-eight men that composed the colony. Their idleness soon brought a despondency that hung like a pall upon their spirits. In February, disease made its approach. It had not been expected. Every defence within their knowledge had been provided against it. Their houses were closely sealed and warm; their clothing was abundant; their food nutritious and plenty. But a diet too exclusively of salt meat had, notwithstanding, in the opinion of Champlain, and we may add the want, probably, of exercise and the presence of bad air, induced the mal de la terre or scurvy, and it made fearful havoc with his men. Twenty, five out of each seven of their whole number, had been carried to their graves before the middle of April, and half of the remaining eight had been attacked by the loathsome scourge.

While the mind of Champlain was oppressed by the suffering and death that were at all times present in their abode, his sympathies were still further taxed by the condition of the savages, who gathered in great numbers about the settlement, in the most abject misery and in the last stages of starvation. As Champlain could only furnish them, from his limited stores, temporary and partial relief, it was the more painful to see them slowly dragging their feeble frames about in the snow, gathering up and devouring with avidity discarded meat in which the process of decomposition was far advanced, and which was already too potent with the stench of decay to be approached by his men.

Beyond the ravages of disease [59] and the starving Indians, Champlain adds nothing more to complete the gloomy picture of his first winter in Quebec. The gales of wind that swept round the wall of precipice that protected them in the rear, the drifts of snow that were piled up in fresh instalments with every storm about their dwelling, the biting frost, more piercing and benumbing than they had ever experienced before, the unceasing groans of the sick within, the semi-weekly procession bearing one after another of their diminishing numbers to the grave, the mystery that hung over the disease, and the impotency of all remedies, we know were prominent features in the picture. But the imagination seeks in vain for more than a single circumstance that could throw upon it a beam of modifying and softening light, and that was the presence of the brave Champlain, who bore all without a murmur, and, we may be sure, without a throb of unmanly fear or a sensation of cowardly discontent.

But the winter, as all winters do, at length melted reluctantly away, and the spring came with its verdure, and its new life. The spirits of the little remnant of a colony began to revive. Eight of the twenty-eight with which the winter began were still surviving. Four had escaped attack, and four were rejoicing convalescents.

On the 5th of June, news came that Pont Grave had arrived from France, and was then at Tadoussac, whither Champlain immediately repaired to confer with him, and particularly to make arrangements at the earliest possible moment for an exploring expedition into the interior, an undertaking which De Monts had enjoined upon him, and which was not only agreeable to his own wishes, but was a kind of enterprise which had been a passion with him from his youth.

In anticipation of a tour of exploration during the approaching summer, Champlain had already ascertained from the Indians that, lying far to the southwest, was an extensive lake, famous among the savages, containing many fair islands, and surrounded by a beautiful and productive country. Having expressed a desire to visit this region, the Indians readily offered to act as guides, provided, nevertheless, that he would aid them in a warlike raid upon their enemies, the Iroquois, the tribe known to us as the Mohawks, whose, homes were beyond the lake in question. Champlain without hesitation acceded to the condition exacted, but with little appreciation, as we confidently believe, of the bitter consequences that were destined to follow the alliance thus inaugurated; from which, in after years, it was inexpedient, if not impossible, to recede.

Having fitted out a shallop, Champlain left Quebec on his tour of exploration on the 18th of June, 1609, with eleven men, together with a party of Montagnais, a tribe of Indians who, in their hunting and fishing excursions, roamed over an indefinite region on the north side of the St. Lawrence, but whose headquarters were at Tadoussac. After ascending the St Lawrence about sixty miles, he came upon an encampment of two hundred or three hundred savages, Hurons [60] and Algonquins, the former dwelling on the borders of the lake of the same name, the latter on the upper waters of the Ottawa. They had learned something of the French from a son of one of their chiefs, who had been at Quebec the preceding autumn, and were now on their way to enter into an alliance with the French against the Iroquois. After formal negotiations and a return to Quebec to visit the French settlement and witness the effect of their firearms, of which they had heard and which greatly excited their curiosity, and after the usual ceremonies of feasting and dancing, the whole party proceeded up the river until they reached the mouth of the Richelieu. Here they remained two days, as guests of the Indians, feasting upon fish, venison, and water-fowl.

While these festivities were in progress, a disagreement arose among the savages, and the bulk of them, including the women, returned to their homes. Sixty warriors, however, some from each of the three allied tribes, proceeded up the Richelieu with Champlain. At the Falls of Chambly, finding it impossible for the shallop to pass them, he directed the pilot to return with it to Quebec, leaving only two men from the crew to accompany him on the remainder of the expedition. From this point, Champlain and his two brave companions entrusted themselves to the birch canoe of the savages. For a short distance, the canoes, twenty-four in all, were transported by land. The fall and rapids, extending as far as St. John, were at length passed. They then proceeded up the river, and, entering the lake which now bears the name of Champlain, crept along the western bank, advancing after the first few days only in the night, hiding themselves during the day in the thickets on the shore to avoid the observation of their enemies, whom they were now liable at any moment to meet.

On the evening of the 29th of July, at about ten o'clock, when the allies were gliding noiselessly along in restrained silence, as they approached the little cape that juts out into the lake at Ticonderoga, near where Fort Carillon was afterwards erected by the French, and where its ruins are still to be seen, [61] they discovered a flotilla of heavy canoes, of oaken bark, containing not far from two hundred Iroquois warriors, armed and impatient for conflict. A furor and frenzy as of so many enraged tigers instantly seized both parties. Champlain and his allies withdrew a short distance, an arrow's range from the shore, fastening their canoes by poles to keep them together, while the Iroquois hastened to the water's edge, drew up their canoes side by side, and began to fell trees and construct a barricade, which they were well able to accomplish with marvellous facility and skill. Two boats were sent out to inquire if the Iroquois desired to fight, to which they replied that they wanted nothing so much, and, as it was now dark, at sunrise the next morning they would give them battle. The whole night was spent by both parties in loud and tumultuous boasting, berating each other in the roundest terms which their savage vocabulary could furnish, insultingly charging each other with cowardice and weakness, and declaring that they would prove the truth of their assertions to their utter ruin the next morning.

When the sun began to gild the distant mountain-tops, the combatants were ready for the fray. Champlain and his two companions, each lying low in separate canoes of the Montagnais, put on, as best they could, the light armor in use at that period, and, taking the short hand-gun, or arquebus, went on shore, concealing themselves as much as possible from the enemy. As soon as all had landed, the two parties hastily approached each other, moving with a firm and determined tread. The allies, who had become fully aware of the deadly character of the hand-gun and were anxious to see an exhibition of its mysterious power, promptly opened their ranks, and Champlain marched forward in front, until he was within thirty paces of the Iroquois. When they saw him, attracted by his pale face and strange armor, they halted and gazed at him in a calm bewilderment for some seconds. Three Iroquois chiefs, tall and athletic, stood in front, and could be easily distinguished by the lofty plumes that waved above their heads. They began at once to make ready for a discharge of arrows. At the same instant, Champlain, perceiving this movement, levelled his piece, which had been loaded with four balls, and two chiefs fell dead, and another savage was mortally wounded by the same shot. At this, the allies raised a shout rivalling thunder in its stunning effect. From both sides the whizzing arrows filled the air. The two French arquebusiers, from their ambuscade in the thicket, immediately attacked in flank, pouring a deadly fire upon the enemy's right. The explosion of the firearms, altogether new to the Iroquois, the fatal effects that instantly followed, their chiefs lying dead at their feet and others fast falling, threw them into a tumultuous panic. They at once abandoned every thing, arms, provisions, boats, and camp, and without any impediment, the naked savages fled through the forest with the fleetness of the terrified deer. Champlain and his allies pursued them a mile and a half, or to the first fall in the little stream that connects Lake Champlain [62] and Lake George. [63] The victory was complete. The allies gathered at the scene of conflict, danced and sang in triumph, collected and appropriated the abandoned armor, feasted on the provisions left by the Iroquois, and, within three hours, with ten or twelve prisoners, were sailing down the lake on their homeward voyage.

After they had rowed about eight leagues, according to Champlain's estimate, they encamped for the night. A prevailing characteristic of the savages on the eastern coast, in the early history of America, was the barbarous cruelties which they inflicted upon their prisoners of war. [64] They did not depart from their usual custom in the present instance. Having kindled a fire, they selected a victim, and proceeded to excoriate his back with red-hot burning brands, and to apply live coals to the ends of his fingers, where they would give the most exquisite pain. They tore out his finger-nails, and, with sharp slivers of wood, pierced his wrists and rudely forced out the quivering sinews. They flayed off the skin from the top of his head, [65] and poured upon the bleeding wound a stream of boiling melted gum. Champlain remonstrated in vain. The piteous cries of the poor, tormented victim excited his unavailing compassion, and he turned away in anger and disgust. At length, when these inhuman tortures had been carried as far as they desired, Champlain was permitted, at his earnest request, with a musket-shot to put an end to his sufferings. But this was not the termination of the horrid performance. The dead victim was hacked in pieces, his heart severed into parts, and the surviving prisoners were ordered to eat it. This was too revolting to their nature, degraded as it was; they were forced, however, to take it into their mouths, but they would do no more, and their guard of more compassionate Algonquins allowed them to cast it into the lake.

This exhibition of savage cruelty was not extraordinary, but according to their usual custom. It was equalled, and, if possible, even surpassed, in the treatment of captives generally, and especially of the Jesuit missionaries in after years. [66]

When the party arrived at the Falls of Chambly, the Hurons and Algonquins left the river, in order to reach their homes by a shorter way, transporting their canoes and effects over land to the St. Lawrence near Montreal, while the rest continued their journey down the Richelieu and the St. Lawrence to Tadoussac, where their families were encamped, waiting to join in the usual ceremonies and rejoicings after a great victory.

When the returning warriors approached Tadoussac, they hung aloft on the prow of their canoes the scalped heads of those whom they had slain, decorated with beads which they had begged from the French for this purpose, and with a savage grace presented these ghastly trophies to their wives and daughters, who, laying aside their garments, eagerly swam out to obtain the precious mementoes, which they hung about their necks and bore rejoicing to the shore, where they further testified their satisfaction by dancing and singing.