17: Part 2: Chapter VII
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Pending these squabbles, the Jesuits at home were far from idle. Bent on
ridding themselves of Poutrincourt, they seized, in satisfaction of
debts due them, all the cargo of his returning vessel, and involved him
in a network of litigation. If we accept his own statements in a letter
to his friend Lescarbot, he was outrageously misused, and indeed
defrauded, by his clerical copartners, who at length had him thrown into
prison. Here, exasperated, weary, sick of Acadia, and anxious for the
wretched exiles who looked to him for succor, the unfortunate man fell
ill. Regaining his liberty, he again addressed himself with what
strength remained to the forlorn task of sending relief to his son and
his comrades.
Scarcely had Brother Gilbert du Thet arrived in France, when Madame de
Guercheville and her Jesuits, strong in court favor and in the charity
of wealthy penitents, prepared to take possession of their empire beyond
sea. Contributions were asked, and not in vain; for the sagacious
fathers, mindful of every spring of influence, had deeply studied the
mazes of feminine psychology, and then, as now, were favorite confessors
of the fair. It was on the twelfth of March, 1613, that the "Mayflower"
of the Jesuits sailed from Honfleur for the shores of New England. She
was the "Jonas," formerly in the service of De Monts, a small craft
bearing forty-eight sailors and colonists, including two Jesuits, Father
Quentin and Brother Du Thet. She carried horses, too, and goats, and was
abundantly stored with all things needful by the pious munificence of
her patrons. A courtier named La Saussaye was chief of the colony,
Captain Charles Fleury commanded. the ship, and, as she winged her way
across the Atlantic, benedictions hovered over her from lordly halls and
perfumed chambers.
On the sixteenth of May, La Saussaye touched at La Heve, where he heard
mass, planted a cross, and displayed the scutcheon of Madame de
Guercheville. Thence, passing on to Port Royal, he found Biard, Masse,
their servant-boy, an apothecary, and one man beside. Biencourt and his
followers were scattered about the woods and shores, digging the
tuberous roots called ground-nuts, catching alewives in the brooks, and
by similar expedients sustaining their miserable existence. Taking the
two Jesuits on board, the voyagers steered for the Penobscot. A fog rose
upon the sea. They sailed to and fro, groping their way in blindness,
straining their eyes through the mist, and trembling each instant lest
they should descry the black outline of some deadly reef and the ghostly
death-dance of the breakers, But Heaven heard their prayers. At night
they could see the stars. The sun rose resplendent on a laughing sea,
and his morning beams streamed fair and full on the wild heights of the
island of Mount Desert. They entered a bay that stretched inland between
iron-bound shores, and gave it the name of St. Sauveur. It is now called
Frenchman's Bay. They saw a coast-line of weather-beaten crags set thick
with spruce and fir, the surf-washed cliffs of Great Head and Schooner
Head, the rocky front of Newport Mountain, patched with ragged woods,
the arid domes of Dry Mountain and Green Mountain, the round bristly
backs of the Porcupine Islands, and the waving outline of the
Gouldsborough Hills.
La Saussaye cast anchor not far from Schooner Head, and here he lay till
evening. The jet-black shade betwixt crags and sea, the pines along the
cliff, pencilled against the fiery sunset, the dreamy slumber of distant
mountains bathed in shadowy purples—such is the scene that in this our
day greets the wandering artist, the roving collegian bivouacked on the
shore, or the pilgrim from stifled cities renewing his laded strength in
the mighty life of Nature. Perhaps they then greeted the adventurous
Frenchmen. There was peace on the wilderness and peace on the sea; but
none in this missionary bark, pioneer of Christianity and civilization.
A rabble of angry sailors clamored on her deck, ready to mutiny over the
terms of their engagement. Should the time of their stay be reckoned
from their landing at La Heve, or from their anchoring at Mount Desert?
Fleury, the naval commander, took their part. Sailor, courtier, and
priest gave tongue together in vociferous debate. Poutrincourt was far
away, a ruined man, and the intractable Vice-Admiral had ceased from
troubling; yet not the less were the omens of the pious enterprise
sinister and dark. The company, however, went ashore, raised a cross,
and heard mass.
At a distance in the woods they saw the signal smoke of Indians, whom
Biard lost no time in visiting. Some of them were from a village on the
shore, three leagues westward. They urged the French to go with them to
their wigwams. The astute savages had learned already how to deal with a
Jesuit.
"Our great chief, Asticou, is there. He wishes for baptism. He is very
sick. He will die unbaptized. He will burn in hell, and it will be all
your fault."
This was enough. Biard embarked in a canoe, and they paddied him to the
spot, where he found the great chief, Asticou, in his wigwam, with a
heavy cold in the head. Disappointed of his charitable purpose, the
priest consoled himself with observing the beauties of the neighboring
shore, which seemed to him better fitted than St. Sauveur for the
intended settlement. It was a gentle slope, descending to the water,
covered with tall grass, and backed by rocky hills. It looked southeast
upon a harbor where a fleet might ride at anchor, sheltered from the
gales by a cluster of islands.
The ship was brought to the spot, and the colonists disembarked. First
they planted a cross; then they began their labors, and with their
labors their quarrels. La Saussaye, zealous for agriculture, wished to
break ground and raise crops immediately; the rest opposed him, wishing
first to be housed and fortified. Fleury demanded that the ship should
be unladen, and La Saussaye would not consent. Debate ran high, when
suddenly all was harmony, and the disputants were friends once more in
the pacification of a common danger.
Far out at sea, beyond the islands that sheltered their harbor, they saw
an approaching sail; and as she drew near, straining their anxious eyes,
they could descry the red flags that streamed from her masthead and her
stern; then the black muzzles of her cannon,—they counted seven on a
side; then the throng of men upon her decks. The wind was brisk and
fair; all her sails were set; she came on, writes a spectator, more
swiftly than an arrow.
Six years before, in 1607, the ships of Captain Newport had conveyed to
the banks of James River the first vital germ of English colonization on
the continent. Noble and wealthy speculators with Hispaniola, Mexico,
and Peru for their inspiration, had combined to gather the fancied
golden harvest of Virginia, received a charter from the Crown, and taken
possession of their El Dorado. From tavern, gaming-house, and brothel
was drawn the staple the colony,—ruined gentlemen, prodigal sons,
disreputable retainers, debauched tradesmen. Yet it would be foul
slander to affirm that the founders of Virginia were all of this stamp;
for among the riotous crew were men of worth, and, above them all, a
hero disguised by the homeliest of names. Again and again, in direst woe
and jeopardy, the infant settlement owed its life to the heart and hand
of John Smith.
Several years had elapsed since Newport's voyage; and the colony,
depleted by famine, disease, and an Indian war, had been recruited by
fresh emigration, when one Samuel Argall arrived at Jamestown, captain
of an illicit trading-vessel. He was a man of ability and force,—one
of those compounds of craft and daring in which the age was fruitful;
for the rest, unscrupulous and grasping. In the spring of 1613 he
achieved a characteristic exploit,—the abduction of Pocahontas, that
most interesting of young squaws, or, to borrow the style of the day, of
Indian princesses. Sailing up the Potomac he lured her on board his
ship, and then carried off the benefactress of the colony a prisoner to
Jamestown. Here a young man of family, Rolfe, became enamoured of her,
married her with more than ordinary ceremony, and thus secured a firm
alliance between her tribesmen and the English.
Meanwhile Argall had set forth on another enterprise. With a ship of one
hundred and thirty tons, carrying fourteen guns and sixty men, he sailed
in May for islands off the coast of Maine to fish, as he says for cod.
He had a more important errand; for Sir Thomas Dale, Governor of
Virginia, had commissioned him to expel the French from any settlement
they might have made within the limits of King James's patents. Thick
fogs involved him; and when the weather cleared he found himself not far
from the Bay of Penobscot. Canoes came out from shore; the Indians
climbed the ship's side, and, as they gained the deck, greeted the
astonished English with an odd pantomime of bows and flourishes, which,
in the belief of the latter, could have been learned from none but
Frenchmen. By signs, too, and by often repeating the word Norman,—by
which they always designated the French,—they betrayed the presence of
the latter. Argall questioned them as well as his total ignorance of
their language would permit, and learned, by signs, the position and
numbers of the colonists. Clearly they were no match for him. Assuring
the Indians that the Normans were his friends, and that he longed to see
them, he retained one of the visitors as a guide, dismissed the rest
with presents, and shaped his course for Mount Desert.
Now the wild heights rose in view; now the English could see the masts
of a small ship anchored in the sound; and now, as they rounded the
islands, four white tents were visible on the grassy slope between the
water and the woods. They were a gift from the Queen to Madame de
Guercheville and her missionaries. Argall's men prepared for fight,
while their Indian guide, amazed, broke into a howl of lamentation.
On shore all was confusion. Bailleul, the pilot, went to reconnoitre,
and ended by hiding among the islands. La Saussaye lost presence of
mind, and did nothing for defence. La Motte, his lieutenant, with
Captain Fleury, an ensign, a sergeant, the Jesuit Du Thet, and a few of
the bravest men, hastened on board the vessel, but had no time to cast
loose her cables. Argall bore down on them, with a furious din of drums
and trumpets, showed his broadside, and replied to their hail with a
volley of cannon and musket shot. "Fire! Fire!" screamed Fleury. But
there was no gunner to obey, till Du Thet seized and applied the match.
"The cannon made as much noise as the enemy's," writes Biard; but, as
the inexperienced artillerist forgot to aim the piece, no other result
ensued. Another storm of musketry, and Brother Gilbert du Thet rolled
helpless on the deck.
The French ship was mute. The English plied her for a time with shot,
then lowered a boat and boarded. Under the awnings which covered her,
dead and wounded men lay strewn about her deck, and among them the brave
lay brother, smothering in his blood. He had his wish; for, on leaving
France, he had prayed with uplifted hands that he might not return, but
perish in that holy enterprise. Like the Order of which he was a humble
member, he was a compound of qualities in appearance contradictory. La
Motte, sword in hand, showed fight to the last, and won the esteem of
his captors.
The English landed without meeting any show of resistance, and ranged at
will among the tents, the piles of baggage and stores, and the buildings
and defences newly begun. Argall asked for the commander, but La
Saussaye had fled to the woods. The crafty Englishman seized his chests,
caused the locks to be picked, searched till he found the royal letters
and commissions, withdrew them, replaced everything else as he had found
it, and again closed the lids. In the morning, La Saussaye, between the
English and starvation, preferred the former, and issued from his hiding
place. Argall received him with studious courtesy. That country, he
said, belonged to his master, King James. Doubtless they had authority
from their own sovereign for thus encroaching upon it; and, for his
part, he was prepared to yield all respect to the commissions of the
King of France, that the peace between the two nations might not be
disturbed. Therefore he prayed that the commissions might be shown to
him. La Saussaye opened his chests. The royal signature was nowhere to
be found. At this, Argall's courtesy was changed to wrath. He denounced
the Frenchmen as robbers and pirates who deserved the gallows, removed
their property on board his ship, and spent the afternoon in dividing it
among his followers, The disconsolate French remained on the scene of
their woes, where the greedy sailors as they came ashore would snatch
from them, now a cloak, now a hat, and now a doublet, till the
unfortunate colonists were left half naked. In other respects the
English treated their captives well,—except two of them, whom they
flogged; and Argall, whom Biard, after recounting his knavery, calls "a
gentleman of noble courage," having gained his point, returned to his
former courtesy.
But how to dispose of the prisoners? Fifteen of them, including La
Saussaye and the Jesuit Masse, were turned adrift in an open boat, at
the mercy of the wilderness and the sea. Nearly all were lands-men; but
while their unpractised hands were struggling with the oars, they were
joined among the islands by the fugitive pilot and his boat's crew. Worn
and half starved, the united bands made their perilous way eastward,
stopping from time to time to hear mass, make a procession, or catch
codfish. Thus sustained in the spirit and in the flesh, cheered too by
the Indians, who proved fast friends in need, they crossed the Bay of
Fundy, doubled Cape Sable, and followed the southern coast of Nova
Scotia, till they happily fell in with two French trading-vessels, which
bore them in safety to St. Malo.
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