- ary field seemed opened to them on it and the neighboring islands, that La
Saussaye determined to remain there, and having set up a cross as an emblem of his peaceful intentions, he set his men to work to build and plant.
But, alas! Grand Manan was within the limits of the New World already ceded to the English, and before the first crops sown by the French had had time to germinate, Captain Argall—the same who had carried off Pocahontas—sailing up the coast on one of his exploring expeditions from Virginia, heard of the infant settlement, and bore down upon it, bent on its destruction. The French, dreaming of no evil, were, some on land, others, to the number of ten, on board their vessel, at anchor off Bar Harbor.
Boarding the little ship, Argall secretly possessed himself of La Saussaye's papers, including the royal commission under which the Frenchman had acted, and then gave orders for the bombardment of the group of houses which La Saussaye had hoped would have formed the nucleus of the church in the wilderness he had set his heart on founding.
La Saussaye and some of his missionaries were now placed in a boat and sent adrift, to find their way back to Port Royal as best they could. Near the coast of Nova Scotia they were picked up by some fishing vessels, and carried to France. Less fortunate were Father Biard, one of the Jesuit priests, and the secular members of the settlement of Mont Desert, for they were taken to Virginia by Argall, and there thrown into prison by the authorities. They were treated with every possible indignity, until their captor, fearing the consequences to himself, confessed his theft of La Saussaye's commission, and obtained their release.
This was but the beginning of that strife between the French and English for territory belonging to neither, which finally resulted in a world-wide struggle between the two nations. A little later, Argall was sent north, with orders to "remove every landmark of France south of the forty-sixth degree;" and he accomplished his work with an energy and thoroughness worthy of a better cause. First, every trace of the French occupation was obliterated on Grand Manan; and then Port Royal, now deserted by all but a little remnant under the leadership of Biencourt, Pourtrincourt's son, was burned to the ground.
The next European visitors to Maine were our old friend John Smith and Thomas Hunt—the shipmaster who, in 1614, made a cruise up its coasts, collecting not only the fish so plentiful in its bays and rivers, but also a number of "savages," who were sent to Spain by Hunt, and there sold for
