USA > Maine > Hancock County > Mount Desert > Mount Desert : a history > Part 3
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1 For this voyage of Biencourt and Biard see Biard's letter printed in Maine Hist. Soc. Coll. second series, v. ii, 418, and Biard's Relation, i, 32.
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the settlement. National rivalries began to be talked about around the fires. Englishmen had planted a colony - no one knew how feeble it was - down on the James River, and Dutchmen had established a trading post on the end of Manhat- tan Island. The French claims were represented only by this shivering band among the snow- drifts at Port Royal and by another little group where " deep within the wild monotony of deso- lation, on the icy verge of the great northern river, the hand of Champlain upheld the fleur-de- lis on the rock of Quebec."
Before the winter had passed, the vessel sent by Poutrincourt arrived with provisions, but bring- ing also another Jesuit, a lay brother, who came as the business representative of Mme. de Guerche- ville, and bringing also the news that the devout lady of honor had won to her plans the support of the queen mother, Marie de Medicis, and many of the courtiers, " who found it a more grateful task to win heaven for the heathen than merit for themselves," and was preparing to send out her main expedition the following year.
It was on the 12th of March, 1613, that this ex- pedition finally set sail from Honfleur. The ship Jonas, formerly in the service of De Monts, bore the new colony. She was a little vessel of about one hundred tons, and Charles Flory was master of her. The chief of the expedition was the Sieur de la Saussaye, and with him went another Jesuit,
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Father Quentin, the lay brother Gilbert du Thet, and forty-eight settlers, artisans and laborers. They carried horses, goats, and all things deemed needful by the pious patrons of the enterprise. A voyage of two months brought them to La Hève, where they set up a cross and the shield of Mme. de Guercheville. At Port Royal they found that famine had scattered the settlers into the woods in the search for food. Fathers Biard and Masse were taken on board the Jonas, and all was ready.
" We were detained," says Father Biard, " five days at Port Royal, by adverse winds, when a favorable northeaster having arisen, we set out with the intention of sailing up Pentegoet [Pe- nobscot] River, to a place called Kadesquit, which had been chosen for our new residence, and which possessed great advantages for this pur- pose. But God willed otherwise, for when we had reached the southeastern coast of the Island of Manan, the weather changed, and the sea was covered with a fog so dense that we could not distinguish day from night. We were greatly alarmed, for this place is full of breakers and rocks, upon which, in the darkness, we feared our vessel might drift. As the wind did not permit us to put out to sea, we remained in this position two days and two nights, tacking sometimes one way, sometimes another, as God inspired us. Our trib- ulation led us to pray to God to deliver us from
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danger, and send us to some place where we might contribute to Hisglory. He heard us, in Hismercy, for on the same evening we began to discover the stars, and in the morning the fog had cleared away. We then discovered that we were near the coast of Mount Desert, an island which the savages call Pemetic. The pilot steered towards the east- ern shore, and landed us in a large and beautiful harbor. We returned thanks to God, elevating the Cross, and singing praises with the holy Sac- rifice of the Mass. We named the place and har- bor Saint Sauveur." 1
As they lay at anchor a quarrel arose between the sailors and the colonists. It appeared that the agreement made in France was to the effect that the sailors were bound to put into any port in Acadia that should be designated by the Jesuits and remain there three months. The sailors maintained that they had thus arrived at a port in Acadia, and that the term of three months ought to date from this arrival. To this it was answered that Mount Desert was not the port designated, which was Kadesquit, and there- fore that the time they were at anchor was not to be taken into account.
1 The landfall cannot be exactly identified. It was on the "eastern shore " of the island, and in a " large and beautiful harbor." It was also, as the later narrative shows, some nine miles from the Indian village at the entrance of Somes Sound. It was therefore somewhere in the vicinity of Bar Harbor. The name of Saint Sauveur was transferred to the final settlement.
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" While this question was pending," says the Father, " the Savages made a fire, in order that we might see the smoke." On being assured that the Fathers from Port Royal were in the ship, Indians came alongside. Biard recognized them as some of those he had met on his journey of exploration two summers before. These savages asked the colonists to establish themselves at Pemetic (Mount Desert), urging that it was " quite as good a place as Kadesquit," but the Jesuits would not listen to them until they described how " Asticou, our Sagamore, is sick unto death, and if you do not come to our village, he will die without baptism and you will be the cause of his going to hell. He wishes to be baptized." No priest could withstand that appeal : so Father Biard and the interpreter and La Motte, the mate of the Jonas, got into the Indian canoes and were paddled along under the dark cliffs of New- port mountain, by the surf-beaten rocks of Schooner Head and Great Head, by fir-clad points and islands, " for three leagues," until they came to the Indian village on what is now Man- chester's Point at the entrance of Somes Sound. Here they found that the illness of the chief was no more than a pretext by which the savages had induced them to view the spot where they wished the Jesuits to settle; and their device was abundantly successful. The point opposite the Indian village seemed an ideal place for their
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colony, and so, as this settled all disputes, the ship was brought round and it was unanimously agreed to remain at Mount Desert.
Father Biard thus describes the chosen site : " This place is a beautiful hillside sloping gently from the seashore, and supplied with water by a spring on either side. There are from twenty-five to thirty acres, covered with grass, which, in some places, reaches the height of a man. It fronts the south and east. The soil is rich and fertile. The harbor is smooth as a pond, being shut in by the large island of Mount Desert, besides sheltered by certain smaller islands which break the force of the winds and waves, and fortify the entrance. It is large enough to hold any fleet, and ships can discharge within a cable's length from the shore. It is in latitude forty-four and one half degrees north, a position more northerly than that of Bordeaux.1 When we had landed in this place, and planted the Cross, we began to work, and with the work began our dis- putes, the omen and origin of our misfortunes. The cause of these disputes was that our Captain, La Saussaye, wished to attend to agriculture, and our other leaders besought him not to occupy the workmen in that manner, and so delay the erec- tion of dwellings and fortifications. He would
1 Father Biard's description so clearly identifies the site of Saint Sauveur that Parkman and all the other authorities agree that it must have been at Fernald's Point at the entrance of Somes Sound.
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not comply with this request, and from these dis- putes arose others, which lasted until the English obliged us to make peace in the manner I am about to relate."
For the pious hopes of the originators of the enterprise and the activities of the pioneers were doomed to sudden and surprising extinction. Some Indians fishing in their canoes off the outer islands descried a vessel and, boarding her, made known to the captain that white men were building houses at Pemetic. Now the ship was the Treasurer1 of Jamestown in Virginia, com-
1 The ship Treasurer first appears in the annals of the Vir- ginia trade in 1612, when she came out in command of Argall, who had previously made two voyages to Virginia, first in 1609 in command of a vessel sent by John Cornelius, one of the London Company, "to trucke with the Colony and fish for stur- geon " (Smith's Virginia, p. 88), and second in 1610 in command of the Delaware bearing Lord Delaware, the new governor. Lord Delaware returned to England on account of his ill health, in March, 1611, and soon after placed Argall in command of the Treasurer, a new vessel of about 250 tons which he and sev- eral noble associates had built for the Virginia business, John Pory, secretary of Virginia, in his letter to Sir Dudley Carle- ton (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. fourth series, ix, 4) calls her a " man of warre," and says that Argall was part owner of her. Argall continued in command of this vessel for four years. In her he procured corn from the Indians for the starving settlers at Jamestown, and in her he effected the capture of Pocahontas, which secured the Virginia colony from the hostility of the In- dians. In her in 1613 he made the expedition against the French colonies in Maine and the Dutch at Manhattan, and in her he returned to England in 1616 with Sir Thomas Dale, Pocahon- tas, and her husband, John Rolfe. Argall came back as deputy governor of the colony, and the Treasurer remained in the
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manded by Samuel Argall. From the mimic ges- tures of the Indians and the word "Norman " Argall guessed that the settlers at Pemetic could be none other than Frenchmen, and though osten- sibly on a fishing voyage, he really bore a com- mission commanding him to expel Frenchmen and other interlopers from the territory of King James. Detaining one of the Indians as an un- willing guide, - for too late did the savages dis- cover that these white men were foes to their new friends, - Argall set all sail, and soon was racing into the Western Way before the strong southwester, the British flag flying, and "the drums and trumpets making a furious noise."
The French were utterly surprised. The pilot shoved off in the longboat to meet the incoming stranger, but discovering the evident hostile in- tent he hid behind Greening's Island. The mate and a dozen others tumbled aboard the Jonas, but they could do nothing for defense, nor could they escape, for the sails had all been unbent and rigged as an awning against the summer sun. The governor and most of the men stayed on shore. When they came within range of the Jonas the English fired a volley which the French in their consternation were unable to return, until Father Gilbert du Thet, hearing Captain Flory
service of the Company until in 1620, when being found " starke rotten and unserviceable," she was broken up at Bermuda and her guns used to equip the forts there.
FERNALD'S POINT
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order his men to fire, "took a match and caused our cannon to speak as loudly as the enemy's," only, as Father Biard adds, " the misfortune was that he did not take aim, if he had done so there might have been something more than noise." The Treasurer ranged alongside of the Jonas and fired another volley, by which the captain and three others were hurt, and the brave young priest, du Thet, fell mortally wounded across the helm.1 As the English boarded the ship the French threw themselves into the rowboat or into the water and made for the beach. Two more were killed as they swam,2 while the French on shore, seeing the fate of their comrades, fled into the woods or up the crags of Flying Mountain.
And now Argall proved himself as wily as he was prompt. In the half-finished fort he found the strong box of the governor, La Saussaye, and from this he took all the papers and credentials of the colonists. Gradually the French, finding nothing but starvation before them in the woods, came in and yielded themselves prisoners. La
1 He died the next day. "Thus," said Biard, "his prayers were granted, for, on our departure from Honfleur, he had raised his hands and eyes toward heaven, praying that he might return no more to France, but that he might die laboring for the salva- tion of souls, and especially of the savages. He was buried the same day at the foot of a large cross which we had erected on our arrival."
2 "They were both," says Biard, "promising young men, Le Moine from Dieppe and Nenen of Beauvais. Their bodies were found nine days afterwards and carefully buried."
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Saussaye was brought before Argall, who charged him with being a trespasser upon the territory of the king of England. This La Saussaye nat- urally denied, and claimed his rights under the grants of the king of France, but as he was unable to produce his commission, he and his comrades were held as prisoners and the French camp given to the pillage of the Virginians. " It is difficult," says Father Biard, " to believe how much sorrow we experienced during this time, for we did not know what was to be our fate. On the one hand, we expected either death or slavery from the English ; and on the other, to remain an entire year among the Savages seemed to us a lingering and painful death."
Argall's act has been censured as a mere buc- canneering or piratical enterprise, undertaken in the course of a fishing voyage. Even Parkman says that it was utterly unauthorized.1 But the
1 Sir Samuel Argall was born in Bristol, England, in 1572 and died in 1639. He first came to Virginia in 1609 and was for ten years closely associated with the colony. His character has been almost uniformly execrated by writers on the history of Virginia. The chief accusations against him are contained in the letter of the Council of the London Company superseding him in the office of deputy governor of Virginia in 1618. The charges recorded in that letter have been accepted by the historians as if they were authentic. It should, however, be noted that these charges of greed and rapacity and fraudulent practices are inde- finite and unaccompanied by proof. After his return to England Argall courted investigation, but the case was never pressed, and the suit instituted against him came to nothing. The records of the London Company show that the same men who signed the
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Virginia records prove that his enterprise was an authorized one and was undertaken with the
letter of recall containing the charges showed him afterwards respect and friendship.
The deed by which Argall is best known, the capture of Poca- hontas in 1612, has usually been denounced as an act of infamous treachery, but it was certainly defensible on grounds of public policy and its results were beneficial to the infant colony. The object of the capture of Pocahontas was set forth clearly by Argall himself (Letter to Hawes, Purchas, iv, 1765). He says that he had resolved to seize Pocahontas " for the ransom of so many Englishmen as were prisoners with Powhatan." This pur- pose was accomplished, for the English captives were restored and peace was established between the Indians and the colonists. Before a year had passed Pocahontas regarded her abduction as the happiest event of her life and refused to return to the Indians, declaring that she " would dwell with the English who loved her best." By an apparently legitimate stratagem Argall thus accomplished a ransom and a peace which Sir Thomas Dale had said would require an army of two thousand men, and put an effectual and permanent check upon the hostility of the Pow- hatans.
Between 1617 and 1619 Argall was the deputy governor of Virginia and proved himself harsh but efficient. The stringent regulations which he adopted for the government of the colony have been censured for their severity but appear to have been well adapted to the exigencies of the situation and to the unstable and motley character of the people under his government. His Sunday laws, which have been particularly condemned as acts of tyranny, were really gentler than the laws of Sir Thomas Dale which they superseded, while the outcry against his trade regula- tions was obviously raised by avaricious speculators whose illicit trade was interfered with.
After his return to England Argall served in 1620 as Captain of the Golden Phoenix in the expedition under Sir Robert Mansell against Algiers. In 1623 he was knighted by King James, and two years later, in the war with Spain, he was given com- mand of a small fleet in the Channel which captured and sent in seven Spanish prizes. He then joined the unsuccessful expedition
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fishing, but his equipment, a "man of warre," armed with fourteen guns and manned by sixty musketeers, was hardly one for a peaceful fish- ing voyage. He was on his way to execute his orders when the information gained from the Indians led him first to the newer and nearer settlement at Mount Desert. There he discharged the duty laid on him vigorously and, in spite of the insinuations of Biard, without resorting to any stratagems that were not judicious and natural. The records of Virginia completely vin- dicate him from the common charge of piracy and mention that he was given a certificate, under the seal of the colony, declaring that he had in no way exceeded the commission given him.1 His exploit was the premonition of a great and inevitable conflict, not to be decided until, nearly one hundred and fifty years later, Wolfe climbed the Heights of Abraham.
What now was to be done with the prisoners ? Argall had no desire to take them to Virginia, and he could not leave them where they were. He treated them well and took the Jesuits to his own table. La Saussaye himself, and " at least ten others," testified that he committed upon them no act of cruelty, but showed them humanity and courtesy. Biard, writing after his return home, when he had nothing to gain by flattery, wrote
1 Smith's Virginia, p. 115; Hamor, p. 39; Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. second series, ix, 5; fourth series, ix, 41.
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that Argall showed himself "such that we have reason to wish, for his sake, that he may hence- forth serve a better cause, where the nobleness of his heart may be displayed in befriending and not in injuring worthy people." Many consulta- tions were held between Argall and La Saussaye, and, at night, between the French and their pilot, Bailleul, who had not been captured. Finally La Saussaye elected to try and reach the French fishing vessels which came every summer to fish on the banks of Newfoundland. Accordingly he and Father Masse1 with thirteen others were given the "barque," evidently a large open boat like the "patache " of Champlain's voyage, and a good store of provisions, and, joined by the pilot and his boat, they rowed and sailed eastward along the shore until, on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, they met two French trading vessels, which bore them safely to St. Malo.2
1 Masse returned to Canada in 1625, was sent home by Admi- ral Kirk, returned again in 1633, and died in 1646, when on his way to confess the garrison at Fort Richelieu.
2 The length of the stay of the Jesuit colony at Fernald's can- not be accurately stated. Some of the earlier historians have given the impression that the French made permanent settlements in 1613, or at least that their stay was prolonged. In a paper read before the Maine Historical Society, December 7, 1893, Rev. E. C. Cummings pointed out that the historians Williamson and Bancroft had made the same mistake. In Williamson's History of Maine, vol. i, p. 206, we are told, in reference to Fa- ther Biard and his companions: "It is supposed the place of residence selected by the missionaries was on the western side of the pool, a part of the sound which stretches from the south-
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The captured Jonas, with her " pinnace," Cap- tain Flory, the mate La Motte, and Fathers Biard easterly side to the heart of the island. Here they constructed and fortified a habitation, planted a garden, and dwelt five years, entering with great zeal and untiring perseverance upon the work of converting the natives to Christianity."
There is no indication that Williamson was acquainted with Father Biard's Relation. Bancroft was acquainted with the ori- ginal source of information, but he permits a similar error to be implied in liis account. Bancroft says (History of the United States, 9th edition, vol. i, pp. 27, 28) : " A French colony within the United States followed, under the auspices of Mme. de Guerchville and Mary of Medici; the rude intrenchments Saint Sauveur were raised by de Saussaye on the eastern shore of Mount Desert Isle. The conversion of the heathen was the mo- tive of the settlement; and under the summer sky, round a cross in the centre of the hamlet, matins and vespers were regularly chanted. France and the Roman religion had appropriated the soil of Maine." The reader is allowed to enjoy this idyllic pic- ture till more than a hundred pages farther on, when Argall appears upon the scene ; it is natural to suppose that the settle- ment lasted for a considerable period.
Exactly how long "matins and vespers were regularly chanted " round the cross at Fernald's Point we cannot say. The dates which bound the whole adventure admit of only a short stay. On May 16, 1613, the Jonas sighted Cape la Hève, and on November 9, 1613, Argall left Port Royal with Father Biard among his passengers. Between these dates Saint Sauveur was established and destroyed, and Argall had sailed from Mount Desert to Virginia, remained there for a time, and then sailed back again to complete, at his leisure, not only what was lacking in the devastation at Saint Sauveur, but also the destruction of Saint Croix and Port Royal. Here, then, are less than six months distributed between the voyage from La Hève to Port Royal, the getting away from that place, the voyage from Mount Desert, the development of the settlement, the period of invasion and pillage, the voyage to Virginia and detention at Jamestown, the return voyage to Port Royal. It is therefore obvious that the stay of the French at Fernald's Point could hardly have ex- ceeded a few weeks, and may have been measured by days.
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and Quentin, and the rest of the company, were carried to Virginia. There the acting governor, brusque Sir Thomas Dale,1 threatened the pris- oners with the halter, but Argall's interposition secured for them better treatment. Argall was directed at once to fit out the Treasurer, the Jonas, and the captured pinnace and return to complete his work of destruction among the French settlements. Biard went with the expe- dition and, it is alleged, encouraged it " out of the indigestible malice " he bore to Biencourt. In his own narrative he declares his purpose was to find an opportunity of escape, but it is plain that both the French and English looked upon him as a traitor.2 At Saint Sauveur the English- men pulled down the Jesuit's cross and razed the unfinished defenses ; then they went on to Saint Croix and demolished the old buildings there, and then crossed to Port Royal, where they burnt the entire establishment, pulled up the growing crops, and carried away the stock. Biencourt
1 " Hard-headed, indomitable, bristling with energy, full of shrewd common sense, Sir Thomas Dale was always equal to the occasion. . . . He was a soldier who had seen some of the hard- est fighting in the Netherlands and had afterwards been attached to the suite of Henry, Prince of Wales. ... Dale was a true English mastiff, faithful and kind but formidable when aroused, and capable of showing at times some traits of the old wolf. To the upright he was a friend and helper ; toward depraved offend- ers he was merciless." Fiske's Old Virginia, p. 163.
2 For the evidence in regard to Biard's treachery see Park- man, pp. 286-293, with references to Lescarbot and Purchas.
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and his men were driven houseless into the wil- derness.1
As the ships returned to Virginia a storm dis- persed them. The pinnace foundered with six Englishmen in her, and the Jonas, in command of Argall's lieutenant, Turnell, and with Fathers Biard and Quentin on board, was forced to bear away for the Azores. Obtaining provisions at Fayal, they sailed again and duly arrived at Pem- broke in Wales. Thence the Jesuits were sent to Dover and to Calais, and Biard apparently returned "to the tranquil honors of his chair of theology at Lyons."2 Complaint was made by Henri de Montmorenci, admiral of France, to the English government, of the high-handed pro- ceedings of Argall. The reply conceded that Argall acted under a regular commission, but be- yond the return of the Jonas to Mme. de Guerche- ville no redress was ever made. Argall returned to England in June, 1614, bringing with him
1 In the spring following the English attack Poutrincourt arrived at Port Royal and found the place in ashes and his son wandering with his comrades in the woods. Despairing of his enterprise, he returned to France. In 1615 he was given com- mand of the king's forces at the assault of Mery and fell in the attack. Biencourt partly rebuilt Port Royal, and the varied for- tunes of the historic place are told in all the standard histories.
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