Acadians -- History -- Juvenile fiction; Nova Scotia -- Description and travel -- Juvenile fiction; Vacations -- Juvenile fiction
"They found the Indians everywhere very friendly, especially the old
chief, Membertou, who was said to be nearly one hundred years old.
"When their buildings were finished, De Monts sailed back for France,
knowing that he could be spared until after the harvests were gathered.
Pontgravé was left in charge of the colony in his absence, assisted by
Champlain and Champdore. When the spring of 1606 came and De Monts had
not returned, the colonists were alarmed. They needed the supplies that
he had promised to bring them, and they were afraid that something had
happened to him. So, late in July, Pontgravé started off to see if he
could not find some fishing-vessel to take them all back to France.
"In the meantime, De Monts in France had had trouble in getting people
to interest themselves in the Port Royal Colony. But Poutrincourt, who
had returned with him, proved his best friend, and helped in fitting out
a vessel called the 'Jonas,' and promised to return to Acadia with De
Monts, and take his family with him, to establish a permanent colony.
"With them came Lescarbot, an advocate of Paris, who afterwards wrote a
full account of his residence in Acadia, from which we learn many
interesting details that, but for him, we would not know. Pontgravé fell
in with a shallop from De Monts' vessel and all returned to Port Royal.
De Monts wasn't perfectly satisfied with Port Royal for a permanent
settlement, and he persuaded Poutrincourt to make a journey farther
south to find a better place; but this expedition ended badly, and
Poutrincourt returned, convinced that he could be better off at Port
Royal than anywhere else in the New World.
"Unluckily, the merchants in France who had supplied money for this
trading colony sent word that they had decided to give it up. Without
money with which to trade, the colony could not prosper, and so the
majority of the colonists decided to go back to France. Poutrincourt,
however, was determined to come back, and he took home with him
specimens of grain grown in Acadia, and various animal, vegetable, and
mineral products, to show the King what could be raised in Acadia. The
King encouraged him to go back, and ratified the grant of land that De
Monts had given him.
"So Poutrincourt returned to Acadia, and it is greatly to the credit of
the Indians he had left in charge that all the buildings were unharmed.
A new crop of grain, planted by the Indians, was growing finely, and
Membertou and savages welcomed him very cordially.
"The King had given him a grant of money to be used for the Church and
he brought with him a Jesuit priest, who baptized the savages by
wholesale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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