Columbus and Other Heroes of American DiscoveryD'Anvers, N.
History
Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery
D'Anvers, N.
America -- Discovery and exploration; North America -- Discovery and exploration
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 slaves. Smith――who, as we have seen in our account of his
work in Virginia was a clear-headed and far-sighted man――turned his
time to better account than did his comrade, and embodied the results
of a careful survey of Maine and the neighboring islands in a map,
which he took to England and submitted to Charles I., urging him to
inaugurate a company for the colonization of a country so rich in
resources, and to give to that country the name of New England.
Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH’S MAP OF NEW ENGLAND.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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