Canada -- Description and travel; Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Indians of North America -- Canada
When De Monts returned to France in 1605, he found that enemies had been
busily and successfully at work in destroying his influence at court.
Complaints of the injustice of his exclusive privileges poured in from
all the ports in the kingdom. It was urged that he had interfered with
and thwarted the fisheries, under the pretense of securing the sole
right of trading with the Indian hunters. These statements were
hearkened to by the king, and all the Sieur's privileges were revoked.
De Monts bore up bravely against this disaster. He entered into a new
engagement with De Poutrincourt, who had followed him to France, and
dispatched a vessel from Rochelle on the 13th of May to succor the
colony in Acadia. The voyage was unusually protracted, and the settlers
at Port Royal, at length reduced to great extremities, feared that they
had been abandoned to their fate. The wise and energetic Pontgrave did
all that man could do to reassure them; but, finally, their supplies
being completely exhausted, he was constrained to yield to the general
wish, and embark his people for France. He had scarcely sailed, however,
when he heard of the arrival of Poutrincourt and the long-desired
supplies. He then immediately returned to Port Royal, where he found his
chief already landed. Under able and judicious management,[101] the
colony increased and prospered until 1614, when it was attacked and
broken up by Sir Samuel Argall with a Virginian force.[102]
The enemies of De Monts did not relax in their efforts till he was
deprived of his high commission. A very insufficient indemnity was
granted for the great expenses he had incurred. Still he was not
disheartened: in the following year, 1607, he obtained a renewal of his
privileges for one year, on condition that he should plant a colony upon
the banks of the St. Lawrence. The trading company did not lose
confidence in their principal, although his courtly influence had been
destroyed; but their object was confined to the prosecution of the
lucrative commerce in furs, for which reason they ceased to interest
themselves in Acadia, and turned their thoughts to the Great River of
Canada, where they hoped to find a better field for their undertaking.
They equipped two ships at Honfleur, under the command of Champlain and
Pontgrave, to establish the fur trade at Tadoussac. De Monts remained in
France, vainly endeavoring to obtain an extension of his patent. Despite
his disappointments, he fitted out some vessels in the spring of 1608,
with the assistance of the company, and dispatched them to the River
St. Lawrence on the 13th of April, under the same command as before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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