W. D. Williamson, _History of the State of Maine_ (Hallowell, 1832), vol. I, p. 206, states, but without giving any authority, that there had been Jesuits at Mt. Desert for five years. Footnote 127: The story of his having secretly rifled La Saussaye's trunks of his papers, and then demanded them from him, seems hardly likely, in view of other facts. It rests on the authority of Biard (“Relation,” in Levermore, _Forerunners_, vol. II, p. 496). As to Biard's character and credibility, _cf._ Biggar, _Trading Companies_, pp. 263-65. Soon afterward, Argall, with three ships and the Jesuit Biard, who, apparently out of personal rancor toward Biencourt, had turned traitor to his former associates, again set sail from Virginia, for the purpose of completely extirpating the French settlements. Revisiting St. Sauveur, he burned the buildings, and tearing down the French cross, erected another. Continuing his voyage, he put in at St. Croix, where he likewise burned the buildings and confiscated the stores collected there.[128] Arriving next at Port Royal, from which the inhabitants were temporarily absent, a few miles off, after taking as booty even the locks and nails from the buildings, as well as the food, ammunition, and clothes of the unfortunate French, he burned the whole settlement to ashes.[129] It is difficult to conceive of a more dastardly act than thus to rob a peaceful colony of its stores, and then to render it homeless on the approach of winter in a far northern country. Footnote 128: Biard, in Levermore, _Forerunners_, vol. II, p. 506. _Cf._ also the English account in Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, pp. 214-16, 271. Footnote 129: Biard and Purchas, _ubi supra_; also Biencourt's complaint, in Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 725 _ff._ and _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 15.