colony in Acadia (Nova Scotia). With a band of colonists--if we can
apply that name to a motley assemblage of jailbirds and high-born
gentlemen, of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers--they sailed
for America in 1604.

Thirty years of bloody warfare in France had but recently come to an
end, and the followers of the two faiths were still full of bitter
hatred. It is easy, therefore, to believe Champlain's report that monk
and minister quarreled incessantly and sometimes came to blows over
religious questions.

This state of feeling came near to causing the death of an innocent
man. After the New World had been reached, and when the expedition was
coasting along the eastern shore of the Bay of Fundy, seeking a place
for a settlement, one day a party went ashore to stroll in the woods.
On reassembling, a priest named Nicolas Aubry was missing. Trumpets
were sounded and cannon fired from the ships. All in vain. There
{107} was no reply but the echo of the ancient forest. Then suspicion
fell upon a certain Huguenot with whom Aubry had often quarreled. He
was accused of having killed the missing priest. In spite of his
strenuous denial of the charge, many persons firmly believed him
guilty. Thus matters stood for more than two weeks. One day, however,
the crew of a boat that had been sent back to the neighborhood where
the priest had disappeared heard a strange sound and saw a small black
object in motion on the shore. Rowing nearer, they descried a man
waving a hat on a stick. Imagine their surprise and joy when they
recognized Aubry! He had become separated from his comrades, had lost
his way, and for sixteen days of misery and terror had kept himself
alive on berries and wild fruits.

The place finally selected for settlement was a dreary island near the
mouth of the St. Croix River, which now forms the boundary between
Maine and New Brunswick. It had but one recommendation, namely, that
it was admirably suited for defence, and these Frenchmen, reared in
war-time, seem to have thought more of that single advantage than of
the far more pressing needs of a colony. Cannon were landed, a {108}
battery was built, and a fort was erected. Then buildings quickly
followed, and by the autumn the whole party was well housed in its
settlement, called Sainte Croix (Holy Cross). The river they named
differently, but it has since borne the title of that ill-starred
colony.

When winter came, the island, expo