Chevalier, a
young man from St. Malo, and was freighted with disastrous tidings. Dc
Monts's monopoly was rescinded. The life of the enterprise was stopped,
and the establishment at Port Royal could no longer be supported; for
its expense was great, the body of the colony being laborers in the pay
of the company. Nor was the annulling of the patent the full extent of
the disaster; for, during the last summer, the Dutch had found their
way to the St. Lawrence, and carried away a rich harvest of furs, while
other interloping traders had plied a busy traffic along the coasts,
and, in the excess of their avidity, dug up the bodies of buried Indians
to rob them of their funeral robes.

It was to the merchants and fishermen of the Norman, Breton, and
Biscayan ports, exasperated at their exclusion from a lucrative trade,
and at the confiscations which had sometimes followed their attempts to
engage in it, that this sudden blow was due. Money had been used freely
at court, and the monopoly, unjustly granted, had been more unjustly
withdrawn. De Monts and his company, who had spent a hundred thousand
livres, were allowed six thousand in requital, to be collected, if
possible, from the fur-traders in the form of a tax.

Chevalier, captain of the ill-omened bark, was entertained with a
hospitality little deserved, since, having been intrusted with sundry
hams, fruits, spices, sweetmeats, jellies, and other dainties, sent by
the generous De Monts to his friends of New France, he with his crew had
devoured them on the voyage, alleging that, in their belief, the inmates
of Port Royal would all be dead before their arrival.

Choice there was none, and Port Royal must be abandoned. Built on a
false basis, sustained only by the fleeting favor of a government, the
generous enterprise had come to naught. Yet Poutrincourt, who in virtue
of his grant from De Monts owned the place, bravely resolved that, come
what might, he would see the adventure to an end, even should it involve
emigration with his family to the wilderness. Meanwhile, he began the
dreary task of abandonment, sending boat-loads of men and stores to
Canseau, where lay the ship "Jonas," eking out her diminished profits by
fishing for cod.

Membertou was full of grief at the departure of his friends. He had
built a palisaded village not far from Port Royal, and here were
mustered some four hundred of his warriors for a foray into the country
of the Armouchiquois, dwellers a