When the voyagers reached Havre de Grace,
a grievous blow awaited them. The Commander de Chastes was dead.
His mantle fell upon Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, gentleman in
ordinary of the King's chamber, and Governor of Polls. Undaunted by the
fate of La Roche, this nobleman petitioned the king for leave to
colonize La Cadie, or Acadie, a region defined as extending from the
fortieth to the forty-Sixth degree of north latitude, or from
Philadelphia to beyond Montreal. The King's minister, Sully, as he
himself tells us, opposed the plan, on the ground that the colonization
of this northern wilderness would never repay the outlay; but De Monts
gained his point. He was made Lieutenant-General in Acadia, with
viceregal powers; and withered Feudalism, with her antique forms and
tinselled follies, was again to seek a new home among the rocks and
pine-trees of Nova Scotia. The foundation of the enterprise was a
monopoly of the fur-trade, and in its favor all past grants were
unceremoniously annulled. St. Malo, Rouen, Dieppe, and Rochelle greeted
the announcement with unavailing outcries. Patents granted and revoked,
monopolies decreed and extinguished, had involved the unhappy traders in
ceaseless embarrassment. De Monts, however, preserved De Chastes's old
company, and enlarged it, thus making the chief malcontents sharers in
his exclusive rights, and converting them from enemies into partners.
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