A clause in his commission empowered him to impress idlers and vagabonds
as material for his colony,--an ominous provision of which he largely
availed himself. His company was strangely incongruous. The best and the
meanest of France were crowded together in his two ships. Here were
thieves and ruffians dragged on board by force; and here were many
volunteers of condition and character, with Baron de Poutrincourt and
the indefatigable Champlain. Here, too, were Catholic priests and
Huguenot ministers; for, though De Monts was a Calvinist, the Church, as
usual, displayed her banner in the van of the enterprise, and he was
forced to promise that he would cause the Indians to be instructed in
the dogmas of Rome.
CHAPTER III.
1604, 1605.
ACADIA OCCUPIED.
De Monts, with one of his vessels, sailed from Havre de Grace on the
seventh of April, 1604. Pontgrave, with stores for the colony, was to
follow in a few days.
Scarcely were they at sea, when ministers and priests fell first to
discussion, then to quarrelling, then to blows. "I have seen our cure
and the minister," says Champlain, "fall to with their fists on
questions of faith. I cannot say which had the more pluck, or which hit
the harder; but I know that the minister sometimes complained to the
Sieur de Monts that he had been beaten.
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