Yet among them there was one, at
least, who, amid languor and defection, held to his purpose with
indomitable tenacity; and where Champlain was present, there was no room
for despair.
Spring came at last, and, with the breaking up of the ice, the melting
of the snow, and the clamors of the returning wild-fowl, the spirits and
the health of the woe-begone company began to revive. But to misery
succeeded anxiety and suspense. Where was the succor from France? Were
they abandoned to their fate like the wretched exiles of La Roche? In a
happy hour, they saw an approaching sail. Pontgrave, with forty men,
cast anchor before their island on the sixteenth of June; and they
hailed him as the condemned hails the messenger of his pardon.
Weary of St. Croix, De Monts resolved to seek out a more auspicious
site, on which to rear the capital of his wilderness dominion. During
the preceding September, Champlain had ranged the westward coast in a
pinnace, visited and named the island of Mount Desert, and entered the
mouth of the river Penobscot, called by him the Pemetigoet, or
Pentegoet, and previously known to fur-traders and fishermen as the
Norembega, a name which it shared with all the adjacent region.[FN#27]
Now, embarking a second time, in a bark of fifteen tons, with De Monts,
several gentlemen, twenty sailors, and an Indian with his squaw, he set
forth on the eighteenth of June on a second voyage of discovery.
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