ships were sent home in the autumn with news of the
expedition, their leader being especially charged to find
out whether the rock crystals carried back by Cartier
had turned out to be diamonds. All the other colonists
remained and spent the winter in this place. In spite of
their long preparation and of their commodious buildings,
they seem to have endured sufferings as great as, or even
greater than, those of Cartier's men at Stadacona seven
years before. Supplies of food ran short, and even in
the autumn before the stern winter had begun it was
necessary to put the whole company on carefully measured
rations. Disease broke out among the French, as it had
broken out under Cartier, and about fifty of their number
perished before the coming of the spring. Their lot was
rendered more dreadful still by quarrelling and crime.
Roberval could keep his colonists in subjection only by
the use of irons and by the application of the lash. The
gibbet, reared beside the fort, claimed its toll of their
number.

The winter of their misery drew slowly to its close. The
ice of the river began to break in April. On June 5,
1543, their leader, Roberval, embarked on an expedition
to explore the Saguenay, 'leaving thirty persons behind
in the fort, with orders that if Roberval had not returned
by the first of July, they were to depart for France.'
Whither he went and what he found we do not know. We read
that on June 14. certain of his company came back with
messages to the fort: that five days later still others
came back with instructions that the company at the fort