attempts had indeed been made by the Marquis de la Roche,
but these had resulted only in the marooning of fifty
unfortunate convicts on Sable Island. The first real
colonizing venture of the French in the New World was
that of the Sieur de Monts, the patron and associate of
Champlain. [Footnote: See The founder of New France in
this Series, chap. ii.] The site of this first colony
was in Acadia. Armed with viceregal powers and a trading
monopoly for ten years, De Monts gathered his colonists,
equipped two ships, and set out from Havre de Grace in
April 1604. The company numbered about a hundred and
fifty Frenchmen of various ranks and conditions, from
the lowest to the highest--convicts taken from the prisons,
labourers and artisans, Huguenot ministers and Catholic
priests, some gentlemen of noble birth, among them Jean
de Biencourt, Baron de Poutrincourt, and the already
famous explorer Champlain.

The vessels reached Cape La Heve on the south coast of
Nova Scotia in May. They rounded Cape Sable, sailed up
the Bay of Fundy, and entered the Annapolis Basin, which
Champlain named Port Royal. The scene here so stirred
the admiration of the Baron de Poutrincourt that he
coveted the place as an estate for his family, and begged
De Monts, who by his patent was lord of the entire country,
to grant him the adjoining lands. De Monts consented;
the estate was conveyed; and Poutrincourt became the
seigneur of Port Royal.

The adventurers crossed to the New Brunswick shore, turned