Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/297

Rh — first appears upon the scenes of ocean and land in the New World. He had sailed into and skirted the shores of Massachusetts Bay, where he had seen vast numbers of the natives in 1605, thus confirming the uniform story of a destructive plague having ravaged the region and nearly exterminated the savages just previous to the coming of the English colonists. Champlain entitled his first publication (1604), “Les Sauvages.” The abortive and long-baffled enterprises at Acadia at last became secondary to that of a strong and firm though at times imperilled hold of established French sway in Canada. A passing notice is here prompted of the curious fact, that, while the first collision between rival European nationalities on this continent — that between the French Huguenots and the Spaniards — took place at the scene of modern pleasure-resort in winter for a summer climate, the next encounter — that between rival claimants, Englishmen and Frenchmen — occurred in 1613 at the favorite summer-haunt, Mount Desert. Frenchman's Bay still preserves the memory of the onslaught by Captain Argall, of Virginia, upon the settlement made near by, by Saussaye, with a French commission. The latter was charged with “an invasion of British territory,” made such by the sighting of the coast by Cabot. The incident was a significant prognostication of what was to follow through a century and a half of embittered civilized and savage warfare.

It does not appear that any other than amicable relations had existed betwee e n the natives in and around Acadia, and the successive French adventurers there. Some curious incidents of missionary experience in those regions will claim notice in the subsequent chapter assigned to that subject. Cartier, in his first voyage, in 1584, was most kindly and hospitably treated by the natives. He requited this kindness by kidnapping two young Indians, whom he carried to France, bringing them back to the St. Lawrence the next year to serve him as interpreters. It is