cover the mines
twice a day, and if they did not lie in such hard rocks, something
might be expected from them."

The commercial spirit that has ever predominated in our good city of
St. John evidently goes back to the days of its discovery. Chkoudun
lived at "Menagoueche" in his fortified village on Navy Island when
Champlain invited him to go with the Sieur de Poutrincourt and himself
as guide on a tour of exploration along the coast of New England. They
set out in the month of September, 1606, and the chief took with him
in a shallop certain goods he had obtained from the fur traders to
sell to his neighbors the Armouchiquois, with whom he proposed to make
an alliance. The savages of New England were beginning to covet the
axes and other implements of civilization that their neighbors to the
eastward had obtained from the fishermen and traders who visited their
shores.

The Indians were now for a season to part with their friends and
allies. In 1607 de Monts decided to abandon his attempt to establish a
colony and Champlain and his associates were recalled to France.
Acadia was once more without a single European inhabitant. Three years
later Poutrincourt, to the great joy of the savages, returned to Port
Royal, and most of the rights and privileges formerly held by de Monts
were transferred to him.

The summer of 1611 was notable for the arrival of the Jesuit
missionaries, Pierre Biard and Enemond Masse.

It seems that the French traders did not quietly acquiesce in
Poutrincourt's monopoly of trade, and the masters of certain ships of
St. Malo and Rochelle boasted to the Indians that they would devour
Poutrincourt as the fabled Gougou would a poor savage. This was an
insult our nobleman was not disposed to endure, so accompanied by the
missionary Biard he crossed over to St. John and proceeded along the
coast as far as Passamaquoddy. The offenders were sternly admonished
and compelled to acknowledge his authority. Later it was discovered
that they had carried away nearly all that was valuable of the fur
trade for that season.

Biard at this time succeeded in reconciling Poutrincourt and the
younger Pontgrave who for some misdemeanor had been banished from Port
Royal and had spent the previous winter among the Indians of the St.
John river, living just as they did. Biard speaks of him as "a young
man of great physical and mental strength, excelled by none of the
savages in the chase, in alertness and endurance