been the
last surviving grandson of the old chieftain, Pierre Thoma.

While speaking of the Maliseets and their chiefs, mention may be made
of the fact that the Indians, as a mark of especial confidence and
favor, occasionally admitted one of the whites to the order of
chieftainship. This compliment the Maliseets paid to the French
Governor Villebon, when he commanded at Fort Nachouac, and a like
compliment was paid some sixty-five years ago to the late Moses H.
Perley. In early life Mr. Perley was very fond of the woods and
frequently visited the Indian villages on the upper St. John to buy
furs, which he paid for in silver dollars. So great was the confidence
reposed in him by the Indians that he became their agent with the
provincial government, and was in the end adopted as their chief. In
1840 he visited England and was presented to Queen Victoria in the
character of an Indian chief, wearing on the occasion a very
magnificent costume of ornamental bead-work, plumes, and so forth. He
received at the Queen's hands a silver medal three inches in diameter,
on the edge of which was engraved, "From Her Most Gracious Majesty to
M. H. Perley, Chief Sachem of the Milicetes and Wungeet Sagamore of
the Micmac nation. A. D., 1840." This medal is still in the possession
of Mr. Perley's descendants.

It will be noticed that the St. John river Indians are termed
"Milicetes" in the above description. The form Milicete, or Melicete,
used by Dr. Gesner and Moses H. Perley, has been followed by the
majority of our provincial writers. Dr. Hannay, however, in his
history of Acadia, retains the spelling of Villebon and the early
French writers, Malicite, which is almost identical with the Latin
form, Malecitae, on the stone tablet of the chapel built by the
missionary Jean Loyard at Medoctec in 1717. Either of these pronounced
in French fashion is practically identical with Maliseet, the form
adopted by modern students of Indian lore, and which the writer has
followed in this history.

CHAPTER XXVII.

MASTS FOR THE ROYAL NAVY.

The enormous lumbering operations carried on upon the St. John river
and its tributaries in modern times had their small beginning, two
centuries ago, when masts for the French navy were cut by order of the
King of France.[114] The war of the Revolution obliged the English
government to look for a reserve of trees suitable for masts in the
remaining British colonies. In the year 1779, arrangements