were tilled; the
settlers planted seeds and gathered the increase thereof; gardens sprang
out of the wilderness, peace and order reigned everywhere, and the savage
tribes around viewed the kind, light-hearted colonists with admiration and
fraternal good-will. It is pleasant to read this part of the
chronicle--of their social meetings in the winter at the banqueting hall;
of the order of "_Le Bon Temps_," established by Champlain; of the great
pomp and insignia of office (a collar, a napkin, and staff) of the grand
chamberlain, whose government only lasted for a day, when he was
supplanted by another; of their dinners in the sunshine amid the
corn-fields; of their boats, banners, and music on the water; of their
gentleness, simplicity, and honest, hearty enjoyments. These halcyon days
soon came to an end. The infamous Captain Argall, hearing that a number of
white people had settled in this hyperborean region, set sail from
Jamestown for the colony, in a ship of fourteen guns, in the midst of a
profound peace, to burn, pillage, and slaughter the intruders upon the
territory of Virginia! Finding the people unprepared for defence, his
enterprise was successful. Argall took possession of the lands, in the
name of the King of England, laid waste some of the settlements, burned
the forts, and, under circumstances of peculiar perfidy, induced a number
of the poor Acadians to go with him to Jamestown. Here they were treated
as pirates, thrown into prison, and sentenced to be executed. Argall, who
it seems had some touch of manhood in his nature, upon this confessed to
the Governor, Sir Thomas Dale, that these people had a patent from the
King of France, which he had stolen from them and concealed, and that they
were not pirates, but simply colonists. Upon this, Sir Thomas Dale was
induced to fit out an expedition to dislodge the rest of them from Acadia.
Three ships were got ready, the brave Captain Argall was appointed
Commander-in-chief, and the first colony was terminated by fire and sword
before the end of the year. This was in 1613, ten years after the first
planting of Acadia.

"Some of the settlers," says the Chronicle, "finding resistance to be
unavailing, fled to the woods." What became of them history does not
inform us, but with a graceful appearance of candor, relates that the
transaction itself "was not approved of by the court of England, nor
resented by that of France." Five years afterward we find Captain Argall