Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast. Samuel Adams Drake

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      Pemaquid, then, becomes one of the pivotal points of New England discovery, as it subsequently was of her history. As the French had directed their early efforts toward the Penobscot, so the English had imbibed strong predilections for the Sagadahoc, or Kennebec. Weymouth and Pring had paved the way; the Indians transported to England had been able to give an intelligible account of the country, the configuration of the coasts, the magnitude of the rivers, and power of the nations peopling the banks.

      The Kennebec was known to the French earlier than to the English, and by its proper name. Champlain's voyage in the autumn of 1604 extended, it is believed, as far as Monhegan, as he names an isle ten leagues from "Quinebequi" and says he went three or four leagues beyond it. Moreover, he had coasted both shores of the Penobscot bay, penetrating at least as far as the Narrows, below Bucksport. He calls the Camden hills Bedabedec, and says the Kennebec and Penobscot Indians were at enmity. De Monts followed Champlain in June, 1605, having sailed from St. Croix two days after Weymouth's departure from the coast for England. He was more than two months in exploring a hundred and twenty leagues of sea-coast, visiting and observing the Kennebec, of which a straightforward story is told. Even then the river was known as a thoroughfare to Canada.[49]

      The mouth of the Kennebec is interesting as the scene of the third attempt to obtain a foothold on New England's soil. This was the colony of Chief-justice Popham, which arrived off Monhegan in August, 1607.[50] This undertaking was intended to be permanent. There were two well-provided ships, and a hundred and twenty colonists.[51] The leader of the enterprise, George Popham, was accompanied by Captain Raleigh Gilbert, nephew and namesake of Sir Walter Raleigh.

      A settlement was effected on Hunnewell's Point, at the mouth of the Kennebec. The winter was one of unexampled severity, and the new-comers had been late in preparing for it. Encountering privations similar to those afterward endured by the Plymouth settlers, they lost courage, and when news of the death of their patron, the chief-justice, reached them, were ready to abandon the project. Popham, having died in February, was succeeded by Gilbert, whose affairs recalling him to England, the whole colony deserted their settlement at Fort St. George in the spring of 1608. Popham was the first English magistrate in New England.

      Mather attributes the failure of attempts to colonize the parts of New England north of Plymouth to their being founded upon the advancement of worldly interests. "A constant series of disasters has confounded them," avers the witch-hating old divine. One minister, he says, was exhorting the eastern settlers to be more religious, putting the case to them much in this way, when a voice from the congregation cried out, "Sir, you are mistaken; you think you are preaching to the people of the Bay. Our main end was to catch fish."

COTTON MATHER.

      "Did you ever see Cotton Mather's 'History of New England?'—one of the oddest books I ever perused, but deeply interesting." The question is put by Southey, and I repeat it, as, if you have not read Mather's "Magnalia Christi Americana," you have not seen the corner-stone of New England historical and ecclesiastical literature.

      Apropos of the immigration into New England, it was openly bruited in England that King Charles I. would have been glad if the thousands who went over were drowned in the sea. Between the years 1628 and 1635 the exodus was very great, and gave the king much displeasure. No one was permitted to remove without the royal permission. Even young Harry Vane had to solicit the good offices of his father, Sir Harry, to obtain a pass. He was then out of favor at court and at home, through his Geneva notions about kneeling to receive the Sacrament, and other Puritan ideas. "Let him go," growls an old writer; "has not Sir Harry other sons but him?"

      The colony of Popham began better than it ended. A fort, doubtless no more than a palisade with platforms for guns, was marked out. A trench was dug about it, and twelve pieces of ordnance were mounted. Within its protection fifty houses, besides a church and store-house, were built. The carpenters framed a "prytty pynnace" of thirty tons, which they christened the Virginia. There is no earlier record of ship-building in Maine.

      The tenacity of the English character has become proverbial. Nevertheless, the opinion is hazarded that no nation so ill accommodates itself to a new country. The English colonies of Virginia, New England, and Jamaica are striking examples of barrenness of resource when confronted with unforeseen privations. The Frenchman, on the contrary, possesses in an eminent degree the capacity to adapt himself to strange scenes and unaccustomed modes of life. Every thing is made to contribute to his wants. Let the reader consult, if he will, the campaign of the Crimea, where thousands of English soldiers gave way to hardships unknown in the French camps. The elastic gayety of the one is in contrast with the gloomy despondency of the other. The Popham colony abandoned a well-matured, ably-seconded design through dread of a New England winter and through homesickness. Clearly it was not of the stuff to found a State.

      The previous winter was passed by the French at their new settlement of Port Royal, commenced within two years. The seasons of 1605 and of 1606 were extremely rigorous. The colony of De Monts went through the first in rude cabins, hastily constructed, on the island of St. Croix. The next autumn the settlement was transferred to Port Royal. Winter found them domiciled in their new quarters under no better roofs than they had quitted. Though their leader, Du Guast, had left them, they were animated by an irrepressible spirit of fun, altogether French. They made roads through the forest, or joined with the Indians in hunting-parties, managing these native Americans with an address that won their confidence and good help.

ANCIENT PEMAQUID.

      Finally, at the suggestion of Champlain, in order to keep up an unflagging good-fellowship, and to render themselves free of all anxiety on the subject of provisions, the ever-famous "L'Ordre de Bon Temps" was inaugurated. It is deserving of remembrance along with the coterie of the Knights of the Round Table.

      Once in fifteen days each member of the order officiated as maitre d'hotel of De Poutrincourt's table. It was his care on that day that his comrades should be well and honorably entertained; and although, as the old chronicler quaintly says, "our gourmands often reminded us that we were not in the Rue aux Ours at Paris, yet so well was the rule observed that we ordinarily made as good cheer as we should have known how to do in the Rue aux Ours, and at less cost."

      There was not a fellow of the order who, two days before his turn came, did not absent himself until he could return with some delicacy to add to their ordinary fare. They had always fish or flesh at breakfast, and were never without one or both at the repasts of noon and evening. It became their great festival.

      The steward, or maitre d'hotel, having caused all things to be made ready, marched with his napkin on his shoulder, his staff of office in his hand, and the collar of the order, that we are told was worth more than four French crowns, about his neck. Behind him walked the brothers of the order, each one bearing his plate. In the evening, after giving thanks to God, the host of the day resigned the collar to his successor, each pledging the other in a glass of wine.

      On such occasions they had always twenty or thirty savages—men, women, and children—looking on. To these they gave bread from the table; but when, as was often the case, the sagamores—those fierce, intractable barbarians—presented themselves, they were, says Lescarbot, "at table eating and drinking like us, and we right glad to see them, as, on the contrary, their absence would have made us sorry."

      At Pemaquid we enter the domain of Samoset, that chivalric New Englander whom historians delight to honor. He was a sagamore without guile. Chronologically speaking, he should first appear at Plymouth, in the act of offering to those doubting Pilgrims the right hand of fellowship. He told them he was sagamore of Morattigon, distant from Plymouth "a daye's sayle with a great wind, and СКАЧАТЬ