Franciscan Friars, is the faithful historian of the struggles and contentions involved in this missionary work.[1] The editor of Sagard says it was difficult to quicken any zeal for the work in France. He makes light of the assumption of the Pope in giving over the whole continent to the Spaniards and the Portuguese, and thinks the Papal oracle as absurd as if it had affirmed that America did not exist, and had excommunicated any one who might say that the earth had two hemispheres. The editor also quotes the “fine raillery” of Francis I. about these grasping claimants: “Eh, how is this? They quietly divide between them the whole of America, without allowing me to share in it as their brother. I wish much to see the item in Adam's testament which bequeaths them this vast heritage.”[2] The Huguenot Sieur De Monts, while the patent for Acadia was in his hands, brought over with him in 1604 a minister and a priest, besides a miscellaneous company of convicts and ruffians, the sweepings of the prisons and purlieus. The two divines not only quarrelled in their arguments, but came to fisticuffs. Sagard tells us that soon after coming to land they both died, near the same time, and that the sailors, who buried them in a common grave, wondered if, having been in such strife in life, they could lie peacefully together in the pit.[3]
Two Jesuit priests came to Acadia in 1611, but did not long remain. One of them, Father Biard, was taken with Saussaye in Argall's raid at Mt. Desert. He narrowly escaped the halter in Virginia, and the being thrown overboard off the Azores, lest he should betray there to the Catholic authorities the deeds of his Protestant captors. But he was snugly hidden under deck while the vessel was searched, and getting back to France might have resumed
