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Updated: June 14, 2025
From 1608 till 1611 De Monts had two partners, named Collier and Legendre, both citizens of Rouen. It was with the money of these three that the post at Quebec had been built and equipped. Champlain was their lieutenant and Pontgrave the commander of their trading ships. After four years of experience Collier and Legendre found the results unsatisfactory.
Later in the summer Pontgrave brought the prisoners back to Quebec, where evidence was taken before a court-martial consisting of Champlain, Pontgrave, a captain, a surgeon, a first mate, a second mate, and some sailors. The sentence condemned four to death, of whom three were afterwards sent to France and put at the discretion of De Monts.
A peal from the rude bastion of the little fort bore testimony to the joy of the two solitary Frenchmen, who, with a faithful old Indian chief, were the only inmates of the post at that time. These men, La Taille and Miquellet, explained that Pontgravé and Champlain, with the rest of the colony, had set sail for France a few days previously, in two small vessels which they had built themselves.
Therefore he set sail, leaving Pontgrave to command at Port Royal: while Champlain, Champdore, and others, undaunted by the past, volunteered for a second winter in the wilderness. Evil reports of a churlish wilderness, a pitiless climate, disease, misery, and death, had heralded the arrival of De Monts.
Having partially recovered, he put to sea, giddy and weak, in wretched plight for the hard career of toil and battle which the New World offered him. The voyage was prosperous, no other mishap occurring than that of an ardent youth of St. Malo, who drank the health of Pontgrave with such persistent enthusiasm that he fell overboard and was drowned.
The preceding winter had been one of much suffering, though by no means the counterpart of the woful experience of St. Croix. But when the spring had passed, the summer far advanced, and still no tidings of De Monts had come, Pontgrave grew deeply anxious. To maintain themselves without supplies and succor was impossible.
The first winter was a repetition of the horrors experienced at St Croix, with even a higher death-rate. Scurvy began in February and lasted till the end of April. Of the eighteen whom it attacked, ten died. Dysentery claimed others. On June 5, 1609, word came that Pontgrave had arrived at Tadoussac. Champlain's comment is eloquent in its brevity.
At the beginning of March 1606 Pontgrave fitted out a barque of eighteen tons in order to undertake 'a voyage of discovery along the coast of Florida'; and on the 16th of the month a start was made. Favoured by good weather, he and Champlain would have reached the Hudson three years before the Dutch. But, short of drowning, every possible mischance happened.
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.
When Pontgravé showed the royal letters and forbade the traffic, these men swore roundly that they would trade in spite of the King, and backed up their words by promptly opening fire on Pontgravé with cannon and musketry. He was wounded, as well as two of his men, and a third was killed.
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