These citations bring into view the writer who has most copiously recorded the early annals of Acadia—­Marc Lescarbot.  He was a lawyer, and at this date about forty years old.  Having come to Port Royal less as a colonist than as a guest of Poutrincourt, he had no investment at stake.  But contact with America kindled the enthusiasm of which he had a large supply, and converted him into the historian of New France.  His story of the winter he passed at Port Royal is quite unlike other narratives of colonial experience at this period.  Champlain was a geographer and preoccupied with exploration.  The Jesuits were missionaries and preoccupied with the conversion of the savages.  Lescarbot had a literary education, which Champlain lacked, and, unlike the Jesuits, he approached life in America from the standpoint of a layman.  His prolixity often serves as a foil to the terseness of Champlain, and suggests that he must have been a merciless talker.  Yet, though inclined to be garrulous, he was a good observer and had many correct ideas—­notably the belief that corn, wine, and cattle are a better foundation for a colony than gold or silver mines.  In temperament he and Champlain were very dissimilar, and evidence of mutual coolness may be found in their writings.  These we shall consider at a later stage.  For the present it is enough to note that both men sat at Poutrincourt’s table and adorned the Order of Good Cheer.

Meanwhile De Monts was in France, striving with all the foes of the monopoly.  Thanks to the fur trade, his company had paid its way during the first two years, despite the losses at St Croix.  The third season had been much less prosperous, and at the same moment when the Dutch and the Basques [Footnote:  Traders from the extreme south of France, whose chief port was St Jean de Luz.  Though living on the confines of France and Spain, the Basques were of different racial origin from both Spaniards and French.  While subject politically to France, their remoteness from the main ports of Normandy and Brittany kept them out of touch with the mariners of St Malo and Havre, save as collision arose between them in the St Lawrence.  Among the Basques there were always interlopers, even when St Jean de Luz had been given a share in the monopoly.  They are sometimes called Spaniards, from their close neighbourhood to the Pyrenees.] were breaking the monopoly by defiance, the hatters of Paris were demanding that it should be withdrawn altogether.  To this alliance of a powerful guild with a majority of the traders, the company of De Monts succumbed, and the news which Poutrincourt received when the first ship came in 1607 was that the colony must be abandoned.  As the company itself was about to be dissolved, this consequence was inevitable.  Champlain in his matter-of-fact way states that De Monts sent letters to Poutrincourt, ’by which he directed him to bring back his company to France.’  Lescarbot is much more outspoken.  Referring to the merits and struggles of De Monts, he exclaims: