appertained to the Popham estate, were not the forty-five who, it is asserted by Prince, did not sail for England when the Virginia, and Mary and John returned?

But more than this: Gorges tells us that the son of the Chief Justice," could not so give it over," when Gilbert and those with him, at Sagadahoc, abandoned the enterprise of that colonial establishment; and in the annals of that day, it is further said, that upon the death of Chief Justice Popham, "his son and successor, Sir Francis, who was sent out, became Governor, and despatched vessels thither on his own account,” and “having the ships which remained of the company and supplying what was necessary, sent divers times to the coasts for trade and fishing, of whose losses and gains he himself is best able to give an account.” 3

6

5

Captain John Smith, who visited Monhegan six years after, says, he found a ship of Sir Francis Popham's, which had for many years past visited there," at the main-land opposite Monhegan, probably Pemaquid." Such are the facts. Did the "Gift of God," with the Bristol fragment, embracing the Popham interest in the Sagadahoc colony, remain behind on the desertion of the London men under Gilbert? and did not this fragment take root at Pemaquid? and from thence spread to the neighboring waters of the Sheepscot? Hence, ever after we find Pemaquid the rallying point for colonial settlement,

1 Gorges, M. H. C., vol. 2, p. 28.

2 Strachey Intro. Hackluyt So. Hist. Trav. in Virginia, p. 17.

3 Plymouth Co's relations, M. H C., vol. 2, p. 33.

4 PEMAQUID. — Rev. Paul Coffin met "SABATTIS " at Carritunk, on the Kennebec, A. D. 1798, who gave him the meaning of several aboriginal words, used as names of notable localities. This native said PEMAQUID meant, a point of land running into the sea."-Paul Coffin's Journal, M. H. Col., vol. 4, p. 397. 5 M. H. C., vol. 5, p. 161.

6 Thornton's Ancient Pemaquid.

emigration, and commercial enterprise to the Bristol men of England, who gave the name of their city to the town of Bristol, which embraces this classic ground of Maine in its territory.

The vessels of Sir Francis Popham must have had a commercial depot for trade on the main-land, at the point indicated, for import of supplies and export of furs and fish, where out freight was deposited and home freight gathered. The voyages of Sir Francis could not have been sustained without the supporting nucleus of a colonial trade station. Pemaquid would be the natural and attractive coast station from the friendliness of the natives; some of whom had been in England and acquired the English tongue and a knowledge of English habits of life and civilization; and the neighboring Sheepscot meadows and waters, with their facilities for human subsistence, in fishing and planting, would be the nearest accessible inland points of attraction for interior operations.

Besides, there can be no doubt that subsequently to the decease of the aged President Popham, the Sagadahoc planters came in collision with the natives, and with doubtful results. Such has ever been the tradition of the red men of the Kennebec and of the white race in this vicinity, the occasion of which has reflected no honor upon the colonists, who excused their abandonment of Sagadahoc and their return to England on account of the savage climate of the land. The storehouse and supplies of the Sagadahoc colonists were devastated by

1 The following translation of a brief extract from the Relation of Biard, may in some degree illustrate the statement made in the text: "The English of Virginia have the custom of coming every year to the islands of Pençöit, which are about twenty-five leagues from St. Saviour, (on Mt. Desert,) to supply themselves with cod-fish for their winter. Directing their way, therefore, according to their habit, in the year of which we speak, 1613, they happened to be caught on the sea in the thick mists and fogs."— Jes. Relations, vol. 1, ch. 25, p. 46. Pencöit, like the Pemquit of Ràle, and Paincuit of Cadillac, is a representative of the present Pemaquid.

fire. Governor Sullivan, in his day, observed the remains of a fort made of earth and stones on the east side, at the mouth of the Kennebec. Seventy years after the abandonment of the Sagadahoc plantation, the ruins of a fort were shown to seamen visiting the Sagadahoc waters, by the ancient Indians there residing, with the statement, "that1 upon some quarrel that fell out between the Indians and English, some were killed by the Indians, and the rest driven out of the fort."

The Relation of the Jesuits alleges of the natives of Arrowsick (“Ar-row-chi-quois ")" that they did not appear to be bad, although they had defeated the English who had wished to dwell among them in the years 1608-9. They excused themselves to us," continues the Relation, "concerning that action, and recounted the outrages which they had received from the said English."

Such is the historic view of the relations of the Sagadahoc plantation to the savage inhabitants of their wild home in the province of Sabino.

There can be no doubt that collisions, more or less disastrous to the colonists, aided in hastening the abandonment of Sagadahoc as the seat of a colonial home, and the breaking up of the plantation.

Although the advent of the white race to Sagadahoc had been welcomed by the aboriginal residents of Pemaquid, the bowmen and subjects and friends of Nahanada and Skidwarroes, as the harbinger of hopes of high promise to the stranger natives of Kennebec, it was a source of doubt and a prelude to perils. They greeted the colonists with hostile attitudes, and tales of "Cannibals that lived near Sagadahoc armed with teeth three inches long." While the town was going up at the

3

1 Appendix to Hubbard's Indian Wars, p. 75; Sewall's Ancient Dominions of Maine, p. 228.

2 Jesuit Relations, vol. 1, ch. 18, p. 36.

3 Folsom's Address, M. H. C., vol. 2, p. 32.

sea side, Captain Gilbert penetrated the upper waters of the interior, and pushing his discoveries far inland, at eventide voices in broken English hailed him from the opposite shore. It turned out to be the call of certain savages; and at morning light a "canoa" came to them, and in her a Sagamo, who told them his name was "Sebenoa," "lord of the river of Sagadahoc."

1

The clansmen of Sebenoa were fierce and warlike men, and by stratagem, menaces, and force, sought to overpower Gilbert and his boat's crew; and, says the narrator, 66 these were stranger Indians, such as the like before had not been seen." The subjects of the Bashaba, the Wawennack Prince of Pemaquid, courted the acquaintance and friendship of the Sagadahoc planters while the river natives, the subjects of "the lord of the river of Sagadahoc," repelled both. It is therefore but reasonable that as a result of the changes and disturbance consequent on the decease of the President, Popham, and the accession of the London interest in the person of Captain Gilbert to the head of the management of the plantation affairs, the hostility of the Sagadahoc natives, especially the wrongs and abuses springing up under the new order of things;— that the Bristol men with the Popham ship should have extended the colonial movement and sought a new home at Pemaquid, under the protection of Nahanada and his bowmen in the Bashaba's kingdom, and near his royal abode ; — and that in the breaking up of the Sagadahoc plantation under the lead of the London interest, the Bristol element, in the estate and interest of the Popham family, should have been left at Pemaquid at the departure of the London men, and there become a new center of attraction and trade supporting the subsequent private operations of Sir Francis Popham, who continued to send his ships to this point for furs and fish; whose establishment at

1 Strachey.

length grew into the city of Jamestown, and for a century nearly, was the capital of New England before Boston was. Hence, history has recorded that there were people at Pemaquid from the time Sir H. Gilbert took possession, who were strangers and did not venture south till the settlement of Plymouth.1 And at New Dartmouth. in the county of Cornwall, (the Sip-sa-couta, or Duck River of the aborigines), there was a settlement in the early days of New England as early as in any part of the Pemaquid country.

At all events, thirteen years after the dissolution and abandonment of the plantation at Sagadahoc, history has disclosed the fact that a hamlet of "fifty families," known as the "Sheepscot farms," adorned the banks of that river, and which subsequently became the capital of the county of Cornwall in the Ducal State, into which the Sagadahoc territory was afterwards erected.

These facts warrant the conclusion, that a fragment of the Sagadahoc plantation, embracing the west of England or city of Bristol element, and in the interest of the Popham family, on the dissolution of that enterprise, was driven off and lodged at Pemaquid, in the Popham ship" Gift of God;" while the London men in the interest of the Gilbert family, following his lead, returned with Raleigh Gilbert in the ships "Mary and John," and the "Virginia," built at Sagadahoc, to England, 1608.

Thus we have explained, in entire consistency with historic truth, the statement of Prince in his chronology, that all but forty-five planters departed from Sagadahoc for England in two ships, of which the "Virginia" was one. These, with the "Gift of God,” (of whose return to England no mention is made, and which was the Popham ship), must have been left at Pemaquid, the scene of the subsequent operations of the

1 Sullivan, 160-70; Am. Statistical Soc. vol. 1, p. 1.

2 Prince's Chronology, p. 117.