344 THE WAR IN ACADIA. [1670-90. 



for the conversion of his Indian friends ; but, ob- 

 serves Father Petit of Port Royal, who knew him 

 well, " he himself has need of spiritual aid to sustain 

 him in the paths of virtue." ! He usually made two 

 visits a year to Port Royal, where he gave liberal 

 gifts to the church of which he was the chief 

 patron, attended mass with exemplary devotion, 

 and then, shriven of his sins, returned to his 

 squaws at Pentegoet. Perrot, the governor, ma- 

 ligned him ; the motive, as Saint- Castin says, being 

 jealousy of his success in trade, for Perrot himself 

 traded largely with the English and the Indians. 

 This, indeed, seems to have been his chief occupa- 

 tion; and, as Saint-Castin was his principal rival, 

 they were never on good terms. Saint-Castin 

 complained to Denonville. " Monsieur Petit," he 

 writes, " will tell you every thing. I will only say 

 that he (Pe?Tot) kept me under arrest from the 

 twenty-first of April to the ninth of June, on pre- 

 tence of a little weakness I had for some women, 

 and even told me that he had your orders to do it : 

 but that is not what troubles him ; and as I do not 

 believe there is another man under heaven who 

 will do meaner things through love of gain, even 

 to selling brandy by the pint and half-pint before 

 strangers in his own house, because he does not 

 trust a single one of his servants, — I see plainly 

 what is the matter with him. He wants to be the 

 only merchant in Acadia." 2 



Perrot was recalled this very year ; and his suc- 



1 Petit in Saint- Vallier, Estat de I'Ealise, 39 (1856). 



2 Saint-Castin a Denonville, 2 Juiliet, 1687. 



