ST. JOHN: SABLE ISLAND. 9 
issued in L578. " Biggar tells us^ that "he did not set sail until 1584. 
Unfortunately his largest vessel with over one hundred colonists on 
board was wrecked near Brouague and the voyage had to be aban- 
doned." 
"In that year [1598] he set out with one small vessel, under Chef 
d 'hotel, a distinguished Norman pilot. * * * jjig expedition was 
so modest, not to say cheap, in its proportion and equipment as to 
seem quite unworthy of its ambitious mission, or the vice-regal rank 
of its commander. One vessel constituted the fleet, and it is so small, 
that, according to a contemporary chronicle, you could wash your 
hands in the water without leaving the deck, while forty out of the 
sixty men comprising the marquis' army of occupation and evangel- 
ization, were convicts chosen from the royal prisons. "- 
Biggar, who has investigated many of the old archives, gives us a 
somewhat different account. He quotes the contract made in March, 
1597, between la Roche and Chefdostel, master of the La Catherine 
of 170 tons. Chefdostel was to transport a company of soldiers to 
Sable Island on condition that la Roche should pay for half the car- 
go of salt, half the wages of the crew, and the whole of the provisions. 
A year later la Roche, failing to attract bona fide colonists, was allow- 
ed to take convicts from the jails of Brittany and Normandy. On 
the 16th of March, 1598, la Roche made a new contract with Chef- 
dostel who for 600 crowns was to transport the convicts to Sable Is- 
land. Two days later a similar contract was made with Jehan Girot, 
master of the Franqoisc, who having a smaller vessel was to receive 
100 crowns. 
The Marquis de la Roche obtained 200 or 250 convicts, male and 
female, from the prisons, but it appears that he allowed many of these 
to purchase their freedom before sailing. Hcsetsail in 1598 and on reach- 
ing Sable Island landed 40, 50, or 60 of the convicts,^ leaving with 
them a small supply of provisions and goods; then he sailed away to 
^ Biggar, H. P.: The Pearly Trading Companies of Now I'raiu-o, 39 (1001). 
^Oxley, J. M.: Mag. of Amer. Hist. xv. 106 (1SS()). 
' Charlevoix, P. F. X.: Histoirc ct Description do la Ntmvollo Franco, i. U)9 
(1744), says 40 convicts wore landed; (Jossolin, Iv: Farly Frondi N'oyagos to 
Newfoundland, Mag. Am. IFst. viii. 2SS (1S,S2), says tliat tlio colonists '"with 
the exception of fifty, refused to disembark, and compollotl ilo la Rociio to 
bring them back to France"; Biggar, 11. P.: Tho Farly Trading Companies 
of New France, 40 (1901), says that only sixty persons wore actually landed on 
the island. 
