58 ‘The French in Prince Edward Island 
     
    
   
   
    
     unknown, carved new homes out of the wilderness, 
     
     and made their little plots of land glisten in the sweat 
     
     of their brow. 
     
    

    
     When de Pensens repaired to his post in the 
     
     spring of 1726 he found the remnants of Saint 
     
     Pierre’s establishment scattered, discouraged, and 
     
     quarrelling among themselves. Discontent and con- 
     
     fusion were particularly rife at St. Peters where he 
     
     had “to deal with an infinity of discussions amongst 
     
     the fishermen, merchants and habitans.” The pioneer 
     
     wrangling and discomfort, added to his sense of iso- 
     
     lation, displeased the old officer greatly; and he re- 
     
     turned to Louisburg in the autumn with St. Ovide, 
     
     who had paid a visit to the colony late in the sum- 
     
     mer. He complained to him that, in spite of his long 
     
     services, he found himself an exile in a corner of the 
     
     woods with one ensign and twenty-five men, without 
     
     either temporal or spiritual comforts,—a condition 
     
     suitable neither to his health nor his age. He begged 
     
     earnestly for promotion and also for the services of 
     
     a chaplain and a surgeon.* 
     
    

    
     St. Ovide sympathized as well as he could and 
     
     recommended him for an increase of salary in view 
     
     of the cost of travelling about the island in the inter- 
     
     ests of peace and order among the inhabitants as well 
     
     as the expense of getting his supplies from Louis- 
     
     burg. But the Governor of Isle Royale, himself free 
     
     from the necessity of living in the wilderness, could 
     
     look upon the colony with the eye of a traveller and 
     
     statesman. Accordingly he found the land good, the 
     
    
   
   
    
     4(C11 IV, Vol. 8, pp. 46-48.