104 The French in Prince Edward Island 
     
    
   
   
    
     kept in ignorance by the former officials who instead 
     
     of encouraging them had made them work for their 
     
     interests and charged them exorbitant prices for 
     
     their provisions. So far as he is concerned, a new 
     
     era has dawned for them.*® 
     
    

    
     He also criticizes the site chosen for the capital. 
     
     Port La Joye was the most unproductive from the 
     
     point of view of both agriculture and fishing, and 
     
     too far removed from St. Peters, the principal set- 
     
     tlement, to enable him to do justice to the needs of 
     
     the colony. Moreover it was being abandoned by the 
     
     starving habitans. His criticism was so far successful 
     
     as to interest the Minister and during the next few 
     
     years there was considerable correspondence on the 
     
     matter in which the officials of Ile Royale took part. 
     
     The chief result, however, was to influence the goy- 
     
     ernment in building only temporary structures at 
     
     Port La Joye while awaiting a decision that was 
     
     never made.”’ 
     
    

    
     But the new Lieutenant de Roi could not change 
     
     the luck of the little colony. The crops of 1738 were 
     
     coming on beautifully when without warning a 
     
     plague of field-mice advanced upon the grain, spar- 
     
     ing not even the grass. All was but a repetition of 
     
     the calamity of 1728. To keep the habitans from 
     
     deserting en masse Le Normant sent what he could 
     
     spare from Ile Royale, only 112 quintals of flour, 
     
     eight of peas, 10 of powder, 36 of shot, and 25 guns; 
     
     and again made arrangements for procuring seed 
     
    
   
   
    
     16 F, Vol. 153, p. 166. 
     
     17 F, Vol. 151, p. 148.