e 15th. After locating a spot on the west shore near the mouth of the river, they set to work building fortifications, a storehouse, and quarters. The buildings were completed well before winter set in. Meantime, Popham and Gilbert explored up the Kennebec, west to Cape Elizabeth, and east beyond the Pemaquid peninsula.
As the warmth of summer gave way and winter enshrouded the little settlement, troubles set in. Although the men remained healthy through the winter, they complained incessantly about the weather. In fact it was extremely cold, for the northern hemisphere was suffering through the "Little Ice Age," which lasted from 1300 to 1700 and plunged temperatures several degrees below the averages of today.
Furthermore, the community was torn by rivalries between President George Popham and Raleigh Gilbert. Feuding reached such a pitch that at one point each side attempted to induce the Indians to support its efforts. Spirits were not lifted when the storehouse burned in the late winter, leaving the settlement short of supplies. On top of that, the Indians remained suspicious and reluctant to trade.
For all its problems, the settlement might have survived had it not been for a series of untimely deaths. In England, Sir John Popham died shortly after the vessels departed for America, leaving financial and administrative matters largely to Gorges, who was not nearly as well situated to support the venture. In February 1608, President George Popham died, and leadership fell to Raleigh Gilbert. Finally, Gilbert received news the following summer that his elder brother had died, leaving him heir to the family estate. Gilbert had no choice but to return to England to settle affairs. Since the colony was virtually leaderless, everybody clambered aboard the returning vessel, and in the fall of 1608 the once-promising settlement stood deserted amid the bright autumn foliage.
In England, the effect of the failure was catastrophic. Sometime later Gorges wrote that it had been a "wonderful discouragement to all the first undertakers, in so much as there was no more speech of settling any other plantations in those parts for a long time after." At another time he stated that "all our former hopes were frozen to death" for the country was considered "over cold, and in respect of that not habitable by our nation."
French Activity in the Gulf of Maine, 1604--13
During the first years of the seventeenth century, French explorers and colonizers returned to the territory of Maine, although, unlike the English, they focused on the northeast coastal regions. In November 1603, King Henry IV of France granted Pierre Du Gua De Monts a charter with trading and seignorial (ruling) rights in America roughly overlapping those the English king granted the Plymouth Company. A French nobleman, De Monts wanted a New World colony primarily as a personal estate; secondly, as a trading base with the Indians; and third, as a possible embarkation point in the search for a passage to the Orient. De Monts brought along explorer and geographer Samuel de Champlain to record and map the coast in the region. The expedition left France in two ships on April 7, 1604, and entered the Bay of Fundy in May. They skirted the shore, arriving at Passamaquoddy Bay in late June. Moving up the broad St. Croix River, which empties into the bay, they selected an island in the middle for their settlement (today known as St. Croix or Dochet Island). The site offered some advantages: a good anchorage, a fine growth of timber, a supply of clay for brick making, seemingly fertile soil, and security from attack. With the buildings and gardens established in September, Champlain and a small party headed west to explore along the Maine coast. Sailing close to shore, they passed between Mount Desert (which Champlain named) and the mainland and ascended the Penobscot as far as the Kenduskeag Stream at present-day Bangor. Although he was impressed with the area, Champlain found no Norumbega. He descended the river, sailed to the mouth of the Kennebec, and in October returned to St. 