Most notable were Charles De Biencourt de Poutrincourt and his cousin Charles de Saint Etienne de la Tour, who had become partners; and with a handful of followers, roamed the woods, living like the Natives, dressing in animal skins and subsisting on fish and game. Both had taken Acadian wives and were living a dream life compared to what life would have been like for them in France.
When Biencourt died in 1623, La Tour was granted a fur-trade monopoly for the region for the next four years, and was able to accumulate considerable wealth. He and his new wife set up a trading post at Cape Sable, which they named Fort Lomeron; after his agent in La Rochelle; and they were enjoying a booming business, but were running dangerously low on supplies. They also needed a few things, like weapons, building material and household items; so Cardinal Richelieu agreed to supply the fort with the necessary items.
Meanwhile, King James I of England; a Scot; realized that if he wanted to hold onto any claim of the territory, he would have to occupy it or risk someone else planting their flag on his turf. Of course this is ludicrous, since this land already belonged to the Acadian people, but it was the European thinking of the time.
Finally, in September of 1621, the king appointed Sir William Alexander to oversee the development of Acadia. In turn, he created baronies, which would be administered from home, and New Scotland was born; but since all royal decrees were in Latin, this became Nova Scotia.
In his efforts to raise general interest in New Scotland, Sir William published a pamphlet in 1624, entitled 'An Encouragement to Colonies.' In this pamphlet he offered tracts of land, six miles by three miles to all "knights and esquires as will be pleased to be the undertakers of the said plantations and who will promise to set forth six men, artificers or laborers, sufficiently armed and victualled for two years ". It also contained a map of the country, in which Scottish place names replaced those given by the French, who had replaced those given by the people who owned the bloody land in the first place.
Response was slow, but finally in March of 1628, Sir William's son, Sir William ll; who had been made a Knight Admiral; arrived at the old Port Royal, with four vessels, seventy men and two woman; who established a community at the place now known as Annapolis Royal, which they called Port Charles.
However, the Scots in Acadia argued that their land was not "conquered", but purchased (Baronies were sold with a portion of the money going to William Alexander to defrey his costs, though none to the actual owners of the land), and refused to leave. They also sent Claude La Tour to his son's fort to offer him a Scottish barony in exchange for his allegiance, but Charles flatly refused.
Their arguments fell on deaf ears and in March of 1631, after three years of occupation, the Treaty of St. German En Laye, sealed their fate. Reportedly, the new King Charles I, had sold their interest for the equivalent of $240,000. On July II th, 1631, he informed Sir William that the arrangement in respect to his ownership of Nova Scotia would have to come to an end.
A message was sent to Sir George Home at Port Charles, to remove "all the people, goods, ordnance, ammunition, cattle and other things belonging to the colony, and to leave the bounds thereof altogether waste and unpeopled as it was when his son first landed there." This would mean financial ruin for Alexander and he died penniless.
The following year, 46 of the Scottish settlers were taken aboard Razilly's 'St. Jehan' for their return trip to the motherland, but de Razilly, being the gentleman that he was, paid the Scottish for the food and munitions that had been left behind at Fort Charles. While the majority of them did return to Scotland, some joined the Puritan colony in Boston and a few may have even stayed behind in Acadia, mainly to seek revenge.
More than a hundred and fifty years would pass before Scottish emigration would begin again in ernest.
