90 ‘The French in Prince Edward Island

as well as Commandant in his concession, under Louisburg.**

From 1737 to 1745 he struggled on. Though his energy did not abate nor his enthusiasm flag, his ill fortune remained. During his absence in France the son had to eat part of the seed wheat so that his crop was a small one in 1737, although he reported that he was rich in oats and peas.** This year he “married and set out two of his people in such a way as to make others desire similar treatment.” But he still had cause of complaint against the Superior of the Récollets for enticing away three of his men who appropriated a shallop and sailed for Louisburg. No settlers came to Three Rivers as they wanted free land direct from the Crown and thus Roma was com- pelled to maintain his establishment by bringing out salt-smugglers, convicts who had violated the gabelle and were given the difficult choice between the galleys and the colonies. In 1738 he was rejoicing in the prospect of a bounteous crop when in common with the other settlements of Isle Saint Jean his lands were ravaged by field-mice which consumed even the grass. Though faced with the prospect of living for a year on fish and game he set himself methodicallv to write a treatise on mice, and to comfort his genera- tion with the thought that this pest would disappear as settlement increased and population pressed upon the wooded lands, where these little animals multi- plied rapidly and set forth periodically upon their

14 B, Vol. 653, p. 887. 15 C11 IV, Vol. 19, p. 81.