Chapter 13

In the meantime, three Frenchmen, Father Hennepin, Michel Accaut, and one Du Gay, in obedience to La Salle's orders, had ventured to the upper waters of the Mississippi, and were made prisoners by a wandering tribe of Sioux. Not far from the falls of St. Anthony Father Hennepin met with the famous forest ranger, Duluth, who was better acquainted with the Sioux country than any other living Frenchman, and was forming ambitious designs to explore the whole western region beyond Lake Superior. Father Hennepin, who had been adopted by an aged Sioux chief, was free to follow Duluth back to the French post at the Straits of Mackinac. This adventure of Father Hennepin is famous in history, not on account of any discoveries he actually made, but on account of the claim he attempted to establish some years after his journey, of having followed the Mississippi to the Gulf. In the first edition of his book, printed in 1683--_Description de la Louisiane_--no such claim was ever suggested, and it was only in 1697 that the same work appeared in an enlarged form,--_La Nouvelle Découverte_--crediting Hennepin with having descended the great river to its outlet. It is not necessary here to puncture a falsehood which was long ago exposed by historical writers. His history of having reached the Gulf of Mexico is as visionary as the traveller's tales of Norumbega. Indeed, he could not even claim a gift of fertile invention in this case, as the very account of his alleged discovery was obviously plagiarised from Father Membré's narrative of La Salle's voyage of 1682, which appears in Le Clercq's _Premier Établissement de la Foy_.

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When La Salle was again able to venture into the west he found the villages of the Illinois only blackened heaps of ruins--sure evidence of the Iroquois having been on the warpath. During the winter of 1681 he remained at a post he had built on the banks of the St. Joseph in the Miami country, and heard no news of his faithful Tonty. It was not until the spring, whilst on his way to Canada for men and supplies, that he discovered his friend at Mackinac, after having passed through some critical experiences among the Iroquois, who, in conjunction with the Miamis, had destroyed the villages of the Illinois, and killed a number of those Indians with their customary ferocity. Tonty had finally found rest and security in a village of the Pottawattomies at the head of Green Bay.

On the 6th of February, 1682, La Salle passed down the swift current of the Mississippi on that memorable voyage which led him to the Gulf of Mexico. He was accompanied by Tonty, and Father Membré, one of the Recollet order, whom he always preferred to the Jesuits. The Indians of the expedition were Abenakis and Mohegans, who had left the far-off Atlantic coast and Acadian rivers, and wandered into the great west after the unsuccessful war in New England, which was waged by the Sachem Metacomet, better known as King Philip, and only ended with his death in 1676, and the destruction of many settlements in the colony of Plymouth.

They met with a kindly reception from the Indians encamped by the side of the river, and, for the first time, saw the villages of the Taënsas and {189} Natchez, who were worshippers of the sun. At last on the 6th of April, La Salle, Tonty, and Dautray, went separately in canoes through the three channels of the Mississippi, and emerged on the bosom of the great Gulf. Not far from the mouth of the river where the ground was relatively high and dry, a column was raised with the inscription:

"_Louis le Grand, roy de France et de Navarre, regne; le neuviesme Avril, 1682._"

And La Salle took possession of the country with just such ceremonies as had distinguished a similar proceeding at Sault Ste. Marie eleven years before. It can be said that Frenchmen had at least fairly laid a basis for future empire from the Lakes to the Gulf. It was for France to show her appreciation of the enterprise of her sons and make good her claim to such a vast imperial domain. The future was to show that she was unequal to the task.

The few remaining years of La Salle's life were crowded with misfortunes. Duchesneau, the intendant, who had succeeded Talon, was an enemy of both Frontenac and the explorer. The distinguished governor was recalled by his royal master, who was tired of the constant complaints of his enemies against him, and misled by their accusations. La Barre, the incompetent governor who followed Frontenac, took possession of Fort St. Louis, which La Salle had succeeded, after his return from the Gulf of Mexico, in erecting at Starved Rock on the banks of the Illinois not far from the present city of Ottawa, where a large number of Indians had {190} returned to their favourite home. In France, however, the importance of his discovery was fully recognised, and when he visited his native country in 1683-4 he met with a very cordial reception from the King, and Seignelay, who had succeeded his father, Colbert, when he resigned. The King ordered that La Salle's forts be restored to him, and gave him a commission to found colonies in Louisiana, as the new country through which the Mississippi flowed had been called since 1682. By a strange irony of Fate, the expedition of 1684 passed the mouth of the Mississippi, and La Salle made the first French settlement on the Gulf somewhere in the vicinity of Matagorda Bay, in the present State of Texas. Misery was the lot of the little colony from the very first moment it landed on that lonely shore. When his misfortunes were most grievous, La Salle decided to make an effort to reach the Illinois country, but he was assassinated by two of his own men---Duhaut and Liotot--near a branch of the Trinity River. His nephew Moranget, Nika, a faithful Shawnee who had been by his side for years, and Sayet, his own servant, suffered the same fate. The leader of the murderers was killed soon afterwards by one of his accomplices, and the others found a refuge among the Indians; but of their subsequent fate we know nothing positively, except that they were never brought to justice, if any one of them returned to Canada or France. The few Frenchmen remaining in Texas were either killed or captured by unfriendly Indians, before the Spaniards could reach the place to expel these intruders on their domain. La Salle {191} himself never found a burial place, for his body was left to wolves and birds of prey. His name has not been perpetuated in Louisiana, though it has been given to a county of Texas as well as to a city and county of Illinois, which was originally included in French Louisiana. The most noteworthy tribute to his memory has been paid by the historian Parkman, who has elevated him almost to the dignity of a hero. La Salle's indomitable energy, his remarkable courage in the face of disaster, his inflexibility of purpose under the most adverse circumstances, must be always fully recognised, but at the same time one may think that more tact and skill in managing men, more readiness to bend and conciliate, might have spared him much bitterness and trouble, and even saved his life at the end. That he did good service for France all will admit, though his achievement in reaching the Mississippi was rendered relatively easy after the preliminary expedition of Jolliet and Marquette.

[1] Mr. W. Wilfrid Campbell, F.R.S.C., a well-known English-Canadian poet, has translated for "The Story of Canada" these verses of his French contemporary Fréchette.

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XIV.

CANADA AND ACADIA: FROM FRONTENAC TO THE TREATY OF UTRECHT.

(1672-1713.)

In the previous chapter I have shown the important part that the Count de Frontenac took in stimulating the enterprise of La Salle and other explorers, and it now remains for me to review those other features of the administration of that great governor, which more or less influenced the fortunes of the province committed to his charge.

A brave and bold soldier, a man of infinite resources in times of difficulty, as bold to conceive as he was quick to carry out a design, dignified and fascinating in his manner when it pleased him, arrogant and obstinate when others thwarted him, having a keen appreciation of the Indian character, selfish where his personal gain was concerned, and yet never losing sight of the substantial interests of France in America, the Count de Frontenac was able, for nineteen years, to administer the affairs of New France with remarkable ability, despite his {194} personal weaknesses, to stimulate and concentrate her energies and resources, and to make her when he died a power in America far beyond what her population or actual strength seemed to justify. The Iroquois learned at last to tremble at his name, and the Indian allies of Canada, from the Abenakis of Acadia to the Illinois of the West, could trust in his desire and ability to assist them against their ferocious enemy. As is the case with all great men, his faults and virtues have been equally exaggerated. The Recollets, whom he always favoured, could never speak too well of him, whilst the Jesuits, whom he distrusted, did all they could to tarnish his reputation.

It is not profitable or necessary in this story of Canada to dwell on the details of Frontenac's administration of public affairs during the first years of his régime (1672-1682), which were chiefly noted for the display of his faults of character--especially his obstinacy and impatience of all opposition. He was constantly at conflict with the bishop, who was always asserting the supremacy of his Church, with the intendant Duchesneau, who was simply a spy on his actions, with the Jesuits, whom he disliked and accused of even being interested in the sale of brandy, and with traders like Governor Perrot of Montreal who eventually found himself in the Bastile for a few days for having defied the edict of the King against the _coureurs de bois_ who were under his influence and helped him in the fur trade.

The complaints against Frontenac from influential people in Canada at last became so numerous that {195} he was recalled to France in 1682. His successor, La Barre, proved himself thoroughly incapable. The interests of the province were seriously threatened at that time by the intention of the Iroquois to destroy the Illinois and divert the western traffic to the Dutch and English, whose carriers they wished to become. La Barre was well aware how much depended on the protection of the Illinois and the fidelity of the Indians on the lakes. La Hontan, a talkative but not always veracious writer, who was in Canada at this time, gives us an insight into the weakness of the governor, whose efforts to awe the Iroquois ended in an abortive expedition which was attacked by disease and did not get beyond La Famine, now Salmon River, in the Iroquois country. The famous "La Grande Gueule," or Big Mouth,--so called on account of his eloquence,--made a mockery of the French efforts to deceive him by a pretence of strength, and openly declared the intention of the Iroquois to destroy the Illinois, while La Barre dared not utter a defiant word in behalf of his allies. This incapable governor was soon recalled and the Marquis de Denonville, an officer of dragoons, sent in his place. One of the most notable incidents of the new administration was the capture of the fortified trading-posts belonging to the English Company of Hudson's Bay, by the Chevalier de Troyes and a number of Canadians from Montreal, among whom were the three famous sons of Charles Le Moyne, Iberville, Sainte-Hélène, and Maricourt, the former of whom became ere long the most distinguished French Canadian of his time. The next {196} event of importance was the invasion of the country of the Senecas, and the destruction of their villages and stores of provisions. This was a most doubtful triumph, since it left the Senecas themselves unhurt. How ineffectual it was even to awe the Iroquois, was evident from the massacre of La Chine, near Montreal, in the August of 1689, when a large band fell upon the village during a stormy night, burned the houses, butchered two hundred men, women and children, and probably carried off at least one hundred and twenty prisoners before they left the island of Montreal, where the authorities and people seemed paralysed for the moment. The whole history of Canada has no more mournful story to tell than this massacre of this unhappy settlement by the side of the beautiful lake of St. Louis. The Iroquois had never forgiven the treachery of the governor during the winter of 1687, at Fort Frontenac, where he had seized a large number of friendly Indians of the Five Nations who had settled in the neutral villages of Kenté (now Quinté) and Ganneious (now Gananoque), not many miles from the fort. Some of the men were distributed among the missions of Quebec, and others actually sent to labour in the royal galleys of France, where they remained until the survivors were brought back by Frontenac, when he and other Frenchmen recognised the enormity of the crime that had been committed by Denonville, who is immediately responsible for the massacre of La Chine. The Iroquois never forgot or forgave.

The French authorities soon recognised the fact {197} that Denonville was entirely unequal to the critical condition of things in Canada, and decided in 1689 to send Frontenac back. During his second term, which lasted for nearly ten years, there was now and then some friction between himself and the intendant, on matters of internal government, and between himself and the bishop and the Jesuits with respect to amusements which the clergy always discountenanced; but he displayed on the whole more tact and judgment in his administration of public affairs. Undoubtedly the responsibilities now resting upon him tasked the energies of a man of seventy-two years of age to the utmost. In Acadia, whose interests were now immediately connected with those of Canada, he had to guard against the aggressive movements of New England. The English of New York and the adjacent colonies were intriguing with the Iroquois and the Foxes, always jealous of French encroachments in the northwest, and encouraging them to harass the French settlers. The efforts of the English to establish themselves in Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland, had to be met by vigorous action on the part of Canadians. In fact, we see on all sides the increasing difficulties of France in America, on account of the rapid growth of the English colonies.

When Frontenac arrived in Canada, war had been, declared between France and England. James II. had been deposed and William of Orange was on the English throne. Before the governor left France a plan had been devised at the suggestion of Callières, the governor of Montreal, for the conquest {198} of New York. An expedition of regular troops and Canadian volunteers were to descend from Canada and assault New York by land, simultaneously with an attack by a French squadron from the sea. Unforeseen delays prevented the enterprise from being carried out, when success was possible. Had New York and Albany been captured, Callières was to have been the new governor. Catholics alone would be allowed to remain in the province, and all the other inhabitants would be exiled--an atrocious design which was to be successfully executed sixty years later, by the English authorities, in the Acadian settlements of Nova Scotia.

Count de Frontenac organised three expeditions in 1690 against the English colonies, with the view of raising the depressed spirits of the Canadians and showing their Indian allies how far Onontio's arm would reach. The first party, led by Mantet and Sainte-Hélène, and comprising among the volunteers Iberville, marched in the depth of winter on Corlaer (Schenectady), surprised the sleeping and negligent inhabitants, killed a considerable number, took many prisoners, and then burned nearly all the houses. The second party, under the command of François Hertel, destroyed the small settlement of Salmon Falls on the Piscataqua, and later formed a junction with the third party, led by Portneuf of Quebec, and with a number of Abenakis under Baron de Saint-Castin. The settlement at Casco Bay, defended by Fort Loyal (Portland) surrendered after a short struggle to these combined forces, and the garrison was treated with great inhumanity. The {199} cruelties practised by the Indian allies invested these raids with additional terrors.

While Frontenac was congratulating himself on the success of this ruthless border warfare, and on the arrival at Montreal of a richly laden fleet of canoes from the west, the English colonies concerted measures of retaliation in a congress held at New York. The blow first fell on Acadia, which had been in the possession of France since the treaty of Breda. Port Royal was taken without difficulty in 1690 by Sir William Phipps, and the shore settlements at La Hève and Cape Sable ravaged by his orders.

Another expedition organised in New York and Connecticut to attack Montreal, was a failure, although a raid was made by Captain John Schuyler into the country, south of Montreal, and a number of persons killed at La Prairie. A more important expedition was now given to the command of Phipps, a sturdy figure in colonial annals, who had sprung from humble parentage in Maine, and won both money and distinction by the recovery of the riches of a Spanish galleon which had been wrecked on the Spanish Main half a century before. His fleet, consisting of thirty-two vessels--including several men-of-war, and carrying 2300 troops, exclusively provincials, fishermen, farmers, and sailors--appeared in the middle of October, 1690, off Quebec, whose defences had been strengthened by Frontenac, and where a large force had assembled from the French towns and settlements. As soon as the fleet came to an anchorage, just below the town, Phipps {200} sent a messenger to present a letter to Frontenac, asking him to surrender the fort. This envoy was led blindfolded up the heights and brought into the presence of the governor, who was awaiting him in the fort, surrounded by a number of officers dressed in the brilliant uniform of the French army. As soon as he had recovered from the surprise which for the moment he felt, when the bandage was taken off his eyes, and he saw so brilliant an array of soldierly men, he read the letter, which, "by the orders of the King and Queen of England and of the government of the colony of New England," demanded "the surrender of the forts and castles undemolished, and of all munitions untouched, as also an immediate surrender of your persons and property at my discretion." The envoy, when the whole letter was read, took out his watch, and remarking that it was ten o'clock, asked that he be sent back by eleven. Count de Frontenac's answer was defiant. He refused to recognise William of Orange as the lawful sovereign of England, and declared him an "usurper." The haughty governor continued in the same strain for a few moments longer, and when he had closed, Phipps's messenger asked that the answer be given in writing. "No," he replied, "I have none to give but by the mouth of my cannon; and let your general learn that this is no way to send a summons to a man like me. Let him do the best on his side, as I am resolved to do on mine."

Phipps and his officers determined to attack Quebec in the rear by the way of Beauport, {201} simultaneously with a fierce cannonading by the fleet. A considerable force, under the command of Major Walley, landed, and after some days of unhappy experiences, during which Phipps showed his incapacity to manage the siege, the former was obliged to find refuge in the ships, without having succeeded in crossing the St. Charles. By this time Frontenac had at least three thousand men, many of them veterans, in Quebec, and Phipps considered it his only prudent course to return to Boston, where he arrived with the loss of many vessels and men, chiefly from disasters at sea. The French had lost very few men by the cannonading and in the skirmishing on the St. Charles--probably not more than sixty killed and wounded--and celebrated their victory with great enthusiasm. Religious processions marched through the streets to the cathedral and churches, _Te Deums_ were chanted, the colonial admiral's flag, which had been cut down by a lucky shot from the fort, was borne aloft in triumph, a new church was consecrated to _Notre Dame de la Victoire_, and a medal was struck in Paris in commemoration of the event. In Boston, the people received with dismay the news of the failure of an expedition which had ended so ignobly and involved them so heavily in debt.

The Iroquois, in league with the English of New York, where the able governor Dongan and his successor Andros, carefully watched over the interests of their colony, continued to be a constant menace to the French on the St. Lawrence, and to their allies in the West. In order to strengthen {202} themselves with the Five Nations, the New York authorities sent Major Peter Schuyler, with a force of Mohawks, Dutch, and English, to harass the settlements near Montreal. An obstinate fight occurred at La Prairie between him and a considerable force of troops, Canadians, Hurons, and Iroquois of the Canadian mission under Varennes, an able officer, but Schuyler succeeded in breaking through the ranks of his enemies and reaching the Richelieu, whence he returned to Albany without further losses. In Acadia, however, the French gained an advantage by the recovery of Port Royal by Villebon.

At this time occurred an interesting episode. A young girl of only fourteen years, Magdeleine, daughter of the seigneur of Verchères, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, ten miles from Montreal successfully held her father's fort and block-house against a band of Iroquois, with the aid of only six persons, two of whom were boys, and one an old man. Day and night, for a week, she was on the watch against surprise by the Indians, who were entirely deceived by her actions, and supposed the fort was held by a garrison. At last a reinforcement came to the succour of the brave girl, and the Indians retreated. The courage displayed by this Canadian heroine is an evidence of the courage shown by the people of Canada generally, under the trying circumstances that so constantly surrounded them throughout the whole of the French régime.

In 1693 the Mohawks were punished by an expedition composed of regulars, militia, and bush-rangers, with a large Indian contingent, chiefly {203} drawn from the Iroquois mission near Montreal, the modern settlement of Caughnawaga. This force was led by Mantet, Courtemanche, and La Noue, who succeeded in destroying the Mohawk villages after a fierce fight, in killing a large number, and in capturing several hundreds. The English, who had early information of the invasion, sent Major Peter Schuyler to pursue the retreating force, but it was too late. The immediate result of this success was a revival of trade. A large fleet of canoes came down from the upper lakes with a rich store of furs, that had been accumulating at Mackinac and other posts for nearly three years, on account of the Iroquois. Frontenac's triumph was complete, and he was called far and wide "the father of the people, the preserver of the country."

Returning for the moment to the Atlantic shores of Acadia, we find that the French arms triumphed in 1696 at Pemaquid, always an important point in those days of border warfare.