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Title: Canada: the Empire of the North
       Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom


Author: Agnes C. Laut



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Language: English

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CANADA

THE EMPIRE OF THE NORTH

Being the Romantic Story of the
  New Dominion's Growth from
  Colony to Kingdom

by

AGNES C. LAUT

Author of "The Conquest of the Great North-West" "Lords of the North,"
Etc.








[Frontispiece: Map of Western Canada]



Boston and London
Ginn and Company, Publishers
1909
Copyright, 1909, by Agnes C. Laut
Entered at Stationers' Hall
All Rights Reserved




PREFACE

To re-create the shadowy figures of the heroic past, to clothe the dead
once more in flesh and blood, to set the puppets of the play in life's
great dramas again upon the stage of action,--frankly, this may not be
formal history, but it is what makes the past most real to the present
day.  Pictures of men and women, of moving throngs and heroic episodes,
stick faster in the mind than lists of governors and arguments on
treaties.  Such pictures may not be history, but they breathe life into
the skeletons of the past.

Canada's past is more dramatic than any romance ever penned.  The story
of that past has been told many times and in many volumes, with far
digressions on Louisiana and New England and the kingcraft of Europe.
The trouble is, the story has not been told in one volume.  Too much
has been attempted.  To include the story of New England wars and
Louisiana's pioneer days, the story of Canada itself has been either
cramped or crowded.  To the eastern writer, Canada's history has been
the record of French and English conflict.  To him there has been
practically no Canada west of the Great Lakes; and in order to tell the
intrigue of European tricksters, very often the writer has been
compelled to exclude the story of the Canadian people,--meaning by
people the breadwinners, the toilers, rather than the governing
classes.  Similarly, to the western writer, Canada meant the Hudson's
Bay Company.  As for the Pacific coast, it has been almost ignored in
any story of Canada.

Needless to say, a complete history of a country as vast as Canada,
whose past in every section fairly teems with action, could not be
crowded into one volume.  To give even the story {iv} of Canada's most
prominent episodes and actors is a matter of rigidly excluding the
extraneous.

All that has been attempted here is such a story--_story, not
history_--of the romance and adventure in Canada's nation building as
will give the casual reader knowledge of the country's past, and how
that past led along a trail of great heroism to the destiny of a
Northern Empire.  This volume is in no sense formal history.  There
will be found in it no such lists of governors with dates appended, of
treaties with articles running to the fours and eights and tens, of
battles grouped with dates, as have made Canadian history a nightmare
to children.

It is only such a story as boys and girls may read, or the hurried
business man on the train, who wants to know "what was doing" in the
past; and it is mainly a story of men and women and things doing.

I have not given at the end of each chapter the list of authorities
customary in formal history.  At the same time it is hardly necessary
to say I have dug most rigorously down to original sources for facts;
and of secondary authorities, from _Pierre Boucher, his Book_, to
modern reprints of _Champlain and L'Escarbot_, there are not any I have
not consulted more or less.  Especially am I indebted to the
_Documentary History of New York_, sixteen volumes, bearing on early
border wars; to _Documents Relatifs a la Nouvelle France, Quebec_; to
the _Canadian Archives_ since 1886; to the special historical issues of
each of the eastern provinces; and to the monumental works of Dr.
Kingsford.  Nearly all the places described are from frequent visits or
from living on the spot.




{v}

INTRODUCTION

"The Twentieth century belongs to Canada."

The prediction of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Premier of the Dominion, seems
likely to have bigger fulfillment than Canadians themselves realize.
What does it mean?

Canada stands at the same place in the world's history as England stood
in the Golden Age of Queen Elizabeth--on the threshold of her future as
a great nation.  Her population is the same, about seven million.  Her
mental attitude is similar, that of a great awakening, a consciousness
of new strength, an exuberance of energy biting on the bit to run the
race; mellowed memory of hard-won battles against tremendous odds in
the past; for the future, a golden vision opening on vistas too far to
follow.  They dreamed pretty big in the days of Queen Elizabeth, but
they did n't dream big enough for what was to come; and they are
dreaming pretty big up in Canada to-day, but it is hard to forecast the
future when a nation the size of all Europe is setting out on the
career of her world history.

To put it differently: Canada's position is very much the same to-day
as the United States' a century ago.  Her population is about seven
million.  The population of the United States was seven million in
1810.  One was a strip of isolated settlements north and south along
the Atlantic seaboard; the other, a string of provinces east and west
along the waterways that ramify from the St. Lawrence.  Both possessed
and were flanked by vast unexploited territory the size of Russia; the
United States by a Louisiana, Canada by the Great Northwest.  What the
Civil War did for the United States, Confederation did for the Canadian
provinces--welded them into a nation.  The parallel need not be carried
farther.  If the same development {vi} follows Confederation in Canada
as followed the Civil War in the United States, the twentieth century
will witness the birth and growth of a world power.

To no one has the future opening before Canada come as a greater
surprise than to Canadians themselves.  A few years ago such a claim as
the Premier's would have been regarded as the effusions of the
after-dinner speaker.  While Canadian politicians were hoping for the
honor of being accorded colonial place in the English Parliament, they
suddenly awakened to find themselves a nation.  They suddenly realized
that history, and big history, too, was in the making.  Instead of
Canada being dependent on the Empire, the Empire's most far-seeing
statesmen were looking to Canada for the strength of the British
Empire.  No longer is there a desire among Canadians for place in the
Parliament at Westminster.  With a new empire of their own to develop,
equal in size to the whole of Europe, Canadian public men realize they
have enough to do without taking a hand in European affairs.

As the different Canadian provinces came into Confederation they were
like beads on a string a thousand miles apart.  First were the Maritime
Provinces, with western bounds touching the eastern bounds of Quebec,
but in reality with the settlements of New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia,
and Prince Edward Island separated from the settlements of Quebec by a
thousand miles of untracked forest.  Only the Ottawa River separated
Quebec from Ontario, but one province was French, the other English,
aliens to each other in religion, language, and customs.  A thousand
miles of rock-bound, winter-bound wastes lay between Ontario and the
scattered settlement of Red River in Manitoba.  Not an interest was in
common between the little province of the middle west and her sisters
to the east.  Then prairie land came for a thousand miles, and
mountains for six hundred miles, before reaching the Pacific province
of British Columbia, more completely cut off from other parts of Canada
than from Mexico or Panama.  In fact, it would have been easier for
British Columbia to trade with Mexico and Panama than with the rest of
Canada.

{vii} To bind these far-separated patches of settlement, oases in a
desert of wilds, into a nation was the object of the union known as
Confederation.  But a nation can live only as it trades what it draws
from the soil.  Naturally, the isolated provinces looked for trade to
the United States, just across an invisible boundary.  It seemed absurd
that the Canadian provinces should try to trade with each other, a
thousand miles apart, rather than with the United States, a stone's
throw from the door of each province.  But the United States erected a
tariff wall that Canada could not climb.  The struggling Dominion was
thrown solely on herself, and set about the giant task of linking the
provinces together, building railroads from Atlantic to Pacific, canals
from tide water to the Great Lakes.  In actual cash this cost Canada
four hundred million dollars, not counting land grants and private
subscriptions for stock, which would bring up the cost of binding the
provinces together to a billion.  This was a staggering burden for a
country with smaller population than Greater New York--a burden as big
as Japan and Russia assumed for their war; but, like war, the
expenditure was a fight for national existence.  Without the railroads
and canals, the provinces could not have been bound together into a
nation.

These were Canada's pioneer days, when she was spending more than she
was earning, when she bound herself down to grinding poverty and big
risks and hard tasks.  It was a long pull, and a hard pull; but it was
a pull altogether.  That was Canada's seed time; this is her harvest.
That was her night work, when she toiled, while other nations slept;
now is the awakening, when the world sees what she was doing.  Railroad
man, farmer, miner, manufacturer, all had the same struggle, the big
outlay of labor and money at first, the big risk and no profit, the
long period of waiting.

Canada was laying her foundations of yesterday for the superstructure
of prosperity to-day and to-morrow--the New Empire.

When one surveys the country as a whole, the facts are so big they are
bewildering.

{viii} In the first place, the area of the Dominion is within a few
thousand miles of as large as all Europe.  To be more specific, you
could spread the surface of Italy and Spain and Turkey and Greece and
Austria over eastern Canada, and you would still have an area uncovered
in the east alone bigger than the German Empire.  England spread flat
on the surface of Eastern Canada would just serve to cover the Maritime
Provinces nicely, leaving uncovered Quebec, which is a third bigger
than Germany; Ontario, which is bigger than France; and Labrador
(Ungava), which is about the size of Austria.

In the west you could spread the British Isles out flat, and you would
not cover Manitoba--with her new boundaries extending to Hudson Bay.
It would take a country the size of France to cover the province of
Saskatchewan, a country larger than Germany to cover Alberta, two
countries the size of Germany to cover British Columbia and the Yukon,
and there would still be left uncovered the northern half of the
West--an area the size of European Russia.

No Old World monarch from William the Conqueror to Napoleon could boast
of such a realm.  People are fond of tracing ancestry back to feudal
barons of the Middle Ages.  What feudal baron of the Middle Ages, or
Lord of the Outer Marches, was heir to such heritage as Canada may
claim?  Think of it!  Combine all the feudatory domains of the Rhine
and the Danube, you have not so vast an estate as a single western
province.  Or gather up all the estates of England's midland counties
and eastern shires and borderlands, you have not enough land to fill
one of Canada's inland seas,--Lake Superior.

If there were a population in eastern Canada equal to France,--and
Quebec alone would support a population equal to France,--and in
Manitoba equal to the British Isles, and in Saskatchewan equal to
France, and in Alberta equal to Germany, and in British Columbia equal
to Germany,--ignoring Yukon, Mackenzie River, Keewatin, and Labrador,
taking only those parts of Canada where climate has been tested and
lands surveyed,--Canada would support two hundred million people.

{ix} The figures are staggering, but they are not half so improbable as
the actual facts of what has taken place in the United States.
America's population was acquired against hard odds.  There were no
railroads when the movement to America began.  The only ocean goers
were sailboats of slow progress and great discomfort.  In Europe was
profound ignorance regarding America; to-day all is changed.  Canada
begins where the United States left off.  The whole world is gridironed
with railroads.  Fast Atlantic liners offer greater comfort to the
emigrant than he has known at home.  Ignorance of America has given
place to almost romantic glamour.  Just when the free lands of the
United States are exhausted and the government is putting up bars to
keep out the immigrant, Canada is in a position to open her doors wide.
Less than a fortieth of the entire West is inhabited.  Of the Great
Clay Belt of North Ontario only a patch on the southern edge is
populated.  The same may be said of the Great Forest Belt of Quebec.
These facts are the magnet that will attract the immigrant to Canada.
The United States wants no more immigrants.

And the movement to Canada has begun.  To her shores are thronging the
hosts of the Old World's dispossessed, in multitudes greater than any
army that ever marched to conquest under Napoleon.  When the history of
America comes to be written in a hundred years, it will not be the
record of a slaughter field with contending nations battling for the
mastery, or generals wading to glory knee-deep in blood.  It will be an
account of the most wonderful race movement, the most wonderful
experiment in democracy the world has known.

The people thronging to Canada for homes, who are to be her nation
builders, are people crowded out of their home lands, who had n't room
for the shoulder swing manhood and womanhood need to carve out
honorable careers.  Look at them in the streets of London, or Glasgow,
or Dublin, or Berlin, these _emigres_, as the French called their
royalists, whom revolution drove from home, and I think the word
_emigre_ is a truer description of the newcomer to Canada than the word
"emigrant."  They are {x} poor, they are desperately poor, so poor that
a month's illness or a shut-down of the factory may push them from
poverty to the abyss.  They are thrifty, but can neither earn nor save
enough to feel absolutely sure that the hollow-eyed specter of Want may
not seize them by the throat.  They are willing to work, so eager to
work that at the docks and the factory gates they trample and jostle
one another for the chance to work.  They are the underpinnings, the
underprops of an old system, these _emigres_, by which the masses were
expected to toil for the benefit of the classes.

"It's all the average man or woman is good for," says the Old Order,
"just a day's wage representing bodily needs."

"Wait," says the New Order.  "Give him room!  Give him an opportunity!
Give him a full stomach to pump blood to his muscles and life to his
brain!  Wait and see!  If he fails _then_, let him drop to the bottom
of the social pit without stop of poorhouse or help!"

A penniless immigrant boy arrives in New York.  First he peddles
peanuts, then he trades in a half-huckster way whatever comes to hand
and earns profits.  Presently he becomes a fur trader and invests his
savings in real estate.  Before that man dies, he has a monthly income
equal to the yearly income of European kings.  That man's name was John
Jacob Astor.

Or a young Scotch boy comes out on a sailing vessel to Canada.  For a
score of years he is an obscure clerk at a distant trading post in
Labrador.  He comes out of the wilds to take a higher position as land
commissioner.  Presently he is backing railroad ventures of tremendous
cost and tremendous risk.  Within thirty years from the time he came
out of the wilds penniless, that man possesses a fortune equal to the
national income of European kingdoms.  The man's name is Lord
Strathcona.

Or a hard-working coal miner emigrates to Canada.  The man has brains
as well as hands.  Other coal miners emigrate at the same time, but
this man is as keen as a razor in foresight and care.  From coal miner
he becomes coal manager, from manager {xi} operator, from operator
owner, and dies worth a fortune that the barons of the Middle Ages
would have drenched their countries in blood to win.  The man's name is
James Dunsmuir.

Or it is a boy clerking in a departmental store.  He emigrates.  When
he goes back to England it is to marry a lady in waiting to the Queen.
He is now known as Lord Mount-Stephen.

What was the secret of the success?  Ability in the first place, but in
the second, opportunity; opportunity and room for shoulder swing to
show what a man can do when keen ability and tireless energy have
untrammeled freedom to do their best.

Examples of the _emigres'_ success could be multiplied.  It is more
than a mere material success; it is eternal proof that, given a fair
chance and a square deal and shoulder swing, the boy born penniless can
run the race and outstrip the boy born to power.

"Have you, then, no _menial_ classes in Canada?" asked a member of the
Old Order.

"No, I'm thankful to say," said I.

"Then _who_ does the work?"

"The workers."

"But what's the difference?"

"Just this: your menial of the Old Country is the child of a menial,
whose father before him was a menial, whose ancestors were in servile
positions to other people back as far as you like to go,--to the time
when men were serfs wearing an iron collar with the brand of the lord
who owned them.  With us no stigma is attached to work.  _Your_ menial
expects to be a menial all his life.  With our worker, just as sure as
the sun rises and sets, if he continues to work and is no fool, he will
rise to earn a competency, to improve himself, to own his own labor, to
own his own home, to hire the labor of other men who are beginners as
he once was himself."

"Then you have no social classes?"

"Lots.  The _ups_, who have succeeded; and the _half-way ups_, who are
succeeding; and the _beginners_, who are going to succeed; and the
_downs_, who never try.  And as success doesn't necessarily mean money,
but doing the best at whatever one tries, {xii} you can see that the
_ups_ and the _halfway ups_, and the _beginners_ and the _downs_ have
each their own classes of special workers."

"That," she answered, "is not democracy; it is revolution."  She was
thinking of those Old World hard-and-fast divisions of society into
royalty, aristocracy, commons, peasantry.

"It is not revolution," I explained.  "It is rebirth!  When you send
your _emigre_ out to us, he is a made-over man."

But it is not given to all _emigre's_ to become great capitalists or
great leaders.  Some who have the opportunity have not the ability, and
the majority would not, for all the rewards that greatness offers,
choose careers that entail long years of nerve-wracking, unflagging
labor.  But on a minor scale the same process of making over takes
place.  One case will illustrate.

Some years before immigration to Canada had become general, two or
three hundred Icelanders were landed in Winnipeg destitute.  From some
reason, which I have forgotten,--probably the quarantine of an
immigrant,--the Icelanders could not be housed in the government
immigration hall.  They were absolutely without money, household goods,
property of any sort except clothing, and that was scant, the men
having but one suit of the poorest clothes, the women thin homespun
dresses so worn one could see many of them had no underwear.  The
people represented the very dregs of poverty.  Withdrawing to the
vacant lots in the west end of Winnipeg,--at that time a mere
town,--the newcomers slept for the first nights, herded in the rooms of
an Icelander opulent enough to have rented a house.  Those who could
not gain admittance to this house slept under the high board sidewalks,
then a feature of the new town.  I remember as a child watching them
sit on the high sidewalk till it was dark, then roll under.
Fortunately it was summer, but it was useless for people in this
condition to go bare to the prairie farm.  To make land yield, you must
have house and barns and stock and implements, and I doubt if these
people had as much as a jackknife.  I remember how two or three of the
older women used to sit crying each night in despair till they
disappeared in the crowded house, fourteen or {xiii} twenty of them to
a room.  Within a week, the men were all at work sawing wood from door
to door at a dollar and a half a cord the women out by the day washing
at a dollar a day.  Within a month they had earned enough to buy lumber
and tar paper.  Tar-papered shanties went up like mushrooms on the
vacant lots.  Before winter each family had bought a cow and chickens.
I shall not betray confidence by telling where the cow and chickens
slept.  Those immigrants were not desirable neighbors.  Other people
moved hastily away from the region.  Such a condition would not be
tolerated now, when there are spacious immigration halls and sanitary
inspectors to see that cows and people do not house under the same
roof.  What with work and peddling milk, by spring the people were able
to move out on the free prairie farms.  To-day those Icelanders own
farms clear of debt, own stock that would be considered the possession
of a capitalist in Iceland, and have money in the savings banks.  Their
sons and daughters have had university educations and have entered
every avenue of life, farming, trading, practicing medicine, actually
teaching English in English schools.  Some are members of Parliament.
It was a hard beginning, but it was a rebirth to a new life.  They are
now among the nation builders of the West.

But it would be a mistake to conclude that Canada's nation builders
consisted entirely of poor people.  The race movement has not been a
leaderless mob.  Princes, nobles, adventurers, soldiers of fortune,
were the pathfinders who blazed the trail to Canada.  Glory, pure and
simple, was the aim that lured the first comers across the trackless
seas.  Adventurous young aristocrats, members of the Old Order, led the
first nation builders to America, and, all unconscious of destiny, laid
the foundations of the New Order.  The story of their adventures and
work is the history of Canada.

It is a new experience in the world's history, this race movement that
has built up the United States and is now building up Canada.  Other
great race movements have been a tearing down of high places, the
upward scramble of one class on the {xiv} backs of the deposed class.
Instead of leveling down, Canada's nation building is leveling up.

This, then, is the empire--the size of all the nations in Europe,
bigger than Napoleon's wildest dreams of conquest--to which Canada has
awakened.[1]


  [1]COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF AREAS OF CANADA AND EUROPE

  Canada . . 3,750,000 square miles   Europe . . 3,797,410 square miles

  Maritime Provinces   Square Miles                   Square Miles
    Nova Scotia  . . . . .   20,600   England  . . . . .    50,867
    Prince Edward Island      2,000   Germany  . . . . .   208,830
    New Brunswick  . . . .   28,200   France   . . . . .   204,000
                             ------   Italy  . . . . . .   110,000
                             50,800   Spain  . . . . . .   197,000
  Quebec   . . . . . . . .  347,350   Austria and Hungary  241,000
  Ontario  . . . . . . . .  222,000   Russia in Europe   2,000,000
  Manitoba
  Saskatchewan              204,000
  Alberta  . . . . . . . .  350,000
  British Columbia   . . .  383,000
  Unorganized Territory of
    Keewatin   . . . . . .  756,000
    Yukon  . . . . . . . .  200,000
    MacKenzie River and
      Ungava . . . . . .  1,000,000


  COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF POPULATION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

        United States                         Canada
  In 1800 . . .   5,000,000           In 1881 . . .  4,300,000
   " 1810 . . .   7,000,000            " 1891 . . .  5,000,000
   " 1820 . . .   9,600,000            " 1901 . . .  5,500,000
   " 1830 . . .  12,800,000            " 1906 . . .  6,500,000


It will be noticed that for twenty years Canada's population becomes
almost stagnant. The reason for this will be found as the story of
Canada is related.  If she keeps up the increase at the pace she has
now set, or at the rate the United States' population went ahead during
the same period of industrial development, the results can be forecast
from the following table:

  United States in 1840 . . . . . . 17,000,000
    "      "    "  1850 . . . . . . 23,000,000
    "      "    "  1860 . . . . . . 31,000,000
    "      "    "  1870 . . . . . . 38,000,000
    "      "    "  1880 . . . . . . 50,000,000
    "      "    "  1890 . . . . . . 63,000,000
    "      "    "  1900 . . . . . . 85,000,000


{xv} A few years ago, when talking to a leading editor of Canada, I
chanced to say that I did not think Canadians had at that time awakened
to their future.  The editor answered that he was afraid I had
contracted the American disease of "bounce" through living in the
United States; to which I retorted that if Canadians could catch the
same disease and accomplish as much by it in the twentieth century as
Americans had in the nineteenth, it would be a good thing for the
country.  It is wonderful to have witnessed the complete face-about of
Canadian public opinion in the short space of six years, this editor
shouting as loud as any of his exuberant brethren.  Still, as the
outlook in Canadian affairs may be regarded as flamboyant, it is worth
while quoting the comment of the most critical and conservative
newspaper in the world,--the London _Times_.  The _Times_ says:
"Without doubt the expansion of Canada is the greatest political event
in the British Empire to-day.  The empire is face to face with
development which makes it impossible for indefinite maintenance of the
present constitutional arrangements."


Regarding the Iceland immigrants, to whom reference is made, I recently
met in London a famed traveler, who was in Iceland when the people were
setting out for Canada, Mrs. Alec. Tweedie.  She explains in her book
how these people were absolutely poverty-stricken when they left
Iceland.  In fact, the sufferings endured the first year in Winnipeg
were mild compared to their privations in Iceland before they sailed.


The explanations of Canada's hard times from Confederation to 1898--say
from 1871, when all the provinces had really gone into Confederation,
to 1897, when the Yukon boom poured gold into the country--can be
figured out.  Of a population of 3,000,000, four fifths need not be
counted as taxpayers, as they include women, children, clerks, farmers'
help, domestic help,--classes who pay no taxes but the indirect duty on
clothes they wear and food they eat.  This practically means that the
billion-dollar burden of making the ideal of Confederation into a
reality by building railroads and canals was borne by 600,000 people,
which means again a large quota per man to the public treasury.  People
forget that you can't take more out of the public treasury than you put
into it, that it is n't like an artesian well, self-supplied, and the
truth is, at this period Canadians were paying more into the public
treasury than they could afford,--more than the investment was bringing
them in.




{xvii}

CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                         PAGE

    I. FROM 1000 TO 1600 . . . . . . . . . . . .   1

   II. FROM 1600 TO 1607 . . . . . . . . . . . .  23

  III. FROM 1607 TO 1635 . . . . . . . . . . . .  41

   IV. FROM 1635 TO 1666 . . . . . . . . . . . .  61

    V. FROM 1635 TO 1650 . . . . . . . . . . . .  71

   VI. FROM 1650 TO 1672 . . . . . . . . . . . .  94

  VII. FROM 1672 TO 1688 . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

 VIII. FROM 1679 TO 1713 . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

   IX. FROM 1686 TO 1698 . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

    X. FROM 1698 TO 1713 . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

   XI. FROM 1713 TO 1755 . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

  XII. FROM 1756 TO 1763 . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

 XIII. FROM 1763 TO 1812 . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

  XIV. FROM 1812 TO 1820 . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

   XV. FROM 1812 TO 1846 . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

  XVI. FROM 1820 TO 1867 . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

       INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439




{xix}

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

                                                             PAGE

MAP OF WESTERN CANADA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

VIKING SHIP RECENTLY DISCOVERED  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
  After a photograph of the Viking Ship at Sandefjord, Norway.

MAP SHOWING DIVISION OF THE NEW WORLD BETWEEN SPAIN AND
  PORTUGAL   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3

A TYPICAL "HOLE IN THE WALL" AT "KITTY VIDDY," NEAR
  ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
  From a photograph.

SEBASTIAN CABOT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
  After the portrait attributed to Holbein.

JACQUES CARTIER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
  After the portrait at St. Malo, France, with signature.

WHERE THE FISHER HAMLETS NOW NESTLE, NEWFOUNDLAND  . . . . . .  9
  From a photograph.

ANCIENT HOCHELAGA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
  After a cut in the third volume of Ramusio's _Raccolta_,
    Venice, 1565.

THE "DAUPHIN MAP" OF CANADA, _CIRCA_ 1543, SHOWING CARTIER'S
  DISCOVERIES  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

QUEEN ELIZABETH  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
  After the ermine portrait in Hatfield House, with signature.

THE BOYHOOD OF GILBERT AND RALEIGH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
  From the painting by Sir John Millais.

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
  After the print in Holland's _Herwologia-Anglica_, 1620.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
  After the portrait in the possession of the Duchess of Dorset.

AT EASTERN ENTRANCE TO HUDSON STRAITS  . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
  From a photograph by Dominion Geological Survey.

HUDSON COAT OF ARMS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
  From Lenox Collection, New York City.

THE FANTASTIC ROCKS OF GASPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
  From a photograph.

{xx}

SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
  After the Moncornet portrait, with signature.

PORT ROYAL OR ANNAPOLIS BASIN, 1609  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
  From Lescarbot's map.

BUILDINGS ON STE. CROIX ISLAND   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
  From _Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain_, Paris, 1613.

PORT ROYAL   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
  From the same.

TADOUSSAC  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
  From the same.

DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
  From the same.

THE ONONDAGA FORT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
  From the same.

VIEW OF QUEBEC   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
  From the same.

QUEBEC   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
  From the same.

SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
  After an engraved portrait by Marshall.

MAP SHOWING LA TOUR'S POSSESSIONS IN ACADIA  . . . . . . . . . 64

CARDINAL RICHELIEU   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
  After the portrait by Philippe de Champaigne

MAP OF ANNAPOLIS BASIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

MADAME DE LA PELTRIE   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
  After a picture in the Ursuline Convent, Quebec.

PIERRE LE JEUNE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
  From an engraving in Winsor's America, after an old print.

GEORGIAN BAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
  From a photograph by A. G. Alexander.

BREBEUF  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
  From a bust in silver at Quebec.

REMNANTS OF WALLS OF FORT ST. MARY ON CHRISTIAN ISLAND
  IN 1891  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
  After a photograph reproduced in _Ontario Historical
    Society Papers and Records_.

MAP OF THE GREAT LAKES, SHOWING THE TERRITORY OF THE
  JESUIT HURON MISSIONS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
  Bellin's map, 1744.

A CANADIAN ON SNOWSHOES  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
  From La Potherie's _Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale_,
    Paris, 1753.

{xxi}

SAUSON'S MAP, 1656 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

TITLE-PAGE--JESUIT RELATION OF 1662-1663   . . . . . . . . .  111

THE JESUIT MAP OF LAKE SUPERIOR  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  112
  From the Relation, of 1670-1671.

CHARLES II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  114
  After the miniature portrait by Cooper, with signature.

PLAN OF MONTREAL IN 1672 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  119
  From _Quebec Historical Society Papers and Records_.

LA SALLE'S HOUSE NEAR MONTREAL   . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  120
  From a photograph.

KITCHEN, CHATEAU DE RAMEZAY, MONTREAL  . . . . . . . . . . .  120
  From a photograph.

LAVAL  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  122
  After the portrait in Laval University, Quebec.

A MAP IN THE RELATION OF 1662-1663 . . . . . . . . . . . . .  126

GALINEE'S MAP OF THE GREAT LAKES, 1669   . . . . . . . . . .  129

ROBERT DE LA SALLE   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  135
  After an engraved portrait said to be preserved
    in the _Bibliotheque de Rouen_, with signature.

OLD PLAN OF FORT FRONTENAC   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  136
  From _Memoirs sur le Canada_, Quebec, 1873.

THE BUILDING OF THE _GRIFFON_  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  138
  From Father Hennepin's _Nouvelle Decouverte_, Amsterdam, 1704.

PRINCE RUPERT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  145
  After the painting by Sir P. Lely.

MAP OF HUDSON BAY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  147

CONTEMPORARY FRENCH MAP OF HUDSON BAY AND VICINITY   . . . .  155
  From La Potherie's _Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale_.

LE MOYNE D'IBERVILLE   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  157
  After a portrait in Margry's _Decouvertes Etablissemens_.

FORT FRONTENAC AND THE ADJACENT COUNTRY  . . . . . . . . . .  164
  From _The London Magazine_, 1758.

WILLIAM OF ORANGE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  166
  After the portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, with signature.

QUEBEC, 1689 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  172
  From La Potherie's _Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale_.

FRENCH SOLDIER OF THE PERIOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  174
  After a cut in Massachusetts Archives, Documents
    collected in France, 111, 3.

SIR WILLIAM PHIPS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  176
  After an accepted likeness reproduced
    in Winsor's _America_.

{xxii}

COUNT FRONTENAC  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  178
  From the statue by Hebert at Quebec.

CASTLE ST. LOUIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  180
  After a cut in Hawkins' _Pictures of Quebec_, Quebec, 1834.

ATTACK ON QUEBEC, 1690 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  181
  From La Hontan's _Memoires_, 1709.

CASTLE ST. LOUIS, QUEBEC   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  183
  From Sulte's _Canadiens Francais_, viii.

PLAN OF QUEBEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  184
  From Franquelin, 1683.

LANDING OF IBERVILLE'S MEN AT PORT NELSON  . . . . . . . . .  186
  From La Potherie's _Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale_.

CAPTURE OF FORT NELSON BY THE FRENCH   . . . . . . . . . . .  187
  From the same.

CONTEMPORARY MAP, 1689 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  191
  From La Hontan.

HERTEL DE ROUVILLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  193
  After a portrait in Daniel's _Nos Gloires Nationales_.

CONTEMPORARY PLAN OF PORT ROYAL BASIN  . . . . . . . . . . .  199
  From Bellin's map, 1744.

PAUL MASCARENE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  201
  After a portrait in Savary's edition
    of Calnek's _Annapolis_.

LA VERENDRYE'S FORTS AND THE RIVER OF THE WEST   . . . . . .  207
  After Jeffery's map, 1762.

MAP PUBLISHED IN PARIS IN 1752 SHOWING THE SUPPOSED
  SEA OF THE WEST  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  209
  From the Memoire presented to the Academy
    of Sciences at Paris by Buache, August, 1752.

MAP SHOWING THE SUPPOSED SEA OF THE WEST, WITH APPROACHES
  TO THE MISSISSIPPI AND GREAT LAKES, PARIS, 1755  . . . . .  211
  From the same.

WILLIAM PEPPERRELL   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  217
  After the portrait by Smibert.

RUINS OF THE FORTIFICATIONS AT LOUISBURG . . . . . . . . . .  219
  From a recent photograph.

CONTEMPORARY PLAN OF THE ATTACK ON LOUISBURG . . . . . . . .  221
  After a plan reproduced in Winsor's _America_.

FORT HALIFAX, 1755 (Restoration)   . . . . . . . . . . . . .  222

CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF OSWEGO  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  223
  From Smith's _History of the Province of New York_.

GOVERNOR DINWIDDIE OF VIRGINIA   . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  225
  After a portrait by Ramsay.

{xxiii}

TITLE-PAGE OF WASHINGTON'S JOURNAL . . . . . . . . . . . . .  227

A SKETCH OF THE FIELD OF BATTLE AT BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT . . . .  229
  From a contemporary manuscript in the Library
    of Harvard University.

PLAN OF FORT BEAUSEJOUR  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  230
  From Mante's _History of the Late War in North America_.

GENERAL MONCKTON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  232
  After a mezzotint in the Library of the
    American Antiquarian Society.

GENERAL JOHN WINSLOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  234
  After the portrait in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Massachusetts.

MAP OF ACADIA AND THE ADJACENT ISLANDS, 1755 . . . . . . . .  237

SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  238
  After the portrait by Adams.

MAP OF THE REGION OF LAKE GEORGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  239
  From _Documentary History of New York_.

RUINS OF CHATEAU BIGOT   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  245
  From a photograph by Captain Wurtelle.

PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, OTTAWA   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  246
  From a photograph.

QUEBEC, CHATEAU FRONTENAC AND THE CITADEL  . . . . . . . . .  246
  From a photograph.

THE EARL OF LOUDON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  249
  After the portrait by Ramsay.

BOSCAWEN   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  253
  After the portrait by Reynolds.

THE SIEGE OF LOUISBURG, 1758 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  255
  From a picture in the Lenox Collection,
    New York Public Library.

AMHERST  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  257
  After the portrait by Reynolds.

THE COUNTRY ROUND TICONDEROGA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  259
  From _Documentary History of New York_.

GENERAL JAMES WOLFE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  261
  After the engraved portrait by Houstin.

BOUGAINVILLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  263
  After a cut in Bounechose's _Montcalm_.

THE SITE OF QUEBEC AND THE GROUND OCCUPIED
  DURING THE SIEGE OF 1759 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  265
  After a plan in _The Universal Magazine_,
    London, December, 1859.

LOUIS JOSEPH, MARQUIS DE MONTCALM  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  268
  After the portrait in the possession of his descendants.

DEATH OF WOLFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  272
  From the painting by West.

{xxiv}

MAJOR ROBERT ROGERS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  277
  After a mezzotint by an unknown engraver.
    Published in London, October 1, 1776

NORTH AMERICA AT THE CLOSE OF THE FRENCH WARS, 1763  . . . .  278

GENERAL MURRAY, FIRST GOVERNOR OF QUEBEC   . . . . . . . . .  280
  After the portrait by Ramsay.

SETTLEMENTS ON THE DETROIT RIVER   . . . . . . . . . . . . .  283
  From Parkman's _Conspiracy of Pontiac_.

BOUQUET  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  289
  After the portrait by West.

RETURN OF THE ENGLISH CAPTIVES   . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  291
  After the painting by West.

MONTREAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  293
  After a print in the New York Public Library.

SAMUEL HEARNE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  297
  After an engraving published in 1796.

GENERAL RICHARD MONTGOMERY   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  301
  After the painting by Chappel.

MAP OF QUEBEC DURING THE SIEGE OF CONGRESS TROOPS  . . . . .  303

SIR GUY CARLETON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  307
  After an engraving in _The Political Magazine_, June, 1782.

BENEDICT ARNOLD  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  309
  After the portrait by Tate.

GENERAL HALDIMAND  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  311
  After the portrait by Reynolds.

JOSEPH BRANT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  315
  After the portrait by Ames.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR SIMCOE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  316
  After an engraving in Scadding's _Toronto of Old_.

CAPTAIN COOK   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  320
  After the portrait by Dauce.

FORT CHURCHILL AS IT WAS IN 1777 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  320
  After a print in the _European Magazine_, June, 1797.

TOTEM POLES, BRITISH COLUMBIA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  320
  From a photograph.

CAPTAIN GEORGE VANCOUVER   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  322
  After the portrait by Abbott.

NOOTKA SOUND   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  323
  From an engraving in Vancouver's _Journal_.

FORT CHIPPEWYAN, ATHABASCA LAKE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  325
  From a recent photograph.

{xxv}

ALEXANDER MACKENZIE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  327
  After the portrait by Lawrence.

CAUSE OF A PORTAGE   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  329
  From a photograph.

SIMON FRASER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  331
  From a likeness in Morice's _The History
    of the Northern Interior of British Columbia_.

ASTORIA IN 1813  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  332
  From a cut in Franchere's _Narrative of a Voyage_.

MAP OF WEST COAST, SHOWING THE OGDEN AND ROSS
  EXPLORATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  332
  From Laut's _Conquest of the Great North West_.

GENERAL SIR JAMES HENRY CRAIG, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA,
  1807-1811  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  336
  After an engraving at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

WILLIAM HULL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  338
  After the portrait by Stuart, with autograph.

MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS
  ON THE DETROIT RIVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  340

MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS ON
  THE NIAGARA FRONTIER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  342

GENERAL BROCK  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  345
  After a portrait in the possession of
    J. A. Macdonell Esq., Alexandria, Ontario.

BROCK MONUMENT, QUEENSTON HEIGHTS  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  347
  From a photograph.

YORK (TORONTO) HARBOR  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  351
  From Bouchette's _British Dominions in North America_.

FITZGIBBONS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  357
  After a photograph reproduced in _Proceedings
  and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada_, 1900.

LAURA SECORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  361
  From _Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records_.

TWO VIEWS OF THE BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE   . . . . . . . . . . .  364
  From prints published in 1815

TECUMSEH   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  366
  After the drawing by Pierre Le Drie.

DE SALABERRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  368
  After a portrait in Fannings Taylor's _Portraits of
    British Americans_.

SIR GORDON DRUMMOND  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  371
  After an engraving at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

MONUMENT AT LUNDY'S LANE   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  375
  From a photograph.

{xxvi}

SELKIRK  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  381
  From Ontario Archives Collection.

NELSON AND HAYES RIVERS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  384
  From a map in Robson's _Hudson Bay_.

FORT GARRY, RED RIVER SETTLEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  387
  From Ross' _Red River Settlement_.

FORT DOUGLAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  388
  After an old engraving.

SKETCH OF THE CITY OF WINNIPEG, SHOWING THE SITES
  OF THE EARLY FORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  391
  From Manitoba Historical Society

RED RIVER SETTLEMENT, 1816-1820  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  392
  After a map in Amos' _Report of the Trials Relative
    to the Destruction of the Earl of Selkirk's Settlement_.

MONUMENT TO COMMEMORATE THE MASSACRE OF SEVEN OAKS . . . . .  397
  After a sketch.

TRACKING ON ATHABASCA RIVER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  401
  From a photograph.

PLANS OF YORK AND PRINCE OF WALES FORTS  . . . . . . . . . .  405
  From a plate in Robson's _Hudson Bay_.

SIR GEORGE SIMPSON, GOVERNOR OF HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, 1820    406

JOHN MCLOUGHLIN  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  408
  After a likeness in Laut's _Conquest
    of the Great Northwest_.

SIR JOHN SHERBROOKE, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA, 1816-1818    413
  After an engraving at Queen's University,
    Kingston, Ontario.

THE FOURTH DUKE OF RICHMOND, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA,
  1818-1819  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  419
  After an engraving at Queen's University,
    Kingston, Ontario.

WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  421
  After a likeness in Lindsey's _Life and Times of Mackenzie_.

ALLAN McNAB  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  423
  After the portrait in the Speaker's Chambers, Ottawa.

LOUIS J. PAPINEAU  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  428
  After a likeness in Fannings Taylor's _British Americans_.

SIR JOHN COLBORNE, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA, 1838-1841 . .  430
  After an engraving at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

LORD DURHAM, SPECIAL COMMISSIONER TO CANADA, 1838  . . . . .  432
  After an engraving at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

JOHN A. MACDONALD  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  435
  From a photograph.

FATHERS OF CONFEDERATION, 1867   . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  436
  From the painting by Hariss.




CANADA

THE EMPIRE OF THE NORTH


CHAPTER I

FROM 1000 TO 1600

Early voyages to America--Voyages of the Cabots--The French fisher
folk--Cartier's first voyage--Cartier's second voyage--Cartier's third
voyage--Marguerite Roberval


Who first found Canada?  As many legends surround the beginnings of
empire in the North as cling to the story of early Rome.

When Leif, son of Earl Eric, the Red, came down from Greenland with his
Viking crew, which of his bearded seamen in Arctic furs leaned over the
dragon prow for sight of the lone new land, fresh as if washed by the
dews of earth's first morning?  Was it Thorwald, Leif's brother, or the
mother of Snorri, first white child born in America, who caught first
glimpse through the flying spray of Labrador's domed hills,--"Helluland,
place of slaty rocks"; and of Nova Scotia's wooded meadows,--"Markland";
and Rhode Island's broken vine-clad shore,--"Vinland"?  The question
cannot be answered.  All is as misty concerning that Viking voyage as the
legends of old Norse gods.

Leif, the Lucky, son of Earl Eric, the outlaw, coasts back to Greenland
with his bold sea-rovers.  This was in the year 1000.

For ten years they came riding southward in their rude-planked ships of
the dragon prow, those Norse adventurers; and Thorwald, Leif's brother,
is first of the pathfinders in America to lose his life in battle with
the "Skraelings" or Indians.  Thornstein, another brother, sails south in
1005 with Gudrid, his wife; but a roaring nor'easter tears the piping {2}
sails to tatters, and Thornstein dies as his frail craft scuds before the
blast.  Back comes Gudrid the very next year, with a new husband and a
new ship and two hundred colonists to found a kingdom in the "Land of the
Vine."  At one place they come to rocky islands, where birds flock in
such myriads it is impossible to land without trampling nests.  Were
these the rocky islands famous for birds in the St. Lawrence?  On another
coast are fields of maize and forests entangled with grapevines.  Was
this part of modern New England?  On Vinland--wherever it was--Gudrid,
the Norse woman, disembarks her colonists.  All goes well for three
years.  Fish and fowl are in plenty.  Cattle roam knee-deep in pasturage.
Indians trade furs for scarlet cloth and the Norsemen dole out their
barter in strips narrow as a little finger; but all beasts that roam the
wilds are free game to Indian hunters.  The cattle begin to disappear,
the Indians to lurk armed along the paths to the water springs.  The
woods are full of danger.  Any bush may conceal painted foe.  Men as well
as cattle lie dead with telltale arrow sticking from a wound.  The
Norsemen begin to hate these shadowy, lonely, mournful forests.  They
long for wild winds and trackless seas and open world.  Fur-clad, what do
they care for the cold?  Greenland with its rolling drifts is safer
hunting than this forest world.  What glory, doomed prisoners between the
woods and the sea within the shadow of the great forests and a great
fear?  The smell of wildwood things, of flower banks, of fern mold, came
dank and unwholesome to these men.  Their {3} nostrils were for the whiff
of the sea; and every sunset tipped the waves with fire where they longed
to sail.  And the shadow of the fear fell on Gudrid.  Ordering the
vessels loaded with timber good for masts and with wealth of furs, she
gathered up her people and led them from the "Land of the Vine" back to
Greenland.

[Illustration: VIKING SHIP RECENTLY DISCOVERED.]

Where was Vinland?  Was it Canada?  The answer is unknown.  It was south
of Labrador.  It is thought to have been Rhode Island; but certainly,
passing north and south, the Norse were the first white men to see Canada.


Did some legend, dim as a forgotten dream, come down to Columbus in 1492
of the Norsemen's western land?  All sailors of Europe yearly fished in
Iceland.  Had one of Columbus's crew heard sailor yarns of the new land?
If so, Columbus must have thought the new land part of Asia; for ever
since Marco Polo had come from China, Europe had dreamed of a way to Asia
by the sea.  What with Portugal and Spain dividing the New World, all the
nations of Europe suddenly awakened to a passion for discovery.

[Illustration: DIVISION OF THE NEW WORLD BETWEEN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.]

There were still lands to the north, which Portugal and Spain had not
found,--lands where pearls and gold might abound.  At Bristol in England
dwelt with his sons John Cabot, the Genoese master mariner, well
acquainted with Eastern-trade.  Henry VII commissions him on a voyage of
discovery--an empty honor, the King to have one fifth of all profit,
Cabot to bear all expense.  The _Matthew_ ships from Bristol with a crew
of eighteen in May of 1497.  North and west sails the tumbling craft two
thousand miles.  Colder grows the air, stiffer the breeze in the bellying
sails, till the _Matthew's_ crew are shivering on decks amid fleets of
icebergs that drift from Greenland in May and June.  This is no realm of
spices and gold.  Land looms through the mist the last week in June, {4}
rocky, surf-beaten, lonely as earth's ends, with never a sound but the
scream of the gulls and the moan of the restless water-fret along endless
white reefs.  Not a living soul did the English sailors see.  Weak in
numbers, disappointed in the rocky land, they did not wait to hunt for
natives.  An English flag was hastily unfurled and possession taken of
this Empire of the North for England.  The woods of America for the first
time rang to the chopper.  Wood and water were taken on, and the
_Matthew_ had anchored in Bristol by the first week of August.  Neither
gold nor a way to China had Cabot found; but he had accomplished three
things: he had found that the New World was not a part of Asia, as Spain
thought; he had found the continent itself; and he had given England the
right to claim new dominion.

[Illustration: A TYPICAL "HOLE IN THE WALL" AT "KITTY VIDDY," NEAR ST.
JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND]

England went mad over Cabot.  He was granted the title of admiral and
allowed to dress in silks as a nobleman.  King Henry gave him 10 pounds,
equal to $500 of modern money, and a pension of 20 pounds, equal to $1000
to-day.  It is sometimes said that modern writers attribute an air of
romance to these old pathfinders, {5} which they would have scorned; but
"Zuan Cabot," as the people called him, wore the halo of glory with glee.
To his barber he presented an island kingdom; to a poor monk he gave a
bishopric.  His son, Sebastian, sailed out the next year with a fleet of
six ships and three hundred men, coasting north as far as Greenland,
south as far as Carolina, so rendering doubly secure England's title to
the North, and bringing back news of the great cod banks that were to
lure French and Spanish and English fishermen to Newfoundland for
hundreds of years.

[Illustration: SEBASTIAN CABOT]

Where was Cabot's landfall?

I chanced to be in Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland, shortly after the 400th
anniversary of Cabot's voyage.  King's Cove, landlocked as a hole in a
wall, mountains meeting sky line, presented on one flat rock in letters
the size of a house claim that it was _here_ John Cabot sent his sailors
ashore to plant the flag on cairn of bowlders; but when I came back from
Newfoundland by way of Cape Breton, I found the same claim there.  For
generations the tradition has been handed down from father to son among
Newfoundland fisher folk that as Cabot's vessel, pitching and rolling to
the tidal bore, came scudding into King's Cove, rock girt as an inland
lake, the sailors shouted "Bona Vista--Beautiful View"; but Cape Breton
has her legend, too.  It was Cabot's report of the cod banks that brought
the Breton fishermen out, whose name Cape Breton bears.

{6} As Christopher Columbus spurred England to action, so Cabot now
spurred Portugal and Spain and France.

Gaspar Cortereal comes in 1500 from Portugal on Cabot's tracks to that
land of "slaty rocks" which the Norse saw long ago.  The Gulf Stream
beats the iron coast with a boom of thunder, and the tide swirl meets the
ice drift; and it isn't a land to make a treasure hunter happy till there
wander down to the shore Montaignais Indians, strapping fellows, a head
taller than the tallest Portuguese.  Cortereal lands, lures fifty savages
on board, carries them home as slaves for Portugal's galley ships, and
names the country--"land of laborers"--Labrador.  He sailed again, the
next year; but never returned to Portugal.  The seas swallowed his
vessel; or the tide beat it to pieces against Labrador's rocks; of those
Indians slaked their vengeance by cutting the throats of master and crew.

And Spain was not idle.  In 1513 Balboa leads his Spanish treasure
seekers across the Isthmus of Panama, discovers the Pacific, and realizes
what Cabot has already proved--that the New World is not a part of Asia.
Thereupon, in swelling words, he takes possession of "earth, air, and
water from the Pole Arctic to the Pole Antarctic" for Spain.  A few years
later Magellan finds his way to Asia round South America; but this path
by sea is too long.

From France, Normans and Bretons are following Cabot's tracks to
Newfoundland, to Labrador, to Cape Breton, "quhar men goeth a-fishing" in
little cockleshell boats no bigger than three-masted schooner, with
black-painted dories dragging in tow or roped on the rolling decks.
Absurd it is, but with no blare of trumpets or royal commissions, with no
guide but the wander spirit that lured the old Vikings over the rolling
seas, these grizzled peasants flock from France, cross the Atlantic, and
scatter over what were then chartless waters from the Gulf of St.
Lawrence to the Grand Banks.

Just as they may be seen to-day bounding over the waves in their little
black dories, hauling in . . . hauling in the endless line, or jigging
for squid, or lying at ease at the noonday hour {7} singing some old land
ballad while the kettle of cod and pork boils above a chip fire kindled
on the stones used as ballast in their boats--so came the French fisher
folk three years after Cabot had discovered the Grand Banks.  Denys of
Honfleur has led his fishing fleet all over the Gulf of St. Lawrence by
1506.  So has Aubert of Dieppe.  By 1517, fifty French vessels yearly
fish off the coast of New-Found-Land.  By 1518 one Baron de Lery has
formed the project of colonizing this new domain; but the baron's ship
unluckily came from the Grand Banks to port on that circular bank of sand
known as Sable Island--from twenty to thirty miles as the tide shifts the
sand, with grass waist high and a swampy lake in the middle.  The Baron
de Lery unloads his stock on Sable island and roves the sea for a better
port.

The King of France, meanwhile, resents the Pope dividing the New World
between Spain and Portugal.  "I should like to see the clause in Father
Adam's will that gives the whole earth to you," he sent word to his
brother kings.  Verrazano, sea rover of Florence, is commissioned to
explore the New World seas; but Verrazano goes no farther north in 1524
than Newfoundland, and when he comes on a second voyage he is lost--some
say hanged as a pirate by the Spaniards for intruding on their seas.

In spite of the loss of the King's sea rover, the fisher folk of France
continue coming in their crazy little schooners, continue fishing in the
fogs of the Grand Banks from their rocking black-planked dories, continue
scudding for shelter from storm . . . here, there, everywhere; into the
south shore of Newfoundland; into the long arms of the sea at Cape
Breton, dyed at sundawn and sunset by such floods of golden light, these
arms of the sea become known as Bras d'Or Lakes--Lakes of Gold; into the
rock-girt lagoons of Gaspe; into the holes in the wall of Labrador . . .;
till there presently springs up a secret trade in furs between the
fishing fleet and the Indians.  The King of France is not to be balked by
one failure.  "What," he asked, "are my royal brothers to have _all_
America?"  Among the Bank fishermen were many sailors of St. Malo.
Jacques Cartier, master pilot, {8} now forty years of age, must have
learned strange yarns of the New World from harbor folk.  Indeed, he may
have served as sailor on the Banks.  Him the King chose, with one hundred
and twenty men and two vessels, in 1534, to go on a voyage of discovery
to the great sea where men fished.  Cartier was to find if the sea led to
China and to take possession of the countries for France.  Captain,
masters, men, march to the cathedral and swear fidelity to the King.  The
vessels sail on April 20, with the fishing fleet.

[Illustration: Jacques Cartier]

Piping winds carry them forward at a clipper pace.  The sails scatter and
disappear over the watery sky line.  In twenty days Cartier is off that
bold headland with the hole in the wall called Bona Vista.  Ice is
running as it always runs there in spring.  What with wind and ice,
Cartier deems it prudent to look for shelter.  Sheering south among the
scarps at Catalina, where the whales blow and the seals float in
thousands {9} on the ice pans, Cartier anchors to take on wood and water.
For ten days he watches the white whirl driving south.  Then the water
clears and his sails swing to the wind, and he is off to the north, along
that steel-gray shore of rampart rock, between the white-slab islands and
the reefy coast.  Birds are in such flocks off Funk Island that the men
go ashore to hunt, as the fisher folk anchor for bird shooting to-day.

Higher rises the rocky sky line; barer the shore wall, with never a break
to the eye till you turn some jagged peak and come on one of those snug
coves where the white fisher hamlets now nestle.  Reefs white as lace
fret line the coast.  Lonely as death, bare as a block of marble, Gull
Island is passed where another crew in later years perish as castaways.
Gray finback whales flounder in schools.  The lazy humpbacks lounge round
and round the ships, eyeing the keels curiously.  A polar bear is seen on
an ice pan.  Then the ships come to those lonely harbors north of
Newfoundland--Griguet and Quirpon and Ha-Ha-Bay, rock girt, treeless,
always windy, desolate, with an eternal moaning of the tide over the
fretful reefs.

[Illustration: WHERE THE FISHER HAMLETS NOW NESTLE, NEWFOUNDLAND]

{10} To the north, off a little seaward, is Belle Isle.  Here, storm or
calm, the ocean tide beats with fury unceasing and weird reechoing of
baffled waters like the scream of lost souls.  It was sunset when I was
on a coastal ship once that anchored off Belle Isle, and I realized how
natural it must have been for Cartier's superstitious sailors to mistake
the moan of the sea for wild cries of distress, and the smoke of the
spray for fires of the inferno.  To French sailors Belle Isle became Isle
of Demons.  In the half light of fog or night, as the wave wash rises and
falls, you can almost see white arms clutching the rock.

As usual, bad weather caught the ships in Belle Isle Straits.  Till the
9th of June brown fog held Cartier.  When it lifted the tide had borne
his ships across the straits to Labrador at Castle Island, Chateau Bay.
Labrador was a ruder region than Newfoundland.  Far as eye could scan
were only domed rocks like petrified billows, dank valleys moss-grown and
scrubby, hillsides bare as slate; "This land should not be called earth,"
remarked Cartier.  "It is flint!  Faith, I think this is the region God
gave Cain!"  If this were Cain's realm, his descendants were "men of
might"; for when the Montaignais, tall and straight as mast poles, came
down to the straits, Cartier's little scrub sailors thought them giants.
Promptly Cartier planted the cross and took possession of Labrador for
France.  As the boats coasted westward the shore rock turned to
sand,--huge banks and drifts and hillocks of white sand,--so that the
place where the ships struck across for the south shore became known as
Blanc Sablon (White Sand).  Squalls drove Cartier up the Bay of Islands
on the west shore of Newfoundland, and he was amazed to find this arm of
the sea cut the big island almost in two.  Wooded mountains flanked each
shore.  A great river, amber with forest mold, came rolling down a deep
gorge.  But it was not Newfoundland Cartier had come to explore; it was
the great inland sea to the west, and to the west he sailed.

July found him off another kind of coast--New Brunswick--forested and
rolling with fertile meadows.  Down a broad shallow stream--the
Miramichi--paddled Indians waving furs {11} for trade; but wind
threatened a stranding in the shallows.  Cartier turned to follow the
coast north.  Denser grew the forests, broader the girths of the great
oaks, heavier the vines, hotter the midsummer weather.  This was no land
of Cain.  It was a new realm for France.  While Cartier lay at anchor
north of the Miramichi, Indian canoes swarmed round the boats at such
close quarters the whites had to discharge a musket to keep the three
hundred savages from scrambling on decks.  Two seamen then landed to
leave presents of knives and coats.  The Indians shrieked delight, and,
following back to the ships, threw fur garments to the decks till
literally naked.  On the 18th of July the heat was so intense that
Cartier named the waters Bay of Chaleur.  Here were more Indians.  At
first the women dashed to hiding in the woods, while the painted warriors
paddled out; but when Cartier threw more presents into the canoes, women
and children swarmed out singing a welcome.  The Bay of Chaleur promised
no passage west, so Cartier again spread his sails to the wind and
coasted northward.  The forests thinned.  Towards Gaspe the shore became
rocky and fantastic.  The inland sea led westward, but the season was far
advanced.  It was decided to return and report to the King.  Landing at
Gaspe on July 24, Cartier erected a cross thirty feet high with the words
emblazoned on a tablet, _Vive le Roi de France_.  Standing about him were
the painted natives of the wilderness, one old chief dressed in black
bearskin gesticulating protest against the cross till Cartier explained
by signs that the whites would come again.  Two savages were invited on
board.  By accident or design, as they stepped on deck, their skiff was
upset and set adrift.  The astonished natives found themselves in the
white men's power, but food and gay clothing allayed fear.  They
willingly consented to accompany Cartier to France.  Somewhere north of
Gaspe the smoke of the French fishing fleet was seen ascending from the
sea, as the fishermen rocked in their dories cooking the midday meal.

August 9 prayers are held for safe return at Blanc Sablon,--port of the
white, white sand,--and by September 5 Cartier is {12} home in St. Malo,
a rabble of grizzled sailor folk chattering a welcome from the wharf
front.

He had not found passage to China, but he had found a kingdom; and the
two Indians told marvelous tales of the Great River to the West, where
they lived, of mines, of vast unclaimed lands.


Cartier had been home only a month when the Admiral of France ordered him
to prepare for another voyage.  He himself was to command the _Grand
Hermine_, Captain Jalobert the _Little Hermine_, and Captain Le Breton
the _Emerillon_.  Young gentlemen adventurers were to accompany the
explorers.  The ships were provisioned for two years; and on May 16,
1535, all hands gathered to the cathedral, where sins were confessed, the
archbishop's blessing received, and Cartier given a Godspeed to the music
of full choirs chanting invocation.  Three days later anchors were
hoisted.  Cannon boomed.  Sails swung out; and the vessels sheered away
from the roadstead while cheers rent the air.

Head winds held the ship back.  Furious tempests scattered the fleet.  It
was July 17 before Cartier sighted the gull islands of Newfoundland and
swung up north with the tide through the brown fogs of Belle Isle Straits
to the shining gravel of Blanc Sablon.  Here he waited for the other
vessels, which came on the 26th.

The two Indians taken from Gaspe now began to recognize the headlands of
their native country, telling Cartier the first kingdom along the Great
River was Saguenay, the second Canada, the third Hochelaga.  Near Mingan,
Cartier anchored to claim the land for France; and he named the great
waters St. Lawrence because it was on that saint's day he had gone
ashore.  The north side of Anticosti was passed, and the first of
September saw the three little ships drawn up within the shadow of that
somber gorge cut through sheer rock where the Saguenay rolls sullenly out
to the St. Lawrence.  The mountains presented naked rock wall.  Beyond,
rolling back . . . rolling back to an impenetrable wilderness . . . were
the primeval {13} forests.  Through the canyon flowed the river, dark and
ominous and hushed.  The men rowed out in small boats to fish but were
afraid to land.

As the ships advanced up the St. Lawrence the seamen could scarcely
believe they were on a river.  The current rolled seaward in a silver
flood.  In canoes paddling shyly out from the north shore Cartier's two
Indians suddenly recognized old friends, and whoops of delight set the
echoes ringing.

Keeping close to the north coast, russet in the September sun, Cartier
slipped up that long reach of shallows abreast a low-shored wooded island
so laden with grapevines he called it Isle Bacchus.  It was the Island of
Orleans.

Then the ships rounded westward, and there burst to view against the high
rocks of the north shore the white-plumed shimmering cataract of
Montmorency leaping from precipice to river bed with roar of thunder.

Cartier had anchored near the west end of Orleans Island when there came
paddling out with twelve canoes, Donnacona, great chief of Stadacona,
whose friendship was won on the instant by the tales Cartier's Indians
told of France and all the marvels of the white man's world.

Cartier embarked with several young officers to go back with the chief;
and the three vessels were cautiously piloted up little St. Charles
River, which joins the St. Lawrence below the modern city of Quebec.
Women dashed to their knees in water to welcome ashore these gayly
dressed newcomers with the gold-braided coats and clanking swords.
Crossing the low swamp, now Lower Town, Quebec, the adventurers followed
a path through the forest up a steep declivity of sliding stones to the
clear high table-land above, and on up the rolling slopes to the airy
heights of Cape Diamond overlooking the St. Lawrence like the turret of
some castle above the sea.  Did a French soldier, removing his helmet to
wipe away the sweat of his arduous climb, cry out "Que bec" (What a
peak!) as he viewed the magnificent panorama of river and valley and
mountain rolling from his feet; or did their Indian guide point to the
water of the river narrowing like {14} a strait below the peak, and
mutter in native tongue, "Quebec" (The strait)?  Legend gives both
explanations of the name.  To the east Cartier could see far down the
silver flood of the St. Lawrence halfway to Saguenay; to the south, far
as the dim mountains of modern New Hampshire.  What would the King of
France have thought if he could have realized that his adventurers had
found a province three times the size of England, one third larger than
France, one third larger than Germany?  And they had as yet reached only
one small edge of Canada, namely Quebec.

Heat haze of Indian summer trembled over the purple hills.  Below, the
river quivered like quicksilver.  In the air was the nutty odor of dried
grasses, the clear tang of coming frosts crystal to the taste as water;
and if one listened, almost listened to the silence, one could hear above
the lapping of the tide the far echo of the cataract.  To Cartier the
scene might have been the airy fabric of some dream world; but out of
dreams of earth's high heroes are empires made.


But the Indians had told of that other kingdom, Hochelaga.  Hither
Cartier had determined to go, when three Indians dressed as devils--faces
black as coals, heads in masks, brows adorned with elk horns--came
gyrating and howling out of the woods on the mountain side, making wild
signals to the white men encamped on the St. Charles.  Cartier's
interpreters told him this was warning from the Indian god not to ascend
the river.  The god said Hochelaga was a realm of snow, where all white
men would perish.  It was a trick to keep the white men's trade for
themselves.

Cartier laughed.

"Tell them their god is an old fool," he said.  "Christ is to be our
guide."

The Indians wanted to know if Cartier had spoken to his God about it.

"No," answered Cartier.  Then, not to be floored, he added, "but my
priest has."

{15} With three cheers, fifty young gentlemen sheered out on September 19
from the St. Charles on the _Emerillon_ to accompany Cartier to Hochelaga.

[Illustration: ANCIENT HOCHELAGA.  (From Ramusio)]

Beyond Quebec the St. Lawrence widened like a lake.  September frosts had
painted the maples in flame.  Song birds, the glory of the St. Lawrence
valley, were no longer to be heard, but the waters literally swarmed with
duck and the forests were alive with partridge.  Where to-day nestle
church spires and whitewashed hamlets were the birch wigwams and night
camp fires of Indian hunters.  Wherever Cartier went ashore, Indians
rushed knee-deep to carry him from the river; and one old chief at
Richelieu signified his pleasure by presenting the whites with two Indian
children.  Zigzagging leisurely, now along the north shore, now along the
south, pausing to hunt, pausing to explore, pausing to powwow with the
Indians, the adventurers came, on September 28, to the reedy shallows and
breeding grounds of wild fowl at Lake St. Peter.  Here they were so close
ashore the _Emerillon_ caught her keel in the weeds, and the explorers
left her aground under guard and went forward in rowboats.

{16} "Was this the way to Hochelaga?" the rowers asked Indians paddling
past.

"Yes, three more sleeps," the Indians answered by the sign of putting the
face with closed eyes three times against their hand; "three more nights
would bring Cartier to Hochelaga"; and on the night of the 2d of October
the rowboats, stopped by the rapids, pulled ashore at Hochelaga amid a
concourse of a thousand amazed savages.

It was too late to follow the trail through the darkening forest to the
Indian village.  Cartier placed the soldiers in their burnished armor on
guard and spent the night watching the council fires gleam from the
mountain.  And did some soldier standing sentry, watching the dark shadow
of the hill creep longer as the sun went down, cry out, "Mont Royal," so
that the place came to be known as Montreal?

At peep of dawn, while the mist is still smoking up from the river,
Cartier marshals twenty seamen with officers in military line, and, to
the call of trumpet, marches along the forest trail behind Indian guides
for the tribal fort.  Following the river, knee-deep in grass, the French
ascend the hill now known as Notre Dame Street, disappear in the hollow
where flows a stream,--modern Craig Street,--then climb steeply through
the forests to the plain now known as the great thoroughfare of
Sherbrooke Street.  Halfway up they come on open fields of maize or
Indian corn.  Here messengers welcome them forward, women singing,
tom-tom beating, urchins stealing fearful glances through the woods.  The
trail ends at a fort with triple palisades of high trees, walls separated
by ditches and roofed for defense, with one carefully guarded narrow
gate.  Inside are fifty large wigwams, the oblong bark houses of the
Huron-Iroquois, each fifty feet long, with the public square in the
center, or what we would call the courtyard.

It needs no trick of fancy to call up the scene--the winding of the
trumpet through the forest silence, the amazement of the Indian drummers,
the arrested frenzy of the dancers, the sunrise turning burnished armor
to fire, the clanking of swords, {17} the wheeling of the soldiers as
they fall in place, helmets doffed, round the council fire!  Women swarm
from the long houses.  Children come running with mats for seats.
Bedridden, blind, maimed are carried on litters, if only they may touch
the garments of these wonderful beings.  One old chief with skin like
crinkled leather and body gnarled with woes of a hundred years throws his
most precious possession, a headdress, at Cartier's feet.

Poor Cartier is perplexed.  He can but read aloud from the Gospel of St.
John and pray Christ heal these supplicants.  Then he showers presents on
the Indians, gleeful as children--knives and hatchets and beads and tin
mirrors and little images and a crucifix, which he teaches them to kiss.
Again the silver trumpet peals through the aisled woods.  Again the
swords clank, and the adventurers take their way up the mountain--a Mont
Royal, says Cartier.

The mountain is higher than the one at Quebec.  Vaster the view--vaster
the purple mountains, the painted forests, the valleys bounded by a sky
line that recedes before the explorer as the rainbow runs from the grasp
of a child.  This is not Cathay; it is a New France.  Before going back
to Quebec the adventurers follow a trail up the St. Lawrence far enough
to see that Lachine Rapids bar progress by boat; far enough, too, to see
that the Gaspe Indians had spoken truth when they told of another grand
river--the Ottawa--coming in from the north.


By the 11th of October Cartier is at Quebec.  His men have built a
palisaded fort on the banks of the St. Charles.  The boats are beached.
Indians scatter to their far hunting grounds.  Winter sets in.  Canadian
cold is new to these Frenchmen.  They huddle indoors instead of keeping
vigorous with exercise.  Ice hangs from the dismantled masts.  Drifts
heap almost to top of palisades.  Fear of the future falls on the crew.
Will they ever see France again?  Then scurvy breaks out.  The fort is
prostrate.  Cartier is afraid to ask aid of the wandering Indians lest
they learn his weakness.  To keep up show of strength he has his men fire
off muskets, batter the fort walls, march and drill and {18} tramp and
stamp, though twenty-five lie dead and only four are able to keep on
their feet.  The corpses are hidden in snowdrifts or crammed through ice
holes in the river with shot weighted to their feet.

In desperation Cartier calls on all the saints in the Christian calendar.
He erects a huge crucifix and orders all, well and ill, out in
procession.  Weak and hopeless, they move across the snows chanting
psalms.  That night one of the young noblemen died.  Toward spring an
Indian was seen apparently recovering from the same disease.  Cartier
asked him what had worked the cure and learned of the simple remedy of
brewed spruce juice.

By the time the Indians came from the winter hunt Cartier's men were in
full health.  Up at Hochelaga a chief had seized Cartier's gold-handled
dagger and pointed up the Ottawa whence came ore like the gold handle.
Failing to carry any minerals home, Cartier felt he must have witnesses
to his report.  The boats are rigged to sail, Chief Donnacona and eleven
others are lured on board, surrounded, forcibly seized, and treacherously
carried off to France.  May 6, 1536, the boats leave Quebec, stopping
only for water at St. Pierre, where the Breton fishermen have huts.  July
16 they anchor at St. Malo.


Did France realize that Cartier had found a new kingdom?  Not in the
least; but the home land gave heed to that story of minerals, and had the
kidnapped Indians baptized.  Donnacona and all his fellow-captives but
the little girl of Richelieu die, and Sieur de Roberval is appointed lord
paramount of Canada to equip Cartier with five vessels and scour the
jails of France for colonists.  Though the colonists are convicts, the
convicts are not criminals.  Some have been convicted for their religion,
some for their politics.  What with politics and war, it is May, 1541,
before the ships sail, and then Roberval has to wait another year for his
artillery, while Cartier goes ahead to build the forts.

From the first, things go wrong.  Head winds prolong the passage for
three months.  The stock on board is reduced to a diet of cider, and half
the cattle die.  Then the Indians of Quebec {19} ask awkward questions
about Donnacona.  Cartier flounders midway between truth and lie.
Donnacona had died, he said; as for the others, they have become as white
men.  Agona succeeds Donnacona as chief.  Agona is so pleased at the news
that he gives Cartier a suit of buckskin garnished with wampum, but the
rest of the Indians draw off in such resentment that Cartier deems it
wise to build his fort at a distance, and sails nine miles up to Cape
Rouge, where he constructs Bourg Royal.  Noel, his nephew, and Jalobert,
his brother-in-law, take two ships back to France.  While Cartier roams
exploring, Beaupre commands Bourg Royal.

In his roamings, ever with his eyes to earth for minerals, he finds
stones specked with mica, and false diamonds, whence the height above
Quebec is called Cape Diamond.  It is enough.  The crews spend the year
loading the ships with cargo of worthless stones, and set sail in May,
high of hope for wealth great as Spaniard carried from Peru.  June 8 the
ships slip in to St. John's, Newfoundland, for water.  Seventeen fishing
vessels rock to the tide inside the landlocked lagoon, and who comes
gliding up the Narrows of the harbor neck but Viceroy Roberval, mad with
envy when he hears of the diamond cargoes!  He breaks the head of a
Portuguese or two among the fishing fleet and forthwith orders Cartier
back to Quebec.

Cartier shifts anchor from too close range of Roberval's guns and says
nothing.  At dead of night he slips anchor altogether and steals away on
the tide, with only one little noiseless sail up on each ship through the
dark Narrows.  Once outside, he spreads his wings to the wind and is off
for France.  The diamonds prove worthless, but Cartier receives a title
and retires to a seigneurial mansion at St. Malo.

The episode did not improve Roberval's temper.  The new Viceroy was a
soldier and a martinet, and his authority had been defied.  With his two
hundred colonists, taken from the prisons of France, commanded by young
French officers,--a Lament and a La Salle among others,--he proceeded up
the coast of Newfoundland to enter the St. Lawrence by Belle Isle.  {20}
Among his people were women, and Roberval himself was accompanied by a
niece, Marguerite, who had the reputation of being a bold horsewoman and
prime favorite with the grandees who frequented her uncle's castle.
Perhaps Roberval had brought her to New France to break up her attachment
for a soldier.  Or the Viceroy may have been entirely ignorant of the
romance, but, anchored off Belle Isle,--Isle of Demons,--the angry
governor made an astounding discovery.  The girl had a lover on board, a
common soldier, and the two openly defied his interdict.  Coming after
Cartier's defection, the incident was oil to fire with Roberval.  Sailors
were ordered to lower the rowboat.  One would fain believe that the
tyrannical Viceroy offered the high-spirited girl at least the choice of
giving up her lover.  She was thrust into the rowboat with a faithful old
Norman nurse.  Four guns and a small supply of provisions were tossed to
the boat.  The sailors were then commanded to row ashore and abandon her
on Isle of Demons.  The soldier lover leaped over decks and swam through
the surf to share her fate.

Isle of Demons, with its wailing tides and surf-beaten reefs, is a
desolate enough spot in modern days when superstitions do not add to its
terrors.  The wind pipes down from The Labrador in fairest weather with
weird voices as of wailing ghosts, and in winter the shores of Belle Isle
never cease to echo to the hollow booming of the pounding surf.

Out of driftwood the castaways constructed a hut.  Fish were in plenty,
wild fowl offered easy mark, and in springtime the ice floes brought down
the seal herds.  There was no lack of food, but rescue seemed forever
impossible; for no fishing craft would approach the demon-haunted isle.
A year passed, two years,--a child was born.  The soldier lover died of
heartbreak and despondency.  The child wasted away.  The old nurse, too,
was buried.  Marguerite was left alone to fend for herself and hope
against hope that some of the passing sails would heed her signals.  No
wonder at the end of the third year she began to hear shrieking laughter
in the lonely cries of tide and wind, and to imagine that she saw
fiendish arms snatching through the spume of storm drift.

{21} Towards the fall of 1545, one calm day when spray for the once did
not hide the island, some fishermen in the straits noticed the smoke of a
huge bonfire ascending from Isle Demons.  Was it a trick of the fiends to
lure men to wreck, or some sailors like themselves signaling distress?

The boat drew fearfully near and nearer.  A creature in the strange
attire of skins from wild beasts ran down the rocks, signaling
frantically.  It was a woman.  Terrified and trembling, the sailors
plucked up courage to land.  Then for the first time Marguerite
Roberval's spirit gave way.  She could not speak; she seemed almost
bereft of reason.  It was only after the fishermen had nourished her back
to semblance of womanhood that they drew from her the story.  On
returning to France, Marguerite Roberval entered a convent.  It was there
an old court friend of her chateau days sought her out and heard the tale
from her own lips.

[Illustration: THE "DAUPHIN MAP" OF CANADA, _CIRCA_ 1543, SHOWING
CARTIER'S DISCOVERIES]

{22} A colony begun under such ill omen was not likely to prosper.
Roberval had proceeded to Cape Rouge, where he landed in July, and before
winter had a respectable fort constructed.  Fifty of his colonists died
of scurvy.  As many as six were hanged in a single day for
insubordination, and the whipping post became the emblem of an authority
that trembled in the balance.  Roberval, in troth, was not thinking of
the colony.  He was thinking of those minerals which the Indians said
were at the head waters of the Saguenay.  Leaving thirty women at the
fort, he ascended the Saguenay with seventy men in spring and explored as
far as Lake St. John, where the village of Roberval commemorates his
feat; but he found no minerals and lost eight men running rapids.  When
Cartier came out in 1543, Roberval took the remaining colonists home, a
profoundly embittered man.  Legend has it that he either perished on a
second voyage in 1549, or was assassinated in Paris.

So falls the curtain on the first attempt to colonize Canada.




{23}

CHAPTER II

FROM 1600 TO 1607

English voyages to North America--Sir Humphrey Gilbert--Henry
Hudson--Champlain's first voyage--Founding of Ste. Croix--The colonists
in Acadia


The second attempt to plant a French colony in the New World was more
disastrous than the first.

Though my Lord Roberval fails, the French fishing vessels continue to
bound over the billows of the Atlantic to the New World.  By 1578 there
are a hundred and fifty French fishing vessels off Newfoundland alone.
The fishing folk engage in barter.  Cartier's heirs ask for a monopoly of
the fur trade in Canada, but the grant is so furiously opposed by the
merchants of the coast towns that it is revoked until the Marquis de la
Roche, who had been a page at the French court, again obtains monopoly,
with many high-sounding titles as Governor, and the added obligation that
he must colonize the new land.  What with wars and court intrigue, it is
1598 before the Governor of Canada is ready to sail.  Of his two hundred
people taken from jails, all but sixty have obtained their freedom by
paying a ransom.  With these sixty La Roche follows the fishing fleet out
to the Grand Banks, then rounds southwestward for milder clime, where he
may winter his people.

Straight across the ship's course lies the famous sand bank, the
graveyard of the Atlantic,--what the old navigators called "the dreadful
isle,"--Sable Island.  The sea lies placid as glass between the crescent
horns of the long, low reefs,--thirty miles from horn to horn, with never
a tree to break the swale of the grass waist-high.

The marquis lands his sixty colonists to fish for supplies, while he goes
on with the crew to find place for settlement.

Barely has the topsail dipped over the watery sky before breakers begin
to thunder on the sand reefs.  Air and earth lash to fury.  Sails are
torn from the ship of the marquis.  His {24} masts go overboard, and the
vessel is driven, helpless as a chip in a maelstrom, clear back to the
ports of France.  Here double misfortune awaits La Roche.  His old
patrons of the court are no longer powerful.  He is thrown in prison by a
rival baron.

In vain the colonists strain tired eyes for a sail at sea.  Days become
weeks, weeks months, summer autumn; and no boat came back.  As winter
gales assailed the sea, sending the sand drifting like spray, the
convicts built themselves huts out of driftwood, and scooped beds for
themselves in the earth like rabbit burrows.  Of food there was plenty.
The people had their fishing lines; and the stock, left by the Baron de
Lery long ago, had multiplied and now overran the island.  Wild fowl,
too, teemed on the inland lake; and foxes, which must have drifted ashore
on the ice float of spring, ran wild through the sedge.

Like Robinson Crusoe cast on a desert isle, the desperate people fought
their fate.  Traps were set for the foxes, snares for the birds, and
scouts kept tramping from end to end of the island for sight of a sail.
Racked with despair and anxiety, these outcasts of civilization soon fell
to bitter quarreling.  Traps were found rifled.  Dead men lay beside the
looted traps; and, doubtless, not a few men lost their lives in spring
when the ice floes drifted down with the seal herds, and the men gave mad
chase from ice pan to ice pan for seal pelts to make clothing.  Spring
wore to summer.  The graves on the sand banks increased.  For a second
winter the dreary snowfall wrapped the island in a mantle white as death
sheet.  Then came the same weary monotony,--the frenzied seal hunt over
the blood-stained floes; the long summer days with the drone of the tide
on the sand banks; the men mad with hope at sight of a sail peak over the
far wave tops, only to be plunged in despair as the fisher boat passed
too far for signal; the fading of the grasses to russet in the sad autumn
light; then snowfall again--and despair.

Five years passed before La Roche could aid his people; and the pilot who
went to their rescue won himself immortal contempt by robbing the
castaways of their furs.  Word of the {25} rescue came to the ears of the
court.  Royalty commanded the refugees brought before the throne.  Only
twelve had survived, and these marched before the royal presence clothed
in the skins of seals, hair unkempt, beards to mid-waist, "like river
gods of yore," says the old record.  The King was so touched that he
commanded fifty crowns given to each man and the stolen furs restored.
La Roche died of chagrin.


While France is trying to colonize Canada, England has not forgotten that
John Cabot first coasted these northern shores and erected the English
flag.

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH]

About the time that Marguerite Roberval was left alone on Isle Demons,
two boys--half-brothers--were playing on the sands of the English
Channel, sailing toy boats and listening to sailor yarns of loot on the
Spanish Main.  One was Humphrey Gilbert; the other, Walter Raleigh.
These two were destined to lead England's first colonies to America.

Martin Frobisher had already poked the prows of English ships into the
icy straits of Greenland waters, seeking way to {26} China.  He had come
out with a fleet of fifteen sails and one hundred mariners in 1578 to
found colonies, but was led away by the lure of "fool's gold."  Loading
his vessels with worthless rocks which he believed contained gold enough
"to suffice all the gold gluttons of the world," he sailed back to
England without leaving the trace of a colony.  Francis Drake, the very
same year, had for the first time plowed an English furrow around the
seas of the world, chasing Spanish treasure boats up the west coast of
South America and loading his own vessel with loot to the water line.
Afraid to go back the way he had come, round South America, where all the
Spanish frigates lay in wait to catch him, Drake pushed on up the west
coast as far as California, and landing, took possession of what he
called "New Albion" for Queen Elizabeth.  But still no colony had been
planted for England.

[Illustration: THE BOYHOOD OF GILBERT AND RALEIGH.  (From the painting by
Sir John Millais)]

Gilbert and Raleigh, the two half-brothers, were both zealous for glory.
Both stood high in court favor.  Both had fought for Queen Elizabeth in
the wars.  Gilbert had fame as seaman and geographer.  He asks for the
privilege of founding England's first colony.  The Queen will incur no
expense.  Gilbert and Raleigh and their friends will fit out the vessels.
Elizabeth deeds to Gilbert all that old domain discovered by John Cabot,
reserving only one fifth of the minerals he may find; and she sends him a
present of a golden anchor as a Godspeed.  June 11, 1583, Sir Humphrey
sets sail with a fleet of three splendid merchantmen, fitted out as
men-of-war, and two heavily armed little frigates.  The crews number
three hundred and sixty men, but they are for the most part impressed
seamen and riotous.  The fleet is only well away when the biggest of the
merchantmen signals that plague has broken out, and flees back to
England.  Later, as fog hides the boats from one another, the pirate crew
on board the little frigate _Swallow_ run down an English fisherman on
the Grand Banks, board her, and at bayonet point loot the schooner from
stem to stern.  When the ships lower sail to come in on the tide through
the long Narrows, to the rock-girt harbor of St. John's, Newfoundland,
{27} the hundreds of fishing vessels lying at anchor there object to the
pirate _Swallow_; but Sir Humphrey reads his commission from the Queen,
and the fishing fleet roars a welcome that sets the rocks ringing.
Sunday, August 4, the next day after entering, Biscayans and French and
Portuguese and English send their new Governor tribute in
provisions,--fish from the English, marmalade and wines and spices from
the foreigners.  The admiral gives a feast to the master mariners each
week he is in port, and entertains--as the old record says--"right
bountifully."  Wandering round the rocky harbor, up the high cliff to the
left where remnants of an old fortress may be seen to-day, along the
circular hills to the right where the fishing stages cover the water
front, Gilbert's men find "fool's gold," rock with specks of iron and
mica.  Daniel, the refiner of metals, declares it is a rich specimen of
silver.  The find goes to Sir Humphrey's head.  He sees himself a second
Francis Drake, ships crammed with gold.  When the captains of the other
vessels in his fleet would see the treasure, he answers: "Content
yourselves!  It is enough!  I have seen it but I would have no speech
made of it in harbor; for the Portuguese and {28} Biscayans and French
might learn of it.  We shall soon return hither again."

[Illustration: SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT]

Many of the men are in ill health.  Gilbert decides to send the invalids
home in the _Swallow_; but he transfers the bold pirate crew of that
frigate to the big ship _Delight_, which carries provisions for the
colony.  While planning to make St. John's the headquarters of his new
kingdom, Sir Humphrey wishes to explore those regions where Cartier had
gone and whence the fishing schooners bring such wealth in furs.

August 20 the remainder of his fleet rounds out of St. John's south west
for the Gulf of St. Lawrence,--the _Delight_ with the provisions, the
_Golden Hinde_ with the majority of the people, the little frigate
_Squirrel_ weighted down by artillery stores but under command of Gilbert
himself, because the smaller ship can run close ashore to explore.  To
keep up the spirits of the men, there is much merrymaking.  Becalmed off
Cape Breton, Sir Humphrey visits the big ship _Delight_, where the
trumpets and the drums and the pipes and the cornets reel off wild sailor
jigs.  "There was," says the old record, "little watching for danger."
Wednesday, August 26, the sounding line forewarned the reefs of Sable
Island.  Breakers were sighted.  The _Delight_ signaled that her captain
wanted to shift southwest to deeper water, but Gilbert wanted to enter
the St. Lawrence and signaled back to go on northwest.  That night a
storm raged.  The provision ship ran full tilt into the sand banks of
Sable Island, and was battered into chips before the other ships could
come to rescue.  All supplies were lost and all the pirate crew perished
but sixteen, who jumped into the pinnace dragging astern, and, with only
one oar, half punted, half drifted for seven days till the wave wash
carried them to the shores of Newfoundland.  There they were picked up by
a fishing vessel.

With provisions gone, Sir Humphrey Gilbert's colony was doomed.  He must
turn back.  Saturday, August 31, they reversed the course.  When halfway
across the Atlantic the admiral rowed from the little _Squirrel_ across
to the _Golden Hinde_ to have a lame foot treated by the surgeon.  "Cheer
{29} up," he urged the men.  "Next year her Majesty will loan me 1000
pounds, and we shall come again."

[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH]

As storm was gathering, the men begged him to remain on the larger ship,
but Gilbert refused to leave the sailors of the _Squirrel_.  The frigate
was as safe for him as for them, he said.  Some one called his attention
to the fact that the frigate was overweighted with cannon.  Gilbert
laughed all danger to scorn.  Soon afterwards the waves began to break
short and high--a dangerous sea for a small, overweighted ship.  It had
been arranged that both ships should swing lanterns fore and aft to keep
each other in sight at night.  On the night of September 9 a
phosphorescent light was seen to gleam above the mainmast of the
_Squirrel_,--certain sign to the superstitious sailors of dire disaster;
but when the _Hinde_ slackened speed, and the great waves threw the
vessels almost together, there was Sir Humphrey sitting aloft, book in
hand, shouting out, "We are as near Heaven by sea as by land."  The
_Hinde_ fell to the rear.  The _Squirrel_ led away, her stern lanterns
lighting a trail across the shiny dark of the tempestuous billows.
Suddenly, at midnight, the guiding {30} light was lost.  The _Squirrel's_
stern lanterns were seen to descend the pitching trough of a mountain
wave, and when the wall of water fell, no light came up.  Down into the
abyss the little craft had plunged, never to rise again, carrying
explorer, treasure hunters, colonists, to a watery grave.

It may be added that the disaster took place halfway across the ocean,
and not off Newfoundland, as the ballad relates.


But for all this misfortune, England did not desist.  The very next year
Raleigh, who had played on the sands with Humphrey Gilbert, sends out his
colonists to the Roanoke, and lays the foundations for the beginning of
empire in the Southern States.  English sailors explore Cape Cod.  Ten
years after Frobisher had brought home his cargo of worthless stones from
Labrador, Davis, the master mariner, is out exploring the waters west of
Greenland; and Henry Hudson, the English pilot who had discovered Hudson
River, New York, for the Dutch, is retained by the English in 1610 to
explore those waters west of Greenland where both Frobisher and Davis
reported open passage.

It is midsummer of 1610 when Hudson enters Hudson Straits.  The ice jam
of Ungava Bay, Labrador, has almost torn his ships' timbers apart and has
set fear shivering like an aspen leaf among the crew.  Old Juett, the
mate, rages openly at Hudson for venturing such a frail ship on such a
sea; but when the ship anchors at the west end of Hudson Straits, five
hundred miles from the Atlantic, there opens to view another sea,--a sea
large as the Mediterranean, that, like the Mediterranean, may lead to
another world.  It is as dangerous to go back as forward; and forward
Hudson sails, southwestward for that sea Drake had cruised off
California, the old mate's mutiny rumbling beneath decks like a volcano.
South, southwestward, seven hundred miles sails Hudson, past the high
rocks and airy cataracts of Richmond Gulf, past silence like the realms
of death, on down where Hudson Bay rounds into James Bay and the shallows
plainly show this is no way to a western sea, but a blind inlet,
bowlder-strewn and muddy as swamps.

{31}

[Illustration: AT EASTERN ENTRANCE TO HUDSON STRAITS]

When the ship runs aground and all hands must out to waist in ice water
to pull her ashore as the tide comes in, Juett's rage bursts all bounds.
As they toil, snow begins to fall.  They are winter bound and storm bound
in an unknown land.  Half the crew are in open mutiny; the other half
build winter quarters and range the woods of James Bay for game.  Of game
there is plenty, but the rebels refuse to hunt.  A worthless lad named
Green, whom Hudson had picked off the streets of London, turns traitor
and talebearer, fomenting open quarrels till the commander threatens he
will hang to the yardarm the first man guilty of disobedience.  So passes
the sullen winter.  Provisions are short when the ship weighs anchor for
England in June of 1611.  With tears in his eyes, Hudson hands out the
last rations.  Ice blocks the way.  Delay means starvation.  If the crew
were only half as large, Henry Green whispers to the mutineers, there
would be food enough for passage home.  The ice floes clear, the sails
swing rattling to the breeze, but as Hudson steps on deck, the mutineers
leap upon him like wolves.  He is bound and thrown into the rowboat.
With him are thrust his son and {32} eight others of the crew.  The rope
is cut, the rowboat jerks back adrift, and Hudson's vessel, manned by
mutineers, drives before the wind.  A few miles out, the mutineers lower
sails to rummage for food.  The little boat with the castaways is seen
coming in pursuit.  Guilt-haunted, the crew out with all sails and flee
as from avenging ghosts.  So passes Henry Hudson from the ken of all men,
though Indian legend on the shores of Hudson Bay to this day maintains
that the castaways landed north of Rupert and lived among the savages.

[Illustration: HUDSON COAT OF ARMS]

Not less disastrous were English efforts than French to colonize the New
World.  Up to 1610 Canada's story is, in the main, a record of blind
heroism, dogged courage, death that refused to acknowledge defeat.


Four hundred French vessels now yearly come to reap the harvest of the
sea; in and out among the fantastic rocks of Gaspe, pierced and pillared
and scooped into caves by the wave wash, where fisher boats reap other
kind of harvest, richer than the silver harvest of the sea,--harvest of
beaver, and otter, and marten; up the dim amber waters of the Saguenay,
within the shadow of the somber gorge, trafficking baubles of bead and
red print for furs, precious furs.  Pontgrave, merchant prince, comes out
with fifty men in 1600, and leaves sixteen at Tadoussac, ostensibly as
colonists, really as wood lopers to scatter through the forests and learn
the haunts of the Indians.  Pontgrave comes back for men and furs in
1601, and comes again in 1603 with two vessels, accompanied by a soldier
of fortune from the French court, who acts as geographer,--Samuel
Champlain, now in his thirty-sixth year, with service in war to his
credit and a journey across Spanish America.

{33} The two vessels are barely as large as coastal schooners; but
shallow draft enables them to essay the Upper St. Lawrence far as Mount
Royal, where Cartier had voyaged.  Of the palisaded Indian fort not a
vestige remains.  War or plague has driven the tribe westward, but it is
plain to the court geographer that, in spite of former failures, this
land of rivers like lakes, and valleys large as European kingdoms, is fit
for French colonists.

[Illustration: THE FANTASTIC ROCKS OF GASPE]

When Champlain returns to France the King readily grants to Sieur de
Monts a region roughly defined as anywhere between Pennsylvania and
Labrador, designated Acadia.  This region Sieur de Monts is to colonize
in return for a monopoly of the fur trade.  When other traders complain,
De Monts quiets them by letting them all buy shares in the venture.  With
him are associated as motley a throng of treasure seekers as ever
stampeded for gold.  There is Samuel Champlain, the court geographer;
there is Pontgrave, the merchant prince, on a separate {34} vessel with
stores for the colonists.  Pontgrave is to attend especially to the fur
trading.  There are the Baron de Poutrincourt and his young son,
Biencourt, and other noblemen looking for broader domains in the New
World; and there are the usual riffraff of convicts taken from dungeons.
Priests go to look after the souls of the Catholics, Huguenot ministers
to care for the Protestants, and so valiantly do these dispute with
tongues and fists that the sailors threaten to bury them in the same
grave to see if they can lie at peace in death.

[Illustration: SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN]

Before the boats sight Acadia, it is early summer of 1604.  Pontgrave
leaves stores with De Monts and sails on up to Tadoussac.  De Monts
enters the little bay of St. Mary's, off the northwest corner of Nova
Scotia, and sends his people ashore to explore.

Signs of minerals they seek, rushing pellmell through the woods, gleeful
as boys out of school.  The forest is pathless and dense with June
undergrowth, shutting out the sun and all sign of direction.  The company
scatters.  Priest Aubry, more used to the cobble pavement of Paris than
to the tangle of ferns, grows fatigued and drinks at a fresh-water rill.
Going in the direction of his comrades' voices, he suddenly realizes that
he has left his sword at the spring.  The priest hurries back for the
sword, loses his companions' voices, and when he would return, finds that
he is hopelessly lost.  The last shafts of {35} sunlight disappear.  The
chill of night settles on the darkening woods.  The priest shouts till he
is hoarse and fires off his pistol; but the woods muffle all sound but
the scream of the wild cat or the uncanny hoot of the screech owl.  Aubry
wanders desperately on and on in the dark, his cassock torn to tatters by
the brushwood, his way blocked by the undisturbed windfall of countless
ages, . . . on and on, . . . till gray dawn steals through the forest and
midday wears to a second night.

Back at the boat were wild alarm and wilder suspicions.  Could the
Huguenots, with whom Aubry had battled so violently, have murdered him?
De Monts scouted the notion as unworthy, but the suspicion clung in spite
of fiercest denials.  All night cannon were fired from the vessel and
bonfires kept blazing on shore; but two or three days passed, and the
priest did not come.

De Monts then sails on up the Bay of Fundy, which he calls French Bay,
and by the merest chance sheers through an opening eight hundred feet
wide to the right and finds himself in the beautiful lakelike Basin of
Annapolis, broad chough to harbor all the French navy, with a shore line
of wooded meadows like home-land parks.  Poutrincourt is so delighted, he
at once asks for an estate here and names the domain Port Royal.

On up Fundy Bay sails De Monts, Samuel Champlain ever leaning over decks,
making those maps and drawings which have come down from that early
voyage.  The tides carry to a broad river on the north side.  It is St.
John's Day.  They call the river St. John, and wander ashore, looking
vainly for more minerals.  Westward is another river, known to-day as the
Ste. Croix, the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick.  Dochet Island
at its mouth seems to offer what to a soldier is an ideal site.  A fort
here could command either Fundy Bay or the upland country, which Indians
say leads back to the St. Lawrence.  Thinking more of fort than farms, De
Monts plants his colony on Ste. Croix River, on an island composed mainly
of sand and rock.

While workmen labor to erect a fort on the north side, the pilot is sent
back to Nova Scotia to prospect for minerals.  As {36} the vessel coasts
near St. Mary's Bay, a black object is seen moving weakly along the
shore.  Sailors and pilot gaze in amazement.  A hat on the end of a pole
is waved weakly from the beach.  The men can scarcely believe their
senses.  It must be the priest, though sixteen days have passed since he
disappeared.  For two weeks Aubry had wandered, living on berries and
roots, before he found his way back to the sea.

[Illustration: PORT ROYAL OR ANNAPOLIS BASIN, 1609  (From Lescarbot's
map)]


Here, then, at last, is founded the first colony in Canada, a little
palisaded fort of seventy-nine men straining longing eyes at the sails of
the vessel gliding out to sea; for Pontgrave has taken one vessel up the
St. Lawrence to trade, and Poutrincourt has gone back to France with the
other for supplies.  A worse beginning could hardly have been made.  The
island was little better than a sand heap.  No hills shut out the cold
winds that swept down the river bed from the north, and the tide carried
in ice jam from the south.  As the snow began to fall, padding the
stately forests with a silence as of death, whitening the gaunt spruce
trees somber as funereal mourners, the colonists felt the icy loneliness
of winter in a forest chill their hearts.  {37} Cooped up on the island
by the ice, they did little hunting.  Idleness gives time for repinings.
Scurvy came, and before spring half the colonists had peopled the little
cemetery outside the palisades.  De Monts has had enough of Ste. Croix.
When Pontgrave comes out with forty more men in June, De Monts prepares
to move.  Champlain had the preceding autumn sailed south seeking a
better site; and now with De Monts he sails south again far as Cape Cod,
looking for a place to plant the capital of New France.  It is amusing to
speculate that Canada might have included as far south as Boston, if they
had found a harbor to their liking; but they saw nothing to compare with
Annapolis Basin, narrow of entrance, landlocked, placid as a lake, with
shores wooded like a park; and back they cruised to Ste. Croix in August,
to move the colony across to Nova Scotia, to Annapolis Basin of Acadia.
While Champlain and Pontgrave volunteer to winter in the wilderness, De
Monts goes home to look after his monopoly in France.

What had De Monts to show for his two years' labor?  His company had
spent what would be $20,000 in modern money, and all returns from fur
trade had been swallowed up prolonging the colony.  While Champlain
hunted moose in the woods round Port Royal and Pontgrave bartered furs
during the winter of 1605-1606, De Monts and Poutrincourt and the gay
lawyer Marc Lescarbot fight for the life of the monopoly in Paris and
point out to the clamorous merchants that the building of a French empire
in the New World is of more importance than paltry profits.  De Monts
remains in France to stem the tide rising against him, while Poutrincourt
and Lescarbot sail on the _Jonas_ with more colonists and supplies for
Port Royal.

Noon, July 27, 1606, the ship slips into the Basin of Annapolis.  To
Lescarbot, the poet lawyer, the scene is a fairyland--the silver flood of
the harbor motionless as glass, the wooded meadows dank with bloom, the
air odorous of woodland smells, the blue hills rimming round the sky, and
against the woods of the north shore the chapel spire and thatch roofs
and slab walls of the little fort, the one oasis of life in a wilderness.
{38} As the sails rattled down and the anchor dropped, not a soul
appeared from the fort.  The gates were bolted fast.  The _Jonas_ runs up
the French ensign.  Then a canoe shoots out from the brushwood, paddled
by the old chief Membertou.  He signals back to the watchers behind the
gates.  Musketry shots ring out welcome.  The ship's cannon answer,
setting the waters churning.  Trumpets blare.  The gates fly wide and out
marches the garrison--two lone Frenchmen.  The rest, despairing of a ship
that summer, have cruised along to Cape Breton to obtain supplies from
French fishermen, whence, presently, come Pontgrave and Champlain,
overjoyed to find the ship from France.  Poutrincourt has a hogshead of
wine rolled to the courtyard and all hands fitly celebrate.

[Illustration: BUILDINGS ON STE. CROIX ISLAND, 1613  (From Champlain's
diagram)]

When Pontgrave carries the furs to France, Marc Lescarbot, the lawyer
poet, proves the life of the fort for this, the third winter of the
colonists in Acadia.  Poutrincourt and his son {39} attend to trade.
Champlain, as usual, commands; and dull care is chased away by a thousand
pranks of the Paris advocate.  First, he sets the whole fort a-gardening,
and Baron Poutrincourt forgets his _noblesse_ long enough to wield the
hoe.  Then Champlain must dam up the brook for a trout pond.  The weather
is almost mild as summer until January.  The woods ring to many a merry
picnic, fishing excursion, or moose hunt; and when snow comes, the gay
Lescarbot along with Champlain institutes a New World order of
nobility--the Order of Good Times.  Each day one of the number must cater
to the messroom table of the fort.  This means keen hunting, keen rivalry
for one to outdo another in the giving of sumptuous feasts.  And all is
done with the pomp and ceremony of a court banquet.  When the chapel bell
rings out noon hour and workers file to the long table, there stands the
Master of the Revels, napkin on shoulder, chain of honor round his neck,
truncheon in his hand.  The gavel strikes, and there enter the
Brotherhood, each bearing a steaming dish in his hand,--moose hump,
beaver tail, bears' paws, wild fowl smelling luscious as food smells only
to out-of-doors men.  Old Chief Membertou dines with the whites.
Crouching round the wall behind the benches are the squaws and the
children, to whom are flung many a tasty bit.

At night time, round the hearth fire, when the roaring logs set the
shadows dancing on the rough-timbered floor, the truncheon and chain of
command are pompously transferred to the new Grand Master.  It is all
child's play, but it keeps the blood of grown men coursing hopefully.

Or else Lescarbot perpetrates a newspaper,--a handwritten sheet giving
the doings of the day,--perhaps in doggerel verse of his own composing.
At other times trumpets and drums and pipes keep time to a dance.  As all
the warring clergymen, both Huguenot and Catholic, have died of scurvy,
Lescarbot acts as priest on Sundays, and winds up the day with cheerful
excursions up the river, or supper spread on the green.  The lawyer's
good spirits proved contagious.  The French songs that rang through the
woods of Acadia, keeping time to the chopper's {40} labors, were the best
antidote to scurvy; but the wildwood happiness was too good to last.
While L'Escarbot was writing his history of the new colonies a bolt fell
from the blue.  Instead of De Monts' vessel there came in spring a
fishing smack with word that the grant of Acadia had been rescinded.  No
more money would be advanced.  Poutrincourt and his son, Biencourt,
resolved to come back without the support of a company; but for the
present all took sad leave of the little settlement--Poutrincourt,
Champlain, L'Escarbot--and sailed with the Cape Breton fishing fleet for
France, where they landed in October, 1607.

Cartier, Roberval, La Roche, De Monts--all had failed to establish France
in Canada; and as for England, Sir Humphrey's colonists lay bleaching
skeletons at the bottom of the sea.




{41}

CHAPTER III

FROM 1607 TO 1635

Argall of Virginia attacks the French--Champlain on the St.
Lawrence--Champlain and the Iroquois--Champlain explores the
Ottawa--Champlain with the Indians--Discovery of the Great Lakes--War
with the Iroquois--Conflicting interests in New France--The English
take Quebec


Though the monopoly had been rescinded, Poutrincourt set himself to
interesting merchants in the fur trade of Acadia, and the French king
confirmed to him the grant of Port Royal.  Yet it was 1610 before Baron
Poutrincourt had gathered supplies to reestablish the colony, and an
ominous cloud rose on the horizon, threatening his supremacy in the New
World.  Nearly all the merchants supporting him were either Huguenots
or moderate Catholics.  The Jesuits were all powerful at court, and
were pressing for a part in his scheme.  The Jesuit, Father Biard, was
waiting at Bordeaux to join the ship.  Poutrincourt evaded issues with
such powerful opponents.  He took on board Father La Fleche, a
moderate, and gave the Jesuit the slip by sailing from Dieppe in
February.

To this quarrel there are two sides, as to all quarrels.  The colony
must now be supported by the fur trade; and fur traders, world over,
easily add to their profits by deeds which will not bear the censure of
missionaries.  On the other hand, to Poutrincourt, the Jesuits meant
divided authority; and the most lawless scoundrel that ever perpetrated
crimes in the fur trade could win over the favor of the priests by a
hypocritical semblance of contrition at the confessional.  Contrition
never yet undid a crime; and civil courts can take no cognizance of
repentance.

When the ships sailed in to Port Royal the little fort was found
precisely as it had been left.  Not even the furniture had been
disturbed, and old Membertou, the Indian chief, welcomed the white men
back with taciturn joy.  Pere La Fleche assembles the savages, tells
them the story of the Christian faith, then to the beat of drum and
chant of "Te Deum" receives, one {42} afternoon, twenty naked converts
into the folds of the church.  Membertou is baptized Henry, after the
King, and all his frowsy squaws renamed after ladies of the most
dissolute court in Christendom.

Young Biencourt is to convey the ship back to France.  He finds that
the Queen Dowager has taken the Jesuits under her especial protection.
Money enough to buy out the interests of the Huguenot merchants for the
Jesuits has been advanced.  Fathers Biard and Masse embark on _The
Grace of God_ with young Biencourt in January, 1611, for Port Royal.
Almost at once the divided authority results in trouble.  Coasting the
Bay of Fundy, Biencourt discovers that Pontgrave's son has roused the
hostility of the Indians by some shameless act.  Young Biencourt is for
hanging the miscreant to the yardarm, but the sinner gains the ear of
the saints by woeful tale of penitence, and Father Biard sides with
young Pontgrave.  Instead of the gayety that reigned at Port Royal in
L'Escarbot's day, now is sullen mistrust.

The Jesuits threaten young Biencourt with excommunication.  Biencourt
retaliates by threatening _them_ with expulsion.  For three months no
religious services are held.  The boat of 1612 brings out another
Jesuit, Gilbert du Thet; and the _Jonas_, which comes in 1613 with
fifty more men,--La Saussaye, commander, Fleury, captain,--has been
entirely outfitted by friends of the Jesuits.  By this time Baron de
Poutrincourt, in France, was involved in debt beyond hope; but his
right to Port Royal was unshaken, and the Jesuits decided to steer
south to seek a new site for their colony.

[Illustration: PORT ROYAL  (From Champlain's diagram)]

Zigzagging along the coast of Maine, Captain Fleury cast anchor off
Mount Desert at Frenchman's Bay.  A cross was erected, mass celebrated,
and four white tents pitched to house the people; but the clash between
civil and religious authority broke out again.  The sailors would not
obey the priests.  Fleury feared mutiny.  Saussaye, the commander, lost
his head, and disorder was ripening to disaster when there appeared
over the sea the peak of a sail,--a sail topped by a little red ensign,
the {43} flag of the English, who claimed all this coast.  And the sail
was succeeded by decks with sixty mariners, and hulls through whose
ports bristled fourteen cannon.  The newcomer was Samuel Argall of
Virginia, whom the Indians had told of the French, now bearing down
full sail, cannon leveled, to expel these aliens from the domain of
England's King.  Drums were beating, trumpets blowing, fifes
shrieking--there was no mistaking the purpose of the English ship.
Saussaye, the French commander, dashed for hiding in the woods.
Captain Fleury screamed for some one, every one, any one, "to
fire--fire"; but the French sailors had imitated their commander and
fled to the woods, while the poor Jesuit, Gilbert du Thet, fell
weltering in blood from an English cannonade that swept the French
decks bare and set all sails in flame.  In the twinkling of an eye,
Argall had captured men and craft.  Fifteen of the French prisoners he
set adrift in open boat, on the chance of their joining the French
fishing fleet off Cape Breton.  They were ultimately carried to St.
Malo.  {44} The rest of the prisoners, including Father Biard, he took
back to Virginia, where the commission held from the French King
assured them honorable treatment in time of peace; but Argall was
promptly sent north again with his prisoners, and three frigates to lay
waste every vestige of French settlement from Maine to St. John.  Mount
Desert, the ruins of Ste. Croix, the fortress beloved by Poutrincourt
at Port Royal, the ripening wheat of Annapolis Basin--all fed the
flames of Argall's zeal; and young Biencourt's wood runners, watching
from the forests the destruction of all their hopes, the ruin of all
their plans, ardently begged their young commander to parley with
Argall that they might obtain the Jesuit Biard and hang him to the
highest tree.  To _his_ coming they attributed all the woes.  It was as
easy for them to believe that the Jesuit had piloted the English
destroyer to Port Royal, as it had been ten years before for the
Catholics to accuse the Huguenots of murdering the lost priest Aubry;
and there was probably as much truth in one charge as the other.

So fell Port Royal; but out round the ruins of Port Royal, where the
little river runs down to the sea past Goat Island, young Biencourt and
his followers took to the woods--the first of that race of bush lopers,
half savages, half noblemen, to render France such glorious service in
the New World.


When De Monts lost the monopoly of furs in Acadia, Champlain, the court
geographer, had gone home from Port Royal to France.  De Monts now
succeeds in obtaining a fresh monopoly for one year on the St.
Lawrence, and sends out two ships in 1608 under his old friends,
Pontgrave, who is to attend to the bartering, Champlain, who is to
explore.  With them come some of the colonists from Port Royal, among
others Louis Hebert, the chemist, first colonist to become farmer at
Quebec, and Abraham Martin, whose name was given to the famous plains
where Wolfe and Montcalm later fought.

Pontgrave arrived at the rendezvous of Tadoussac early in June.  Here
he found Basque fishermen engaged in the peltry {45} traffic with
Indians from Labrador.  When Pontgrave read his commission interdicting
all ships but those of De Monts from trade, the Basques poured a
fusillade of musketry across his decks, killed one man, wounded two,
then boarded his vessel and trundled his cannon ashore.  So much for
royal commissions and monopoly!

[Illustration: TADOUSSAC (From Champlain's map)]

At this stage came Champlain on the second boat.  Two vessels were
overstrong for the Basques.  They quickly came to terms and decamped.
Champlain steered his tiny craft on up the silver flood of the St.
Lawrence to that Cape Diamond where Cartier's men had gathered
worthless stones.  Between the high cliff and the river front, not far
from the market place of Quebec City to-day, workmen began clearing the
woods for the site of the French habitation.  The little fort was
palisaded, of course, with a moat outside and cannon commanding the
river.  The walls were loopholed for musketry; and inside ran a gallery
to serve as lookout and defense.  Houses, barracks, garden, and
fresh-water supply completed the fort.  One day, as Champlain {46}
worked in his garden, a colonist begged to speak with him.  Champlain
stepped into the woods.  The man then blurted out how a conspiracy was
on foot, instigated by the Basques, to assassinate Champlain, seize the
fort, and stab any man who dared to resist.  One of Pontgrave's small
boats lay at anchor.  Champlain sent for the pilot, told him the story
of the plot, gave him two bottles of wine, and bade him invite the
ringleaders on board that night to drink.  The ruse worked.  The
ringleaders were handcuffed, the other colonists awakened in the fort
and told that the plot had been crushed.  The body of Duval, the chief
plotter, in pay of the Basques, swung as warning from a gibbet; and his
head was exposed on a pike to the birds of the air.  Though Pontgrave
left a garrison of twenty-eight when he sailed for France, less than a
dozen men had survived the plague of scurvy when the ships came back to
Champlain in 1609.

Champlain's part had been to explore.  Now that his fort was built, he
planned to do this by allying himself with the Indians, who came down
to trade at Quebec.  These were the Hurons and Montaignais, the former
from the Ottawa, the latter from Labrador.  Both waged ceaseless war on
the Iroquois south of the St. Lawrence.  After bartering their furs for
weapons from the traders, the allied tribes would set out on the
warpath against the Iroquois.  In June, Champlain and eleven white men
accompanied the roving warriors.

The way led from the St. Lawrence south, up the River Richelieu.
Champlain's boat was a ponderous craft; and when the shiver of the
sparkling rapids came with a roar through the dank forest, the heavy
boat had to be sent back to Quebec.  Adopting the light birch canoe of
the Indian, Champlain went on, accompanied by only two white men.  Of
Indians, there were twenty-four canoes with sixty warriors.  For the
first part of the voyage night was made hideous by the grotesque war
dances of the braves lashing themselves to fury by scalp raids in
pantomime, or by the medicine men holding solemn converse with the
demons of earth; the tent poles of the medicine lodge rocked as if by
wind, while eldritch howls predicted victory.  {47} Then the long line
of silent canoes had spread out on that upland lake named after
Champlain, the heavily forested Adirondacks breaking the sky line on
one side, the Green Mountains rolling away on the other.  Caution now
marked all advance.  The Indians paddled only at night, withdrawing to
the wooded shore through the morning mist to hide in the undergrowth
for the day.  This was the land of the Iroquois.

[Illustration: DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS  (From Champlain's drawing)]

On July 29, as the invaders were stealing silently along the west shore
near Crown Point at night about ten o'clock, there were seen by the
starlight, coming over the water with that peculiar galloping motion of
paddlers dipping together, the Iroquois war canoes.  Each side
recognized the other, and the woods rang with shouts; but gathering
clouds and the mist rising from the river screened the foes from mutual
attack, though the night echoed to shout and countershout and challenge
and abuse.  Through the half light Champlain could see that the
Iroquois were working like beavers erecting a barricade of logs.  The
assailants kept to their canoes under cover of bull-hide shields till
daylight, when Champlain buckled on his armor--breastplate, helmet,
thigh pieces--and landing, advanced.  There were not less than two
hundred Iroquois.  Outnumbering the Hurons three times over, they
uttered a jubilant whoop and {48} came on at a rush.  Champlain and his
two white men took aim.  The foremost chiefs dropped in their tracks.
Terrified by "the sticks that thundered and spat fire," the Iroquois
fell back in amaze, halted, then fled.  The victory was complete; but
it left as a legacy to New France the undying enmity of the Iroquois.


When Champlain came out from France in 1610, he would have repeated the
raid; but a fight with invading Iroquois at the mouth of the Richelieu
delayed him, and the expiration of De Monts' monopoly took him back to
France.

In 1611 trade was free to all comers.  Fur traders flocked to the St.
Lawrence like birds of passage.  The only way to secure furs for De
Monts was to go higher up the river beyond Quebec; and ascending to
Montreal, Champlain built a factory called Place Royale, with a wall of
bricks to resist the ice jam.  This was the third French fort Champlain
helped to found in Canada.

Presently, on his tracks to Montreal, came a flock of free traders.
When the Hurons come shooting down the foamy rapids--here, a pole-shove
to avoid splitting canoes on a rock in mid-rush; there, a dexterous
whirl from the trough of a back wash--the fur traders fire off their
guns in welcome.  The Hurons are suspicious.  What means it, these
white men, coming in such numbers, firing off their "sticks that
thunder"?  At midnight they come stealthily to Champlain's lodge to
complain.  Peltries and canoes, the Indians transfer themselves above
the rapids, and later conduct Champlain down those same white
whirlpools to the uneasy amaze of the explorer.

It is clear to Champlain he must obtain royal patronage to stem the
boldness of these free traders.  In France he obtains the favor of the
Bourbons; and he obtains it more generously because the world of Paris
has gone agog about a fabulous tale that sets the court by the ears.
From the first Champlain has encouraged young Frenchmen to winter with
the Indian hunters and learn the languages.  Brule is with them now.
Nicholas Vignau has just come back from the Ottawa with a fairy story
of a marvelous voyage he has made with the Indians through {49} the
forests to the Sea of the North--the sea where Henry Hudson, the
Englishman, had perished.  As the romance gains the ear of the public,
the young man waxes eloquent in detail, and tells of the number of
Englishmen living there.  Champlain is ordered to follow this
exploration up.

May, 1613, he is back at Montreal, opposite that island named St.
Helen, after the frail girl who became his wife, preparing to ascend
the Ottawa with four white men--among them Vignau.  What Vignau's
sensations were, one may guess.  The vain youth had not meant his love
of notoriety to carry him so far; and he must have known that every
foot of the way led him nearer detection; but the liar is always a
gambler with chance.  Mishap, bad weather, Indian war--might drive
Champlain back.  Vignau assumed bold face.

The path followed was that river trail up the Ottawa which was to
become the highway of empire's westward march for two and a half
centuries.  Mount Royal is left to the rear as the voyageurs traverse
the Indian trail through the forests along the rapids to that launching
place named after the patron saint of French voyageur--Ste. Anne's.
The river widens into the silver expanse of Two Mountains Lake, rimmed
to the sky line by the vernal hills, with a silence and solitude over
all, as when sunlight first fell on face of man.  Here the eagle utters
a lonely scream from the top of some blasted pine; there a covey of
ducks, catching sight of the coming canoes, dive to bottom, only to
reappear a gunshot away.  Where the voyageurs land for their nooning,
or camp at nightfall, or pause to gum the splits in their birch canoes,
the forest in the full flush of spring verdure is a fairy woods.
Against the elms and the maples leafing out in airy tracery that
reveals the branches bronze among the budding green, stand the silver
birches, and the somber hemlocks, and the resinous pines.  Upbursting
from the mold below is another miniature forest--a forest of ferns
putting out the hairy fronds that in another month will be above the
height of a man.  Overhead, like a flame of fire, flashes the scarlet
tanager with his querulous call; or the oriole flits from branch to
branch, {50} fluting his springtime notes; or the yellow warbler
balances on topmost spray to sing his crisp love song on the long
journey north to nest on Hudson Bay.  And over all and in all,
intangible as light, intoxicating as wine, is the tang of the clear,
unsullied, crystal air, setting the blood coursing with new life.
Little wonder that Brule, and Vignau, and other young men whom
Champlain sent to the woods to learn wood lore, became so enamored of
the life that they never returned to civilization.

Presently the sibilant rush of waters forewarns rapids.  Indians and
voyageurs debark, invert canoes on their shoulders, packs on back with
straps across foreheads, and amble away over the portages at that
voyageurs' dog-trot which is half walk, half run.  So the rapids of
Carillon and Long Sault are ascended.  Night time is passed on some
sandy shore on a bed under the stars, or under the canoes turned upside
down.  Tents are erected only for the commander, Champlain; and at day
dawn, while the tips of the trees are touched with light and the
morning mist is smoking up from the river shot with gold, canoes are
again on the water and paddle blades tossing the waves behind.

The Laurentian Hills now roll from the river in purpling folds like
fields of heather.  The Gatineau is passed, winding in on the right
through dense forests.  On the left, flowing through the rolling sand
hills, and joining the main river just where the waters fall over a
precipice in a cataract of spray, is the Rideau River with its famous
falls resembling the white folds of a wind-blown curtain.  Then the
voyageurs have swept round that wooded cliff known as Parliament Hill,
jutting out in the river, and there breaks on view a wall of water
hurtling down in shimmering floods at the Chaudiere Falls.  The high
cliff to the left and countercurrent from the falls swirl the canoes
over on the right side to the sandy flats where the lumber piles to-day
defile the river.  Here boats are once more hauled up for portage--a
long portage, nine miles, all the way to the modern town of Aylmer,
where the river becomes wide as a lake, Lake Du Chene of the oak
forests.  Here camp for the night was made, and leaks in the canoes
mended with resin, round fires gleaming red as an angry eye across the
{51} darkening waters, while the prowling wild cats and lynx, which
later gave such good hunting in these forests that the adjoining rapids
became known as the Chats, sent their unearthly screams shivering
through the darkness.

Somewhere near Allumette Isle, Champlain came to an Indian settlement
of the Ottawa tribe.  He camped to ask for guides to go on.  Old Chief
Tessouat holds solemn powwow, passing the peace pipe round from hand to
hand in silence, before the warriors rise to answer Champlain.  Then
with the pompous gravity of Abraham dickering with the desert tribes,
they warn Champlain it is unsafe to go farther.  Beyond the Ottawa is
the Nipissing, where dwell the Sorcerer Indians--a treacherous people.
Beyond the Nipissing is the great Fresh Water Sea of the Hurons.  They
will grant Champlain canoes, but warn him against the trip.  Later the
interpreter comes with word they have changed their minds.  Champlain
must _not_ go on.  It is too dangerous.  Attack would involve war.

"What," demanded Champlain, rushing into the midst of the council tent,
"not go?  Why, my young man, here"--pointing to Vignau--"has gone to
that country and found no danger."

What Vignau thought at that stage is not told.  The Indians turned on
him in fury.

"Nicholas, did _you_ say _you_ had visited the Nipissings?"

Vignau hems and haws, and stammers, "Yes."

"Liar," roars the chief.  "You slept here every night, and if you went
to the Nipissings, you went in a dream."  Then to Champlain, "Let him
be tortured."

Champlain took the fellow to his own tent.  Vignau reiterated his
story.  Champlain took him back to the council.  The Indians jeered his
answers and tore the story he told to tatters, showing Champlain how
utterly wrong Vignau's descriptions were.

That night, on promise of forgiveness, Vignau fell on his knees and
confessed the imposture to Champlain.  When the fur canoes came down
the Ottawa to trade at Montreal, Champlain accompanied them to the St.
Lawrence, and sailed for France.  His exploration had been an
ignominious failure.

{52} Champlain was ever Knight of the Cross as well as explorer.  He
longed with the zeal of a missionary to reclaim the Indians from
savagery, and at last raised funds in France to pay the expense of
bringing four or five Recollets--a branch of the Franciscan Friars--to
Quebec in May of 1615.  With the peaked hood thrown back, the gray garb
roped in at the waist, the bare feet protected only by heavy sandals,
the Recollets landed at Quebec, and with cannon booming, white men all
on bended knee, held service before the amazed savages.

Of the Recollets, it was agreed that Joseph le Caron should go west to
the Hurons of the Sweet Water Sea.  Accompanied by a dozen Frenchmen,
the friar ascended the Ottawa in July, passed that Allumette Island
where Vignau's lie had been confessed, and proceeded westward to the
land of the Hurons.  Nine days later Champlain followed with two
canoes, ten Indians, and Etienne Brule, his interpreter.  In order to
hold the ever-lasting loyalty of the Hurons and Algonquins in Canada,
Champlain had pledged them that the French would join their twenty-five
hundred warriors in a great invasion of the Iroquois to the south.  It
was to be a war not of aggression but of defense; for the Five Nations
of the Iroquois in New York state had harried the Canadian tribes like
wolves raiding a sheep pen.  No Frenchman cultivating his farm patch on
the St. Lawrence was safe from ambuscade; no hunter afield secure from
a chance war party.

Any tourist crossing Canada to-day can trace Champlain's voyage.  Where
the rolling tide of the Ottawa forks at Mattawa, there comes in on the
west side, through dense forests and cedar swamps, a river
amber-colored with the wood-mold of centuries.  This is the Mattawa.
Up the Mattawa Champlain pushed his canoes westward, up the shining
flood of the river yellow as gold where the waters shallow above the
pebble bottom.  Then the gravel grated keels.  The shallows became
weed-grown swamps that entangled the paddles and hid voyageur from
voyageur in reeds the height of a man; and presently a portage over
rocks slippery as ice leads to a stream flowing westward, opening {53}
on a low-lying, clay-colored lake--the country of the Nipissings, with
whom Champlain pauses to feast and hear tales of witchcraft and demon
lore, that gave them the name of Sorcerers.

In a few sleeps--they tell him--he will reach the Sweet Water Sea.  The
news is welcome; for the voyageurs are down to short rations, and
launch eagerly westward on the stream draining Nipissing Lake--French
River.  This is a tricky little stream in whose sands lie buried the
bodies of countless French voyageurs.  It is more dangerous going
_with_ rapids than _against_ them; for the hastening current is
sometimes an undertow, which sweeps the canoes into the rapids before
the roar of the waterfall has given warning.  And the country is barren
of game.

As they cross the portages, Champlain's men are glad to snatch at the
raspberry and cranberry bushes for food; and their night-time meal is
dependent on chance fishing.  Indian hunters are met,--three hundred of
them,--the Staring Hairs, so named from the upright posture of their
headdress tipped by an eagle quill; and again Champlain is told he is
very near the Inland Sea.

It comes as discoveries nearly always come--his finding of the Great
Lakes; for though Joseph Le Caron, the missionary, had passed this way
ten days ago, the zealous priest never paused to explore and map the
region.  You are paddling down the brown, forest-shadowed waters--long
lanes of water like canals through walls of trees silent as sentinels.
Suddenly a change almost imperceptible comes.  Instead of the earthy
smell of the forest mold in your nostrils is the clear tang of
sun-bathed, water-washed rocks; and the sky begins to swim, to lose
itself at the horizon.  There is no sudden bursting of a sea on your
view.  The river begins to coil in and out among islands.  The amber
waters have become sheeted silver.  You wind from island to island,
islands of pink granite, islands with no tree but one lone blasted
pine, islands that are in themselves forests.  There is no end to these
islands.  They are not in hundreds; they are in thousands.  Then you
see the spray breaking over the reefs, and there is its sky line.  You
are not on a river at all.  You are on an inland sea.  You have been on
the lake for hours.  One {54} can guess how Champlain's men scrambled
from island to island, and fished for the rock bass above the deep
pools, and ran along the water line of wave-dashed reefs, wondering
vaguely if the wind wash were the ocean tide of the Western Sea.

But Champlain's Huron guides had not come to find a Western Sea.  With
the quick choppy stroke of the Indian paddler they were conveying him
down that eastern shore of Lake Huron now known as Georgian Bay, from
French River to Parry Sound and Midland and Penetang.  Where these
little towns to-day stand on the hillsides was a howling wilderness of
forest, with never a footprint but the zigzagging trail of the Indians
back from Georgian Bay to what is now Lake Simcoe.

Between these two shores lay the stamping grounds of the great Huron
tribe.  How numerous were they?  Records differ.  Certainly at no time
more numerous than thirty thousand souls all told, including children.
Though they yearly came to Montreal for trade and war, the Hurons were
sedentary, living in the long houses of bark inclosed by triple
palisades, such as Cartier had seen at Hochelaga almost a century
before.

Champlain followed his supple guides along the wind-fallen forest trail
to the Huron villages.  Here he found the missionary.  One can guess
how the souls of these two heroes burned as the deep solemn chant of
the _Te Deum_ for the first time rolled through the forests of Lake
Huron.


But now Champlain must to business; and his business is war.  Brule and
twelve Indians are sent like the carriers of the fiery cross in the
Highlands of Scotland to rally tribes of the Susquehanna to join the
Hurons against the Iroquois.  A wild war dance is held with mystic
rites in the lodges of the Hurons; and the braves set out with
Champlain from Lake Simcoe for Lake Ontario by way of Trent River.  As
they near what is now New York state, buckskin is flung aside, the
naked bodies painted and greased, and the trail shunned for the
pathless woods off the beaten track where the Indians glide like beasts
of prey through the frost-tinted forest.

{55}

[Illustration: THE ONONDAGA FORT  (From Champlain's diagram)]

October 9 they suddenly come on some Onondagas fishing, and they begin
torturing their captives by cutting off a girl's finger, when Champlain
commands them to desist.  Presently the forest opens to a farm clearing
where the Iroquois are harvesting their corn.  Spite of all Champlain
could do, the wild Hurons uttered their war cry and rushed the field,
but the Iroquois turned on the rabble and drove them back to the woods.
Champlain was furious.  They should have waited for Brule to come with
their allies; and the foolish attack had only served to forewarn the
enemy.  He frankly told the Hurons if they were going to fight under
_his_ command, they must fight as white men fight; and he set them to
building a platform from which marksmen could shoot over the walls of
the Iroquois town.  But the admonitions {56} fell on frenzied ears.  No
sooner was the command to advance given than the Hurons broke from
cover like maniacs, easy marks for the javelin throwers inside the
walls, and hurled themselves against the Iroquois palisades in blind
fury, making more din with yelling than woe with shots.  Boiling water
poured from the galleries inside drove the braves back from the walls,
and the poisoned barb of the Iroquois arrows pursued their flight.  A
score fell wounded, among them Champlain with an arrow in his knee-cap.
The flight became panic fast and furious, with the wounded carried on
wicker stretchers whose every jolt added agony to pain.

[Illustration: VIEW OF QUEBEC  (From Champlain's plan)]

As for Brule, he arrived with the allies only to find that the Hurons
had fled, and here was he, alone in a hostile land, with Iroquois
warriors rampant as molested wasps.  In the swift retreat off the trail
Brule lost his way.  He was without food {57} or powder, and had to
choose between starvation or surrender to the Iroquois.  Throwing down
his weapons, he gave himself up to what he knew would be certain
torture.  Had he winced or whined as they tore the nails from his
fingers and the hair from his head, the Iroquois would probably have
brained him on the spot for a poltroon; but the young man, bound to a
stake, pointed to a gathering storm as sign of Heaven's displeasure.
The high spirit pleased the Iroquois.  They unbound him and took him
with them in their wanderings for three years.

The Hurons had promised to convey Champlain back down the St. Lawrence
to Quebec, but the defeat had caused loss of prestige.  The man "with
the stick that thundered" was no more invulnerable to wounds than they.
They forgot their promises and invented excuses for not proceeding to
Quebec.  Champlain wintered with the hunters somewhere north of Lake
Ontario, and came down the Ottawa with the fur canoes the next summer.
He was received at Quebec as one risen from the dead.


While Champlain had been exploring, New France had not prospered as a
colony.  Royal patron after royal patron sold the monopoly to fresh
hands, and each new master appointed Champlain viceroy.  The fur trade
merchants could pay forty per cent dividends, but could do nothing to
advance settlement.  Less than one hundred people made up the
population of New France; and these were torn asunder by jealousies.
Huguenot and Catholic were opposed; and when three Jesuits came to
Quebec, Jesuits and Recollets distrusted each other.

Madam Champlain joined her husband at Quebec, in 1620, to stay for four
years, and that same year Champlain built himself a new habitation--the
famous Castle of St. Louis on the cliff above the first dwelling.
Louis Hebert, the apothecary of Port Royal, is now a farmer close to
the Castle of Quebec; and the wife of Abraham Martin has given birth to
the first white child born in New France.

Now came a revolutionary change.  Cardinal Richelieu was virtual ruler
of France.  He quickly realized that the monopolists {58} were sucking
the lifeblood of the colony in furs and were giving nothing in return
to the country.  In 1627, under the great cardinal's patronage, the
Company of One Hundred Associates was formed.  In this company any of
the seaport traders could buy shares.  Indeed, they were promised
patent of nobility if they did buy shares.  Exclusive monopoly of furs
was given to the company from Florida to Labrador.  In return the
Associates were to send two ships yearly to Canada.  Before 1643 they
were to bring out four thousand colonists, support them for three
years, and give them land.  In each settlement were to be supported
three priests; and, to prevent discord, Huguenots were to be banished
from New France.

To Champlain it must have seemed as if the ambition of his life were to
be realized.  Just when the sky seemed clearest the bolt fell.


Early in April, 1628, the Associates had dispatched colonists and
stores for Quebec; but war had broken out between France and England.
Gervais Kirke, an English Huguenot of Dieppe, France, who had been put
under the ban by Cardinal Richelieu, had rallied the merchants of
London to fit out privateers to wage war on New France.  The vessels
were commanded by the three sons, Thomas, Louis, and David; and to the
Kirkes rallied many Huguenots banished from France.

Quebec was hourly looking for the annual ships, when one morning in
July two men rushed breathless through the woods and up the steep rock
to Castle St. Louis with word that an English fleet of six frigates lay
in hiding at Tadoussac, ready to pounce on the French!  Later came
other messengers--Indians, fishermen, traders--confirming the terrible
news.  Then a Basque fisherman arrives with a demand, from Kirke for
the keys to the fort.  Though there is no food inside the walls, less
than fifty pounds of ammunition in the storehouse, and not enough men
to man the guns, Champlain hopes against hope, and sends the Basque
fisherman back with suave regrets that he cannot comply with Monsieur
Kirke's polite request.  Quebec's one chance lay in the hope that the
French vessels might {59} slip past the English frigates by night.
Days wore on to weeks, weeks to months, and a thousand rumors filled
the air; but no ships came.  The people of Quebec were now reduced to
diet of nuts and corn.  Then came Indian runners with word that the
French ships had been waylaid, boarded, scuttled, and sunk.  Loaded to
the water line with booty, the English privateers had gone home.

[Illustration: QUEBEC  (From Champlain's map)]

For that winter Quebec lived on such food as the Indians brought in
from the woods.  By the summer of 1629 men, women, and children were
grubbing for roots, fishing for food, ranging the rocks for berries.
There are times when the only thing to do is--do nothing; and it is
probably the hardest task a brave man ever has.  When the English fleet
came back in July Champlain had a ragamuffin, half-starved retinue of
precisely sixteen men.  Yet he haggled for such terms that the English
promised to convey the prisoners to France.  On July 20, for the first
time in history, the red flag of England blew to the winds above the
heights of Quebec.


But New France was only a pawn to the gamesters of French and English
diplomacy.  Peace was proclaimed; and for the {60} sake of receiving
$200,000 as dowry due his French wife, Charles of England restored to
France the half continent which the Kirkes had captured, David Kirke
receiving the paltry honor of a title as compensation for the loss.
Champlain was back in Quebec by 1633; but his course had run.  Between
Christmas eve and Christmas morning, in 1635, the brave Soldier of the
Cross, the first knight of the Canadian wildwoods, passed from the
sphere of earthly life--a life without a stain, whether among the
intriguing courtiers of Paris or in the midst of naked license in the
Indian camp.




{61}

CHAPTER IV

FROM 1635 TO 1666

Frays between La Tour and Charnisay--Madame La Tour defends the
fort--Charnisay's treachery


When Port Royal fell before Argall, it will be remembered, young
Biencourt took to the woods with his French bush lopers and Indian
followers of Nova Scotia.  The farms and fort of Annapolis Basin
granted to his father by special patents lay in ruins.  Familiar with
the woods as the English buccaneer, who had destroyed the fort, was
with his ship's cabin, Biencourt withdrew to the southwest corner of
Nova Scotia, where he built a rude stronghold of logs and slabs near
the modern Cape Sable.  Here he could keep in touch with the French
fishermen off Cape Breton, and also traffic with the Indians of the
mainland.

With Biencourt was a young man of his own age, boon comrade, kindred
spirit, who had come to Port Royal a boy of fourteen, in 1606, in the
gay days of Marc L'Escarbot--Charles de La Tour.  Sea rovers, bush
lopers, these two could bid defiance to English raiders.  Whether
Biencourt died in 1623 or went home to France is unknown; but he deeded
over to his friend, Charles de La Tour, all possessions in Acadia.

And now England again comes on the scene.  By virtue of Cabot's
discovery and Argall's conquest, the King of England, in 1621, grants
to Sir William Alexander, the Earl of Stirling, all of Acadia, renamed
Nova Scotia--New Scotland.  By way of encouraging emigration, the order
of Nova Scotia Baronets is created, a title being granted to those who
subscribe to the colonization company.

Sir William Alexander's colonists shun the French bush lopers under
Charles de La Tour down at Fort St. Louis on Cape Sable.  The seventy
Scotch colonists go on up the Annapolis Basin and build their fort four
miles from old Port Royal.  How did they pass the pioneer years--these
Scotch retainers of the {62} Nova Scotia Baronets?  Report among the
French fishing fleet says thirty died of scurvy; but of definite
information not a vestige remains.  The annals of these colonists are
as completely lost to history as the annals of the lost Roanoke colony
in Virginia.

Under the same English patent Lord Ochiltree lands English colonists in
Cape Breton, the grand summer rendezvous of the French fishermen; but
two can play at Argall's game of raids.  French seamen swoop down on
Ochiltree's colony, capture fifty, destroy the settlement, and run up
the white flag of France in place of the red standard of England.

[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER]

Charles de La Tour with his Huguenots hides safely ensconced behind his
slab palisades with the swarthy faces of half a hundred Indian
retainers lighted up by the huge logs at blaze on the hearth.  Charles
de La Tour takes counsel with himself.  English at Port Royal, English
at Cape Breton, English on the mainland at Boston, English ships
passing and repassing his lone lodge in the wilderness, he will be
safer, will Charles de La Tour, with wider distance between himself and
the foe; and he will take more peltries where there are fewer traders.
Still keeping his fort in Nova Scotia, La Tour goes across Fundy Bay
and builds him a second, stronger fort on St. John River, New
Brunswick, near where Carleton town stands to-day.

Then two things happened that upset all plans.

{63} The Hundred Associates are given _all_ Canada--Quebec and Acadia.
Founded by Cardinal Richelieu, the Hundred Associates are violently
Catholic, violently anti-Protestant.  Charles de La Tour need expect no
favors, if indeed the grant that he holds from Biencourt be not
assailed.  Double reason for moving the most of his possessions across
Fundy Bay to St. John River.

Then the Englishmen, under the Kirke brothers, capture Quebec.  As luck
or ill luck will have it, among the French captured from the French
ships of the Hundred Associates down at Tadoussac, is Claude de La
Tour, the father of Charles.  Claude de La Tour was a Protestant.  This
and his courtly manner and his noble birth commended him to the English
court.  What had France done for Claude de La Tour?  Placed him under
the ban on account of his religion.

Claude de La Tour promptly became a British subject, received the title
Baronet of Nova Scotia with enormous grants of land on St. John River,
New Brunswick, married an English lady in waiting to the Queen, and
sailed with three men-of-war for Nova Scotia to win over his son
Charles.  No writer like Marc Lescarbot was present to describe the
meeting between father and son; but one can guess the stormy
scene,--the war between love of country and love of father, the guns of
the father's vessels pointing at the son's fort, the guns of the son's
fort pointing at the father's vessels.  The father's arguments were
strong.  What had France done for the La Tours?  By siding with England
they would receive safe asylum in case of persecution and enormous
grants of land on St. John River.  But the son's arguments were
stronger.  The father must know from his English bride--maid in waiting
to the English Queen--that England had no intentions of keeping her
newly captured possessions in Canada, but had already decided to trade
them back to France for a dowry to the English Queen.  If Canada were
given back to France, what were English grants in New Brunswick worth?
"If those who sent you think me capable of betraying my country even at
the prayer of my father, they are mightily mistaken," thundered the
young man, ordering his gunners to their places.  {64} "I don't
purchase honors by crime!  I don't undervalue the offer of England's
King; but the King of France is just as able to reward me!  The King of
France has confided the defense of Acadia to me; and I'll defend it to
my last breath."

Stung by his son's rebuke, the elder La Tour retired to his ship, wrote
one more unavailing appeal, then landed his mariners to rush the fort.
But the rough bush lopers inside the palisades were expert marksmen.
Their raking cross fire kept the English at a distance, and the father
could neither drive nor coax his men to the sticking point of courage
to scale palisades in such an unnatural war.  Claude de La Tour was now
in an unenviable plight.  He dare not go back to France a traitor.  He
could not go back to England, having failed to win the day.  The son
built him a dwelling outside the fort; and there this famous courtier
of two great nations, with his noble wife, retired to pass the end of
his days in a wildwood wilderness far enough from the gaudy tinsel of
courts.  The fate of both husband and wife is unknown.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING LA TOUR'S POSSESSIONS IN ACADIA]


Charles de La Tour's predictions were soon verified.  The Treaty of
St.-Germain-en-Laye, in 1632, gave back all Canada to France; and the
young man's loyalty was rewarded by the French King confirming the
father's English patent to the lands of St. John River, New Brunswick.
Perhaps he expected more.  He certainly wanted to be governor of
Acadia, and may have looked for fresh title to Port Royal, which
Biencourt had deeded {65} to him.  His ambition was embittered.
Cardinal Richelieu of the Hundred Associates had his own favorites to
look after.  Acadia is divided into three provinces.  Over all as
governor is Isaac Razilli, chief of the Hundred Associates.  La Tour
holds St. John.  One St. Denys is given Cape Breton; and Port Royal,
the best province of all, falls to Sieur d'Aulnay de Charnisay, friend
and relative of Richelieu; and when Razilli dies in 1635, Charnisay,
with his strong influence at court, easily secures the dead man's
patents with all land grants attached.  Charnisay becomes governor of
Acadia.

For a second time La Tour is thwarted.  Things are turning out as his
father had foretold.  Who began the border warfare matters little.
Whether Charnisay as lord of all Acadia first ordered La Tour to
surrender St. John, or La Tour, holding his grant from Biencourt to
Port Royal, ordered Charnisay to give up Annapolis Basin, war had
begun,--such border warfare as has its parallel only in the raids of
rival barons in the Middle Ages.  Did La Tour's vessels laden with furs
slip out from St. John River across Fundy Bay bound for France?  There
lay at Cape Sable and Sable Island Charnisay's freebooters, Charnisay's
wreckers, ready to board the ship or lure her a wreck on Sable Island
reefs by false lights.  It is unsafe to accept as facts the charges and
countercharges made by these two enemies; but from independent sources
it seems fairly certain that Charnisay, unknown to Cardinal Richelieu,
was a bit of a freebooter and wrecker; for his men made a regular
business of waylaying English ships from Boston, Dutch ships from New
York, as they passed Sable Island; and Charnisay's name became
cordially hated by the Protestant colonies of New England.  La Tour,
being Huguenot, could count on firm friends in Boston.

Countless legends cling to Fundy Bay of the forays between these two.
In 1640 La Tour and his wife, cruising past Annapolis Basin in their
fur ships, rashly entered and attacked Port Royal.  Their ship was run
aground by Charnisay's vessels and captured; but the friars persuaded
the victor to set La Tour and his wife free, pending an appeal to
France.  France, of {66} course, decided in favor of Charnisay, who was
of royal blood, a relative of Richelieu's, in high favor with the
court.  La Tour's patent was revoked and he was ordered to surrender
his fort on the St. John.

[Illustration: CARDINAL RICHELIEU]

In answer, La Tour loaded his cannon, locked the fort gates, and bade
defiance to Charnisay.  Charnisay sails across Fundy Bay in June, 1643,
with a fleet of four vessels and five hundred men to bombard the fort.
La Tour was without provisions, though his store ship from France lay
in hiding outside, blocked from entering by Charnisay's fleet.  Days
passed.  Resistance was hopeless.  On one side lay the impenetrable
forest; on the other, Charnisay's fleet.  On the night of June 12th, La
Tour and his wife slipped from a little sally port in the dark, ran
along the shore, and, evading spies, succeeded in rowing out to the
store ship.  Ebb tide carried them far from the four men-of-war
anchored fast in front of the abandoned fort.  Then sails out, the
store ship fled for Boston, where La Tour and his wife appealed for aid.

The Puritans of Boston had qualms of conscience about interfering in
this French quarrel; but they did not forget that Charnisay's wreckers
had stripped their merchant ships come to grief on the reefs of Sable
Island.  La Tour gave the Boston merchants a mortgage on all his
belongings at St. John, and in return obtained four vessels, fifty
mariners, ninety-two soldiers, {67} thirty-eight cannon.  With this
fleet he swooped down on Fundy Bay in July.  Charnisay's vessels lay
before Fort St. John, where the stubborn little garrison still held
out, when La Tour came down on him like an enraged eagle.  Charnisay's
fur ships were boarded, scuttled, and sunk, while the commander himself
fled in terror for Port Royal.  All sails pressed, La Tour pursued
right into Annapolis Basin, wounding seven of the enemy, killing three,
taking one prisoner.  Charnisay's one remaining vessel grounded in the
river.  A fight took place near the site of the mill which Poutrincourt
had built long ago, but Charnisay succeeded in gaining the shelter of
Port Royal, where his cannon soon compelled La Tour to fly from
Annapolis Basin.  Charnisay found it safer to pass that winter in
France, and La Tour gathered in all the peltry traffic of the bay.

Early in 1644 Charnisay returned and sent a friar to secure the
neutrality of the New Englanders.  All summer negotiations dragged on
between Boston and Port Royal, La Tour meanwhile scouring land and sea
unchecked, packing his fort with peltries.  Finally, Charnisay promised
to desist from all fur trade along the coast if the New England
colonies would remain neutral; and the colonies promised not to aid La
Tour.  La Tour was now outlawed by the French government, and Charnisay
had actually induced New England to promise not to convey either La
Tour or his wife to or from Bay of Fundy in English boats.

La Tour chanced to be absent from his fort in 1645.  Like a bird of
prey Charnisay swooped on St. John River; but he had not reckoned on
Madame La Tour--Frances Marie Jacqueline.  With the courage and agility
of a trained soldier, she commanded her little garrison of fifty and
returned the raider's cannonade with a fury that sent Charnisay limping
back to Port Royal with splintered decks, twenty mangled corpses
jumbled aft, and a dozen men wounded to the death lying in the hold.

With all the power of France at his back Charnisay had been defeated by
a woman,--the Huguenot wife of an outlaw!  He must reduce La Tour or
stand discredited before the world.  {68} Furious beyond words, he
hastened to France to prepare an overwhelming armament.

But Madame La Tour was not idle.  She, too, hastened across the
Atlantic to solicit aid in London.  One can imagine how Charnisay
gnashed his teeth.  Here, at last, was his chance.  The Boston vessels
were not to convey the La Tours back to Acadia.  Like a hawk Charnisay
cruised the sea for the outcoming ship with its fair passenger; but
Madame La Tour had made a cast-iron agreement with the master of the
sailing vessel to bring her direct to Boston.  Instead of this, the
vessel cruised the St. Lawrence, trading with the Indians, and so
delayed the aid coming to La Tour; but when Charnisay's searchers came
on board off Sable Island, Madame La Tour was hidden among the freight
in the hold.  For the delay she sued the sailing master in Boston and
obtained a judgment of 2000 pounds; and when he failed to pay, had his
cargo seized and sold, and with the proceeds equipped three vessels to
aid her outlawed husband.  So the whole of 1646 passed, each side
girding itself for the final fray.

April, 1647, spies brought word to Charnisay that La Tour was absent
from his fort.  Waiting not a moment, Charnisay hurried ships,
soldiers, cannon across the bay.  Inside La Tour's fort was no
confusion.  Madame La Tour had ordered every man to his place.  Day and
night for three days the siege lasted, Charnisay's men closing in on
the palisades so near they could bandy words with the fighters on the
galleries inside the walls.  Among La Tour's fighters were Swiss
mercenaries--men who fight for the highest pay.  Did Charnisay in the
language of the day "grease the fist" of the Swiss sentry, or was it a
case of a boorish fellow refusing to fight under a woman's command?
Legend gives both explanations; but on Easter Sunday morning
Charnisay's men gained entrance by scaling the walls where the Swiss
sentry stood.  Madame La Tour rushed her men to an inner fort loopholed
with guns.  Afraid of a final defeat that would disgrace him before all
the world, Charnisay called up generous terms if she would surrender.
To save the {69} lives of the men Madame La Tour agreed to honorable
surrender, and the doors were opened.  In rushed Charnisay!  To his
amazement the woman had only a handful of men.  Disgusted with himself
and boiling over with revenge for all these years of enmity, Charnisay
forgot his promise and hanged every soul of the garrison but the
traitor who acted as executioner, compelling Madame La Tour to watch
the execution with a halter round her neck amid the jeers of the
soldiery.  Legend says that the experience drove her insane and caused
her death within three weeks.  Charnisay was now lord of all Acadia,
with 10,000 pounds worth of Madame La Tour's jewelry transferred to
Port Royal and all La Tour's furs safe in the warehouses of Annapolis
Basin; but he did not long enjoy his triumph.  He had the reputation of
treating his Indian servants with great brutality.  On the 24th of May,
1650, an Indian was rowing him up the narrows near Port Royal.
Charnisay could not swim.  Without apparent cause the boat upset.  The
Indian swam ashore.  The commander perished.  Legend again avers that
the Indian upset the boat to be revenged on Charnisay for some
brutality.

[Illustration: MAP OF ANNAPOLIS BASIN]

La Tour had been wandering from Newfoundland to Boston and Quebec
seeking aid, but a lost cause has few friends, and if La Tour turned
pirate on Boston boats, he probably thought he was justified in paying
off the score of Boston's bargain with Charnisay.  Later he turned
trader with the Indians from Hudson Bay, and found friends in Quebec.
Word of his wrongs reached the French court.  When Charnisay perished,
La Tour was at last appointed lieutenant governor of Acadia.  Widow
{70} Charnisay, left with eight children, all minors, made what
reparation she could to La Tour by giving back the fort on the St.
John, and La Tour, to wipe out the bitter enmity, married the widow of
his enemy in February of 1653.

But this was not the seal of peace on his troubled life.  Cromwell was
now ascendant in England, and Major Sedgwick of Boston, in 1654, with a
powerful fleet, captured Port Royal and St. John.  Weary of fighting
what seemed to be destiny, La Tour became a British subject, and with
two other Englishmen was granted the whole of Acadia.  Ten years later
his English partners bought out his rights, and La Tour died in the
land of his many trials about 1666.  A year later the Treaty of Breda
restored Acadia to France.




{71}

CHAPTER V

FROM 1635 TO 1650

Mystics come to Canada--A city built of dreams--First night at
Montreal--Maisonneuve fights raiders--Le Jeune joins the
hunters--Brebeuf goes to Lake Huron--Life at the Huron mission--The
scourge of the Iroquois--The fight at St. Louis--Rageneau's converts
resist--Flight of the Hurons


While Charles de La Tour and Charnisay scoured the Bay of Fundy in
border warfare like buccaneers of the Spanish Main, what was Quebec
doing?

The Hundred Associates were to colonize the country; but fur trading
and farming never go together.  One means the end of the other; and the
Hundred Associates shifted the obligation of settling the country by
granting vast estates called seigniories along the St. Lawrence and
leaving to these new lords of the soil the duty of bringing out
habitants.  Later they deeded over for an annual rental of beaver skins
the entire fur monopoly to the Habitant Company, made up of the leading
people of New France.  So ended all the fine promises of four thousand
colonists.

Years ago Pontgrave had learned that the Indians of the Up-Country did
not care to come down the St. Lawrence farther than Lake St. Peter's,
where Iroquois foe lay in ambush; and the year before Champlain died a
double expedition had set out from Quebec in July: one to build a fort
north of Lake St.  Peter's at the entrance to the river with three
mouths,--in other words, to found Three Rivers; the other, under Father
Brebeuf, the Jesuit, and Jean Nicolet, the wood runner, to establish a
mission in the country of the Hurons and to explore the Great Lakes.

In fact, it must never be forgotten that Champlain's ambitions in
laying the foundations of a new nation aimed just as much to establish
a kingdom of heaven on earth as to win a new kingdom for France.
Always, in the minds of the fathers of New France, Church was to be
first; State, second.  When Charles de Montmagny, Knight of Malta,
landed in Quebec one June morning in 1636, to succeed Champlain as
governor of New France, he noticed a crucifix planted by the path side
where {72} viceroy and officers clambered up the steep hill to Castle
St. Louis.  Instantly Montmagny fell to his knees before the cross in
silent adoration, and his example was followed by all the gay train of
beplumed officers.  The Jesuits regarded the episode as a splendid omen
for New France, and set their chapel organ rolling a _Te Deum_ of
praise, while Governor and retinue filed before the altars with bared
heads.

It was in the same spirit that Montreal was founded.


The Jesuits' letters on the Canadian missions were now being read in
France.  Religious orders were on fire with missionary ardor.  The
Canadian missions became the fashion of the court.  Ladies of noble
blood asked no greater privilege than to contribute their fortunes for
missions in Canada.  Nuns lay prostrate before altars praying night and
day for the advancement of the heavenly kingdom on the St. Lawrence.
The Jesuits had begun their college in Quebec.  The very year that
Champlain had first come to the St. Lawrence there had been born in
Normandy, of noble parentage, a little girl who became a passionate
devotee of Canadian missions.  To divert her mind from the calling of a
nun, her father had thrown her into a whirl of gayety from which she
emerged married; but her husband died in a few years, and Madame de la
Peltrie, left a widow at twenty-two, turned again heart and soul to the
scheme of endowing a Canadian mission.  Again her father tried to
divert her mind, threatening to cut off her fortune if she did not
marry.  An engagement to a young noble, who was as keen a devotee as
herself, quieted her father and averted the loss of her fortune.  On
the death of her father the formal union was dissolved, and Madame de
la Peltrie proceeded to the Ursuline Convent of Tours, where the
Jesuits had already chosen a mother superior for the new institution to
be founded at Quebec--Marie of the Incarnation, a woman of some fifty
years, a widow like Madame de la Peltrie, and, like Madame de la
Peltrie, a mystic dreamer of celestial visions and divine communings
and heroic sacrifices.  How much of truth, how much of self-delusion,
{73} lay in these dreams of heavenly revelation is not for the outsider
to say.  It is as impossible for the practical mind to pronounce
judgment on the mystic as for the mystic to pronounce sentence on the
scientist.  Both have their truths, both have their errors; and by
their fruits are they known.

[Illustration: MADAME DE LA PELTRIE  (After a picture in the Ursuline
Convent, Quebec)]

May 4th, 1639, Madame de la Peltrie and Marie of the Incarnation
embarked from Dieppe for Canada.  In the ship were also another
Ursuline nun, three hospital sisters to found the Hotel Dieu at Quebec,
Father Vimont, superior of Quebec Jesuits, and two other priests.  The
boat was like a chapel.  Ship's bell tolled services.  Morning prayer
and evensong were chanted from the decks, and the pilgrims firmly
believed that their vows allayed a storm.  July 1st they were among the
rocking dories of the Newfoundland fishermen, and then on the 15th the
little sailboat washed and rolled to anchor inshore among the fur
traders under the heights of Tadoussac.

At sight of the somber Saguenay, the silver-flooded St. Lawrence, the
frowning mountains, the far purple hills, the primeval forests through
which the wind rushed with the sound of the sea, the fishing craft
dancing on the tide like cockle boats, the grizzled fur traders bronzed
as the crinkled oak forests where they passed their lives, the tawny,
naked savages agape at these white-skinned women come from afar, the
hearts of the {74} housed-up nuns swelled with emotions strange and
sweet,--the emotions of a new life in a new world.  And when they
scrambled over the rope coils aboard a fishing schooner to go on up to
Quebec, and heard the deep-voiced shoutings of the men, and witnessed
the toilers of the deep fighting wind and wave for the harvest of the
sea, did it dawn on the fair sisterhood that God must have workers
_out_ in the strife of the world, as well as workers _shut up_ from the
world inside convent walls?  Who knows? . . .  Who knows?  At
Tadoussac, that morning, to both Madame de la Peltrie and Marie of the
Incarnation it must have seemed as if their visions had become real.
And then the cannon of Quebec began to thunder till the echoes rolled
from hill to hill and shook--as the mystics thought--the very
strongholds of hell.  Tears streamed down their cheeks at such welcome.
The whole Quebec populace had rallied to the water front, and there
stood Governor Montmagny in velvet cloak with sword at belt waving hat
in welcome.  Soldiers and priests cheered till the ramparts rang.  As
the nuns put foot to earth once more they fell on their knees and
kissed the soil of Canada.  August 1st was fete day in Quebec.  The
chapel chimes rang . . . and rang again their gladness.  The organ
rolled out its floods of soul-shattering music, and deep-throated chant
of priests invoked God's blessing on the coming of the women to the
mission.  So began the Ursuline Convent of Quebec and the Hotel Dieu of
the hospital sisters; but Montreal was still a howling wilderness
untenanted by man save in midsummer, when the fur traders came to
Champlain's factory and the canoes of the Indians from the Up-Country
danced down the swirling rapids like sea birds on waves.


The letters from the Jesuit missions touched more hearts than those of
the mystic nuns.

In Anjou dwelt a receiver of taxes--Jerome le Royer de la Dauversiere,
a stout, practical, God-fearing man with a family, about as far removed
in temperament from the founders of the Ursulines as a character could
well be.  Yet he, too, had mystic {75} dreams and heard voices bidding
him found a mission in the tenantless wilderness of Montreal.  To the
practical man the thing seems sheer moon-stark madness.  If Dauversiere
had lived in modern days he would have been committed to an asylum.
Here was a man with a family, without a fortune, commanded by what he
thought was the voice of Heaven to found a hospital in a wilderness
where there were no people.  Also in Paris dwelt a young priest, Jean
Jacques Olier, who heard the self-same voices uttering the self-same
command.  These two men were unknown to each other; yet when they met
by chance in the picture gallery of an old castle, there fell from
their eyes, as it were, scales, and they beheld as in a vision each the
other's soul, and recognized in each fellow-helper and comrade of the
spirit.  To all this the practical man cries out "Bosh"!  Yet Montreal
is no bosh, but a stately city, and it sprang from the dreams--"fool
dreams," enemies would call them--of these two men, the Sulpician
priest and the Anjou tax collector.

Hour after hour, arm in arm, they walked and talked, the man of prayers
and the man of taxes.  People or no people at Montreal, money or no
money, they decided that the inner voice must be obeyed.  A Montreal
Society was formed.  Six friends joined.  What would be equal to
$75,000 was collected.  There were to be no profits on this capital.
It was all to be invested to the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Unselfish if you like, foolish they may have been, but not hypocrites.

First of all, they must become Seigneurs of Montreal; but the island of
Montreal had already been granted by the Hundred Associates to one
Lauson.  To render the title doubly secure, Dauversiere and Olier
obtained deeds to the island from Lauson and from the Hundred
Associates.

Forty-five colonists, part soldiers, part devotees, were then gained as
volunteers; but a veritable soldier of Heaven was desired as commander.
Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, was noted for his heroism in
war and zeal in religion.  When other officers returned from battle for
wild revels, Maisonneuve withdrew to play the flute or pass hours in
religious {76} contemplation.  His name occurred to both Dauversiere
and Olier as fittest for command; but to make doubly sure, they took
lodgings near him, studied his disposition, and then casually told him
of their plans and asked his cooeperation.  Maisonneuve was in the prime
of life, on the way to high service in the army.  His zeal took fire at
thought of founding a Kingdom of God at Montreal; but his father
furiously opposed what must have seemed a mad scheme.  Maisonneuve's
answer was the famous promise of Christ: "No man hath left house or
brethren or sister for my sake but he shall receive a hundredfold."

Maisonneuve was warned there would be no earthly reward--no pay--for
his arduous task; but he answered, "I devote my life and future; and I
expect no recompense."

Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance, thirty-four years old, who had given herself
to good works from childhood, though she had not yet joined the
cloister, now felt the call to labor in the wilderness.  Later, in
1653, came Marguerite Bourgeoys to the little colony beneath the
mountain.  She too, like Jeanne Mance, distrusted dreams and visions
and mystic communings, cherishing a religion of good works rather than
introspection of the soul.  Dauversiere and Olier remained in France.
Fortunately for Montreal, practical Christians, fighting soldiers of
the cross, carried the heavenly standard to the wilderness.

It was too late to ascend the St. Lawrence when the ship brought the
crusaders to Quebec in August, 1641; and difficulties harried them from
the outset.  Was Montmagny, the Governor, jealous of Maisonneuve; or
did he simply realize the fearful dangers Maisonneuve's people would
run going beyond the protection of Quebec?  At all events, he
disapproved this building of a second colony at Montreal, when the
first colony at Quebec could barely gain subsistence.  He offered them
the Island of Orleans in exchange for the Island of Montreal, and
warned them of Iroquois raid.

"I have not come to argue," answered Maisonneuve, "but to act.  It is
my duty to found a colony at Montreal, and thither I go though every
tree be an Iroquois."

{77} Maisonneuve passed the winter building boats to ascend the St.
Lawrence next spring; and Madame de la Peltrie, having established the
Ursulines at Quebec, now cast in her lot with the Montrealers for two
years.

May 8, 1642, the little flotilla set out from Quebec--a pinnace with
the passengers, a barge with provisions, two long boats propelled by
oars and a sweep.  Montmagny and Father Vimont accompanied the
crusaders; and as the boats came within sight of the wooded mountain on
May 17, hymns of praise rose from the pilgrims that must have mingled
strangely on Indian ears with the roar of the angry rapids.  One can
easily call up the scene--the mountain, misty with the gathering
shadows of sunset, misty as a veiled bride with the color and bloom of
spring; the boats, moored for the night below St. Helen's Island, where
the sun, blazing behind the half-foliaged trees, paints a path of fire
on the river; the white bark wigwams along shore with the red gleam of
camp fire here and there through the forest; the wilderness world
bathed in a peace as of heaven, as the vesper hymn floats over the
evening air!  It is a scene that will never again be enacted in the
history of the world--dreamers dreaming greatly, building a castle of
dreams, a fortress of holiness in the very center of wilderness
barbarity and cruelty unspeakable.  The multitudinous voices of traffic
shriek where the crusaders' hymn rose that May night.  A great city has
risen on the foundations which these dreamers laid.  Let us not scoff
too loudly at their mystic visions and religious rhapsodies!  Another
generation may scoff at our too-much-worldliness, with our dreamless
grind and visionless toil and harder creeds that reject everything
which cannot be computed in the terms of traffic's dollar!  Well for us
if the fruit of our creeds remain to attest as much worth as the deeds
of these crusaders!


Early next morning the boats pulled in ashore where Cartier had landed
one hundred years before and Champlain had built his factory thirty
years ago.  Maisonneuve was first to spring on land.  He dropped to his
knees in prayer.  The others as {78} they landed did likewise.  Their
hymns floated out on the forest.  Madame de la Peltrie, Jeanne Mance,
and the servant, Charlotte Barre, quickly decorated a wildwood altar
with evergreens.  Then, with Montmagny the Governor, and Maisonneuve
the soldier, standing on either side, Madame de la Peltrie and Jeanne
Mance and Charlotte Barre, bowed in reverence, with soldiers and
sailors standing at rest unhooded, Father Vimont held the first
religious services at Mont Royal.  "You are a grain of mustard seed,"
he said, "and you shall grow till your branches overshadow the earth."

Maisonneuve cut the first tree for the fort; and a hundred legends
might be told of the little colony's pioneer trials.  Once a flood
threatened the existence of the fort.  A cross was erected to stay the
waters and a vow made if Heaven would save the fort a cross should be
carried and placed on the summit of the mountain.  The river abated,
and Maisonneuve climbed the steep mountain, staggering under the weight
of an enormous cross, and planted it at the highest point.  Here, in
the presence of all, mass was held, and it became a regular pilgrimage
from the fort up the mountain to the cross.

In 1743 came Louis d'Ailleboust and his wife, both zealously bound by
the same vows as devotees, bringing word of more funds for Ville Marie,
as Montreal was called.  Montmagny's warning of Iroquois proved all too
true.  Within a year, in June, 1743, six workmen were beset in the
fields, only one escaping.  Because his mission was to convert the
Indians, Maisonneuve had been ever reluctant to meet the Iroquois in
open war, preferring to retreat within the fort when the dog Pilot and
her litter barked loud warning that Indians were hiding in the woods.
Any one who knows the Indian character will realize how clemency would
be mistaken for cowardice.  Even Maisonneuve's soldiers began to doubt
him.

"My lord, my lord," they urged, "are the enemy never to get a sight of
you?  Are we never to face the foe?"

Maisonneuve's answer was in March, 1644, when ambushed hostiles were
detected stealing on the fort.

{79} "Follow me," he ordered thirty men, leaving D'Ailleboust in
command of the fort.

Near the place now known as Place d'Armes the little band was greeted
by the eldritch scream of eighty painted Iroquois.  Shots fell thick
and fast.  The Iroquois dashed to rescue their wounded, and a young
chief, recognizing Maisonneuve as the leader of the white men, made a
rush for the honor of capturing the French commander alive.
Maisonneuve had put himself between his retreating men and the
advancing warriors.  Firing, he would retreat a pace, then fire again,
keeping his face to the foe.  His men succeeded in rushing up the
hillock, then made for the gates in a wild stampede.  Maisonneuve was
backing away, a pistol in each hand.  The Iroquois circled from tree to
tree, near and nearer, and like a wildwood creature of prey was
watching his chance to spring, when the Frenchman fired.  The pistol
missed.  Dodging, the Indian leaped.  Maisonneuve discharged the other
pistol.  The Iroquois fell dead, and while warriors rescued the body,
Maisonneuve gained the fort gates.  This was only one of countless
frays when the dog Pilot with her puppies sounded the alarm of prowlers
in the woods.


What were the letters, what the adventures described by the Jesuits,
that aroused such zeal and inspired such heroism?  It would require
many volumes to record the adventures of the Jesuits in Canada, and a
long list to include all their heroes martyred for the faith.  Only a
few of the most prominent episodes in the Jesuits' adventures can be
given here.

When Pierre le Jeune reached Quebec after the victory of the Kirke
brothers, he found only the charred remains of a mission on the old
site of Cartier's winter quarters down on the St. Charles.  Of houses,
only the gray-stone cottage of Madame Hebert had been left standing.
Here Le Jeune was welcomed and housed till the little mission could be
rebuilt.  At first it consisted of only mud-plastered log cabins,
thatch-roofed, divided into four rooms, with garret and cellar.  One
room decorated with saints' images and pictures served as chapel;
another, as {80} kitchen; a third, as lodgings; the fourth, as
refectory.  In this humble abode six Jesuit priests and two lay
brothers passed the winter after the war.  The roof leaked like a
sieve.  The snow piled high almost as the top of the door.  Le Jeune's
first care was to obtain pupils.  These consisted of an Indian boy and
a negro lad left by the English.  Meals of porridge given free
attracted more Indian pupils; but Le Jeune's greatest difficulty was to
learn the Indian language.  Hearing that a renegade Indian named
Pierre, who had served the French as interpreter, lodged with some
Algonquins camped below Cape Diamond, Le Jeune tramped up the river
bank, along what is now the Lower Road, where he found the Indians
wigwamming, and by the bribe of free food obtained Pierre.  Pierre was
at best a tricky scoundrel, who considered it a joke to give Le Jeune
the wrong word for some religious precept, gorged himself on the
missionaries' food, stole their communion wine, and ran off at Lent to
escape fasting.

[Illustration: PIERRE LE JEUNE]

When Champlain returned to receive Quebec back from the English, more
priests joined the Jesuits' mission.  Among them was the lion-hearted
giant, Brebeuf.

If Champlain's bush lopers could join bands of wandering Indians for
the extension of French dominion, surely the Jesuits could dare as
perilous a life "for the greater glory of God,"--as their vows declared.

{81} Le Jeune joined a band of wandering Montaignais, Pierre, the
rascal, tapping the keg of sacramental wine the first night out, and
turning the whole camp into a drunken bedlam, till his own brother
sobered him with a kettle of hot water flung full in the face.  That
night the priest slept apart from the camp in the woods.  By the time
the hunters reached the forest borderland between Quebec and New
Brunswick, their number had increased to forty-five.  By Christmas time
game is usually dormant, still living on the stores of the fall and not
yet driven afield by spring hunger.  In camp was no food.  The hunters
halted the march, and came in Christmas Eve of 1633 with not so much as
a pound of flesh for nearly fifty people.  From the first the Indian
medicine man had heaped ridicule on the white priest, and Pierre had
refused to interpret as much as a single prayer; but now the whole camp
was starving.  Pierre happened to tell the other Indians that Christmas
was the day on which the white man's God had come to earth.  In vain
the medicine man had pounded his tom-tom and shouted at the Indian gods
from the top of the wigwams and offered sacrifice of animals to be
slain.  No game had come as the result of the medicine man's invocation.

Le Jeune gathered the people about him and through Pierre, the
interpreter, bade them try the white man's God.  In the largest of the
wigwams a little altar was fitted up.  Then the Indians repeated this
prayer after Le Jeune:

Jesus, Son of the Almighty . . . who died for us . . . who promised
that if we ask anything in Thy name, Thou wilt do it--I pray Thee with
all my heart, give food to these people . . . this people promises Thee
faithfully they will trust Thee entirely and obey Thee with all their
heart!  My Lord, hear my prayer!  I present Thee my life for this
people, most willing to die that they may live and know Thee.


"Take that back," grunted the chief.  "We love you!  We don't want you
to die."

"I only want to show that I am your friend," answered the priest.

Le Jeune then commanded them to go forth to the hunt, full of faith
that God would give them food.

{82} But alas for the poor father's hopes and the childlike Indian vow!
True, they found abundance of food,--a beaver dam full of beaver, a
moose, a porcupine taken by the Indian medicine man.  Father Le Jeune,
with radiant face, met the hunters returning laden with game.

"We must thank your God for this," said the Indian chief, throwing down
his load.

"Bah," says Pierre, "you 'd have found it anyway."

"This is not the time to talk," sneered the medicine man.  "Let the
hungry people eat."

And by the time the Indians had gorged themselves with ample measure
for their long fast, they were torpid with sleep.  The sad priest was
fain to wander out under the stars.  There, in the snow-padded silences
of the white-limned forest, far from the joyous peal of Christmas
bells, he knelt alone and worshiped God.

For five months he wandered with the Montaignais, and now in April the
hunters turned toward Quebec with their furs.  At three in the morning
Le Jeune knocked on the door of the mission house at Quebec, and was
welcomed home by the priests.  The pilgrimage had taught him what the
Jesuits have always held--the way to power with a people is through the
education of the children.  "Give me a child for the first seven years
of its life," said a famous educator, "and I care not what you do with
him the rest of his years."  Missions and schools must be established
among the tribes of Hurons and Iroquois.


Consequently, when Champlain sent his soldiers in 1634 to build a fort
at Three Rivers, they were accompanied by three Jesuits, chief of whom
was Jean de Brebeuf, lion-hearted, bound for the land of the Hurons.
The chapel bells of Quebec rang and rang again in honor of the new
Jesuit mission--morning, noon, and night they chimed in airy music,
calling men's thoughts to God, just as you may hear the chimes to-day;
and the ramparts below Quebec thundered and reechoed with salvos of
cannon when the missionaries set out for Three Rivers.

{83} At Three Rivers waited the Indians of the Up-Country.  The Jesuits
embarked with them for the land of the Hurons.  The priests traveled
barefoot to avoid injuring the frail bark of the canoes.  Barely had
farewell cheers faded on the river, when the canoes spread apart.  With
pieces of buckskin hoisted on fishing rods for sail, and a flipping of
paddles as naked, bronzed arms set the pace, the voyage had begun.
Heroism is easy with chapel bells ringing; it is another matter,
barefoot and with sleeves rolled up.

It was the same trail that Champlain had followed up the Ottawa.  Only
Champlain was assured of good treatment, for he had promised to fight
in the Indian wars; but the Jesuits were dependent on the caprice of
their conductors.  Any one, who, from experience in the wilds, has
learned how the term "tenderfoot" came to be applied, will realize the
hardships endured--and endured without self-pity--by these scholarly
men of immured life.  The rocks of the portage cut their naked feet.
The Indians refused to carry their packs overland and flung bundles of
clothing and food into the water.  In fair weather the voyageurs slept
on the sand under the overturned canoes; in rain a wigwam was raised,
and into the close confines of this tent crowded men, women, and
children, for the most part naked, and with less idea of decency than a
domestic dog.  Each night, as the boats were beached, the priests
wandered off into the woods to hold their prayers in privacy.  Soon the
canoes were so far apart the different boats did not camp together, and
the white men were scattered alone among the savages.  Robberies
increased till, when Brebeuf reached Georgian Bay, thirty days from
leaving Three Rivers, he had little left but the bundles he had carried
for himself.

Brebeuf had been to the Huron country before with Etienne Brule,
Champlain's pathfinder; but of the first mission no record exists.
Brebeuf found that Brule had been murdered near the modern Penetang;
and the Indians had scarcely brought the priest's canoe ashore, when
they bolted through the woods, leaving him to follow as best he could.

{84} Take a map of modern Ontario.  Draw a circle round Georgian Bay,
running from Muskoka through Lake Simcoe and up into Manitoulin Island.
Here, on the very stamping ground of the summer tourist, was the scene
of the Jesuits' Huron mission.

[Illustration: GEORGIAN BAY]

When Brebeuf's tall frame emerged from the woods, the whole village of
Ihonateria dashed out to welcome him, shouting, "He has come!  He has
come again!  Behold, the Black Robe has come again!"  Young braves
willingly ran back through the forest for the baggage, which the
voyageurs had thrown aside; and at one o'clock in the morning, as the
messengers came through the moonlit forest, Brebeuf took up his abode
in the house of the leading chief.  Later came Fathers Davost and
Daniel.  By October the Indians had built the missionaries their
wigwam, a bark-covered house of logs, thirty-six feet long, divided
into three rooms, reception room, living quarters, church.  In the
entrance hall assembled the Indians, squatting on the floor, gazing in
astonishment at the religious pictures on the wall, and, above all, at
the clock.

{85} "What does he say?" they would ask, listening solemnly to the
ticking.

"He says 'Hang on the kettle,'" Brebeuf would answer as the clock
struck twelve, and the whole conclave would be given a simple meal of
corn porridge; but at four the clock sang a different song.

"It says 'Get up and go home,'" Brebeuf would explain, and the Indians
would file out, knowing well that the Black Robes were to engage in
prayer.

No holiday in the wildwoods was the Jesuit mission.  Chapel bell called
to service at four in the morning.  Eight was the breakfast hour.  The
morning was passed teaching, preaching, visiting.  At two o'clock was
dinner, when a chapter of the Bible was read.  After four the Indians
were dismissed, and the missionaries met to compare notes and plan the
next day's campaign.

By 1645, five mission houses had been established, with Ste. Marie on
the Wye, east of Midland, as the central house.  Near Lake Simcoe were
two missions,--St. Jean Ba'tiste and St. Joseph; near Penetang, St.
Louis, and St. Ignace.  Westward of Ste. Marie on the Wye were half a
dozen irregular missions among the Tobacco Indians.  Each of the five
regular missions boasted palisaded inclosures, a chapel of log slabs
with bell and spire, though the latter might be only a high wooden
cross.  At Ste. Marie, the central station, were lodgings for sixty
people, a hospital, kitchen garden, with cattle, pigs, and poultry.  At
various times soldiers had been sent up by the Quebec governors, till
some thirty or forty were housed at Ste. Marie.  In all were eighteen
priests, four lay brothers, seven white servants, and twenty-three
volunteers, unpaid helpers--donnes, they were called, young men
ardently religious, learning woodlore and the Indian language among the
Jesuits, as well as exploring whenever it was possible for them to
accompany the Indians.  Among the volunteers was one Chouart
Groseillers, who, if he did not accompany Father Jogues on a preaching
tour to the tribes of Lake Superior, had at least gone as far as the
Sault and learned of the vast unexplored world beyond Lake Superior.
{86} Food, as always, played a large part in winning the soul of the
redskin.  On church fete days as many as three thousand people were fed
and lodged at Ste. Marie.  That the priests suffered many trials among
the unreasonable savages need not be told.  When it rained too heavily
they were accused of ruining the crops by praying for too much rain;
when there was drouth they were blamed for not arranging this matter
with their God; and when the scourge of smallpox raged through the
Huron villages, devastating the wigwams so that the timber wolves
wandered unmolested among the dead, it was easy for the humpback
sorcerer to ascribe the pestilence also to the influence of the Black
Robes.  Once their houses were set on fire.  Again and again their
lives were threatened.  Often after tramping twenty miles through the
sleet-soaked, snow-drifted spring forests, arriving at an Indian
village foredone and exhausted, the Jesuit was met with no better
welcome than a wigwam flap closed against his entrance, or a rabble of
impish children hooting and jeering him as he sought shelter from house
to house.

But an influence was at work on the borders of the St. Lawrence that
yearly rendered the Hurons more tractable.  From raiding the
settlements of the St. Lawrence, the Iroquois were sweeping in a
scourge more deadly than smallpox up the Ottawa to the very forests of
Georgian Bay.  The Hurons no longer dared to go down to Quebec in
swarming canoes.  Only a few picked warriors--perhaps two hundred and
fifty--would venture so near the Iroquois fighting ground.

One winter night, as the priests sat round their hearth fire watching
the mournful shadows cast by the blazing logs on the rude walls,
Brebeuf, the soldier, lion-hearted, the fearless, told in a low, dreamy
voice of a vision that had come,--the vision of a huge fiery cross
rising slowly out of the forest and moving across the face of the sky
towards the Huron country.  It seemed to come from the land of the
Iroquois.  Was the priest's vision a dream, or his own intuition deeper
than reason, assuming dire form, portending a universal fear?  Who can
tell?  I can but repeat the story as it is told in their annals.

{87} "How large was the cross?" asked the other priests.  Brebeuf gazes
long in the fire.

"Large enough to crucify us all," he answers.


And, as he had dreamed, fell the blow.

St. Joseph, of the Lake Simcoe region, was situated a day's travel from
the main fortified mission of Ste. Marie.  Round it were some two
thousand Hurons to whom Father Daniel ministered.  Father Daniel was
just closing the morning services on July the 4th, 1648.  His tawny
people were on their knees repeating the responses of the service, when
from the forest, humming with insect and bird life, arose a sound that
was neither wind nor running water--confused, increasing, nearing!
Then a shriek broke within the fort palisades,--"The enemy! the
Iroquois!" and the courtyard was in an uproar indescribable.  Painted
redskins, naked but for the breech clout, were dashing across the
cornfields to scale the palisades or force the hastily slammed gates.
Father Daniel rushed from church to wigwams rallying the Huron
warriors, while the women and children, the aged and the feeble, ran a
terrified rabble to the shelter of the chapel.  Before the Hurons could
man the walls, Iroquois hatchets had hacked holes of entrance in the
palisades.  The fort was rushed by a bloodthirsty horde making the air
hideous with fiendish screams.

"Fly!  Save yourselves!" shouted the priest.  "I stay here!  We shall
this day meet in Heaven!"

In the volley and counter volley of ball and arrow, Father Daniel
reeled on his face, shot in the heart.  In a trice his body was cut to
pieces, and the Iroquois were bathing their hands in his warm
lifeblood.  A moment later the village was in roaring flames, and on
the burning pile were flung the fragments of the priest's body.  The
victors set out on the homeward tramp with a line of more than six
hundred prisoners, the majority, women and children, to be brained if
their strength failed on the march, to be tortured in the Iroquois
towns if they survived the abuse on the way.

{88} Next westward from the Lake Simcoe missions were St. Ignace with
four hundred people and St. Louis with seven hundred, near the modern
Penetang and within short distance of the Jesuits' strong headquarters
on the River Wye.  At these two missions labored Brebeuf, the giant,
and a fragile priest named Lalemant.

Encouraged by the total destruction of St. Joseph, the Iroquois that
very fall took the warpath with more than one thousand braves.
Ascending the Ottawa leisurely, they had passed the winter hunting and
cutting off any stray wanderers found in the forest.

The Hurons knew the doom that was slowly approaching.  Yet they
remained passive, stunned, terrified by the blow at St. Joseph.  It was
spring of 1649 before the warriors reached Georgian Bay.  March winds
had cleared the trail of snowdrifts, but the forests were still
leafless.  St. Ignace mission lay between Lake Simcoe and St. Louis.
Approaching it one windy March night, the Iroquois had cut holes
through the palisades before dawn and burst inside the walls with the
yells and gyrations of some hideous hell dance.  Here a warrior
simulated the howl of the wolf.  There another approached in the
crouching leaps of a panther, all the while uttering the yelps and
screams of a beast of prey lashed to fury.  The poor Hurons were easy
victims.  Nearly all their braves happened to be absent hunting, and
the four hundred women and children, rushing from the long houses half
dazed with sleep, fell without realizing their fate, or found
themselves herded in the chapel like cattle at the shambles, Iroquois
guards at every window and door.

Luckily three Hurons escaped over the palisades and rushed breathless
through the forest to forewarn Brebeuf and Lalemant cooped up in St.
Louis.  The Iroquois came on behind like a wolf pack.

"Escape!  Escape!  Run to the woods, Black Robes!  There is yet time,"
the Indian converts urged Brebeuf; but the lion-hearted stood
steadfast, though Lalemant, new to scenes of carnage, turned white and
trembled in spite of his resolution.

{89} "Who would protect the women if the men fled like deer to the
woods?" demanded Brebeuf, and the tigerish yells of the on-rushing
horde answered the question.

[Illustration: BREBEUF]

Before day dawn had tipped the branches of the leafless trees with
shafted sunlight, the enemy were hacking furiously at the palisades.
Trapped and cornered, the most timid of animals will fight.  With such
fury, reckless from desperation, cherishing no hope, the Hurons now
fought, but they were handicapped by lack of guns and balls.  Thirty
Iroquois had been slain, a hundred wounded, and the assailants drew off
for breath.  It was only the lull between two thunderclaps.  A moment
later they were on St. Louis' walls and had hacked through a dozen
places.  At these spots the fiercest fighting occurred, and those
Iroquois who had not already bathed their faces in the gore of victims
at St. Ignace were soon enough dyed in their own blood.  Here, there,
everywhere, were Brebeuf and Lalemant, fighting, administering last
rites, exhorting the Hurons to perish valiantly.  Then the rolling
clouds of flame and smoke told the Hurons that their village was on
fire.  Some dashed back to die inside the burning wigwams.  Others
fought desperately to escape through the broken walls.  A few, in the
confusion and smoke, succeeded in reaching the woods, whence they ran
to warn Ste. Marie on the Wye.  Brebeuf and Lalemant had been knocked
down, stripped, bound, and were now {90} half driven, half dragged,
with the other captives to be tortured at Ignace.  Not a sign of fear
did either priest betray.

One would fain pass over the next pages of the Jesuit records.  It is
inconceivable how human nature, even savage nature, so often stoops
beneath the most repellent cruelties of the brute world.  It is
inconceivable unless one acknowledge an influence fiendish; but let us
not judge the Indians too harshly.  When the Iroquois warriors were
torturing the Hurons and their missionaries, the populace of civilized
European cities was outdoing the savages on victims whose sins were
political.

While the Jesuits of Ste. Marie were praying all day and night before
the lighted altar for heavenly intervention to rescue Brebeuf and
Lalemant, the two captured priests stood bound to the torture stakes,
the gapingstock of a thousand fiends.  When the Iroquois singed Brebeuf
from head to foot with burning birch bark, he threatened them in tones
of thunder with everlasting damnation for persecuting the servants of
God.  The Iroquois shrieked with laughter.  Such spirit in a man was to
their liking.  Then, to stop his voice, they cut away his lips and
rammed a red-hot iron into his mouth.  Not once did the giant priest
flinch or writhe at the torture stake.  Then they brought out Lalemant,
that Brebeuf might suffer the agony of seeing a weaker spirit flinch.
Poor Lalemant fell at his superior's feet, sobbing out a verse of
Scripture.  Then they wreathed Lalemant in oiled bark and set fire to
it.

"We baptize you," they yelled, throwing hot water on the dying man.
Then they railed out blasphemies, obscenities unspeakable, against the
Jesuits' religion.  Brebeuf had not winced, but his frame was relaxing.
He sank to his knees, a dying man.  With the yells of devils jealous of
losing their prey, they ripped off his scalp while he was still alive,
tore his heart from his breast, and drank the warm lifeblood of the
priest.  Brebeuf died at four in the afternoon.  Strange to relate,
Lalemant, of the weaker body, survived the tortures till daybreak,
when, weary of the sport, the Indians desisted from their mad night
orgies and put an end to his sufferings by braining him.

{91} Over at Ste. Marie, Ragueneau and the other priests momentarily
awaited the attack; but at Ste. Marie were forty French soldiers and
ample supply of muskets.  The Iroquois was bravest as the wolf is
bravest--when attacking a lamb.  Three hundred Hurons lay in ambush
along the forest trail.  These ran from the Iroquois like sheep; but
when three hundred more sallied from the fort, led by the French, it
was the Iroquois' turn to run, and they fled back behind the palisades
of St. Louis.  The Hurons followed, entered by the selfsame breaches
the Iroquois had made, and drove the invaders out.  More Iroquois
rushed from Ignace to the rescue.  A hundred Iroquois fell in the day's
fight, and when they finally recaptured St. Louis, only twenty Hurons
remained of the three hundred.  The victory had been bought at too
great cost.  Tying their prisoners to stakes at St. Ignace, they heaped
the courtyard with inflammable wood, set fire to all, and retreated,
taking only enough prisoners to carry their plunder.

[Illustration: REMNANTS OF WALLS OF FORT ST. MARY ON CHRISTIAN ISLAND
IN 1891]

Ste. Marie for the time was safe.  The invaders had gone; but the blow
had crushed forever the prowess of the Huron nation.  The remaining
towns had thought for nothing but flight.  {92} Town after town was
forsaken and burned in the summer of 1649, the corn harvest left
standing in the fields, while the panic-stricken people put out in
their canoes to take refuge on the islands of Georgian Bay.  Ste. Marie
on the Wye alone remained, and the reason for its existence was
vanishing like winter snow before summer sun, for its people fled . . .
fled . . . fled . . . daily fled to the pink granite islands of the
lake.  The Hurons begged the Jesuits to accompany them, and there was
nothing else for Ragueneau to do.  Ste. Marie was stripped, the stock
slain for food.  Then the buildings were set on fire.  June 14, just as
the sunset bathed water and sky in seas of gold, the priest led his
homeless people down to the lake as Moses of old led the children of
Israel.  Oars and sweeps, Georgian Bay calm as glass, they rafted
slowly out to the Christian Islands,--Faith, Hope, and Charity,--which
tourists can still see from passing steamers, a long wooded line beyond
the white water-fret of the wind-swept reefs.  The island known on the
map as Charity, or St. Joseph, was heavily wooded.  Here the refugees
found their haven, and the French soldiers cleared the ground {93} for
a stone fort of walled masonry,--the islands offering little else than
stone and timber, though the fishing has not failed to this day.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE GREAT LAKES Showing the territory of the
Jesuit Huron missions]

By autumn the walled fort was complete, but some eight thousand
refugees had gathered to the island.  Such numbers could not subsist on
Georgian Bay in summer.  In winter their presence meant starvation, and
before the spring of 1650 half had perished.  Of the survivors, many
had fed on the bodies of the dead.  No help had come from Quebec for
almost three years.  The clothing of the priests had long since worn to
shreds.  Ragueneau and his helpers were now dressed in skins like the
Indians, and reduced to a diet of nuts and smoked fish.

With warm weather came sickness.  And also came bands of raiding
Iroquois striking terror to the Tobacco Indians.  Among them, too,
perished Jesuit priests, martyrs to the faith.  Did some of the Hurons
venture from the Christian Islands across to the mainland to hunt, they
were beset by scalping parties and came back to the fort with tales
that crazed Ragueneau's Indians with terror.  The Hurons decided to
abandon Georgian Bay.  Some scattered to Lake Superior, to Green Bay,
to Detroit.  Others found refuge on Manitoulin Island.  A remnant of a
few hundreds followed Ragueneau and the French down the Ottawa to take
shelter at Quebec.  Their descendants may be found to this day at the
mission of Lorette.

To-day, as tourists drive through Quebec, marveling at the massive
buildings and power and wealth of Catholic orders, do they pause to
consider that the foundation stones of that power were dyed in the
blood of these early martyrs?  Or, as the pleasure seekers glide among
the islands of Georgian Bay, do they ever ponder that this fair world
of blue waters and pink granite islands once witnessed the most bloody
tragedy of brute force, triumphant over the blasted hopes of religious
zeal?




{94}

CHAPTER VI

FROM 1650 TO 1672

Radisson captured by Iroquois--Radisson escapes--At Onandaga--How the
French were saved--Word of the western land--Westward bound--Dollard's
Heroes--The fight at the Long Sault--To seek the north sea--Discovers
Hudson Bay--Origin of the great fur company


Having destroyed the Hurons, who were under French protection, it is
not surprising that the Iroquois now set themselves to destroy the
French.  From Montreal to Tadoussac the St. Lawrence swarmed with war
canoes.  No sooner had the river ice broken up and the birds begun
winging north than the Iroquois flocked down the current of the
Richelieu, across Lake St. Peter to Three Rivers, down the St. Lawrence
to Quebec, up the St. Lawrence to Montreal.  And the snows of midwinter
afforded no truce to the raids, for the Iroquois cached their canoes in
the forest, and roamed the woods on snowshoes.  Settlers fled terrified
from their farms to the towns; farmers dared not work in their fields
without a sentry standing guard; Montreal became a prison; Three Rivers
lay blockaded; and at Quebec the war canoes passed defiantly below the
cannon of Cape Diamond, paddles beating defiance against the gun'els,
or prows flaunting the scalps of victims within cannon fire of Castle
St. Louis.  Rich and poor, priests and parishioners, governors and
habitants, all alike trembled before the lurking treachery.  Father
Jogues had been captured on his way from the Huron mission; Pere Poncet
was likewise kidnapped at Quebec and carried to the tortures of the
Mohawk towns; and a nephew of the Governor of Quebec was a few years
later attacked while hunting near Lake Champlain.

The outraged people of New France realized that fear was only
increasing the boldness of the Iroquois.  A Mohawk-chief fell into
their hands.  By way of warning, they bound him to a stake and burned
him to death.  The Indian revenge fell swift and sure.  In 1653 the
Governor of Three Rivers and twelve leading citizens were murdered a
short distance from the fort gates.  {95} One night in May of 1652 a
tall, slim, swarthy lad about sixteen years of age was seen winding his
way home to Three Rivers from a day's shooting in the marshes.  He had
set out at day dawn with some friends, but fear of the Iroquois had
driven his comrades back.  Now at nightfall, within sight of Three
Rivers, when the sunset glittered from the chapel spire, he unslung his
bag of game and sat down to reload his musket.  Then he noticed that
the pistols in his belt had been water-soaked from the day's wading,
and he reloaded them too.

Any one who is used to life in the open knows how at sundown wild birds
foregather for a last conclave.  Ducks were winging in myriads and
settling on the lake with noisy flacker.  Unable to resist the
temptation of one last shot, the boy was gliding noiselessly forward
through the rushes, when suddenly he stopped as if rooted to the
ground, with hands thrown up and eyes bulging from his head.  At his
feet lay the corpses of his morning comrades,--scalped, stripped,
hacked almost piecemeal!  Then the instinct of the hunted thing, of
flight, of self-protection, eclipsed momentary terror, and the boy was
ducking into the rushes to hide when, with a crash of musketry from the
woods, the Iroquois were upon him.

When he regained consciousness, he was pegged out on the sand amid a
flotilla of beached canoes, where Iroquois warriors were having an
evening meal.  So began the captivity, the love of the wilds, the wide
wanderings of one of the most intrepid explorers in New France,--Pierre
Esprit Radisson.

His youth and the fact that he would make a good warrior were in his
favor.  When he was carried back to the Mohawk town and with other
prisoners compelled to run the gauntlet between two lines of
tormentors, Radisson ran so fast and dodged so dexterously that he was
not once hit.  The feat was greeted with shrieks of delight by the
Iroquois; and the high-spirited boy was given in adoption to a captive
Huron woman.

Things would have gone well had he not bungled an attempt to escape;
but one night, while in camp with three Iroquois hunters, an Algonquin
captive entered.  While the Iroquois {96} slept with guns stacked
against the trees, the sleepless Algonquin captive rose noiselessly
where he lay by the fire, seized the Mohawk warriors' guns, threw one
tomahawk across to Radisson, and with the other brained two of the
sleepers.  The French boy aimed a blow at the third sleeper, and the
two captives escaped.  But they might have saved themselves the
trouble.  They were pursued and overtaken on Lake St. Peter, within
sight of Three Rivers.  This time Radisson had to endure all the
_diableries_ of Mohawk torture.  For two days he was kept bound to the
torture stake.  The nails were torn from his fingers, the flesh burnt
from the soles of his feet, a hundred other barbarous freaks of impish
Indian children wreaked on the French boy.  Arrows with flaming points
were shot at his naked body.  His mutilated finger ends were ground
between stones, or thrust into the smoking bowl of a pipe full of
coals, or bitten by fiendish youngsters being trained up the way a
Mohawk warrior should go.

[Illustration: A CANADIAN IN SNOWSHOES  (After La Potherie)]

Radisson's youth, his courage, his very dare-devil rashness, together
with presents of wampum belts from his Indian parents, {97} saved his
life for a second time, and a year of wild wanderings with Mohawk
warriors finally brought him to Albany on the Hudson, where the Dutch
would have ransomed him as they had ransomed the two Jesuits, Jogues
and Poncet; but the boy disliked to break faith a second time with his
loyal Indian friends.  Still, the glimpse of white man's life caused a
terrible upheaval of revulsion from the barbarities, the filth, the
vice, of the Mohawk camp.  He could endure Indian life no longer.  One
morning, in the fall of 1653, he stole out from the Mohawk lodges,
while the mist of day dawn still shadowed the forest, and broke at a
run down the trail of the Mohawk valley for Albany.  All day he ran,
pursued by the phantom fright of his own imagination, fancying
everything that crunched beneath his moccasined tread some Mohawk
warrior, seeing in the branches that reeled as he passed the arms of
pursuers stretched out to stop him;--on . . . and on . . . and on, he
ran, pausing neither to eat nor rest; here dashing into the bed of a
stream and running along the pebbled bottom to throw pursuers off the
trail; there breaking through a thicket of brushwood away from the
trail, only to come back to it breathless farther on, when some alarm
of the wind in the trees or deer on the move had proved false.  Only
muscles of iron strength, lithe as elastic, could have endured the
strain.  Nightfall at last came, hiding him from pursuers; but still he
sped on at a run, following the trail by the light of the stars and the
rush of the river.  By sunrise of the second day he was staggering; for
the rocks were slippery with frost and his moccasins worn to tatters.
It was four in the afternoon before he reached the first outlying cabin
of the Dutch settlers.  For three days he lay hidden in Albany behind
sacks of wheat in a thin-boarded attic, through the cracks of which he
could see the Mohawks searching everywhere.  The Jesuit Poncet gave him
passage money to take ship to Europe by way of New York.  New York was
then a village of a few hundred houses, thatch-roofed, with stone fort,
stone church, stone barracks.  Central Park was a rocky wilderness.
What is now Wall Street was the stamping ground of pigs and goats.
January of 1654 Radisson {98} reached Europe, no longer a boy, but a
man inured to danger and hardships and daring, though not yet eighteen.


When Radisson came back to Three Rivers in May he found changes had
taken place in New France.  Among the men murdered with the Governor of
Three Rivers by the Mohawks the preceding year had been his sister's
husband, and the widow had married one Medard Chouart de Groseillers,
who had served in the Huron country as a lay helper with the martyred
Jesuits.  Also a truce had been patched up between the Iroquois and the
French.  The Iroquois were warring against the Eries and wanted arms
from the French.  A still more treacherous motive underlay the
Iroquois' peace.  They wanted a French settlement in their country as a
guarantee of non-intervention when they continued to raid the refugee
Hurons.  Such duplicity was unsuspected by New France.  The Jesuits
looked upon the peace as designed by Providence to enable them to
establish missions among the Iroquois.  Father Le Moyne went from
village to village preaching the gospel and receiving belts of wampum
as tokens of peace--one belt containing as many as seven thousand
beads.  When the Onondagas asked for a French colony, Lauzon, the
French Governor, readily consented if the Jesuits would pay the cost,
estimated at about $10,000; and in 1656 Major Dupuis had led fifty
Frenchmen and four Jesuits up the St. Lawrence in long boats through
the wilderness to a little hill on Lake Onondaga, where a palisaded
fort was built, and the lilies of France, embroidered on a white silk
flag by the Ursuline nuns, flung from the breeze above the Iroquois
land.  The colony was hardly established before three hundred Mohawks
fell on the Hurons encamped under shelter of Quebec, butchered without
mercy, and departed with shouts of laughter that echoed below the guns
at Cape Diamond, scalps waving from the prow of each Iroquois canoe.
Quebec was thunderstruck, numb with fright.  The French dared not
retaliate, or the Iroquois would fall on the colony at Onondaga.
Perhaps people who keep their vision too constantly fixed on heaven
lose {99} sight of the practical duties of earth; but when eighty
Onondagas came again in 1657, inviting a hundred Hurons to join the
Iroquois Confederacy, the Jesuits again suspected no treachery in the
invitation, but saw only a providential opportunity to spread one
hundred Huron converts among the Iroquois pagans.  Father Ragueneau,
who had led the poor refugees down from the Christian Islands on
Georgian Bay, now with another priest offered to accompany the Hurons
to the Iroquois nation.  An interpreter was needed.  Young Radisson,
now twenty-one years of age, offered to go as a lay helper, and the
party of two hundred and twenty French, eighty Iroquois, one hundred
Hurons, departed from the gates of Montreal, July 26.

[Illustration: SAUSON'S MAP, 1656]


Hardly were they beyond recall, before scouts brought word that twelve
hundred Iroquois had gone on the warpath against Canada, and three
Frenchmen of Montreal had been scalped.  At last the Governor of Quebec
bestirred himself: he caused twelve Iroquois to be seized and held as
hostages for the safety of the French.

The Onondagas had set out from Montreal carrying the Frenchmen's
baggage.  Beyond the first portage they flung the packs on the ground,
hurried the Hurons into canoes so that no two Hurons were in one boat,
and paddled over the {100} water with loud laughter, leaving the French
in the lurch.  Father Ragueneau and Radisson quickly read the ominous
signs.  Telling the other French to gather up the baggage, they armed
themselves and paddled in swift pursuit.  That night Ragueneau's party
and the Onondagas camped together.  Nothing was said or done to evince
treachery.  Friends and enemies, Onondagas and Hurons and white men,
paddled and camped together for another week; but when, on August 3,
four Huron warriors and two women forcibly seized a canoe and headed
back for Montreal, the Onondagas would delay no longer.  That afternoon
as the Indians paddled inshore to camp on one of the Thousand Islands,
some Onondaga braves rushed into the woods as if to hunt.  As the
canoes grated the pebbled shore a secret signal was given.  The Huron
men with their eyes bent on the beach, intent on landing, never knew
that they had been struck.  Onondaga hatchets, clubs, spears, were
plied from the water side, and from the hunters ambushed on shore
crashed musketry that mowed down those who would have fled to the woods.

By night time only a few Huron women and the French had survived the
massacre.  Such was the baptism of blood that inaugurated the French
colony at Onondaga.  Luckily the fort built on the crest of the hill
above Lake Onondaga was large enough to house stock and provisions.
Outside the palisades there daily gathered more Iroquois warriors, who
no longer dissembled a hunger for Jesuits' preaching.  Among the
warriors were Radisson's old friends of the Mohawks, and his foster
father confessed to him frankly that the Confederacy were only delaying
the massacre of the French till they could somehow obtain the freedom
of the twelve Iroquois hostages held at Quebec.

Daily more warriors gathered; nightly the war drum pounded; week after
week the beleaguered and imprisoned French heard their stealthy enemy
closing nearer and nearer on them, and the painted foliage of autumn
frosts gave place to the leafless trees and the drifting snows of
midwinter.  The French were hemmed in completely as if on a desert
isle, and no help could come from Quebec, where New France was
literally under Iroquois siege.

{101} The question was, what to do?  Messengers had been secretly sent
to Quebec, but the Mohawks had caught the scouts bringing back answers,
and there was no safe escape from the colony through ambushed woods in
midwinter.  The Iroquois could afford to bide their time for victims
who could not escape.  All winter the whites secretly built boats in
the lofts of the fort, but when the timbers were put together the boats
had to be brought downstairs, and a Huron convert spread a terrifying
report of a second deluge for which the white men were preparing a
second Noah's Ark.  Mohawk warriors at once scented an attempt to
escape when the ice broke up in spring, and placed their braves in
ambush along the portages.  Also they sent a deputation to see if that
story of the boats were true.  Forewarned by Radisson, the whites built
a floor over the boats, heaped canoes above the floor, and invited the
Mohawk spies in.  The Mohawks smiled grimly and were reassured.  Canoes
would be ripped into shingles if they ran the ice jam of spring.  The
Iroquois felt doubly certain of their victims; but Radisson, free to go
among the warriors as one of themselves, learned that they were
plotting to murder half the colony and hold the other half as hostages
for the safety of the twelve Indians in the dungeon at Quebec.  The
whites could delay no longer.  Something must be done, but what?
Radisson, knowing the Indian customs, proposed a way out.

No normally built savage could refuse an invitation to a sumptuous
feast.  According to Indian custom, no feaster dare leave uneaten food
on his plate.  Waste to the Indian is crime.  In the words of the
Scotch proverb, "Better burst than waste."  And all Indians have
implicit faith in dreams.  Radisson dreamed--so he told the
Indians--that the white men were to give them a marvelous banquet.  No
sooner dreamed than done!  The Iroquois probably thought it a chance to
obtain possession inside the fort; but the whites had taken good care
to set the banquet between inner and outer walls.

Such a repast no savage had ever enjoyed in the memory of the race.
All the ambushed spies flocked in from the portages.  {102} The painted
warriors washed off their grease, donned their best buckskin, and
rallied to the banquet as to battle.  All the stock but one solitary
pig, a few chickens and dogs, had been slaughtered for the kettle.
Such an odor of luscious meat steamed up from the fort for days as
whetted the warriors' hunger to the appetite of ravenous wolves.
Finally, one night, the trumpets blew a blare that almost burst
eardrums.  Fifes shrilled, and the rub-a-dub-dub of a dozen drums set
the air in a tremor.  A great fire had been kindled between the inner
and outer walls that set shadows dancing in the forest.  Then the gates
were thrown open, and in trooped the feasters.  All the French acting
as waiters, the whites carried in the kettles--kettles of wild fowl,
kettles of oxen, kettles of dogs, kettles of porridge and potatoes and
corn and what not?  That is it--what not?  Were the kettles drugged?
Who knows?  The feasters ate till their eyes were rolling lugubriously;
and still the kettles came round.  The Indians ate till they were
torpid as swollen corpses, and still came the white men with more
kettles, while the mischievous French lad, Radisson, danced a mad jig,
shouting, yelling, "Eat! eat!  Beat the drum!  Awake! awake!  Cheer up!
Eat! eat!"

By midnight every soul of the feast had tumbled over sound asleep, and
at the rear gates were the French, stepping noiselessly, speaking in
whispers, launching their boats loaded with provisions and ammunition.
The soldiers were for going back and butchering every warrior, but the
Jesuits forbade such treachery.  Then Radisson, light-spirited as if
the refugees had been setting out on a holiday, perpetrated yet a last
trick on the warriors.  To the bell rope of the main gate he fastened a
pig, so when the Indians would pull the rope for admission, they would
hear the tramp of a sentry inside.  Then he stuffed effigies of men on
guard round the windows of the fort.

It was a pitchy, sleety night, the river roaring with the loose ice of
spring flood, the forests noisy with the boisterous March wind.  Out on
the maelstrom of ice and flood launched the fifty-three colonists,
March 20, 1658.  By April they were safe {103} inside the walls of
Quebec, and chance hunters brought word that what with sleep, and the
measured tramp, tramp of the pig, and the baying of the dogs, and the
clucking of the chickens inside the fort, the escape of the whites had
not been discovered for a week.  The Indians thought the whites had
gone into retreat for especially long prayers.  Then a warrior climbed
the inner palisades, and rage knew no bounds.  The fort was looted and
burnt to the ground.


Peltry traffic was the life of New France.  Without it the colony would
have perished, and now the rupture of peace with the Iroquois cut off
that traffic.  To the Iroquois land south of the St. Lawrence the
French dared not go, and the land of the Hurons was a devastated
wilderness.  The boats that came out to New France were compelled to
return without a single peltry, but there still remained the unknown
land of the Algonquin northwest and beyond the Great Lakes.  Year after
year young French adventurers essayed the exploration of that land.  In
1634 Jean Nicolet, one of Champlain's wood runners, had gone westward
as far as Green Bay and coasted the shores of Lake Michigan.  Jesuits,
where they preached on Lake Superior, had been told of a vast land
beyond the Sweet Water Seas,--Great Lakes,--a land where wandered
tribes of warriors powerful as the Iroquois.

Yearly, when the Algonquins came down the Ottawa to trade, Jesuits and
young French adventurers accompanied the canoes back up the Ottawa,
hoping to reach the Unknown Land, which rumor said was bounded only by
the Western Sea.  However, the priests went no farther than Lake
Nipissing; but two nameless French wood runners came back from Green
Bay in August of 1656 with marvelous tales of wandering hunters to the
north called "Christines" (Crees), who passed the winter hunting
buffalo on a land bare of trees (the prairie) and the summer fishing on
the shores of the North Sea (Hudson's Bay).  They told also of fierce
tribes south of the Christines (the Sioux), who traded with the Indians
of the Spanish settlements in Mexico.

{104} All New France became fired by these reports.  When Radisson
returned from Onondaga in April of 1659, he found his brother-in-law,
Chouart Groseillers, just back from Nipissing, where he had been
serving the Jesuits, with more tales of this marvelous undiscovered
land.  The two kinsmen decided to go back with the Algonquins that very
year; for, confessed Radisson in his journal, "I longed to see myself
again in a boat."

Thirty other Frenchmen and two Jesuits had assembled in Montreal to
join the Algonquins.  More than sixty canoes set out from Montreal in
June, the one hundred and forty Algonquins well supplied with firearms
to defend themselves from marauding Iroquois.  Numbers begot courage,
courage carelessness; and before the fleet had reached the Chaudiere
Falls, at the modern city of Ottawa, the canoes had spread far apart in
utter forgetfulness of danger.  Not twenty were within calling distance
when an Indian prophet, or wandering medicine man, ran down to the
shore, throwing his blanket and hatchet aside as signal of peace, and
shouting out warning of Iroquois warriors ambushed farther up the river.

Drunk with the new sense of power from the possession of French
firearms, perhaps drunk too with French brandy obtained at Montreal,
the Algonquins paused to take the strange captive on board, and
returned thanks for the friendly warning by calling their benefactor a
"coward and a dog and a hen."  At the same time they took the
precaution of sleeping in mid-stream with their canoes abreast tied to
water-logged trees.  A dull roar through the night mist foretold they
were nearing the great Chaudiere Falls; and at first streak of day dawn
there was a rush to land and cross the long portage before the mist
lifted and exposed them to the hostiles.

To any one who knows the region of Canada's capital the scene can
easily be recalled: the long string of canoes gliding through the gray
morning like phantoms; Rideau Falls shimmering on the left like a snowy
curtain; the dense green of Gatineau Point as the birch craft swerved
across the river inshore to the right; the wooded heights, now known as
Parliament Hill, {105} jutting above the river mist, the new foliage of
the topmost trees just tipped with the first primrose shafts of
sunrise; then the vague stir and unrest in the air as the sun came up
till the gray fog became rose mist shot with gold, and rose like a
curtain to the upper airs, revealing the angry, tempest-tossed cataract
straight ahead, hurtling over the rocks of the Chaudiere in walls of
living waters.  Where the lumber piles of Hull on the right to-day jut
out as if to span Ottawa River to Parliament Hill, the voyageurs would
land to portage across to Lake Du Chene.

Just as they sheered inshore the morning air was split by a hideous din
of guns and war whoops.  The Iroquois had been lying in ambush at the
portage.  The Algonquins' bravado now became a panic.  They abandoned
canoes and baggage, threw themselves behind a windfall of trees, and
poured a steady rain of bullets across the portage in order to permit
the other canoes to come ashore.  When the fog lifted, baggage and
canoes lay scattered on the shore.  Behind one barricade of logs lay
the French and Algonquins; behind another, the Iroquois; and woe betide
the warrior who showed his head or dared to cross the open.  All day
the warriors kept up their cross fire.  Thirteen Algonquins had
perished, and the French were only waiting a chance to abandon the
voyage.  Luckily, that night was pitch-dark.  The Algonquin leader blew
a long low call through his birch trumpet.  All hands rallied and
rushed for the boats to cross the river.  All the Frenchmen's baggage
had been lost.  Of the white adventurers every soul turned back but
Groseillers and Radisson.

The Algonquins now made up in caution what they had at first lacked.
They voyaged only by night and hid by day.  No camp fires were kindled.
No muskets were fired even for game; and the paddlers were presently
reduced to food of _tripe de roche_--green moss scraped from rocks.
Birch canoes could not cross Lake Huron in storm; so the Indians kept
close to the south shore of Georgian Bay, winding among the pink
granite islands, past the ruined Jesuit missions across to the Straits
of Mackinac and on down Lake Michigan to Green Bay.

{106} "But our mind was not to stay here," relates Radisson, "but to
know the remotest people."  Sometime between April and July of 1659 the
two white men had followed the Indian hunters across what is now the
state of Wisconsin to "a mighty river like the St. Lawrence."  They had
found the Mississippi, first of white men to view the waters since the
treasure-seeking Spaniards of the south crossed the river.  They had
penetrated the Unknown.  They had discovered the Great Northwest--a
world boundlessly vast; so vast no man forever after in the history of
the human race need be dispossessed of his share of the earth.
Something of the importance of the discovery seems to have impressed
Radisson; for he speaks of the folly of the European nations fighting
for sterile, rocky provinces when here is land enough for all--land
enough to banish poverty.

The two Frenchmen's wanderings with the tribes of the prairie--whether
those tribes were Omahas or Iowas or Mandanes or Mascoutins or
Sioux--cannot be told here.  It would fill volumes.  I have told the
story fully elsewhere.  By spring of 1660 Radisson and Groseillers are
back at Sault Ste. Marie, having gathered wealth of beaver peltries
beyond the dreams of avarice; but scouts have come to the Sault with
ominous news--news of one thousand Iroquois braves on the warpath to
destroy every settlement in New France.  Hourly, daily, weekly, have
Quebec and Three Rivers and Montreal been awaiting the blow.

The Algonquins refuse to go down to Quebec with Radisson and
Groseillers.  "Fools," shouts Radisson in full assembly of their chiefs
squatting round a council fire, "are you going to allow the Iroquois to
destroy you as they destroyed the Hurons?  How are you going to fight
the Iroquois unless you come down to Quebec for guns?  Do you want to
see your wives and children slaves?  For my part, I prefer to die like
a man rather than live a slave."

The chiefs were shamed out of their cowardice.  Five hundred young
warriors undertook to conduct the two white men down to Quebec.  They
embarked at once, scouts to the fore reconnoitering all portages, and
guards on duty wherever the {107} boats landed.  A few Iroquois braves
were seen near the Long Sault Rapids, but they took to their heels in
such evident fright that Radisson was puzzled to know what had become
of the one thousand braves on the warpath.  Carrying the beaver pelts
along the portage so they could be used as shields in case of attack,
the Algonquins came to the foot of the Long Sault Rapids near Montreal,
and saw plainly what had happened to the invading warriors.  A
barricade of logs the shape of a square fort stood on the shore.  From
the pickets hung the scalps of dead Indians and on the sands lay the
charred remains of white men.  Every tree for yards round was peppered
with bullet holes.  Here was a charred stake where some victim had been
tortured; there the smashed remnants of half-burnt canoes; and at
another point empty powder barrels.  A terrible battle had been waged
but a week before.  Radisson could trace, inside the barricade of logs,
holes scooped in the sand where the besieged, desperate with thirst,
had drunk the muddy water.  At intervals in the palisades openings had
been hacked, and these were blood stained, as if the scene of the
fiercest fighting.  Bark had been burnt from the logs in places, where
the assailants had set fire to the fort.

From Indian refugees at Montreal, Radisson learned details of the
fight.  It was the battle most famous in early Canadian annals--the
Long Sault.  All winter Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal had cowered
in terror of the coming Iroquois.  In imagination the beleaguered
garrisons foresaw themselves martyrs of Mohawk ferocity.  It was
learned that seven hundred of the Iroquois warriors were hovering round
the Richelieu opposite Three Rivers.  The rest of the braves had passed
the winter man-hunting in the Huron country, and were in spring
descending the Ottawa to unite with the lower band.

Week after week Quebec awaited the blow; but the blow never fell, for
at Montreal was a little band of seventeen heroes, led by a youth of
twenty-five,--Adam Dollard,--who longed to wipe out the stain of a
misspent boyhood by some glorious exploit in the service of the Holy
Cross.

{108} When word came that the upper foragers were descending from the
country of the Hurons to unite with the lower Iroquois against
Montreal, Dollard proposed to go up the Ottawa with a picked party of
chosen fighters, waylay the Iroquois at the foot of the Long Sault
Rapids, and so prevent the attack on Montreal.  Sixteen young men
volunteered to join him.  Charles Le Moyne, now acting as interpreter
at Montreal, begged the young heroes to delay till reenforcements could
be obtained: seventeen Frenchmen against five hundred Mohawks meant
certain death; but delay meant risk, and Dollard coveted nothing more
than a death of glory.  At the chapel of the Hotel Dieu the young
heroes made what they knew would certainly be their last confession,
bade eternal farewell to friends, and with crushed corn for provisions
set out in canoes for the upper Ottawa.  May 1, they came to the foot
of the Long Sault.  Here a barricade of logs had been erected in some
skirmish the year before, and here, too, was the usual camping place of
the Iroquois as their canoes came bounding down the swift waters of the
Ottawa.  Dollard and his brave boys landed, slung their kettles for the
night meal, and sent scouts upstream to forewarn when the Iroquois
came.  The night was passed in prayer.  Next day arrived unexpected
reenforcements.  Two bands of forty Hurons and four Algonquins, under a
brave Huron convert of the Christian Islands, had asked Maisonneuve's
permission to join Dollard and wreak their pent vengeance on the
Mohawks.  Early one morning the scouts reported five Iroquois canoes
coming slowly downstream, and two hundred more warriors behind.  There
was not even care to bring a supply of water inside the barricade or
remove kettles from the sticks.  Posted in ambush, the young soldiers
fired as soon as the first canoes came within range.  This put the rest
of the Iroquois on guard.  The whites rushed for the shelter of their
barricade.  The Indians dashed to erect a fort of their own.  Inside
Dollard's palisades all was activity.  Cracks were plastered up with
mud between logs, four marksmen with double stands of arms posted at
each loophole, and a big musketoon leveled straight for the {109}
Iroquois redoubt.  The Iroquois rushed out yelling like fiends, and
jumping sideways as they advanced, to avoid becoming targets; but the
scattering fire of the musketoon caught them full abreast and a Seneca
chief fell dead.  The Iroquois then broke up Dollard's canoes and tried
to set fire to the logs; but again the musketoon's scattering bullets
mowed a swath of death in the advancing ranks, and for a second time
the red warriors sought shelter behind the logs.  Probably to obtain
truce till they could send word to the other warriors on the Richelieu,
the Iroquois then hung out a flag of parley; but the Huron chief knew
what peace with an Iroquois meant.  He it was, on the Christian
Islands, who, when the Iroquois had proposed a similar parley for the
purpose of massacring the Hurons, invited their chiefs into the Huron
camp and brained them for their treachery.  Dollard's band made answer
to the flag hoisted above the Iroquois pickets by rushing out, securing
the head of the Seneca chief, and elevating it on a pike above their
fort.

But as the fight went on, the whites had to have water, and a few
rushed for the river to fill kettles.  This rejoiced the hearts of the
Iroquois.  They could guess if the whites were short of water, it only
required more warriors to surround the barricade completely and compel
surrender.  Scouts had meanwhile gone for the Iroquois at Richelieu;
and on the fifth day of the siege a roar, gathering volume as it
approached, told Dollard that the seven hundred warriors were coming
through the forest.  Among the newcomers were Huron renegades, who
approached within speaking distance of the fort and called out for the
Hurons to save themselves from death by surrender.  Death was plainly
inevitable, and all the Hurons but the chief deserted.  This reduced
Dollard's band, from sixty to twenty.  The whites were now weak from
lack of food and sleep; but for three more days and nights the marksmen
and musketoon plied such deadly aim at the assailants that the Iroquois
actually held a council whether they should retire.  The Iroquois
chiefs argued that it would disgrace the nation forever if one thousand
of their warriors were to retire before a handful of beardless white
boys.  {110} Solemnly the bundle of war sticks was thrown on the
ground.  Then each warrior willing to go on with the siege picked up a
stick.  The chiefs chose first and the rest were shamed into doing
likewise.  Inside the fort, Dollard's men were at the last extremities.
Blistered and blackened with powder smoke, the fevered men were half
delirious from lack of sleep and water.  Some fell to their knees and
prayed.  Others staggered with sleep where they stood.  Others had not
strength to stand and sank, muttering prayers, to their knees.  The
Iroquois were adopting new tactics.  They could not reach the palisades
in the face of the withering fire from the musketoon, so they
constructed a movable palisade of trees, behind which marched the
entire band of warriors.  In vain Dollard's marksmen aimed their
bullets at the front carriers.  Where one fell another stepped in his
place.  Desperate, Dollard resolved on a last expedient.  Some accounts
say he took a barrel of powder; others, that he wrapped powder in a
huge bole of birch bark.  Putting a light to this, he threw it with all
his might; but his strength had failed; the dangerous projectile fell
back inside the barricade, exploding; marksmen were driven from their
places.  A moment later the Iroquois were inside the barricade
screeching like demons.  They found only three Frenchmen alive; and so
great was the Mohawk rage to be foiled of victims that they fell on the
Huron renegades in their own ranks and put them to death on the spot.

Such was the Battle of the Long Sault of which Radisson saw the scars
on his way down the Ottawa.  It saved New France.  If seventeen boys
could fight in this fashion, how--the Iroquois asked--would a fort full
of men fight?  A few days later Radisson was conducted in triumph
through the streets of Quebec and personally welcomed by the new
governor, d'Argenson.

It can well be imagined that Radisson's account of the vast new lands
discovered by him aroused enthusiasm at Quebec.  Among the Crees,
Radisson and Groseillers had heard of that Sea of the North--Hudson
Bay--to which Champlain had {111} tried to go by way of the Ottawa.
The Indians had promised to conduct the two Frenchmen overland to the
North Sea; but Radisson deemed it wise not to reveal this fact lest
other voyageurs should forestall them.  Somehow the secret leaked out.
Either Groseillers told it or his wife dropped some hint of it to her
father confessor; but the two explorers were amazed to receive official
orders to conduct the Jesuits to the North Sea by way of the Saguenay.
They refused point-blank to go as subordinates on any expedition.  The
fur trade was at this time regulated by license.  Any one who proceeded
to the woods without license was liable to imprisonment, the galleys
for life, death if the offense were repeated.  Radisson and Groseillers
asked for a license to go north in 1661.  D'Avaugour, a bluff soldier
who had become governor, would grant it only on condition of receiving
half the profits.  Groseillers and Radisson set off by night without a
license.

[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE--JESUIT RELATION OF 1662-1663]

{112} This time the Indian canoes struck off into Lake Superior instead
of Lake Michigan, and coasted that billowy inland sea with its iron
shore and shadowy forests.  On the northwest side of the lake,
somewhere between Duluth and Fort William, the explorers joined the
Crees, and proceeded northwestward with them, hunting along that Indian
trail to become famous as the fur traders' highway--from Lake Superior
to the Lake of the Woods.  The first white man's fort built west of the
Great Lakes, the terrible famine that winter, and the visits of the
Sioux--are all a story in themselves.  Spring found the explorers
following the Crees over the height of land from Lake Superior to
Hudson Bay.  As soon as the ice loosened, dugouts were launched, and
the voyageurs began that hardest of all canoe trips in America, through
the forest hinterland of Ontario.  Here the rivers were a stagnant
marsh, with outlet hidden by dankest forest growth where the light of
the sun never penetrated.  There the waters swollen by spring thaw and
broken by the ice jam whirled the {113} boats into rapids before the
paddlers realized.  There was wading to mid-waist in ice water.  There
were nights when camp was made on water-soaked moss.  There were days
when the windfall compelled the canoemen to take the canoes out of the
water and carry them half the time.  "At last," writes Radisson, "we
came to the sea, where we found an old house all demolished and
battered with bullets.  The Crees told us about Europeans being here;
and we went from isle to isle all that summer."  At this time the
canoes must have been coasting the south shore of James Bay, headed
east; for Radisson presently explains that they came to a river, which
rose in a lake near the source of the Saguenay--namely Rupert River.
What was the old house battered with bullets?  Was it Hudson's winter
fort of 1610-1611?  The Indians of Rupert River to this day have
legends of Hudson having come back to his fort when cast away by the
mutineers.

[Illustration: THE JESUIT MAP OF LAKE SUPERIOR  (From the Relation of
1670-1671)]

The furs that Radisson and Groseillers brought back from the north this
time were worth fabulous wealth.  The cargo saved New France from
bankruptcy; but the explorers had defied both Church and Governor, and
all the greedy monopolists of Quebec fell on Radisson and Groseillers
with jealous fury.  They were fined $20,000 to build a fort at Three
Rivers, though given permission to inscribe their coats of arms on the
gate.  A $30,000 fine went to the public treasury of New France, and a
tax of $70,000 was imposed by the Farmers of the Revenue.  Of the total
cargo there was left to Radisson and Groseillers only $20,000.


Disgusted, the two explorers personally appealed to the Court of
France; but there the monopolists were all-powerful, and justice was
denied.  They tried to induce some of the fishing fleet off Cape Breton
to venture to the North Sea; but there the monopolists' malign
influence was again felt.  They were accused of having broken the laws
of Quebec.  Zechariah Gillam, a sea captain of Boston, who chanced to
be at Port Royal, offered them his vessel for a voyage to Hudson Bay;
but when the {114} doughty captain came to the ice-locked straits, his
courage failed and he refused to enter.  Finally, at Port Royal, with
the last of their meager and dwindling capital, they hired two ships
for a voyage; but one was wrecked on Sable Island while fishing for
supplies, and instead of sailing for Hudson Bay in 1665, Radisson and
Groseillers were summoned to Boston in a lawsuit over the lost vessel.

In Boston they met commissioners of the English government and were
invited to lay their plans before Charles II, King of England.  At last
the tide of fortune seemed to be turning.  Sailing with Sir George
Carterett, after pirate raid and shipwreck, they reached London to find
the plague raging, and were ordered to Windsor, where Charles received
them, recommended their venture to Prince Rupert, and provided 2 pounds
a week each for their living expenses.

[Illustration: Charles II]

From being penniless outcasts, Radisson and Groseillers suddenly
wakened to find themselves famous.  Groseillers seems to have kept in
the background, but Radisson, the younger man, enjoyed the full blaze
of glory, was seen in the King's box at the theater, and was presently
paying furious court to Mistress Mary Kirke, daughter of Sir John
Kirke, whose ancestors had captured Quebec.  What with war and the
plague, it was 1668 before the English Admiralty could loan the two
ships _Eaglet_ and _Nonsuch_ for a voyage to Hudson Bay.  The expense
was to be defrayed by a band of {115} friends known as the "Gentlemen
Adventurers of England Trading to Hudson Bay," subscribing so much
stock in cash, provision, and goods for trade.  Radisson's ship, the
_Eaglet_, was driven back, damaged by storm; but the other, under
Groseillers, went on to Hudson Bay, where the marks set up on the
overland voyage were found at Rupert River, and a small fort was built
for trade.  During the delay Radisson was not idle in London.  He wrote
the journals of his first four voyages.  He married Mary Kirke--some
accounts say, eloped with her.  With the help of King Charles and
Prince Rupert he organized what is now known as the Hudson's Bay Fur
Company; for when Groseillers' ship returned in the fall of 1669, its
success in trade had been so great that the Adventurers at once applied
for a royal charter of exclusive monopoly in trade to all the regions,
land and sea, rivers and territories, adjoining Hudson Bay.  The
monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company to the Great Northwest was granted
by King Charles in May, 1670.

Here, then, was the situation.  England was intrenched south of the St.
Lawrence.  England was taking armed possession of all lands bordering
on Hudson Bay and such other lands as the Adventurers might find.
Wedged between was New France with a population of less than six
thousand.  If France could have foreseen what her injustice to two poor
adventurers would cost the nation in blood and money, it would have
paid her to pension Radisson like a prince of the blood royal.


NOTE TO CHAPTER VI.  The viceroys of New France were shifted so
frequently that little record remains of several but their names.  The
official list of the governors under the French regime stands as
follows:

Samuel de Champlain, died at Quebec, Christmas, 1635.

Marc Antoine de Chasteaufort, _pro tem_.

Charles Huault de Montmagny, 1636.

Louis d'Ailleboust of the Montreal Crusaders, 1648.

Jean de Lauzon, 1651.

Charles de Lauzon-Charny (son), _pro tem_.

Louis d'Ailleboust, 1657.

Viscount d'Argenson, 1658, a young man who quarreled with Jesuits.

Viscount d'Avagour, 1661, a bluff soldier, who also quarreled with
Jesuits.

De Mezy, 1663, appointed by Jesuits' influence, but quarreled with them.

{116} Marquis de Tracy, 1663, who was viceroy of all French possessions
in America, and really sent out to act as general.

De Courcelle, 1665, who acts as governor under De Tracy and succeeds
him.

Frontenac, 1672, was recalled through influence of Jesuits, whose
interference he would not tolerate in civil affairs.

De La Barre, 1682, an impotent, dishonest old man, who came to mend his
fortunes.

De Brisay de Denonville, 1685.

Frontenac, 1689.

De Calliere, 1699.

Marquis de Vaudreuil, 1703.

Charles le Moyne, Baron de Longeuil, 1725, son of Le Moyne, the famous
fighter and interpreter of Montreal; brother of Le Moyne d'Iberville,
the commander.

Marquis de Beauharnois, 1726.

Count de la Galissoniere, 1747.

Marquis de la Jonquiere, 1749.

Charles le Moyne, Baron de Longeuil, 1752, son of former Governor.

Duquesne,1752.

Marquis de Vaudreuil, 1755, descendant of first Vaudreuil.




{117}

CHAPTER VII

FROM 1672 TO 1688

The fur fairs of Montreal--Customs of people--Shiploads of brides--The
Iroquois and De Tracy--Who first found Ontario?--Through western
Ontario--Up the Great Lakes--Marquette and Jolliet--Frontenac and La
Salle--La Salle rouses enemies--La Salle descends the Mississippi--Death
of La Salle


While Radisson and other coureurs of the woods were ranging the wilds
from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi and from the Great Lakes to
Hudson Bay, changes were almost revolutionizing the little colony of New
France.  No longer was everything subservient to missions.  When
Marguerite Bourgeoys and Jeanne Mance, of Ville-Marie Mission at
Montreal, went home to France to bring out more colonists in 1659, they
learned that the founder of their mission--Dauversiere, the tax
collector--had gone bankrupt.  Montreal was penniless, though sixty more
men and thirty-two girls were accompanying the nuns out this very year.
The Sulpician priests had from the first been ardent friends of the
Montrealers.  The priests of St. Sulpice now assumed charge of Montreal.
Though "God's Penny" was still collected at the fairs and market places
of Old France for the conversion of Indians at Mont Royal, the fur trade
was rapidly changing the character of the place.

Afraid of the Iroquois raiders, the tribes of the Up-Country now flocked
to Montreal instead of Quebec, where the traders met them annually at the
great Fur Fairs.

No more picturesque scene exists in Canada's past than these Fur Fairs.
Down the rapids of the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence bounded the canoes of
the Indian hunters, Hurons and Pottawatomies from Lake Michigan, Crees
and Ojibways from Lake Superior, Iroquois and Eries and Neutrals from
what is now the Province of Ontario, the northern Indians in long birch
canoes light as paper, the Indians of Ontario in dugouts of oak and
walnut.  The Fur Fair usually took place between June and August; and the
Viceroy, magnificent in red cloak faced with velvet and ornamented with
gold braid, came up from Quebec {118} for the occasion and occupied a
chair of state under a marquee erected near the Indian tents.  Wigwams
then went up like mushrooms, the Huron and Iroquois tents of sewed bark
hung in the shape of a square from four poles, the tepees of the Upper
Indians made of birch and buffalo hides, hung on poles crisscrossed at
the top to a peak, spreading in wide circle to the ground.  Usually the
Fur Fair occupied a great common between St. Paul Street and the river.
Furs unpacked, there stalked among the tents great sachems glorious in
robes of painted buckskin garnished with wampum, Indian children stark
naked, young braves flaunting and boastful, wearing headdresses with
strings of eagle quills reaching to the ground, each quill signifying an
enemy taken.  Then came "the peddlers,"--the fur merchants,--unpacking
their goods to tempt the Indians, men of the colonial noblesse famous in
history, the Forests and Le Chesnays and Le Bers.  Here, too, gorgeous in
finery, bristling with firearms, were the bushrovers, the interpreters,
the French voyageurs, who had to come out of the wilds once every two
years to renew their licenses to trade.  There was Charles Le Moyne, son
of an innkeeper of Dieppe, who had come to Montreal as interpreter and
won such wealth as trader that his family became members of the French
aristocracy.  Two of his descendants became governors of Canada; and the
history of his sons is the history of Canada's most heroic age.  There
was Louis Jolliet, who had studied for the Jesuit priesthood but turned
fur trader among the tribes of Lake Michigan.  There was Daniel Greysolon
Duluth, a man of good birth, ample means, and with the finest house in
Montreal, who had turned bushrover, gathered round him a band of three or
four hundred lawless, dare-devil French hunters, and now roamed the woods
from Detroit halfway to Hudson Bay, swaying the Indians in favor of
France and ruling the wilds, sole lord of the wilderness.  There were
Groseillers and Radisson and a shy young man of twenty-five who had
obtained a seigniory from the Sulpicians at Lachine--Robert Cavelier de
La Salle.  Sometimes, too, Father Marquette came down with his Indians
from the missions on Lake Superior.  Maisonneuve, {119} too, was there,
grieving, no doubt, to see this Kingdom of Heaven, which he had set up on
earth, becoming more and more a kingdom of this world.  Later, when the
Hundred Associates lost their charter and Canada became a Royal Province
governed directly by the Crown, Maisonneuve was deprived of the
government of Montreal and retired to die in obscurity in Paris.  Louis
d'Ailleboust, Governor of Montreal when Maisonneuve is absent, Governor
at Quebec when state necessities drag him from religious devotion, moves
also in the gay throng of the Fur Fair.  In later days is a famous
character at the Fur Fairs--La Motte Cadillac of Detroit, bushrover and
gentleman like Duluth, but prone to break heads when he comes to town
where the wine is good.

[Illustration: PLAN OF MONTREAL IN 1672]

Trade was regulated by royal license.  Only twenty-five canoes a year
were allowed to go to the woods with three men in each, and a license was
good for only two years.  Fines, branding, the galleys for life, death,
were the penalties for those who traded without license; but that did not
prevent more than one thousand young Frenchmen running off to the woods
to live like Indians.  In fact, there was no other way for the youth of
New {120} France to earn a living.  Penniless young noblemen, criminals
escaping the law, the sons of the poorest, all were on the same footing
in the woods.  He who could persuade a merchant to outfit him for trade
disappeared in the wilds; and if he came back at all, came back with
wealth of furs and bought off punishment, "wearing sword and lace and
swaggering as if he were a gentleman," the annals of the day complain;
and a long session in the confessional box relieved the prodigal's
conscience from the sins of a life in the woods.  If my young gentleman
were rich enough, the past was forgotten, and he was now on the highroad
to distinguished service and perhaps a title.

[Illustration: LA SALLE'S HOUSE NEAR MONTREAL]

In the early days a beaver skin could be bought for a needle or a bell or
a tin mirror; and in spite of all the priests could do to prevent it,
brandy played a shameful part in the trade.  In vain the priests preached
against it, and the bishop thundered anathemas.  The evils of the brandy
traffic were apparent to all--the Fur Fairs became a bedlam of crime; but
when the Governor called in all the traders to confer on the subject, it
was plain that if the Indians did _not_ obtain liquor from the French,
they would go on down with their furs to the English of New York, and the
French Governor was afraid to forbid the evil.

[Illustration: KITCHEN, CHATEAU DE RAMEZAY, MONTREAL]

The Fur Fair over, the Governor departed for Quebec; the Indians, for
their own land; the bushrovers, for their far wanderings; and there
settled over Montreal for another year drowsy quiet but for the chapel
bells of St. Sulpice and Ville Marie and Bon Secours--the Chapel of Ste.
Anne's Good Help--built close on the verge of the river, that the
voyageurs coming and going might cross themselves as they passed her
spire; drowsy peace but for the chapel chimes ringing . . . ringing . . .
ringing . . . morning . . . noon . . . and night . . . lilting and
singing and calling all New France to prayers.  As the last canoe glided
up the river, and sunset silence fell on Montreal, there knelt before the
dimly lighted altars of the chapels, shadow figures--Maisonneuve praying
for his mission; D'Ailleboust, asking Heaven's blessing on the new shrine
down at St. Anne de Beaupre near Quebec, which he had built for the
miraculous {121} healing of physical ills; Dollier de Casson, priest of
the wilds, manly and portly and strong, wilderness fighter for the Cross.
Then the organ swells, and the chant rolls out, and till the next Fur
Fair Montreal is again a mission.


When New France becomes a Crown Colony, the government consists solely
and only of the Sovereign Council, to whom the King transmits his will.
This council consists of the Governor, his administrative officer called
the "Intendant," the bishop, and several of the inhabitants of New France
nominated by the other members of the council.  Of elections there are
absolutely none.  Popular meetings are forbidden.  New France is a
despotism, with the Sovereign Council representing the King.  Domestic
disputes, religious quarrels, civil cases, crimes,--all come before the
Sovereign Council.  Clients could plead their own cases without a fee, or
hire a notary.  Cases are tried by the Sovereign Council.  Laws are
passed by it.  Fines are imposed and sentences pronounced; but as the
Sovereign Council met only once a week, the management of affairs fell
chiefly to the Intendant, whose palace became known as the Place of
Justice.  Of systematic taxation there was none.  One fourth of all
beaver went for public revenue.  Part of Labrador was reserved as the
King's Domain for trading, and sometimes a duty of ten per cent was
charged on liquor brought into the colony.  The stroke of the Sovereign
Council's pen could create a law, and the stroke of the King's pen annul
it.  Laws are passed forbidding men, who are not nobles, assuming the
title of Esquire or Sieur on penalty of what would be a $500 fine.  "Wood
is not to be piled on the streets."  "Chimneys are to be built large
enough to admit a chimney sweep."  "Only shingles of oak and walnut may
be used in towns where there is danger of fire."  Swearing is punished by
fines, by the disgrace of being led through the streets at the end of a
rope and begging pardon on knees at the church steps, by branding if the
offense be repeated.  Murderers are punished by being shot, or exposed in
an iron cage on the cliffs above the St. Lawrence till death {122} comes.
No detail is too small for the Sovereign Council's notice.  In fact, a
case is on record where a Mademoiselle Andre is expelled from the colony
for flirting so outrageously with young officers that she demoralizes the
garrison.  Mademoiselle avoids the punishment by bribing one of the
officers on the ship where she is placed, and escaping to land in man's
clothing.

The people of New France were regulated in every detail of their lives by
the Church as well as the Sovereign Council.  For trading brandy to the
Indians, Bishop Laval thunders excommunication at delinquents; and Bishop
St. Valliere, his successor, publicly rebukes the dames of New France for
wearing low-necked dresses, and curling their hair, and donning gay
ribbons in place of bonnets.  "The vanity of dress among women becomes a
greater scandal than before," he complains.  "They affect immodest
headdress, with heads uncovered or only concealed under a collection of
ribbons, laces, curls, and other vanities."

[Illustration: LAVAL  (After the portrait in Laval University, Quebec)]

The laws came from the King and Sovereign Council.  The enforcement of
them depended on the Intendant.  As long as he was a man of integrity,
New France might live as happily as a family under a despotic but wise
father.  It was when the Intendant became corrupt that the system fell to
pieces.  {123} Of all the intendants of New France, one name stands
preeminent, that of Jean Talon, who came to Canada, aged forty, in 1665,
at the time the country became a Crown Province.  One of eleven children
of Irish origin, Talon had been educated at the Jesuit College of Paris,
and had served as an intendant in France before coming to Canada.
Officially he was to stand between the King and the colony, to transmit
the commands of one and the wants of the other.  He was to stand between
the Governor and the colony, to watch that the Governor did not overstep
his authority and that the colony obeyed the laws.  He was to stand
between the Church and the colony, to see that the Church did not usurp
the prerogatives of the Governor and that the people were kept in the
path of right living without having their natural liberties curtailed.
He was, in a word, to accept the thankless task of taking all the cuffs
from the King and the kicks from the colony, all the blame of whatever
went amiss and no credit for what went well.

When Talon came to Canada there were less than two thousand people in the
colony.  He wrote frantically to His Royal Master for colonists.  "We
cannot depeople France to people Canada," wrote the King; but from his
royal revenue he set aside money yearly to send men to Canada as
soldiers, women as wives.  In 1671 one hundred and sixty-five girls were
sent out to be wedded to the French youth.  A year later came one hundred
and fifty more.  Licenses would not be given to the wood rovers for the
fur trade unless they married.  Bachelors were fined unless they quickly
chose a wife from among the King's girls.  Promotion was withheld from
the young ensigns and cadets in the army unless they found brides.
Yearly the ships brought girls whom the cures of France had carefully
selected in country parishes.  Yearly Talon gave a bounty to the
middle-aged duenna who had safely chaperoned her charges across seas to
the convents of Quebec and Montreal, where the bashful suitors came to
make choice.  "We want country girls, who can work," wrote the Intendant;
and girls who could work the King sent, instructing Talon to mate as many
as he {124} could to officers of the Carignan Regiment, so that the
soldiers would be likely to turn settlers.  Results: by 1674 Canada had a
population of six thousand seven hundred; by 1684, of nearly twelve
thousand, not counting the one thousand bush lopers who roamed the woods
and married squaws.

Between Acadia and Quebec lay wilderness.  Jean Talon opened a road
connecting the two far-separated provinces.  The Sovereign Council had
practically outlawed the bush lopers.  Talon pronounced trade free, and
formed them into companies of bush fighters--defenders of the colony.
Instead of being wild-wood bandits, men like Duluth at Lake Superior and
La Motte Cadillac at Detroit became commanders, holding vast tribes loyal
to France.  For years there had been legends of mines.  Talon opened
mines at Gaspe and Three Rivers and Cape Breton.  All clothing had
formerly been imported from France.  Talon had the inhabitants
taught--and they badly needed it, for many of their children ran naked as
Indians--to weave their own clothes, make rugs, tan leather, grow straw
for hats,--all of which they do to this day, so that you may enter a
habitant house and not find a single article except saints' images, a
holy book, and perhaps a fiddle, which the habitant has not himself made.
"The Jesuits assume too much authority," wrote the King.  Talon lessened
their power by inviting the Recollets to come back to Canada and by
encouraging the Sulpicians.  Instead of outlawing young Frenchmen for
deserting to the English, Talon asked the King to grant titles of
nobility to those who were loyal, like the Godefrois and the Denis' and
the Le Moynes and young Chouart Groseillers, son of Radisson's
brother-in-law, so that there sprang up a Canadian noblesse which was as
graceful with the frying pan of a night camp fire in the woods as with
the steps of a stately dance in the governor's ballroom.  Above all did
Talon encourage the bush-rovers in their far wanderings to explore new
lands for France.


New France had not forgotten the Iroquois treachery to the French colony
at Onondaga.  Iroquois raid and ambuscade kept the hostility of these
sleepless foes fresh in French memory.  {125} When Jean Talon came to
Canada as intendant, there had come as governor Courcelle, with the
Marquis de Tracy as major general of all the French forces in
America,--the West Indies as well as Canada.  The Carignan Regiment of
soldiers seasoned in European campaigns had been sent to protect the
colonists from Indian raid; and it was determined to strike the Iroquois
Confederacy a blow that would forever put the fear of the French in their
hearts.

Richelieu River was still the trail of the Mohawk warrior; and De Tracy
sent his soldiers to build forts on this stream at Sorel and
Chambly--named after officers of the regiment.  January, 1666, Courcelle,
the Governor, set out on snowshoes to invade the Iroquois Country with
five hundred men, half Canadian bushrovers, half regular soldiers.  By
some mistake the snow-covered trail to the Mohawks was missed, the wrong
road followed, and the French Governor found himself among the Dutch at
Schenectady.  March rains had set in.  Through the leafless forests in
driving sleet and rain retreated the French.  Sixty had perished from
exposure and disease before Courcelle led his men back to the Richelieu.
The Mohawk warriors showed their contempt for this kind of white-man
warfare by raiding some French hunters on Lake Champlain and killing a
young nephew of De Tracy.

Nevertheless, on second thought, twenty-four Indian deputies proceeded to
Quebec with the surviving captives to sue for peace.  De Tracy was ready
for them.  Solemnly the peace pipe had been puffed and solemnly the peace
powwow held.  The Mohawk chief was received in pompous state at the
Governor's table.  Heated with wine and mistaking French courtesy for
fear, the warrior grew boastful at the white chief's table.

"This is the hand," he exclaimed, proudly stretching out his right arm,
"this is the hand that split the head of your young man, O Onontio!"

"Then by the power of Heaven," thundered the Marquis de Tracy, springing
to his feet ablaze with indignation, "it is the hand that shall never
split another head!"

{126} Forthwith the body of the great Mohawk chief dangled a scarecrow to
the fowls of the air; and the other terrified deputies tore breathlessly
back for the Iroquois land with such a story as one may guess.

With thirteen hundred men and three hundred boats the Marquis de Tracy
and Courcelle set out from the St. Lawrence in October for the Iroquois
cantons.  Charles Le Moyne, the Montreal bushrover, led six hundred
wild-wood followers in their buckskin coats and beaded moccasins, with
hair flying to the wind like Indians; and one hundred Huron braves were
also in line with the Canadians.  The rest of the forces were of the
Carignan Regiment.  Dollier de Casson, the Sulpician priest, powerful of
frame as De Tracy himself, marched as chaplain.

[Illustration: A MAP IN THE RELATION OF 1662-1663  (This map includes
Lake Ontario and the Iroquois Country.  It shows the relative positions
of the Five Nations and Fort d'Orange (Albany).  It also gives plans of
the forts on the Richelieu and shows their location)]


Never had such an expedition been seen before on the St. Lawrence.  Drums
beat reveille at peep of dawn.  Fifes outshrilled the roar of rapids, and
stately figures in gold braid {127} and plumed hats glided over the
waters of the Richelieu among the painted forests of the frost-tinted
maples.  Indians have a way of conveying news that modern trappers
designate as "the moccasin telegram."  "Moccasin telegram" now carried
news of the coming army to the Iroquois villages, and the alarm ran like
wildfire from Mohawk to Onondaga and from Onondaga to Seneca.  When the
French army struck up the Mohawk River, and to beat of drum charged in
full fury out of the rain-dripping forests across the stubble fields to
attack the first palisaded village, they found it desolate, deserted,
silent as the dead, though winter stores crammed the abandoned houses and
wildest confusion showed that the warriors had fled in panic.  So it was
with the next village and the next.  The Iroquois had stampeded in blind
flight, and the only show of opposition was a wild whoop here and there
from ambush.  De Tracy took possession of the land for France, planted a
cross, and ordered the villages set on fire.  For a time, at least, peace
was assured with the Iroquois.


Who first discovered the Province of Ontario?  Before Champlain had
ascended the Ottawa, or the Jesuits established their missions south of
Lake Huron, young men sent out as wood rovers had canoed up the Ottawa
and gone westward to the land of the Sweet Water Seas.  Was it Vignau,
the romancer, or Nicolet, the coureur de bois, or the boy Etienne Brule,
who first saw what has been called the Garden of Canada, the rolling
meadows and wooded hills that lie wedged in between the Upper and the
Lower of the Great Lakes?  Tradition says it was Brule; but however that
may be, little was known of what is now Ontario except in the region of
the old Jesuit missions around Georgian Bay.  It was not even known that
Michigan and Huron were _two_ lakes.  The Sulpicians of Montreal had a
mission at the Bay of Quinte on Lake Ontario, and the south shore of the
lake, where it touched on Iroquois territory, was known to the Jesuits;
but from Quinte Bay to Detroit--a distance equal to that from New York to
Chicago, or London to Italy--was an unknown world.

{128} But to return to the explorations which Jean Talon, the Intendant,
had set in motion--

When Dollier de Casson, the soldier who had become Sulpician priest,
returned from the campaign against the Iroquois, he had been sent as a
missionary to the Nipissing Country.  There he heard among the Indians of
a shorter route to the Great River of the West--the Mississippi--than by
the Ottawa and Sault Ste. Marie.  The Indians told him if he would ascend
the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, he could portage overland
to the Beautiful River,--Ohio,--which would carry him down to the
Mississippi.

The Sulpicians had been encouraged by Talon in order to eclipse and hold
in check the Jesuits.  They were eager to send their missionaries to the
new realm of this Great River, and hurried Dollier de Casson down to
Quebec to obtain Intendant Talon's permission.

There, curiously enough, Dollier de Casson met Cavalier de La Salle, the
shy young seigneur of La Chine, intent on almost the same aim,--to
explore the Great River.  Where the Sulpicians had granted him his
seigniory above Montreal he had built a fort, which soon won the nickname
of La Chine,--China,--because its young master was continually
entertaining Iroquois Indians within the walls, to question them of the
Great River, which might lead to China.

Governor Courcelle and Intendant Talon ordered the priest and young
seigneur to set out together on their explorations.  The Sulpicians were
to bear all expenses, buying back La Salle's lands to enable him to
outfit canoes with the money.  Father Galinee, who understood map making,
accompanied Dollier de Casson, and the expedition of seven birch canoes,
with three white men in each, and two dugouts with Seneca Indians, who
had been visiting La Salle, set out from Montreal on July 6, 1669.  Not a
leader in the party was over thirty-five years of age.  Dollier de
Casson, the big priest, was only thirty-three and La Salle barely
twenty-six.  Corn meal was carried as food.  For the rest, they were to
depend on chance shots.  With {129} numerous portages, keeping to the
south shore of the St. Lawrence because that was best known to the Seneca
guides, the canoes passed up Lake St. Louis and Lake St. Francis and
glided through the sylvan fairyland of the Thousand Islands, coming out
in August on Lake Ontario, "which," says Galinee, "appeared to us like a
great sea."  Striking south, they appealed to the Seneca Iroquois for
guides to the Ohio, but the Senecas were so intent on torturing some
prisoners recently captured, that they paid no heed to the appeal.  A
month was wasted, and the white men proceeded with Indian slaves for
guides, still along the south shore of the lake.

[Illustration: GALINEE'S MAP OF THE GREAT LAKES, 1669  (The next oldest
chart to that of Champlain)]

At the mouth of Niagara River they could hear the far roar of the famous
falls, which Indian legend said "fell over rocks twice the height of the
highest pine tree."  The turbulent torrent of the river could not be
breasted, so they did not see the falls, but rounded on up Lake Ontario
to the region now near the city of Hamilton.  Here they had prepared to
portage overland to some stream that would bring them down to Lake Erie,
when, to their amazement, they learned from a passing Indian camp that
two Frenchmen were on their way down this very lake from searching copper
mines on Lake Superior.

{130} The two Frenchmen were Louis Jolliet, yet in his early twenties, to
become famous as an explorer of the Mississippi, and one Monsieur Jean
Pere, soldier of fortune, who was to set France and England by the ears
on Hudson Bay.  September 24, as La Salle and Dollier were dragging their
canoes through the autumn-colored sumacs of the swamp, there plunged from
among the russet undergrowth the two wanderers from the north,--Jolliet
and Pere, dumb with amazement to meet a score of men toiling through this
tenantless wilderness.  The two parties fell on each other's necks with
delight and camped together.  Jolliet told a story that set the
missionaries' zeal on fire and inflamed La Salle with mad eagerness to
pass on to the goal of his discoveries.  Jolliet and Pere had not found
the copper mine for Talon on Lake Superior, but they had learned two
important secrets from the Indians.  First, if Iroquois blocked the way
up the Ottawa, there was clear, easy water way down to Quebec by Lake
Huron and Lake Ste. Claire and Lake Erie.  Jolliet's guide had brought
them down this way, first of white men to traverse the Great Lakes, only
leaving them as they reached Lake Erie and advising them to portage
across up Grand River to avoid Niagara Falls.  Second, the Indians told
him the Ohio could be reached by way of Lake Erie.

Sitting round the camp fires near what is now Port Stanley, La Salle
secretly resolved to go on down to Quebec with Jolliet and rearrange his
plans independent of the missionaries.  The portaging through swamps had
affected La Salle's health, and he probably judged he could make quicker
time unaccompanied by missionaries.  As for Galinee and Dollier, when
they knelt in prayer that night, they fervently besought Heaven to let
them carry the Gospel of truth to those benighted heathen west of Lake
Michigan, of whom Jolliet told.  Dollier de Casson sent a letter by
Jolliet to Montreal, begging the Sulpicians to establish a mission near
what is now Toronto.  Early next morning an altar was laid on the propped
paddles of the canoes and solemn service held.  La Salle and his four
canoes went back to Montreal with Jolliet and Pere; Dollier and Galinee
coasted along the shores of Lake Erie westward.

{131} It was October.  The forests were leafless, the weather damp, the
lake too stormy for the frail canoes.  As game was plentiful, the priests
decided to winter on a creek near Port Dover.  Here log houses were
knocked up, and the servants dispersed moose hunting for winter supplies.
Then followed the most beautiful season of the year in the peninsula of
Ontario, Indian summer, dreamy warm days after the first cold, filling
the forest with a shimmer of golden light, the hills with heat haze,
while the air was odorous with smells of nuts and dried leaves and grapes
hanging thick from wild vines.  "It was," writes Galinee, "simply an
Earthly Paradise, the most beautiful region that ever I have seen in my
life, with open woods and meadows and rivers and game in plenty."  In
this Earthly Paradise the priests passed the winter, holding services
three times a week--"a winter that ought to be worth ten years of any
other kind of life" Dollier calculated, counting up masses and vespers
and matins.  Sometimes when the snow lay deep and the weird voices of the
wind hallooed with bugle sound through the lonely forest, the priests
listening inside fancied that they heard "the hunting of
Arthur,"--unearthly huntsmen coursing the air after unearthly game.

March 23 (Sunday), 1670, the company paraded down to Lake Erie from their
sheltered quarters, and, erecting a cross, took possession of this land
for France.  Then they launched their boats to ascend the other Sweet
Water Seas.  The preceding autumn the priests had lost some of their
baggage, and now, in camp near Point Pelee, a sweeping wave carried off
the packs in which were all the holy vessels and equipments for the
mission chapel.  They decided to go back to Montreal by way of Sault Ste.
Marie, and ascended to Lake Ste. Claire.  Game had been scarce for some
days, the weather tempestuous, and now the priests thought they had found
the cause.  On one of the rocks of Lake Ste. Claire was a stone, to which
the Indians offered sacrifices for safe passage on the lakes.  To the
priests the rude drawing of a face seemed graven images of
paganism,--signs of Satan, who had baffled their hunting and caused loss
{132} of their packs.  "I consecrated one of my axes to break this god of
stone, and, having yoked our canoes abreast, we carried the largest
pieces to the middle of the river and cast them in.  God immediately
rewarded us, for we killed a deer."  Following the east shore of Lake
Huron, the priests came, on May 25, to Sault Ste. Marie, where the
Jesuits Dablon and Marquette had a mission.  Three days late, they
embarked by way of the Ottawa for Montreal, where they arrived on June
18, 1670.


Meanwhile, what had become of Jolliet and Pere and La Salle?

They have no sooner reached Quebec with their report than Talon orders
St. Lusson to go north and take possession at Sault Ste. Marie of all
these unknown lands for France.  Jolliet accompanies St. Lusson.
Nicholas Perrot, a famous bushrover, goes along to summon the Indians,
and the ceremony takes place on June 14, 1671, in the presence of the
Jesuits at the Sault, by which the King of France is pronounced lord
paramount of all these regions.

When Jolliet comes down again to Quebec, he finds Count Frontenac has
come as governor, and Jean Talon, the Intendant, is sailing for France.
Before leaving, Talon has recommended Jolliet as a fit man to explore the
Great River of the West.  With him is commissioned Jacques Marquette, the
Jesuit, who has labored among the Indians west of Lake Superior.  The two
men set out in birch canoes, with smoked meat for provisions, from
Michilimackinac mission, May 17, 1673, for Green Bay, Lake Michigan.
Ascending Fox River on June 17, they induce the Mascoutin Indians, who
had years ago conducted Radisson by this same route, to pilot them across
the portage to the headwaters of the Wisconsin River.

Their way lies directly across that wooded lake region, which has in our
generation become the resort first of the lumberman, then of the
tourist,--a rolling, wooded region of rare sylvan beauty, park-like
forests interspersed with sky-colored lakes.  Six weeks from the time
they had left the Sault, Wisconsin River carried their canoe out on the
swift eddies of a mighty river {133} flowing south,--the Mississippi.
For the first time the boat of a Canadian voyageur glided down its waters.

Each night as the explorers landed to sleep under the stars, the tilted
canoe inverted with end on a log as roof in case of rain, Marquette fell
to knees and invoked the Virgin's aid on the expedition; and each morning
as Jolliet launched the boat out on the waters through the early mist, he
headed closely along shore on the watch for sign or footprint of Indian.

The river gathered volume as it rolled southward, carving the clay cliffs
of its banks in a thousand fantastic forms.  Where the bank was broken,
the prairies were seen in heaving seas of grass billowing to the wind
like water, herds of countless buffalo pasturing knee-deep.  To Marquette
and Jolliet, burning with enthusiasm, it seemed as if they were finding a
new world for France half as large as all Europe.  For two weeks not a
sail, not a canoe, not a soul did they see.  Then the river carried them
into the country of the Illinois, past Illinois Indians who wore French
clothing, and pictured rocks where the Indians had painted their sign
language.  There was no doubt now in the explorers' minds,--the
Mississippi did not lead to China but emptied in the Gulf of Mexico.  A
furious torrent of boiling muddy water pouring in on the right forewarned
the Missouri; and in a few more days they passed on the left the clear
current of Beautiful River,--the Ohio.

It was now midsummer.  The heat was heavy and humid.  Marquette's health
began to suffer, and the two explorers spread an awning of sailcloth
above the canoe as they glided with the current.  Towards the Arkansas,
Indians appeared on the banks, brandishing weapons of Spanish make.
Though Jolliet, with a peace pipe from the Illinois Indians, succeeded in
reassuring the hostiles, it was unsafe to go farther south.  They had
established the fact,--the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of
Mexico,--and on July 17 turned back.  It was harder going against stream,
which did not mend Marquette's health; so when the Illinois Indians
offered to show them a shorter way to Lake Michigan, they followed up
Illinois River and crossed the Chicago portage {134} to Lake Michigan.
Jolliet went on down to Quebec with his report.  Marquette remained half
ill to establish missions in Michigan.  Here, traveling with his Indians
in 1675, the priest died of the malady contracted in the Mississippi
heat, and was buried in a lonely grave of the wildwood wilderness where
he had wandered.  Louis Jolliet married and settled down on his seigniory
of Anticosti Island.


Though he had as yet little to show for the La Chine estate, which he had
sacrificed, La Salle had not been idle, but was busy pushing French
dominion by another route to the Mississippi.

Count Frontenac had come to New France as all the viceroys
came--penniless, to mend his fortunes; and as the salary of the Governor
did not exceed $3000 a year, the only way to wealth was by the fur trade;
but which way to look for fur trade!  Hudson Bay, thanks to Radisson, was
in the hands of England.  Taudoussac was farmed out to the King.  The
merchants of Quebec and Three Rivers and Montreal absorbed all the furs
of the tribes from the Ottawa; and New England drained the Iroquois land.
There remained but one avenue of new trade, and that was west of the
Lakes, where Jolliet had been.

Taking only La Salle into his confidence, Frontenac issued a royal
mandate commanding all the officers and people of New France to
contribute a quota of men for the establishment of a fort on Lake
Ontario.  By June 28, 1673, the same year that Jolliet had been
dispatched for the Mississippi, there had gathered at La Chine, La
Salle's old seigniory near Montreal, four hundred armed men and one
hundred and twenty canoes, which Frontenac ordered painted gaudily in red
and blue.  With these the Governor moved in stately array up the St.
Lawrence, setting the leafy avenues of the Thousand Islands ringing with
trumpet and bugle, and sweeping across Lake Ontario in martial lines to
the measured stroke of a hundred paddles.

Long since, La Salle's scouts had scurried from canton to canton,
rallying the Iroquois to the council of great "Onontio."  At break of
day, July 13, while the sunrise was just bursting up {135} over the lake,
Frontenac, with soldiers drawn up under arms, himself in velvet cloak
laced with gold braid, met the chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy at the
place to be known for years as Fort Frontenac, now known as Kingston, a
quiet little city at the entrance of Lake Ontario on the north shore.

[Illustration: ROBERT DE LA SALLE]

Ostensibly the powwow was to maintain peace.  In reality, it was to
attract the Iroquois, and all the tribes with whom they traded, away from
the English, down to Frontenac's new fort with their furs.  It is a
question if all the military pomp deceived a living soul.  Before the
Governor had set his sappers to work on the foundations of a fort, the
merchants of Montreal--the Le Bers and Le Moynes and Le Chesnayes and Le
Forests--were furious with jealousy.  Undoubtedly Fort Frontenac would be
the most valuable fur post in America.

{136}

[Illustration: OLD PLAN OF FORT FRONTENAC]

Determined to have the support of the Court, where his wife was in high
favor, Count Frontenac dispatched La Salle to France in 1674 with letters
of strongest recommendation, which, no doubt, Jean Talon, the former
Intendant, indorsed on the spot.  La Salle's case was a strong one.  He
was to offer to found a line of forts establishing French dominion from
Lake Ontario to the valley of the Mississippi, which Jolliet had just
explored.  In return, he asked for patent of nobility and the grant of a
seigniory at Fort Frontenac; in other words, the monopoly of the furs
there, which would easily clear him $20,000 a year.  It has never been
proved, but one may suspect that his profits were to be divided with
Count Frontenac.  Both requests were at once granted; and La Salle came
back to a hornet's nest of enmity in Canada.  Space forbids to tell of
the means taken to defeat him; for, by promising to support Recollet
friars at his fort instead of Jesuits, La Salle had added {137} to the
enmity of the merchants, the hatred of the Jesuits.  Poison was put in
his food.  Iroquois were stirred up to hostility against him.

Meanwhile no enmity checks his ardor.  He has replaced the wooden walls
of Fort Frontenac with stone, mounted ten cannon, manned the fort with
twenty soldiers, maintained more than forty workmen, cleared one hundred
acres for crops, and in 1677 is off again for France to ask permission to
build another fort above Niagara.  This time, when La Salle comes out, he
is accompanied by a man famous in American annals, a soldier of fortune
from Italy, cousin of Duluth the bushrover, one Henry Tonty, a man with a
copper hand, his arm having been shattered in war, who presently comes to
have repute among the Indians as a great "medicine man," because blows
struck by that metal hand have a way of being effective.  By 1678 the
fort is built above Niagara.  By 1679 a vessel of forty-five tons and ten
cannon is launched on Lake Erie, the _Griffon_, the first vessel to plow
the waters of the Great Lakes.  As she slides off her skids, August 17,
to go up to Michilimackinac for a cargo of furs, _Te Deum_ is chanted
from the new fort, and Louis Hennepin, the Dutch friar, standing on deck
in full vestments, asks Heaven's blessing on the ship's venture.

Scant is the courtesy of the Michilimackinac traders as the _Griffon's_
guns roar salute to the fort.  Cold is the welcome of the Jesuits as La
Salle enters their chapel dressed in scarlet mantle trimmed with gold.
And to be frank, though La Salle was backed by the King, he had no right
to trade at Michilimackinac, for his monopoly explicitly states he shall
not interfere with the trade of the north, but barter only with the
tribes towards the Illinois.  Never mind! he loads his ships to the water
line with furs to pay his increasing debts, and sends the ship on down to
Niagara with the cargo, while he and Tonty, with different parties,
proceed to the south end of Lake Michigan to cross the Chicago portage
leading to the Mississippi.  Did the jealous traders bribe the pilot to
sink the ship to bottom?  Who knows?  Certain it is when Tonty and La
Salle went down the {138} Illinois early in the new year of 1680, news of
disasters came thick and fast.  The _Griffon_ had sunk with all her
cargo.  The ship from France with the year's supplies for La Salle at
Fort Frontenac had been wrecked at the mouth of the St. Lawrence; and
worse than these losses, which meant financial ruin, here among the
Illinois Indians were Mascoutin Indian spies bribed to stir up trouble
for La Salle.  Small wonder that he named the fort built here Fort
Crevecoeur,--Fort Broken Heart.

[Illustration: THE BUILDING OF THE _GRIFFON_  (After the engraving in
Father Hennepin's "Nouvelle Decouverte," Amsterdam, 1704)]

If La Salle had been fur trader only, as his enemies averred, and not
patriot, one wonders why he did not sit still in his fort at Frontenac
and draw his profits of $20,000 a year, instead of risking loss and
poison and ruin and calumny and death by chasing the phantom of his great
desire to found a New France on the Mississippi.

Never pausing to repine, he orders Hennepin, the friar, to take two
voyageurs and descend Illinois River as far as the Mississippi.  Tonty he
leaves in charge of the Illinois fort.  He {139} himself proceeds
overland the width of half a continent, to Fort Frontenac and Montreal.

Friar Hennepin's adventures have been told in his own book of marvels,
half truth, half lies.  Jolliet, it will be remembered, had explored the
Great River south of the Wisconsin.  Hennepin struck up from the mouth of
the Illinois, to explore north, and he found enough adventure to satisfy
his marvel-loving soul.  The Sioux captured him somewhere near the
Wisconsin.  In the wanderings of his captivity he went as far north as
the Falls of St. Anthony, the site of Minnesota's Twin Cities, and he
finally fell in with a band of Duluth's bushrovers from Kaministiquia
(modern Fort William), Lake Superior.


The rest of the story of La Salle on the Mississippi is more the history
of the United States than of Canada, and must be given in few words.

When La Salle returned from interviewing his creditors on the St.
Lawrence, he found the Illinois Indians dispersed by hostile Iroquois
whom his enemies had hounded on.  Fort Crevecoeur had been destroyed and
plundered by mutineers among his own men.  Only Tonty and two or three
others had remained faithful, and they had fled for their lives to Lake
Michigan.  Not knowing where Tonty had taken refuge, La Salle pushed on
down the Illinois River, and for the first time beheld the Mississippi,
the goal of all his dreams; but anxiety for his lost men robbed the event
of all jubilation.  Once more united with Tonty at Michilimackinac, La
Salle returned dauntlessly to the Illinois.  Late in the fall of 1681 he
set out with eighteen Indians and twenty Frenchmen from Lake Michigan for
the Illinois.  February of 1682 saw the canoes floating down the
winter-swollen current of the Illinois River for the Mississippi, which
was reached on the 6th.  A week later the river had cleared of ice, and
the voyageurs were camped amid the dense forests at the mouth of the
Missouri.  The weather became warmer.  Trees were donning their bridal
attire of spring and the air was heavy with the odor of blossoms.
Instead of high cliffs, carved fantastic by {140} the waters, came
low-lying swamps, full of reeds, through which the canoes glided and lost
themselves.  Camp after camp of strange Indian tribes they visited, till
finally they came to villages where the Indians were worshipers of the
sun and wore clothing of Spanish make.  By these signs La Salle guessed
he was nearing the Gulf of Mexico.  Fog lay longer on the river of
mornings now.  Ground was lower.  They were nearing the sea.  April 6 the
river seemed to split into three channels.  Different canoes followed
each channel.  The muddy river water became salty.  Then the blue sky
line opened to the fore through the leafy vista of the forest-grown
banks.  Another paddle stroke, and the canoes shot out on the Gulf of
Mexico,--La Salle erect and silent and stern as was his wont.  April 9,
1682, a cross is planted with claim to this domain for France.  To fire
of musketry and chant of Te Deum a new empire is created for King Louis
of France.  Louisiana is its name.


Take a map of North America.  Look at it.  What had the pathfinders of
New France accomplished?  Draw a line from Cape Breton to James Bay, from
James Bay down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Gulf of
Mexico across to Cape Breton.  Inside the triangle lies the French empire
of the New World,--in area the size of half Europe.  That had the
pathfinders accomplished for France.

La Salle was too ill to proceed at once from the Mississippi to Quebec.
As long as Frontenac remained governor, La Salle could rely on his hungry
creditors and vicious enemies--now eager as wolves, to confiscate his
furs and seize his seigniory at Fort Frontenac--being restrained by the
strong hand of the Viceroy; but while La Salle lay ill at the Illinois
fort, Frontenac was succeeded by La Barre as viceroy; and the new
Governor was a weak, avaricious old man, ready to believe any evil tale
carried to his ears.  He at once sided with La Salle's enemies, and wrote
the French King that the explorer's "_head was turned_"; that La Salle
"_accomplished nothing, but spent his life leading bandits through the
forests, pillaging Indians; {141} that all the story of discovering the
Mississippi was a fabrication_."  When La Salle came from the wilderness
he found himself a ruined man.  Fort Frontenac had been seized by his
enemies.  Supplies for the Mississippi had been stopped, and officers
were on their way to seize the forts there.

Leaving Tonty in charge of his interests, La Salle sailed for France
where he had a strong friend at court in Frontenac.  As it happened,
Spain and France were playing at the game of checkmating each other; and
it pleased the French King to restore La Salle's forts and to give the
Canadian explorer four ships to colonize the Mississippi by way of the
Gulf of Mexico.  This was to oust Spain from her ancient claim on the
gulf; but Beaujeu, the naval commander of the expedition, was not in
sympathy with La Salle.  Beaujeu was a noble by birth; La Salle, only a
noble of the merchant classes.  The two bickered and quarreled from the
first.  By some blunder, when the ships reached the Gulf of Mexico, laden
with colonists, in December of 1684, they missed the mouth of the
Mississippi and anchored off Texas.  The main ship sailed back to France.
Two others were wrecked, and La Salle in desperation, after several trips
seeking the Mississippi, resolved to go overland by way of the
Mississippi valley and the Illinois to obtain aid in Canada for his
colonists.  All the world knows what happened.  Near Trinity River in
Texas some of his men mutinied.  Early in the morning of the 19th of
March, 1687, La Salle left camp with a friar and Indian to ascertain what
was delaying the plotters, who had not returned from the hunt.  Suddenly
La Salle seemed overwhelmed by a great sadness.  He spoke of death.  A
moment later, catching sight of one of the delinquents, he had called
out.  A shot rang from the underbush; another shot; and La Salle reeled
forward dead, with a bullet wound gaping in his forehead.  The body of
the man who had won a new empire for France was stripped and left naked,
a prey to the foxes and carrion birds.  So perished Robert Cavelier de La
Salle, aged forty-four.

Nor need the fate of the mutineers be told here.  The fate of mutineers
is the same the world over.  Having slain their {142} commander, they
fell on one another and perished, either at one another's hands or among
the Indians.  As for the colonists of men, women, and girls left in
Texas, the few who were not massacred by the Indians fell into the hands
of the Spaniards.  La Salle's debts at the time of his death were what
would now be half a million dollars.  His life had ended in what the
world calls ruin, but France entered into his heritage.

With the passing of Robert de La Salle passes the heroic age of
Canada,--its age of youth's dream.  Now was to come its manhood,--its
struggles, its wars, its nation building, working out a greater destiny
than any dream of youth.




{143}

CHAPTER VIII

FROM 1679 TO 1713

Radisson quarrels with company--Up Labrador coast--Radisson captures
his rivals--Radisson ordered back to England--Death of Radisson--Jan
Pere the spy--The raid on Moose Factory--Sargeant besieged


Before leaving for France, Jean Talon, the Intendant, had set another
exploration in motion.  English trade was now in full sway on Hudson
Bay.  In possession of the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Illinois, the
Great Lakes, France controlled all avenues of approach to the Great
Northwest except Hudson Bay.  This she had lost through injustice to
Radisson; and already the troublesome question had come up,--What was
to be the boundary between the fur-trading domain of the French
northward from the St. Lawrence and the fur-trading domain of the
English southward from Hudson Bay.  Fewer furs came down to Quebec from
Labrador, the King's Domain, from Kaministiquia (Fort William), the
stamping ground of Duluth, the forest ranger.  The furs of these
regions were being drained by the English of Hudson Bay.

Talon determined to put a stop to this, and had advised Frontenac
accordingly.  August, 1671, Governor Frontenac dispatched the English
Jesuit--Father Albanel--with French guides and Indian voyageurs to set
up French arms on Hudson Bay and to bear letters to Radisson and
Groseillers.  The journey was terrific.  I have told the story
elsewhere.  Autumn found the voyageurs beyond the forested shores of
the Saguenay and Lake St. John, ascending a current full of boiling
cascades towards Lake Mistassini.  Then the frost-painted woods became
naked as antlers, with wintry winds setting the dead boughs crashing;
and the ice, thin as mica, forming at the edges of the streams, had
presently thickened too hard for the voyageurs to break with their
paddles.  Albanel and his comrades wintered in the Montaignais' lodges,
which were banked so heavily with snow that scarcely a breath of pure
air could penetrate the {144} stench.  By day the priest wandered from
lodge to lodge, preaching the gospel.  At night he was to be found afar
in the snow-padded solitudes of the forest engaged in prayer.  At last,
in the spring of 1672, thaw set the ice loose and the torrents rushing.
Downstream on June 10 launched Albanel, running many a wild-rushing
rapid, taking the leap with the torrential waters over the lesser
cataracts, and avoiding the larger falls by long detours over rocks
slippery as ice, through swamps to a man's armpits.  The hinterland of
Hudson Bay, with its swamps and rough portages and dank forests of
unbroken windfall, was then and is to-day the hardest canoe trip in
North America; but towards the end of June the French canoes glided out
on the arm of the sea called James Bay, hoisted the French flag, and in
solemn council with the Indians presented gifts to induce them to come
down the Saguenay to Quebec.  Fort Rupert, the Hudson's Bay Company's
post, consisted of two barrack-like log structures.  When Albanel came
to the houses he found not a soul, only boxes of provisions and one
lonely dog.

A few weeks previously the men of the English company had gone on up
the west coast of Hudson Bay, prospecting for the site of a new
settlement.  Before Albanel had come at all, there was friction among
the English.  Radisson and Groseillers were Catholics and French, and
they were supervisors of the entire trade.  Bayly, the English
governor, was subject to them.  So was Captain Gillam, with whom they
had quarreled long ago, when he refused to take his boat into Hudson
Straits on the voyage from Port Royal.  Radisson and Groseillers were
for establishing more posts up the west coast of Hudson Bay, farther
from the competition of Duluth's forest rovers on Lake Superior.  They
had examined the great River Nelson and urged Bayly, the English
governor, to build a fort there.  Bayly sulked and blustered by turns.
In this mood they had come back to Prince Rupert to find the French
flag flying above their fort and the English Jesuit, Albanel, snugly
ensconced, with passports from Governor Frontenac and personal letters
for Radisson and Groseillers.

{145} England and France were at peace.  Bayly had to respect Albanel's
passports, but he wished this English envoy of French rivals far
enough; and when Captain Gillam came from England the old quarrel
flamed out in open hostility.  Radisson and Groseillers were accused of
being in league with the French traders.  A thousand rumors of what
next happened have gained currency.  One writer says that the English
and French came to blows; another, that Radisson and Groseillers
deserted, going back overland with Albanel.  In the Archives of
Hudson's Bay House I found a letter stating that the English captain
kidnapped the Jesuit Albanel and carried him a captive to England.  It
may as well be frankly stated these rumors are all sheer fiction.
Albanel went back overland as he came.  Radisson and Groseillers did
not go with him, though there may have been blows.  Instead, they went
to England on Gillam's ship to present their case to the company.

[Illustration: PRINCE RUPERT  (After the painting by Sir P. Lely)]

The Hudson's Bay Company was uneasy.  Radisson and Groseillers were
aliens.  True, Radisson had married Mary Kirke, the daughter of a
shareholder, and was bound to the English; but if Radisson and
Groseillers had forsworn one land, might they not forswear another, and
go back to the French, as Frontenac's letters no doubt urged?  The
company offered Radisson a salary of 100 pounds a year to stay as clerk
in England.  They did not want him out on the bay again; but {146}
France had offered Radisson a commission in the French navy.  Without
more ado the two Frenchmen left London for Paris, and Paris for America.


The year 1676 finds Radisson back in Quebec engaged in the beaver trade
with all those friends of his youth whose names have become famous,--La
Salle of Fort Frontenac, and Charles Le Moyne the interpreter of
Montreal, and Jolliet of the Mississippi, and La Forest who befriended
La Salle, Le Chesnaye who opposed him, and Duluth whose forest rangers
roved from Lake Superior to Hudson Bay.  It can be guessed what these
men talked about over the table of the Sovereign Council at Quebec,
whither they had been called to discuss the price of beaver and the use
of brandy.

The fur traders were at that time in two distinct rings,--the ring of
La Salle and La Forest, supported by Frontenac; the Montreal ring,
headed by Le Chesnaye, who fought against the opening of the west
because Lake Ontario trade would divert his trade from the Ottawa.
Radisson's report of that west coast of Hudson Bay, in area large as
all New France, interested both factions of the fur trade intensely.
He was offered two ships for Hudson Bay by the men of both rings.
Because England and France were at peace, Frontenac dared not recognize
the expedition officially; but he winked at it,--as he winked at many
irregularities in the fur trade,--granted the Company of the North
license to trade on Hudson Bay, and gave Radisson's party passports "to
fish off Gaspe."  In the venture Radisson, Groseillers, and the son
Chouart Groseillers, invested their all, possibly amounting to $2500
each.  The rest of the money for the expedition came from the Godfreys,
titled seigneurs of Three Rivers; Dame Sorel, widow of an officer in
the Carignan Regiment; Le Chesnaye, La Salle's lieutenant, and others.

The boats were rickety little tubs unfit for rough northern seas, and
the crews sulky, underfed men, who threatened mutiny at every watering
place and only refrained from cutting Radisson's {147} throat because
he kept them busy.  July 11, 1682, the explorers sheered away from the
fishing fleet of the St. Lawrence and began coasting up the lonely iron
shore of Labrador.  Ice was met sweeping south in mountainous bergs.
Over Isle Demons in the Straits of Belle Isle hung storm wrack and
brown fog as in the days when Marguerite Roberval pined there.  Then
the ships were cutting the tides of Labrador; here through fog; there
skimming a coast that was sheer masonry to the very sky; again,
scudding from storm to refuge of some hole in the wall.

[Illustration: MAP OF HUDSON BAY]

{148} Before September the ships rode triumphantly into
Five-Fathom-Hole off Nelson River, Hudson Bay.  Here two great rivers,
wide as the St. Lawrence, rolled to the sea, separated by a long tongue
of sandy dunes.  The north river was the Nelson; the south, the Hayes.
Approach to both was dangerous, shallow, sandy, and bowlder strewn; but
Radisson's vessels were light draught, and he ran them in on the tide
to Hayes River on the south, where his men took possession for France
and erected log huts as a fort.

Groseillers remained at the fort to command the twenty-seven men.
Young Chouart ranged the swamps and woods for Indians, and Radisson had
paddled down the Hayes from meeting some Assiniboine hunters, when, to
his amazement, there rolled across the wooded swamps the most
astonishing report that could be heard in desolate solitudes.  It was
the rolling reverberation, the dull echo of a far-away cannon firing
signal after signal.

Like a flash Radisson guessed the game.  After all, the Hudson's Bay
Company had taken his advice and were sending ships to trade on the
west coast.  The most of men, supported by only twenty-seven mutineers,
would have scuttled ships and escaped overland, but the explorers of
New France, Champlain and Jolliet and La Salle, were not made of the
stuff that runs from trouble.

Picking out three men, Radisson crossed the marsh northward to
reconnoiter on Nelson River.  Through the brush he espied a white tent
on what is now known as Gillam's Island, a fortress half built, and a
ship at anchor.  All night he and his spies watched, but none of the
builders came near enough to be seized, and next day at noon Radisson
put a bold face on and paddled within cannon shot of the island.

Here was a pretty to-do, indeed!  The Frenchman must have laughed till
he shook with glee!  It was not the Hudson's Bay Company ship at all,
but a poacher, a pirate, an interloper, forbidden by the laws of the
English Company's monopoly; and who was the poacher but Ben Gillam, of
Boston, son of Captain Gillam of the Hudson's Bay Company, with whom,
no doubt, he was in collusion to defraud the English traders!  Calling
for {149} Englishmen to come down to the shore as hostages for fair
treatment, Radisson went boldly aboard the young man's ship, saw
everything, counted the men, noted the fact that Gillam's crew were
mutinous, and half frightened the life out of the young Boston captain
by telling him of the magnificent fort the French had on the south
river, of the frigates and cannon and the powder magazines.  As a
friend he advised young Gillam not to permit his men to approach the
French; otherwise they might be attacked by the Quebec soldiers.  Then
the crafty Radisson paddled off, smiling to himself; but not so fast,
not so easy!  As he drifted down Nelson River, what should he run into
full tilt but the Hudson's Bay Company ship itself, bristling with
cannon, manned by his old enemy, Captain Gillam!

If the two English parties came together, Radisson was lost.  He must
beat them singly before they met; and again putting on a bold face, he
marched out, met his former associates, and as a friend advised them
not to ascend the river farther.  Fortunately for Radisson, both Gillam
and Bridgar, the Hudson's Bay governor, were drinking heavily and glad
to take his advice.  The winter passed, with Radisson perpetrating such
tricks on his rivals as a player might with the dummy men on a
chessboard; but the chessboard, with the English rivals for pawns, was
suddenly upset by the unexpected.  Young Gillam discovered that
Radisson had no fort at all,--only log cabins with a handful of
ragamuffin bushrovers; and Captain Gillam senior got word of young
Gillam's presence.  Radisson had to act, act quickly, and on the nail.

Leaving half a dozen men as hostages in young Gillam's fort, Radisson
invited the youth to visit the French fort for which the young Boston
fellow had expressed such skeptical scorn.  To make a long story short,
young Gillam was no sooner out of his own fort than the French hostages
took peaceable possession of it, and Gillam was no sooner in Radisson's
fort than the French clapped him a prisoner in their guardroom.
Ignorant that the French had captured young Gillam's fort, the Hudson's
Bay Company men had marched upstream at dead of night to his {150}
rescue.  The English knocked for admittance.  The French guards threw
open the gates.  In marched the English traders.  The French clapped
the gates to.  The English were now themselves prisoners.  Such a
double victory would have been impossible to the French if the Hudson's
Bay Company men had not fuddled themselves with drink and allowed their
fine ship, the _Prince Rupert_, to be wrecked in the ice drive.

In spring the ice jam wrecked Radisson's vessels, too, so he was
compelled to send the most of his prisoners in a sloop down Hudson Bay
to Prince Rupert, while he carried the rest with him on young Gillam's
ship down to Quebec with an enormous cargo of furs.

By all the laws of navigation Ben Gillam was nothing more or less than
pirate.  The monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company forbade him trading
on Hudson Bay.  The license of the Company of the North at Quebec also
excluded him.  In later years, indeed, young Gillam turned pirate
outright, was captured in connection with Captain Kidd at Boston, and
is supposed to have been executed with the famous pirate.  But when
Radisson left Nelson in charge of young Chouart and came down to Quebec
with young Gillam's ship as prize, a change had taken place at Quebec.
Governor Frontenac had been recalled.  In his place was La Barre, whose
favor could be bought by any man who would pay the bribe, and who had
already ruined La Salle by permitting creditors to seize Fort
Frontenac.  England and France were at peace.  Therefore La Barre gave
Gillam's vessel back to him.  The revenue collectors were permitted to
seize all the furs which La Chesnaye had not already shipped to France.
Though La Barre was reprimanded by the King for both acts, not a sou
did Radisson and Groseillers and Chouart ever receive for their
investment; and Radisson was ordered to report at once to the King in
France.


The next part of Radisson's career has always been the great blot upon
his memory, a blot that seemed incomprehensible except on the ground
that his English wife had induced him to {151} return to the Hudson's
Bay Company; but in the memorials left by Radisson himself, in Hudson's
Bay House, London, I found the true explanation of his conduct.

France and England were, as yet, at peace; but it was a pact of
treacherous kind,--secret treaty by which the King of England drew pay
from the King of France.  The King of France dared not offend England
by giving public approval to Radisson's capture of the Hudson's Bay
Company's territory; therefore he ordered Radisson to go back to
Hudson's Bay Company service and restore what he had captured.  But the
King of France had no notion of relinquishing claim to the vast
territory of Hudson Bay; therefore he commanded Radisson to go
unofficially.  Groseillers, the brother, seems to have dropped from all
engagements from this time, and to have returned to Three Rivers.  A
copy of the French minister's instructions is to be found in the
Radisson records of the Hudson's Bay Company to-day.  Not a sou of
compensation was Radisson to receive for the money that he and his
friends had invested in the venture of 1682-1683.  Not a penny of
reparation was he to obtain for the furs at Nelson, which he was to
turn over to the Hudson's Bay Company.

In France, preparation went forward as if for a second voyage to
Nelson; but Radisson secretly left Paris for London, where he was
welcomed by the courtiers of England in May, 1684, and given presents
by King Charles and the Duke of York, who were shareholders in the
Hudson's Bay Company.  May 17 he sailed with the Hudson's Bay Company
vessels for Port Nelson, and there took over from young Chouart the
French forts with 20,000 pounds worth of furs for the English company.

Young Chouart Groseillers and his five comrades were furious.  They had
borne the brunt of attack from both English and Indian enemies during
Radisson's absence, and they were to receive not a penny for the furs
collected.  And their fury knew no bounds when they were forcibly
carried back to England.  The English had invited them on board one of
the vessels for last instructions.  Quickly the anchor was slipped,
sails run {152} out, and the kidnapped Frenchmen carried from the bay.
In a second, young Chouart's hand was on his sword, and he would have
fought on the spot, but Radisson begged him to conceal his anger;
"for," urged Radisson, "some of these English ruffians would like
nothing better than to stab you in a scuffle."

In London, Radisson was lionized, publicly thanked by the company,
presented to the court, and given a present of silver plate.  As for
the young French captives, they were treated royally, voted salaries of
100 pounds a year, and all their expenses of lodgings paid; but when
they spoke of returning to France, unexpected obstructions were
created.  Their money was held back; they were dogged by spies.
Finally they took the oath of allegiance to England, and accepted
engagements to go back as servants of the Hudson's Bay Company to
Nelson at salaries ranging from 100 pounds to 40 pounds, good pay as
money was estimated in those days, equal to at least five times as much
money of the present day.  It was even urged on young Chouart that he
should take an English wife, as Radisson had; but the young Frenchmen
smiled quietly to themselves.  Secret offers of a title had been
conveyed to Chouart by the French ambassador; and to his mother in
Three Rivers he wrote:

I could not go to Paris; I was not at liberty; but I shall be at the
rendezvous or perish trying.  I cannot say more in a letter.  I would
have left this kingdom, but they hold back my pay, and orders have been
given to arrest me if I try to leave.  Assure Mr. Duluth of my humble
services.  I shall see him as soon as I can.  Pray tell my good friend,
Jan Pere.


Pere, it will be remembered, was a bushranger of Duluth's band, who had
been with Jolliet on Lake Superior.

As for Radisson, the English kept faith with him as long as the Stuarts
and his personal friends ruled the English court.  He spent the summers
on Hudson Bay as superintendent of trade, the winters in England
supervising cargoes and sales.  His home was on Seething Lane near the
great Tower, where one of his friends was commander.  Near him dwelt
the merchant princes of London like the Kirkes and the Robinsons and
the Youngs.  His next-door neighbor was the man of fashion, {153}
Samuel Pepys, in whose hands Radisson's Journals of his voyages finally
fell.  His income at this time was 100 pounds in dividends, 100 pounds
in salary, equal to about five times that amount in modern money.

Then came a change in Radisson's fortunes.  The Stuarts were dethroned
and their friends dispersed.  The shareholders of the fur company bore
names of men who knew naught of Radisson's services.  War destroyed the
fur company's dividends.  Radisson's income fell off to 50 pounds a
year.  His family had increased; so had his debts; and he had long
since been compelled to move from fashionable quarters.  A petition
filed in a lawsuit avers that he was in great mental anxiety lest his
children should come to want; but he won his lawsuits against the
company for arrears of salary.  Peace brought about a resumption of
dividends, and the old pathfinder seems to have passed his last years
in comparative comfort.  Some time between March and July, 1710,
Radisson set out on the Last Long Voyage of all men, dying near London.
His burial place is unknown.  As far as Canada is concerned, Radisson
stands foremost as pathfinder of the Great Northwest.


But to return to "good friend, Jan Pere," whom the Frenchmen, forced
into English service, were to meet somewhere on Hudson Bay.  It is like
a story from borderland forays.

Seven large ships set sail from England for Hudson Bay in 1685,
carrying Radisson and young Chouart and the five unwilling Frenchmen.
The company's forts on the bay now numbered four: Nelson, highest up on
the west; Albany, southward on an island at the mouth of Albany River;
Moose, just where James Bay turns westward; and Rupert at the southeast
corner.  But French ships under La Martiniere of the Sovereign Council
had also set sail from Quebec in 1685, commissioned by the indignant
fur traders to take Radisson dead or alive; for Quebec did not know the
secret orders of the French court, which had occasioned Radisson's last
defection.

July saw the seven Hudson's Bay ships worming their way laboriously
through the ice floes of the straits.  Small sails only {154} were
used.  With grappling hooks thrown out on the ice pans and crews
toiling to their armpits in ice slush, the boats pulled themselves
forward, resting on the lee side of some ice floe during ebb tide, all
hands out to fight the roaring ice pans when the tide began to come in.
At length on the night of July 27, with crews exhausted and the timbers
badly rammed, the ships steered to rest in a harbor off Digge's Island,
sheltered from the ice drive.  The nights of that northern sea are
light almost as day; but clouds had shrouded the sky and a white mist
was rising from the water when there glided like ghosts from gloom two
strange vessels.  Before the exhausted crews of the English ships were
well awake, the waters were churned to foam by a roar of cannonading.
The strange ships had bumped keels with the little _Merchant
Perpetuana_ of the Hudson's Bay.  Radisson, on whose head lay a price,
was first to realize that they were attacked by French raiders; and his
ship was out with sails and off like a bird, followed by the other
English vessels, all except the little _Perpetuana_, now in death
grapple between her foes.  Captain Hume, Mates Smithsend and
Grimmington fought like demons to keep the French from boarding her;
but they were knocked down, fettered and clapped below hatches while
the victors plundered the cargo.  Fourteen men were put to the sword.
August witnessed ship, cargo, and captives brought into Quebec amid
noisy acclaim and roar of cannon.  The French had not captured Radisson
nor ransomed Chouart, but there was booty to the raiders.  New France
had proved her right to trade on Hudson Bay spite of peace between
France and England, or secret commands to Radisson.  Thrown in a
dungeon below Chateau St. Louis, Quebec, the English captives hear wild
rumors of another raid on the bay, overland in winter; and Smithsend,
by secret messenger, sends warning to England, and for his pains is
sold with his fellow-captives into slavery in Martinique, whence he
escapes to England before the summer of 1686.

But what is Jan Pere of Duluth's bushrovers doing?  All unconscious of
the raid on the ships, the governors of the four {155} English forts
awaited the coming of the annual supplies.  At Albany was a sort of
harbor beacon as well as lookout, built high on scaffolding above a
hill.  One morning, in August of 1685, the sentry on the lookout was
amazed to see three men, white men, in a canoe, steering swiftly down
the rain-swollen river from the Up-Country.  Such a thing was
impossible.  "White men from the interior!  Whence did they come?"
Governor Sargeant came striding to the fort gate, ordering his cannon
manned.  Behold nothing more dangerous than three French forest rangers
dressed in buckskins, but with manners a trifle too smooth for such
rough garb, as one doffs his cap to Governor Sargeant and introduces
himself as Jan Pere, a woodsman out hunting.

[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY FRENCH MAP OF HUDSON BAY AND VICINITY]

England and France were at peace; so Governor Sargeant invited the
three mysterious gentlemen inside to a breakfast of sparkling wines and
good game, hoping no doubt that the wines would unlock the gay fellows'
tongues to tell what game _they_ were playing.  As the wine passed
freely, there were stories of {156} the hunt and the voyage and the
annual ships.  When might the ships be coming?  "Humph," mutters
Sargeant through his beard; and he does n't urge these knights of the
wild woods to tarry longer.  Their canoe glides gayly down coast to the
salt marshes, where the shooting is good; but by chance that night,
_purely by chance_, the French leave their canoe so that the tide will
carry it away.  Then they come back crestfallen to the English fort.

Meanwhile a ship has arrived with the story of the raid on the
_Perpetuana_.  Sargeant is so enraged that he sends two of the French
spies across to Charlton Island, where they can hunt or die; Monsieur
Jan Pere he casts into the cellar of Albany with irons on his wrists
and balls on his feet.  When the ships sail for England, Pere is sent
back as prisoner without having had one word with Chouart Groseillers.
As for the two Frenchmen placed on Charlton Island, did Sargeant think
they were bush-rovers and would stay on an island?  By October they
have laid up store of moose meat, built themselves a canoe, paddled
across to the mainland, and are speeding like wildfire overland to
Michilimackinac with word that Jan Pere is held prisoner at Albany.  As
Jan Pere drops out of history here, it may be said that he was kept
prisoner in England as guarantee for the safety of the English crew
held prisoners at Quebec.  When he escaped to France he was given money
and a minor title for his services.

The news that Pere lay in a dungeon on Hudson Bay supplied the very
excuse that the Quebec fur traders needed for an overland raid in time
of peace.  These were the wild rumors of which the captive English crew
sent warning to England; but the northern straits would not be open to
the company ships before June of 1686, and already a hundred wild
French bushrovers were rallying to ascend the Ottawa to raid the
English on Hudson Bay.

And now a change comes in Canadian annals.  For half a century its
story is a record of lawless raids, bloody foray, dare-devil courage
combined with the most fiendish cruelty and sublime heroism.  Only a
few of these raids can be narrated here.  {157} June 18, 1686, when the
long twilight of the northern night merged with dawn, there came out
from the thicket of underbrush round Moose Factory, Hudson Bay, one
hundred bush-rovers, led by Chevalier de Troyes of Niagara, accompanied
by Le Chesnaye of the fur trade, Quebec, and the Jesuit, Sylvie.  Of
the raiders, sixty-six were Indians under Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
and his brothers, Maricourt and Ste. Helene, aged about twenty-four,
sons of Charles Le Moyne, the Montreal interpreter.  Moose Factory at
this time boasted fourteen cannon, log-slab palisades, commodious
warehouses, and four stone bastions,--one with three thousand pounds of
powder, another used as barracks for twelve soldiers, another housing
beaver pelts, and a fourth serving as kitchen.  Iberville and his
brothers, scouting round on different sides of the fort, soon learned
that not a sentinel was on duty.  The great gate opposite the river,
studded with brass nails, was securely bolted, but not a cannon {158}
had been loaded.  The bushrangers then cast aside all clothing that
would hamper, and, pistol in hand, advanced silent and stealthy as
wild-cats.  Not a twig crunched beneath the moccasin tread.  The water
lay like glass, and the fort slept silent as death.  Hastily each
raider had knelt for the blessing of the priest.  Pistols had been
recharged.  Iberville bade his wild Indians not to forget that the
Sovereign Council of Quebec offered ten crowns reward for every enemy
slain, twenty for every enemy captured.  In fact, there could be no
turning back.  Two thousand miles of juniper swamps and forests lay
between the bush-rovers and home.  They must conquer or perish.  De
Troyes led his white soldiers round to make a pretense of attack from
the water front.  Iberville posted his sixty-six Indians along the
walls with muskets rammed through the loopholes.  Then, with an
unearthly yell, the Le Moyne brothers were over the tops of the
pickets, swords in hand, before the English soldiers had awakened.  The
English gunner reeled from his cannon at the main gate with head split
to the collar bone.  The gates were thrown wide, trees rammed the doors
open, and Iberville had dashed halfway up the stairs of the main house
before the inmates, rushing out in their nightshirts, realized what had
happened.  Two men only were killed, one on each side.  The French were
masters of Moose Fort in less than five minutes, with sixteen captives
and rich supply of ammunition.

[Illustration: LE MOYNE D'IBERVILLE]

Eastward of Moose was Rupert Fort, where the company's ship anchored.
Hither the raiders plied their canoes by sea.  Look at the map!  Across
the bottom of James Bay projects a long tongue of swamp land.  To save
time, Iberville portaged across this, and by July 1 was opposite Prince
Rupert's bastions.  At the dock lay the English ship.  That day
Iberville's men kept in hiding, but at night he had ambushed his men
along shore and paddled across to the ship.  Just as Iberville stepped
on the deck a man on guard sprang at his throat.  One blow of
Iberville's sword killed the Englishman on the spot.  Stamping to call
the crew aloft, Iberville sabered the men as they scrambled up the
hatches, till the Governor himself threw {159} up hands in
unconditional surrender.  The din had alarmed the fort, and hot shot
snapping fire from the loopholes kept the raiders off till the Le Moyne
brothers succeeded in scrambling to the roofs of the bastions, hacking
holes through the rough thatch and firing inside.  This drove the
English gunners from their cannon.  A moment later, and the raiders
were on the walls.  It was a repetition of the fight at Moose Factory.
The English, taken by surprise, surrendered at once; and the French now
had thirty prisoners, a good ship, two forts, but no provisions.

Northwestward three hundred miles lay Albany Fort.  Iberville led off
in canoes with his bushrovers.  De Troyes followed on the English boat
with French soldiers and English prisoners.  To save time, as the bay
seemed shallow, Iberville struck out from the shore across seas.  All
at once a north wind began whipping the waters, sweeping down a
maelstrom of churning ice.  Worse still, fog fell thick as wool.  Any
one who knows canoe travel knows the danger.  Iberville avoided
swamping by ordering his men to camp for the night on the shifting ice
pans, canoes held above heads where the ice crush was wildest, the
voyageurs clinging hand to hand, making a life line if one chanced to
slither through the ice slush.  When daylight came with worse fog,
Iberville kept his pistol firing to guide his followers, and so pushed
on.  Four days the dangerous traverse lasted, but August 1 the
bushrovers were in camp below the cliffs of Albany.

Indians had forewarned Governor Sargeant.  The loopholes of his
palisades bristled with muskets and heavy guns that set the bullets
flying soon as De Troyes arrived and tried to land the cannon captured
from the other forts for assault on Albany.  Drums beating, flags
flying, soldiers in line, a French messenger goes halfway forward and
demands of an English messenger come halfway out the surrender of Sieur
Jan Pere, languishing in the dungeons of Albany.  The English Governor
sends curt word back that Pere has been sent home to France long ago,
and demands what in thunder the French mean by these raids in time of
peace.  The French retire that night to consider.  {160} Cannon they
have, but they have used up nearly all their ammunition.  They have
thirty prisoners, but they have no provisions.  The prisoners have told
them there are 50,000 pounds worth of furs stored at Albany.

Inside the fort the English were in almost as bad way.  The larder was
lean, powder was scarce, and the men were wildly mutinous, threatening
to desert _en masse_ for the French on the excuse they had not hired to
fight, and "_if any of us lost a leg, the company could not make it
good_."

At the end of two days' desultory firing, the company Governor captured
down at Rupert came to Sargeant and told him frankly that the
bloodthirsty bushrovers were desperate; they had either to conquer or
starve, and if they were compelled to fight, there would be no quarter.
Men and women alike would be butchered in hand-to-hand fight.  Still
Sargeant hung on, hoping for the annual frigate of the company.  Then
powder failed utterly.  Still Sargeant would not show the white flag;
so an underfactor flourished a white sheet from an upper window.
Chevalier De Troyes came forward and seated himself on one of the
cannon.  Governor Sargeant went out and seated himself on the same
cannon with two bottles of wine.  The English of Albany were allowed to
withdraw to Charlton Island to await the company ship.  As for the
other prisoners, those who were not compelled to carry the plundered
furs back to Quebec, were turned adrift in the woods to find their way
overland north to Nelson.  Iberville's bushrovers were back in Montreal
by October.




{161}

CHAPTER IX

FROM 1686 TO 1698

War with the Iroquois--The year of the massacre--Frontenac returns--The
heroine of Vercheres--Indian raid and counter-raid--Massacre and
Schenectady--The massacre at Fort Loyal--Boston roused to
action--Quebec besieged--Phips and Frontenac--Retreat of the
English--Iberville's gallant sea fight--Nelson surrenders


For ten years Hudson Bay becomes the theater of northern buccaneers and
bushraiders.  A treaty of neutrality in 1686 provides that the bay
shall be held in common by the fur traders of England and France; but
the adventurers of England and the bushrovers of Quebec have no notion
of leaving things so uncertain.  Spite of truce, both fit out raiders,
and the King of France, according to the shifting diplomacy of the day,
issues secret orders "to permit not a vestige of English possession on
the northern bay."

Maricourt Le Moyne held the newly captured forts on the south shore of
James Bay till Iberville came back overland in 1687.  The fort at
Rupert had been completely abandoned after the French victory of the
previous summer, and the Hudson's Bay Company sloop, the _Young_, had
just sailed into the port to reestablish the fur post.  Iberville
surrounded the sloop by his bushrovers, captured it with all hands, and
dispatched four spies across to Charlton Island, where another sloop,
the _Churchill_, swung at anchor.  Here Iberville's run of luck turned.
Three of his four spies were captured, fettered, and thrown into the
hold of the vessel for the winter.  In the spring of 1688 one was
brought above decks to help the English sailors.  Watching his chance,
the grizzled bushrover waited till six of the English crew were up the
ratlines.  Quick as flash the Frenchman tiptoed across decks in his
noiseless moccasins, took one precautionary glance over his shoulder,
brained two Englishmen with an ax, liberated his comrades, and at
pistol point kept the other Englishmen up the masts till he and his
fellows had righted the ship and steered the vessel across to Rupert
River, where the provisions were just in time to save Iberville's party
from starvation.

{162} This episode is typical of what went on at the Hudson's Bay forts
for ten years.  Each year, when the English ships came out to Nelson on
the west coast, armed bands were sent south to wrest the forts on James
Bay from the French; and each spring, when Iberville's bushrovers came
gliding down the rivers in their canoes from Canada, there was a fight
to drive out the English.  Then the Indians would scatter to their
hunting grounds.  No more loot of furs for a year!  The English would
sail away in their ships, the French glide away in their canoes; and
for a winter the uneasy quiet of calm between two thunderclaps would
rest over the waters of Hudson Bay.

In the spring of 1688, about the time that the brave bush-rovers had
brought the English ship from Charlton Island across to Rupert River,
two English frigates under Captain Moon, with twenty-four soldiers over
and above the crews, had come south from Nelson to attack the French
fur traders at Albany.  As ill luck would have it, the ice floes began
driving inshore.  The English ships found themselves locked in the ice
before the besieged fort.  Across the jam from Rupert River dashed
Iberville with his Indian bandits, portaging where the ice floes
covered the water, paddling where lanes of clear way parted the
floating drift.  Iberville hid his men in the tamarack swamps till
eighty-two Englishmen had landed and all unsuspecting left their ships
unguarded.  Iberville only waited till the furs in the fort had been
transferred to the holds of the vessels.  The ice cleared.  The
Frenchman rushed his bushrovers on board, seized the vessel with the
most valuable cargo, and sailed gayly out of Albany for Quebec.  The
astounded English set fire to the other ship and retreated overland.

But the dare-devil bushrovers were not yet clear of trouble.  As the
ice drive jammed and held them in Hudson Straits, they were aghast to
see, sailing full tilt with the roaring tide of the straits, a fleet of
English frigates, the Hudson's Bay Company's annual ships; but
Iberville sniffed at danger as a war horse glories in gunpowder.  He
laughed his merriest, and as the ice drive locked all the ships within
gunshot, ran up an {163} English flag above his French crew and had
actually signaled the captains of the English frigates to come aboard
and visit him, when the ice cleared.  Hoisting sail, he showed swift
heels to the foe.  Iberville's ambition now was to sweep _all_ the
English from Hudson Bay, in other words, to capture Nelson on the west
coast, whence came the finest furs; but other raids called him to
Canada.


It will be recalled that La Salle's enemies had secretly encouraged the
Iroquois to attack the tribes of the Illinois; and now the fur traders
of New York were encouraging the Iroquois to pillage the Indians of the
Mississippi valley, in order to divert peltries from the French on the
St. Lawrence to the English at New York.  Savages of the north, rallied
by Perrot and Duluth and La Motte Cadillac, came down by the lakes to
Fort Frontenac to aid the French; but they found that La Barre, the new
governor, foolish old man, had been frightened into making peace with
the Iroquois warriors, abandoning the Illinois to Iroquois raid and
utterly forgetful that _a peace which is not a victory is not worth the
paper it is written on_.

For the shame of this disgraceful peace La Barre was recalled to France
and the Marquis de Denonville, a brave soldier, sent out as governor.
Unfortunately Denonville did not understand conditions in the colony.
The Jesuit missionaries were commissioned to summon the Iroquois to a
conference at Fort Frontenac, but when the deputies arrived they were
seized, tortured, and fifty of them shipped to France by the King's
order to serve as slaves on the royal galleys.  It was an act of
treachery heinous beyond measure and exposed the Jesuit missionaries
among the Five Nations to terrible vengeance; but the Iroquois code of
honor was higher than the white man's.  "Go home," they warned the
Jesuit missionary.  "We have now every right to treat thee as our foe;
but we shall not do so!  Thy heart has had no share in the wrong done
to us.  We shall not punish thee for the crimes of another, tho' thou
didst act as the unconscious tool.  But leave us!  When our young {164}
men chant the song of war they may take counsel only of their fury and
harm thee!  Go to thine own people"; and furnishing him with guides,
they sent him to Quebec.

Though Denonville marched with his soldiers through the Iroquois
cantons, he did little harm and less good; for the wily warriors had
simply withdrawn their families into the woods, and the Iroquois were
only biding their time for fearful vengeance.

This lust of vengeance was now terribly whetted.  Dongan, the English
governor of New York, had been ordered by King James of England to
observe the treaty of neutrality between England and France; but this
did not hinder him supplying the Iroquois with arms to raid the French
and secretly advising them "not to bury the war hatchet,--just to hide
it in the grass, and stand on their guard to begin the war anew."

[Illustration: FORT FRONTENAC AND THE ADJACENT COUNTRY]

Nor did the treaty of neutrality prevent the French from raiding Hudson
Bay and ordering shot in cold blood any French bushrover who dared to
guide the English traders to the country of the Upper Lakes.

In addition to English influence egging on the Iroquois, the treachery
of the Huron chief, The Rat, lashed the vengeance {165} of the Five
Nations to a fury.  He had come down to Fort Frontenac to aid the
French.  He was told that the French had again arranged peace with the
Iroquois, and deputies were even now on their way from the Five Nations.

"Peace!"  The old Huron chief was dumbfounded.  What were these fool
French doing, trusting to an Iroquois peace?  "Ah," he grunted, "that
may be well"; and he withdrew without revealing a sign of his
intentions.  Then he lay in ambush on the trail of the deputies, fell
on the Iroquois peace messengers with fury, slaughtered half the band,
then sent the others back with word that he had done this by order of
Denonville, the French governor.

"There," grunted The Rat grimly, "I 've killed the peace for them!  We
'll see how Onontio gets out of this mess."

Meanwhile war had been declared between England and France.  The
Stuarts had been dethroned.  France was supporting the exiled monarch,
and William of Orange had become king of England.  Iberville and Duluth
and La Motte Cadillac, the famous fighters of Canada's wildwood, were
laying plans before the French Governor for the invasion and conquest
of New York; and New York was preparing to defend itself by pouring
ammunition and firearms free of cost into the hands of the Iroquois.
Then the Iroquois vengeance fell.

Between the night and morning of August 4 and 5, in 1689, a terrific
thunderstorm had broken over Montreal.  Amidst the crack of hail and
crash of falling trees, with the thunder reverberating from the
mountain like cannonading, whilst the frightened people stood gazing at
the play of lightning across their windows, fourteen hundred Iroquois
warriors landed behind Montreal, beached their canoes, and stole upon
the settlement.  What next followed beggars description.  Nothing else
like it occurs in the history of Canada.  For years this summer was to
be known as "the Year of the Massacre."

Before the storm subsided, the Iroquois had stationed themselves in
circles round every house outside the walls of Montreal.  At the signal
of a whistle, the warriors fell on the settlement {166} like beasts of
prey.  Neither doors nor windows were fastened in that age, and the
people, deep in sleep after the vigil of the storm, were dragged from
their beds before they were well awake.  Men, women, and children fell
victims to such ingenuity of cruelty as only savage vengeance could
conceive.  Children were dashed to pieces before their parents' eyes;
aged parents tomahawked before struggling sons and daughters; fathers
held powerless that they might witness the tortures wreaked on wives
and daughters.  Homes which had heard some alarm and were on guard were
set on fire, and those who perished in the flames {167} died a merciful
death compared to those who fell in the hands of the victors.  By
daybreak two hundred people had been wantonly butchered.  A hundred and
fifty more had been taken captives.  As if their vengeance could not be
glutted, the Iroquois crossed the river opposite Montreal, and, in full
sight of the fort, weakly garrisoned and paralyzed with fright, spent
the rest of the week, day and night, torturing the white captives.  By
night victims could be seen tied to the torture stake amid the
wreathing flames, with the tormentors dancing round the camp fire in
maniacal ferocity.  Denonville was simply powerless.  He lost his head,
and seemed so panic-stricken that he forbade even volunteer bands from
rallying to the rescue.  For two months the Iroquois overran Canada
unchecked.  Indeed, it was years before the boldness engendered by this
foray became reduced to respect for French authority.  Settlement after
settlement, the marauders raided.  From Montreal to Three Rivers crops
went up in flame, and the terrified habitants came cowering with their
families to the shelter of the palisades.

[Illustration: WILLIAM OF ORANGE]

In the midst of this universal terror came the country's savior.
Frontenac had been recalled because he quarreled with the intendant and
he quarreled with the Jesuits and he quarreled with the fur traders;
but his bitterest enemies did not deny that he could put the fear of
the Lord and respect for the French into the Iroquois' heart.
Arbitrary he was as a czar, but just always!  To be sure he mended his
fortunes by personal fur trade, but in doing so he cheated no man; and
he worked no injustice, and he wrought in all things for the lasting
good of the country.  Homage he demanded as to a king, once going so
far as to drive the Sovereign Councilors from his presence with the
flat of a sword; but he firmly believed and he had publicly proved that
he was worthy of homage, and that the men who are forever shouting
"liberty--liberty and the people's rights," are frequently wolves in
sheep's clothing, eating out the vitals of a nation's prosperity.

Here, then, was the haughty, hot-headed, aggressive Frontenac, sent
back in his old age to restore the prestige of New France, {168} where
both La Barre the grafter, and Denonville the courteous Christian
gentleman, had failed.


To this period of Iroquois raids belongs one of the most heroic
episodes in Canadian life.  The only settlers who had not fled to the
protection of the palisaded forts were the grand old seigniors, the new
nobility of New France, whose mansions were like forts in themselves,
palisaded, with stone bastions and water supply and yards for stock and
mills inside the walls.  Here the seigniors, wildwood knights of a
wilderness age, held little courts that were imitations of the
Governor's pomp at Quebec.  Sometimes during war the seignior's wife
and daughters were reduced to plowing in the fields and laboring with
the women servants at the harvest; but ordinarily the life at the
seigniory was a life of petty grandeur, with such style as the
backwoods afforded.  In the hall or great room of the manor house was
usually an enormous table used both as court of justice by the seignior
and festive board.  On one side was a huge fireplace with its homemade
benches, on the other a clumsily carved chiffonier loaded with solid
silver.  In the early days the seignior's bedstead might be in the same
room,--an enormous affair with panoplies of curtains and counterpanes
of fur rugs and feather mattresses, so high that it almost necessitated
a ladder.  But in the matter of dress the rude life made up in style
what it lacked in the equipments of a grand mansion.

The bishop's description of the women's dresses I have already given,
though at this period the women had added to the "sins" of bows and
furbelows and frills, which the bishop deplored, the yet more heinous
error of such enormous hoops that it required fine maneuvering on the
part of a grand dame to negotiate the door of the family coach; and
however pompous the seignior's air, it must have suffered temporary
eclipse in that coach from the hoops of his spouse and his spouse's
daughters.  As for the seignior, when he was not dressed in buckskin,
leading bushrovers on raids, he appeared magnificent in all the
grandeur that a 20 pounds wig and Spanish laces and French ruffles
{169} and imported satins could lend his portly person; and if the
figure were not portly, one may venture to guess, from the pictures of
stout gentlemen in the quilted brocades of the period, that padding
made up what nature lacked.


Such a seigniory was Vercheres, some twenty miles from Montreal, on the
south side of the St. Lawrence.  M. de Vercheres was an officer in one
of the regiments, and chanced to be absent from home during October of
1696, doing duty at Quebec.  Madame de Vercheres was visiting in
Montreal.  Strange as it may seem, the fort and the family had been
left in charge of the daughter, Madeline, at this time only fourteen
years of age.  At eight o'clock on the morning of October 22 she had
gone four hundred paces outside the fort gates when she heard the
report of musket firing.  The rest of the story may be told in her own
words:

I at once saw that the Iroquois were firing at our settlers, who lived
near the fort.  One of our servants call out: "Fly, Mademoiselle, fly!
The Iroquois are upon us!"

Instantly I saw some forty-five Iroquois running towards me, already
within pistol shot.  Determined to die rather than fall in their hands,
I ran for the fort, praying to the Blessed Virgin, "Holy Mother, save
me!  Let me perish rather than fall in their hands!"  Meanwhile my
pursuers paused to fire their guns.  Bullets whistled past my ears.
Once within hearing of the fort, I shouted, "To arms!  To arms!"

There were but two soldiers in the fort, and they were so overcome by
fear that they ran to hide in the bastion.  At the gates I found two
women wailing for the loss of their husbands.  Then I saw several
stakes had fallen from the palisades where enemies could gain entrance;
so I seized the fallen planks and urged the women to give a hand
putting them back in their places.  Then I ran to the bastion, where I
found two of the soldiers lighting a fuse.

"What are you going to do?" I demanded.

"Blow up the fort," answered one cowardly wretch.

"Begone, you rascals," I commanded, putting on a soldier's helmet and
seizing a musket.  Then to my little brothers: "Let us fight to the
death!  Remember what father has always said,--that gentlemen are born
to shed their blood in the service of God and their King."

My brothers and the two soldiers kept up a steady fire from the
loopholes.  I ordered the cannon fired to call in our soldiers, who
were hunting; {170} but the grief-stricken women inside kept wailing so
loud that I had to warn them their shrieks would betray our weakness to
the enemy.  While I was speaking I caught sight of a canoe on the
river.  It was Sieur Pierre Fontaine, with his family, coming to visit
us.  I asked the soldiers to go out and protect their landing, but they
refused.  Then ordering Laviolette, our servant, to stand sentry at the
gate, I went out myself, wearing a soldier's helmet and carrying a
musket.  I left orders if I were killed the gates were to be kept shut
and the fort defended.  I hoped the Iroquois would think this a ruse on
my part to draw them within gunshot of our walls.  That was just what
happened, and I got Pierre Fontaine and his family safely inside by
putting a bold face on.  Our whole garrison consisted of my two little
brothers aged about twelve, one servant, two soldiers, one old habitant
aged eighty, and a few women servants.  Strengthened by the Fontaines,
we began firing.  When the sun went down the night set in with a
fearful storm of northeast wind and snow.  I expected the Iroquois
under cover of the storm.  Gathering our people together, I said: "God
has saved us during the day.  Now we must be careful for the night.  To
show you I am not afraid to take my part, I undertake to defend the
fort with the old man and a soldier, who has never fired a gun.  You,
Pierre Fontaine and La Bonte and Galet (the two soldiers), go to the
bastion with the women and children.  If I am taken, never surrender
though I am burnt and cut to pieces before your eyes!  You have nothing
to fear if you will make some show of fight!"

I posted two of my young brothers on one of the bastions, the old man
of eighty on the third, and myself took the fourth.  Despite the
whistling of the wind we kept the cry "All's well," "All's well"
echoing and reechoing from corner to corner.  One would have imagined
the fort was crowded with soldiers, and the Iroquois afterwards
confessed they had been completely deceived; that the vigilance of the
guard kept them from attempting to scale the walls.  About midnight the
sentinel at the gate bastion called out, "Mademoiselle!  I hear
something!"

I saw it was our cattle.

"Let me open the gates," urged the sentry.

"God forbid," said I; "the savages are likely behind, driving the
animals in."

Nevertheless I _did_ open the gates and let the cattle in, my brothers
standing on each side, ready to shoot if an Indian appeared.

At last came daylight; and we were hopeful for aid from Montreal; but
Marguerite Fontaine, being timorous as all Parisian women are, begged
her husband to try and escape.  The poor husband was almost distracted
as she insisted, and he told her he would set her out in the canoe with
her two sons, who could paddle it, but he would not abandon
Mademoiselle in Vercheres.  I had been twenty-four hours without rest
or food, and had not {171} once gone from the bastion.  On the eighth
day of the siege Lieutenant de La Monnerie reached the fort during the
night with forty men.

One of our sentries had called out, "Who goes?"

I was dozing with my head on a table and a musket across my arm.  The
sentry said there were voices on the water.  I called, "Who are you?"

They answered, "French--come to your aid!"

I went down to the bank, saying: "Sir, but you are welcome!  I
surrender my arms to you!"

"Mademoiselle," he answered, "they are in good hands."

I forgot one incident.  On the day of the attack I remembered about one
in the afternoon that our linen was outside the fort, but the soldiers
refused to go out for it.  Armed with our guns, my brothers made two
trips outside the walls for our linen.  The Iroquois must have thought
it a trick to lure them closer, for they did not approach.


It need scarcely be added that brave mothers make brave sons, and it is
not surprising that twenty-five years later, when Madeline Vercheres
had become the wife of M. de La Naudiere, her own life was saved from
Abenaki Indians by her little son, age twelve.

But to return to Count Frontenac, marching up the steep streets of
Quebec to Chateau St. Louis that October evening of 1689, amid the
jubilant shouts of friends and enemies, Jesuit and Recollet, fur trader
and councilor,--the haughty Governor set himself to the task of not
only crushing the Iroquois but invading and conquering the land of the
English, whom he believed had furnished arms to the Iroquois.  Now that
war had been openly declared between England and France, Frontenac was
determined on a campaign of aggression.  He would keep the English so
busy defending their own borders that they would have no time to tamper
with the Indian allies of the French on the Mississippi.


This is one of the darkest pages of Canada's past.  War is not a pretty
thing at any time, but war that lets loose the bloodhounds of Indian
ferocity leaves the blackest scar of all.

There were to be three war parties: one from Quebec to attack the
English settlements around what is now Portland, {172} Maine; a second
from Three Rivers to lay waste the border lands of New Hampshire; a
third from Montreal to assault the English and Dutch of the Upper
Hudson.

The Montrealers set out in midwinter of 1690, a few months after
Frontenac's arrival, led by the Le Moyne brothers, Ste. Helene and
Maricourt and Iberville, with one of the Le Bers, and D'Ailleboust,
nephew of the first D'Ailleboust at Montreal.  The raiders consisted of
some two hundred and fifty men, one hundred Indian converts and one
hundred and fifty bushrovers, hardy, supple, inured to the wilderness
as to native air, whites and Indians dressed alike in blanket coat,
hood hanging down the back, buckskin trousers, beaded moccasins,
snowshoes of short length for forest travel, cased musket on shoulder,
knife, hatchet, pistols, bullet pouch hanging from the sashed belt, and
provisions in a blanket, knapsack fashion, carried on the shoulders.

[Illustration: QUEBEC, 1689]

The woods lay snow padded, silent, somber.  Up the river bed of the
Richelieu, over the rolling drifts, glided the bushrovers.  {173}
Somewhere on the headwaters of the Hudson the Indians demanded what
place they were to attack.  Iberville answered, "Albany."  "Humph,"
grunted the Indians with a dry smile at the camp fire, "since _when_
have the French become so brave?"  A midwinter thaw now turned the
snowy levels to swimming lagoons, where snowshoes were useless, and the
men had to wade knee-deep day after day through swamps of ice water.
Then came one of those sudden changes,--hard frost with a blinding
snowstorm.  Where the trail forked for Albany and Schenectady it was
decided to follow the latter, and about four o'clock in the afternoon,
on the 8th of February, the bush-rovers reached a hut where there
chanced to be several Mohawk squaws.  Crowding round the chimney place
to dry their clothes now stiff with ice, the bushrangers learned from
the Indian women that Schenectady lay completely unguarded.  There had
been some village festival that day among the Dutch settlers.  The
gates at both ends of the town lay wide open, and as if in derision of
danger from the far distant French, a snow man had been mockingly
rolled up to the western gate as sentry, with a sham pipe stuck in his
mouth.  The Indian rangers harangued their braves, urging them to wash
out all wrongs in the blood of the enemy, and the Le Moyne brothers
moved from man to man, giving orders for utter silence.  At eleven that
night, shrouded by the snowfall, the bushrovers reached the palisades
of Schenectady.  They had intended to defer the assault till dawn, but
the cold hastened action, and, uncasing their muskets, they filed
silently past the snow man in the middle of the open gate and encircled
the little village of fifty houses.  When the lines met at the far
gate, completely investing the town, a wild yell rent the air!  Doors
were hacked down.  Indians with tomahawks stood guard outside the
windows, and the dastardly work began,--as gratuitous a butchery of
innocent people as ever the Iroquois perpetrated in their worst raids.
Two hours the massacre lasted, and when it was over the French had, to
their everlasting discredit, murdered in cold blood thirty-eight men
(among them the poor inoffensive dominie), ten women, {174} twelve
children; and the victors held ninety captives.  To the credit of
Iberville he offered life to one Glenn and his family, who had aided in
ransoming many French from the Iroquois, and he permitted this man to
name so many friends that the bloodthirsty Indians wanted to know if
all Schenectady were related to this white man.  One other house in the
town was spared,--that of a widow with five children, under whose roof
a wounded Frenchman lay.  For the rest, Schenectady was reduced to
ashes, the victors harnessing the Dutch farmers' horses to carry off
the plunder.  Of the captives, twenty-seven men and boys were carried
back to Quebec.  The other captives, mainly women and children, were
given to the Indians.  Forty livres for every human scalp were paid by
the Sovereign Council of Quebec to the raiders.

[Illustration: FRENCH SOLDIER OF THE PERIOD]

The record of the raiders led from Three Rivers by Francois Hertel was
almost the same.  Setting out in January, he was followed by
twenty-five French and twenty-five Indians to the border lands between
Maine and New Hampshire.  The end of March saw the bushrovers outside
the little village of Salmon Falls.  Thirty inhabitants were tomahawked
on the spot, the houses burned, and one hundred prisoners carried off;
but news had gone like wildfire to neighboring settlements, and Hertel
was pursued by two hundred Englishmen.  He placed his bushrovers on a
small bridge across Wooster River and here held the pursuers at bay
till darkness enabled him to escape.

But the darkest deed of infamy was perpetrated by the third band of
raiders,--a deed that reveals the glories of war as they {175} exist,
stripped of pageantry.  Portneuf had led the raiders from Quebec, and
he was joined by that famous leader of the Abenaki Indians, Baron de
Saint-Castin, from the border lands between Acadia and Maine.  Later,
when Hertel struck through the woods with some of his followers,
Portneuf's men numbered five hundred.  With these he attacked Fort
Loyal, or what is now Portland, Maine, in the month of June.  The fort
boasted eight great guns and one hundred soldiers.  Under cover of the
guns Lieutenant Clark and thirty men sallied out to reconnoiter the
attacking forces ambushed in woods round a pasturage.  At a musket
crack the English were literally cut to pieces, four men only escaping
back to the fort.  The French then demanded unconditional surrender.
The English asked six days to consider.  In six days English vessels
would have come to the rescue.  Secure, under a bluff of the ocean
cliff, from the cannon fire of the fort, the French began to trench an
approach to the palisades.  Combustibles had been placed against the
walls, when the English again asked a parley, offering to surrender if
the French would swear by the living God to conduct them in safety to
the nearest English post.  To these conditions the French agreed.
Whether they could not control their Indian allies or had not intended
to keep the terms matters little.  The English had no sooner marched
from the fort than, with a wild whoop, the Indians fell on men, women,
and children.  Some were killed by a single blow, others reserved for
the torture stake.  Only four Englishmen survived the onslaught, to be
carried prisoners to Quebec.

The French had been victorious on all three raids; but they were
victories over which posterity will never boast, which no writer dare
describe in all the detail of their horrors, and which leave a black
blot on the escutcheon of Canada.


It was hardly to be expected that the New England colonies would let
such raids pass unpunished.  The destruction of Schenectady had been
bad enough.  The massacre of Salmon Falls caused the New Englanders to
forget their jealousies for the once and to unite in a common cause.
All the colonies agreed {176} to contribute men, ships, and money to
invade New France by land and sea.  The land forces were placed under
Winthrop and Schuyler; but as smallpox disorganized the expedition
before it reached Lake Champlain, the attack by land had little other
effect than to draw Frontenac from Quebec down to Montreal, where
Captain Schuyler, with Dutch bushmen, succeeded in ravaging the
settlements and killing at least twenty French.

The expedition by sea was placed under Sir William Phips of
Massachusetts,--a man who was the very antipodes of Frontenac.  One of
a poor family of twenty-six children, Phips had risen from being a
shepherd boy in Maine to the position of ship's carpenter in Boston.
Here, among the harbor folk, he got wind of a Spanish treasure ship
containing a million and a half dollars' worth of gold, which had been
sunk off the West Indies.  Going to England, Phips succeeded in
interesting that same clique of courtiers who helped Radisson to
establish the Hudson's Bay Company,--Albemarle and Prince Rupert and
the King; and when, with the funds which they advanced, Phips succeeded
in raising the treasure vessel, he received, in addition to his share
of the booty, a title and the appointment as governor of Massachusetts.

[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM PHIPS]

Here, then, was the daring leader chosen to invade New France.  Phips
sailed first for Port Royal, which had in late years become infested
with French pirates, preying on Boston commerce.  Word had just come of
the fearful massacres of {177} colonists at Portland.  Boston was
inflamed with a spirit of vengeance.  The people had appointed days of
fasting and prayer to invoke Heaven's blessing on their war.  When
Phips sailed into Annapolis Basin with his vessels and seven hundred
men in the month of May, he found the French commander, Meneval, ill of
the gout, with a garrison of about eighty soldiers, but all the cannon
chanced to be dismounted.  The odds against the French did not permit
resistance.  Meneval stipulated for an honorable surrender,--all
property to be respected and the garrison to be sent to some French
port; but no sooner were the English in possession than, like the
French at Portland, they broke the pledge.  There was no massacre as in
Maine, but plunderers ran riot, seizing everything on which hands could
be laid, ransacking houses and desecrating the churches; and sixty of
the leading people, including Meneval and the priests, were carried off
as prisoners.  Leaving one English flag flying, Phips sailed home.

Indignation at Boston had been fanned to fury, for now all the details
of the butchery at Portland were known; and Phips found the colony
mustering a monster expedition to attack the very stronghold of French
power,--Quebec itself.  England could afford no aid to her colonies,
but thirty-two merchant vessels and frigates had been impressed into
the service, some of them carrying as many as forty-four cannon.
Artisans, sailors, soldiers, clerks, all classes had volunteered as
fighters, to the number of twenty-five hundred men; but there was one
thing lacking,--they had no pilot who knew the St. Lawrence.  Full of
confidence born of inexperience, the fleet set sail on the 9th of
August, commanded again by Phips.

Time was wasted ravaging the coasts of Gaspe, holding long-winded
councils of war, arguing in the commander's stateroom instead of
drilling on deck.  Three more weeks were wasted poking about the lower
St. Lawrence, picking up chance vessels off Tadoussac and Anticosti.
Among the prize vessels taken near Anticosti was one of Jolliet's,
bearing his wife and mother-in-law.  The ladies delighted the hearts of
the Puritans by the {178} news that not more than one hundred men
garrisoned Quebec; but Phips was reckoning without his host, and his
host was Frontenac.  Besides, it was late in the season--the middle of
October--before the English fleet rounded the Island of Orleans and
faced the Citadel of Quebec.

[Illustration: COUNT FRONTENAC  (From a statue at Quebec)]

Indians had carried word to the city that an Englishwoman, taken
prisoner in their raids, had told them more than thirty vessels had
sailed from Boston to invade New France.  Frontenac was absent in
Montreal.  Quickly the commander at Quebec sent coureurs with warning
to Frontenac, and then set about casting up barricades in the narrow
streets that led from Lower to Upper Town.

Frontenac could not credit the news.  Had he not heard here in Montreal
from Indian coureurs how the English overland expedition lay rotting of
smallpox near Lake Champlain, such pitiable objects that the Iroquois
refused to join them against the French?  New France now numbered a
population of twelve thousand and could muster three thousand fighting
men; and though the English colonies numbered twenty {179} thousand
people, how could they, divided by jealousies, send an invading army of
twenty-seven hundred, as the rumor stated?  Frontenac, grizzled old
warrior, did not credit the news, but, all the same, he set out amid
pelting rains by boat for Quebec.  Half-way to Three Rivers more
messengers brought him word that the English fleet were now advancing
from Tadoussac.  He sent back orders for the commander at Montreal to
rush the bush-rovers down to Quebec, and he himself arrived at the
Citadel just as the Le Moyne brothers anchored below Cape Diamond from
a voyage to Hudson Bay.  Maricourt Le Moyne reported how he had escaped
past the English fleet by night, and it would certainly be at Quebec by
daybreak.

Scouts rallied the bushrangers on both sides of the St. Lawrence to
Quebec's aid.  Frontenac bade them guard the outposts and not desert
their hamlets, while Ste. Helene and the other Le Moynes took command
of the sharpshooters in Lower Town, scattering them in hiding along the
banks of the St. Charles and among the houses facing the St. Lawrence
below Castle St. Louis.

Sure enough, at daybreak on Monday, October 16, sail after sail,
thirty-four in all, rounded the end of Orleans Island and took up
position directly opposite Quebec City.  It was a cold, wet autumn
morning.  Fog and rain alternately chased in gray shadows across the
far hills, and above the mist of the river loomed ominous the red-gray
fort which the English had come to capture.  Castle St. Louis stood
where Chateau Frontenac stands to-day; and what is now the promenade of
a magnificent terrace was at that time a breastwork of cannon extending
on down the sloping hill to the left as far as the ramparts.  In fact,
the cannon of that period were more dangerous than they are to-day, for
long-range missiles have rendered old-time fortifications adapted for
close-range fighting almost useless; and the cannon of Upper Town,
Quebec, that October morning swept the approach to three sides of the
fort, facing the St. Charles, opposite Point Levis and the St.
Lawrence, where it curves back on itself; and the fourth side was sheer
wall--invulnerable.

{180} With a rattling of anchor chains and a creaking of masts the
great sails of the English fleet were lowered, and a little boat put
out at ten o'clock under flag of truce to meet a boat half-way from
Lower Town.  Phips' messenger was conducted blindfold up the barricaded
streets leading to Castle St. Louis; and the gunners had been
instructed to clang their muskets on the stones to give the impression
of great numbers.  Suddenly the bandage was taken from the man's eyes
and he found himself in a great hall, standing before the august
presence of Frontenac, surrounded by a circle of magnificently dressed
officers.  The New Englander delivered his message,--Phips' letter
demanding surrender: "_Your prisoners, your persons, your estates . . .
and should you refuse, I am resolved by the help of God, in whom I
trust, to revenge by force of arms all our wrongs_." . . .  As the
reading of the letter was finished the man looked up to see an insolent
smile pass round the faces of Frontenac's officers, one of whom
superciliously advised hanging the bearer of such insolence without
waste of time.  The New Englander pulled out his watch and signaled
that he must have Frontenac's answer within an hour.  The haughty old
Governor pretended not to see the motion, and then, with a smile like
ice, made answer in {181} words that have become renowned: "I shall not
keep you waiting so long!  Tell your General I do not recognize King
William!  I know no king of England but King James!  Does your General
suppose that these brave gentlemen"--pointing to his officers--"would
consent to trust a man who broke his word at Port Royal?"

[Illustration: CASTLE ST. LOUIS]

As the shout of applause died away, the trembling New Englander asked
Frontenac if he would put his answer in writing.

"No," thundered the old Governor, never happier than when fighting, "I
will answer your General with my cannon!  I shall teach him that a man
of my rank"--with covert sneer at Phips' origin, "is not to be summoned
in such rude fashion!  Let him do his best!  I shall do mine!"

It was now the turn of the English to be amazed.  This was not the
answer they had expected from a fort weakly garrisoned by a hundred
men.  If they had struck and struck quickly, they might yet have won
the day; but all Monday passed in futile arguments and councils of war,
and on Tuesday, the 17th, towards night, was heard wild shouting within
Quebec walls.

[Illustration: ATTACK ON QUEBEC, 1690]

"My faith, Messieurs!" exclaimed one of the French prisoners aboard
Phips' ship; "now you _have_ lost your chance!  Those {182} are the
coureurs de bois from Montreal and the bushrovers of the Pays d'en
Haut, eight hundred strong."

The news at last spurred Phips to action.  All that night the people of
Quebec could hear the English drilling, and shouting "_God save King
William_!" with beat of drum and trumpet calls that set the echoes
rolling from Cape Diamond; and on the 18th small boats landed fourteen
hundred men to cross the St. Charles River and assault the Lower Town,
while the four largest ships took up a position to cannonade the city.
It was four in the afternoon before the soldiers had been landed amid
peppering bullets from the Le Moyne bushrovers.  Only a few cannon
shots were fired, and they did no damage but to kill an urchin of the
Upper Town.

Firing began in earnest on the morning of October 19.  The river was
churned to fury and the reverberating echoes set the rocks crashing
from Cape Diamond, but it was almost impossible for the English to
shoot high enough to damage the upper fort.  It was easy for the French
to shoot down, and great wounds gaped from the hull of Phips' ship,
while his masts went over decks in flame, flag and all.  The tide
drifted the admiral's flag on shore.  The French rowed out, secured the
prize, and a jubilant shout roared from Lower Town, to be taken up and
echoed and reechoed from the Castle!  For two more days bombs roared in
midair, plunging through the roofs of houses in Lower Town or
ricochetting back harmless from the rock wall below Castle St. Louis.
At the St. Charles the land forces were fighting blindly to effect a
crossing, but the Le Moyne bushrovers lying in ambush repelled every
advance, though Ste. Helene had fallen mortally wounded.  On the
morning of the 21st the French could hardly believe their senses.  The
land forces had vanished during the darkness of a rainy night, and ship
after ship, sail after sail, was drifting downstream--was it
possible?--in retreat.  Another week's bombarding would have reduced
Quebec to flame and starvation; but another week would have exposed
Phips' fleet to wreckage from winter weather, and he had drifted down
to Isle Orleans, where the {183} dismantled fleet paused to rig up
fresh masts.  It was Madame Jolliet who suggested to the Puritan
commander an exchange of the prisoners captured at Port Royal with the
English from Maine and New Hampshire held in Quebec.  She was sent
ashore by Phips and the exchange was arranged.  Winter gales assailed
the English fleet as it passed Anticosti, and what with the wrecked and
wounded, Phips' loss totaled not less than a thousand men.

[Illustration: CASTLE ST. LOUIS, QUEBEC]

Frontenac had been back in Canada only a year, and in that time he had
restored the prestige of French power in America.  The Iroquois were
glad to sue for peace, and his bitterest enemies, the Jesuits, joined
the merrymakers round the bonfires of acclaim kindled in the old
Governor's honor as the English retreated, and the joy bells pealed
out, and processions surged shouting through the streets of Quebec!
From Hudson Bay to the Mississippi, from the St. Lawrence to Lake
Superior and the land of the Sioux, French power reigned supreme.  Only
Port Nelson, high up on the west coast of Hudson Bay, remained
unsubdued, draining the furs of the prairie tribes to England away from
Quebec.  Iberville had captured it in the fall of 1694, at the cost of
his brother Chateauguay's life; but when Iberville departed from Hudson
Bay, English men-of-war had come out in 1696 and wrested back this most
valuable of all the fur posts.  It was now determined to drive the
English forever from Hudson Bay.  Le Moyne d'Iberville was chosen for
the task.


April, 1697, Serigny Le Moyne was dispatched from France with five
men-of-war to be placed under the command of Iberville at Placentia,
Newfoundland, whence he was "to proceed {184} to Hudson Bay and to
leave not a vestige of the English in the North."  The frigates left
Newfoundland July 8.  Three weeks later they were crushing through the
ice jam of Hudson Straits.  Iberville commanded the _Pelican_ with two
hundred and fifty men.  Bienville, a brother, was on the same ship.
Serigny commanded the _Palmier_, and there were three other frigates,
the _Profound_, the _Violent_, the _Wasp_.  Ice locked round the fleet
at the west end of Hudson Straits, and fog lay so thick there was
nothing visible of any ship but the masthead.  For eighteen days they
lay, crunched and rammed and separated by the ice drive, till on August
25, early in the morning, the fog suddenly lifted.  Iberville saw that
Serigny's ship had been carried back {185} in the straits.  The _Wasp_
and _Violent_ were not to be seen, but straight ahead, locked in the
ice, stood the _Profound_, and beside the French vessel three English
frigates, the _Hampshire_, the _Deering_, the _Hudson's Bay_, on their
annual voyage to Nelson!  A lane of water opened before Iberville.
Like a bird the _Pelican_ spread her wings to the wind and fled.

[Illustration: PLAN OF QUEBEC (after Franquelin, 1683)]

September 3 Iberville sighted Port Nelson, and for two days cruised the
offing, scanning the sea for the rest of his fleet.  Early on September
5 the sails of three vessels heaved and rose above the watery horizon.
Never doubting these were his own ships, Iberville signaled.  There was
no answer.  A sailor scrambled to the masthead and shouted down
terrified warning.  These were not the French ships!  They were the
English frigates bearing straight down on the single French vessel
commanded by Iberville!

On one side was the enemy's fort, on the other the enemy's fleet coming
over the waves before a clipping wind, all sails set.  Of Iberville's
crew forty men were ill of scurvy.  Twenty-five had gone ashore to
reconnoiter.  He had left one hundred and fifty fighting men.  Amid a
rush of orders, ropes were stretched across decks for handhold, cannon
were unplugged, and the batterymen below decks stripped themselves for
the hot work ahead.  The soldiers assembled on decks, sword in hand,
and the Canadian bushrovers stood to the fore, ready to leap across the
enemy's decks.

By nine in the morning the ships were abreast, and roaring cannonades
from the English cut the decks of the _Pelican_ to kindling wood and
set the masts in flame.  At the same instant one fell blast of musketry
mowed down forty French; but Iberville's batterymen below decks had now
ceased to pour a stream of fire into the English hulls.  The odds were
three to one, and for four hours the battle raged, the English shifting
and sheering to lock in death grapple, Iberville's sharpshooters
peppering the decks of the foe.

It had turned bitterly cold.  The blood on the decks became ice, and
each roll of the sea sent wounded and dead weltering {186} from rail to
rail.  Such holes had been torn in the hulls of both English and French
ships that the gunners below decks were literally looking into each
other's smoke-grimmed faces.  Suddenly all hands paused.  A frantic
scream cleft the air.  The vessels were careening in a tempestuous sea,
for the great ship _Hampshire_ had refused to answer to the wheel, had
lurched, had sunk,--sunk swift as lead amid hiss of flames into the
roaring sea!  Not a soul of her two hundred and fifty men escaped.  The
frigate _Hudson's Bay_ surrendered and the _Deering_ fled.  Iberville
was victor.

[Illustration: LANDING OF IBERVILLE'S MEN AT PORT NELSON  (After La
Potherie)]

But a storm now broke in hurricane gusts over the sea.  Iberville
steered for land, but waves drenched the wheel at every wash, and,
driving before the storm, the _Pelican_ floundered in the sands a few
miles from Nelson.  All lifeboats had been shot away.  In such a sea
the Canadian canoes were useless.  The shattered masts were tied in
four-sided racks.  To these {187} Iberville had the wounded bound, and
the crew plunged for the shore.  Eighteen men perished going ashore in
the darkness.  On land were two feet of snow.  No sooner did the French
castaways build fires to warm their benumbed limbs than bullets
whistled into camp.  Governor Bayly of Port Nelson had sent out his
sharpshooters.  Luckily Iberville's other ships now joined him, and,
mustering his forces, the dauntless French leader marched against the
fort.  Storm had permitted the French to land their cannon undetected.
Trenches were cast up, and three times Serigny Le Moyne was sent to
demand surrender.

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF FORT NELSON BY THE FRENCH  (After La
Potherie)]

"The French are desperate," he urged.  "They must take the fort or
perish of want, and if you continue the fight there will be no mercy
given."

The Hudson's Bay people capitulated and were permitted to march out
with arms, bag and baggage.  An English ship carried the refugees home
to the Thames.

The rest of Iberville's career is the story of colonizing the
Mississippi.  He was granted a vast seigniory on the Bay of {188}
Chaleur, and in 1699 given a title.  On his way from the Louisiana
colony to France his ship had paused at Havana.  Here Iberville
contracted yellow fever and died while yet in the prime of his manhood,
July 9, 1706.

After the victory on Hudson Bay the French were supreme in America and
Frontenac supreme in New France.  The old white-haired veteran of a
hundred wars became the idol of Quebec.  Friends and enemies, Jesuits
and Recollets, paid tribute to his worth.  In November of 1698 the
Governor passed from this life in Castle St. Louis at the good old age
of seventy-eight.  He had demonstrated--demonstrated in action so that
his enemies acknowledged the fact--that the sterner virtues of the
military chieftain go farther towards the making of great nationhood
than soft sentiments and religious emotionalism.




{189}

CHAPTER X

FROM 1698 TO 1713

Petty regulations and blue laws--Massacre of Deerfield--Madame
Freneuse, the painter lady--"Old Wooden Sword"--Subercase at Port
Royal--Paul Mascarene's plight--Court dandies cause naval disaster


While Frontenac was striking terror into the heart of New England with
his French Canadian bushrovers, the life of the people went on in the
same grooves.  Spite of a dozen raids on the Iroquois cantons, there
was still danger from the warriors of the Mohawk, but the Iroquois
braves had found a new stamping ground.  Instead of attacking Canada
they now crossed westward to war on the allies of the French, the
tribes of the Illinois and the Mississippi; and with them traveled
their liege friends, English traders from New York and Pennsylvania and
Virginia.

The government of Canada continued to be a despotism, pure and simple.
The Supreme Council, consisting of the governor, the intendant, the
bishop, and at different times from three to twelve councilors, stood
between the people and the King of France, transmitting the King's will
to the people, the people's wants to the King; and the laws enacted by
the council ranged all the way from criminal decrees to such petty
regulations as a modern city wardman might pass.  Laws enacted to meet
local needs, but subject to the veto of an absent ruler, who knew
absolutely nothing of local needs, exhibited all the absurdities to be
expected.  The King of France desires the Sovereign Council to
discourage the people from using horses, which are supposed to cause
laziness, as "it is needful the inhabitants keep up their snowshoe
travel so necessary in their wars."  "If in two years the numbers of
horses do not decrease, they are to be killed for meat."  Then comes a
law that reflects the presence of the bishop at the governing board.
Horses have become the pride of the country beaux, and the gay
be-ribboned carrioles are the distraction of the village cure.  "Men
are forbidden to gallop their horses within a third of a mile from the
church on {190} Sundays."  New laws, regulations, arrests, are
promulgated by the public crier, "crying up and down the highway to
sound of trumpet and drum," chest puffed out with self-importance, gold
braid enough on the red-coated regalia to overawe the simple habitants.
Though the companies holding monopoly over trade yearly change,
monopoly is still all-powerful in New France,--so all pervasive that in
1741, in order to prevent smuggling to defraud the Company of the
Indies, it is enacted that "people using chintz-covered furniture" must
upholster their chairs so that the stamp "La Cie des Indes" will be
visible to the inspector.  The matter of money is a great trouble to
New France.  Beaver is coin of the realm on the St. Lawrence, and
though this beaver is paid for in French gold, the precious metal
almost at once finds its way back to France for goods; so that the
colony is without coin.  Government cards are issued as coin, but as
Europe will not accept card money, the result is that gold still flows
from New France, and the colony is flooded with paper money worthless
away from Quebec.

As of old, the people may still plead their own cases in lawsuits
before the Sovereign Council, but now the privileges of caste and class
and feudalism begin to be felt, and it is enacted that gentlemen may
plead their own cases before the council only "when wearing their
swords."  Young men are urged to qualify as notaries.  In addition to
the title of "Sieur," baronies are created in Canada, foremost among
them that of the Le Moynes of Montreal.  The feudal seignior now has
his coat of arms emblazoned on the church pew where he worships, on his
coach door, and on the stone entrance to his mansion.  The habitants
are compelled to grind their wheat at his mill, to use his great bake
oven, to patronize his tannery.  The seigniorial mansion itself is
taking on more of pomp.  Cherry and mahogany furniture have replaced
homemade, and the rough-cast walls are now covered with imported
tapestries.

Not gently does the Sovereign Council deal with delinquents.  In 1735
it is enacted of a man who suicided, "that the corpse be tied to a
cart, dragged on a hurdle, head down, face to ground, {191} through the
streets of the town, to be hung up by the feet, an object of derision,
then cast into the river in default of a cesspool."  Criminals who
evade punishment by flight are to be hanged in effigy.  Montreal
citizens are ordered to have their chimneys cleaned every month and
their houses provided with ladders.  Also "the inhabitants of Montreal
must not allow their pigs to run in the street," and they "are
forbidden to throw snowballs at each other," and--a regulation which
people who know Montreal winters will appreciate--"they are ordered to
make paths through the snow before their houses,"--to all of which
petty regulations did royalty subscribe sign manual.

[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY MAP (after La Hontan, 1689) (The line shows
the French idea of the territory under English control)]


The Treaty of Ryswick closed the war between France and England the
year before Frontenac died, but it was not known in Canada till 1698.
As far as Canada was concerned it was no peace, barely a truce.  Each
side was to remain in possession of what it held at the time of the
treaty, which meant that France retained all Hudson Bay but one small
fort.  Though the English of Boston had captured Port Royal, they had
left {192} no sign of possession but their flag flying over the
tenantless barracks.  The French returned from the woods, tore the flag
down, and again took possession; so that, by the Treaty of Ryswick,
Acadia too went back under French rule.

Indeed, matters were worse than before the treaty, for there could be
no open war; but when English settlers spreading up from Maine met
French traders wandering down from Acadia, there was the inevitable
collision, and it was an easy trick for the rivals to stir up the
Indians to raid and massacre and indiscriminate butchery.  For Indian
raids neither country would be responsible to the other.  The story
belongs to the history of the New England frontier rather than to the
record of Canada.  It is a part of Canada's past which few French
writers tell and all Canadians would fain blot out, but which the
government records prove beyond dispute.  Indian warfare is not a thing
of grandeur at its best, but when it degenerates into the braining of
children, the bayoneting of women, the mutilation of old men, it is a
horror without parallel; and the amazing thing is that the white men,
who painted themselves as Indians and helped to wage this war, were so
sure they were doing God's work that they used to kneel and pray before
beginning the butchery.  To understand it one has to go back to the
Middle Ages in imagination.  New France was violently Catholic, New
England violently Protestant.  Bigotry ever looks out through eyes of
jaundiced hatred, and in destroying what they thought was a false
faith, each side thought itself instrument of God.  As for the French
governors behind the scenes, who pulled the strings that let loose the
helldogs of Indian war, they were but obeying the kingcraft of a royal
master, who would use Indian warfare to add to his domain.


"The English have sent us presents to drive the Black Gowns away,"
declared the Iroquois in 1702 regarding the French Jesuits.  "You did
well," writes the King of France to his Viceroy in Quebec, "to urge the
Abenakis of Acadia to raid the English of Boston."  The Treaty of
Ryswick became {193} known at Quebec towards the end of 1698.  The
border warfare of ravage and butchery had begun by 1701, the English
giving presents to the Iroquois to attack the French of the Illinois,
the French giving presents to the Abenakis to raid the New England
borders.  Quebec offers a reward of twenty crowns for the scalp of
every white man brought from the English settlements.  New England
retaliates by offering 20 pounds for every Indian prisoner under ten
years of age, 40 pounds for every scalp of full-grown Indian.
Presently the young _noblesse_ of New France are off to the woods,
painted like Indians, leading crews of wild bushrovers on ambuscade and
midnight raid and border foray.

[Illustration: HERTEL DE ROUVILLE]

"We must keep things stirring towards Boston," declared Vaudreuil, the
French governor.  Midwinter of 1704 Hertel de Rouville and his four
brothers set out on snowshoes with fifty-one bushrovers and two hundred
Indians for Massachusetts.  Dressed in buckskin, with musket over
shoulder and dagger in belt, the forest rangers course up the frozen
river beds southward of the St. Lawrence, and on over the height of
land towards the Hudson, two hundred and fifty miles through pine woods
snow padded and silent as death.  Two miles from Deerfield the marchers
run short of food.  It is the last day of February, and the sun goes
down over rolling snowdrifts high as the slab stockades of the little
frontier town whose hearth-fire smoke hangs low in the frosty air,
curling and clouding and lighting to rainbow colors as the ambushed
{194} raiders watch from their forest lairs.  Snowshoes are laid aside,
packs unstrapped, muskets uncased and primed, belts reefed tighter.
Twilight gives place to starlight.  Candles on the supper tables of the
settlement send long gleams across the snow.  Then the villagers hold
their family prayers, all unconscious that out there in the woods are
the bushrovers on bended knees, uttering prayers of another sort.
Lights are put out.  The village lies wrapped in sleep.  Still
Rouville's raiders lie waiting, shivering in the snow, till starlight
fades to the gray darkness that precedes dawn.  Then the bushrovers
rise, and at moccasin pace, noiseless as tigers, skim across the snow,
over the drifts, over the tops of the palisades, and have dropped into
the town before a soul has awakened.  There is no need to tell the
rest.  It was not war.  It was butchery.  Children were torn from their
mother's breast to be brained on the hearthstone.  Women were hacked to
pieces.  Houses were set on fire, and before the sun had risen
thirty-eight persons had been slaughtered, and the French rovers were
back on the forest trail, homeward bound with one hundred and six
prisoners.  Old and young, women of frail health and children barely
able to toddle, were hurried along the trail at bayonet point.  Those
whose strength was unequal to the pace were summarily knocked on the
head as they fagged, or failed to ford the ice streams.  Twenty-four
perished by the way.  Of the one hundred and six prisoners scattered as
captives among the Indians, not half were ever heard of again.  The
others were either bought from the Indians by Quebec people, whose pity
was touched, or placed round in the convents to be converted to the
Catholic faith.  These were ultimately redeemed by the government of
Massachusetts.

New England's fury over such a raid in time of peace knew no bounds.
Yet how were the English to retaliate?  To pursue an ambushed Indian
along a forest trail was to follow a vanishing phantom.

From earliest times Boston had kept up trade with Port Royal, and of
late years Port Royal had been infested with French pirates, who raided
Boston shipping.  Colonel Ben {195} Church of Long Island, a noted
bushfighter, of gunpowder temper and form so stout that his men had
always to hoist him over logs in their forest marches, went storming
from New York to Boston with a plan to be revenged by raiding Acadia.

Rouville's bushrovers had burned Deerfield the first of March.  By May,
Church had sailed from Boston with six hundred men on two frigates and
half a hundred whaleboats, on vengeance bent.  First he stopped at
Baron St. Castin's fort in Maine.  St. Castin it was who led the
Indians against the English of Maine.  The baron was absent, but his
daughter was captured, with all the servants, and the fort was burned
to the ground.  Then up Fundy Bay sailed Church, pausing at
Passamaquoddy to knock four Frenchmen on the head; pausing at Port
Royal to take eight men prisoners, kill cattle, ravage fields; pausing
at Basin of Mines to capture forty habitants, burn the church, and cut
the dikes, letting the sea in on the crops; pausing at Beaubassin, the
head of Fundy Bay, in August, to set the yellow wheat fields in flames!
Then he sailed back to Boston with French prisoners enough to insure an
exchange for the English held at Quebec.

No sooner had English sails disappeared over the sea than the French
came out of the woods.  St. Castin rebuilt his fort in Maine.  The
local Governor, who had held on with his gates shut and cannon pointed
while Church ravaged Port Royal village, now strengthened his walls.
Acadia took a breath and went on as before,--a little world in itself,
with the pirate ships slipping in and out, loaded to the water line
with Boston booty; with the buccaneer Basset throwing his gold round
like dust; with the brave soldier Bonaventure losing his head and
losing his heart to the painted lady, Widow Freneuse, who came from
nobody knew where and lived nobody knew how, and plied her mischief of
winning the hearts of other women's husbands.  "She must be sent away,"
thundered the priest from the pulpit, straight at the garrison officer
whose heart she dangled as her trophy.  "She must be sent away,"
thundered the King's mandate; but the King was in France, and Madame
Freneuse {196} wound her charms the tighter round the hearts of the
garrison officers, and bided her time, to the scandal of the parish and
impotent rage of the priest.  Was she vixen or fool, this fair snake
woman with the beautiful face, for whose smile the officers risked
death and disgrace?  Was she spy or adventuress?  She signed herself as
"Widow Freneuse," and had applied to the King for a pension as having
grown sons fighting in the Indian wars.  She will come into this story
again, snakelike and soft-spoken, and appealing for pity, and fair to
look upon, but leaving a trail of blood and treachery and disgrace
where she goes.

The fur trade of Port Royal at this time was controlled by a family
ring of La Tours and Charnisays, descendants of the ancient foes; and
they lived a life of reckless gayety, spiced with all the excitement of
war and privateering and matrimonial intrigue.  Such was life _inside_
Port Royal.  _Outside_ was the quiet peace of a home-loving,
home-staying peasantry.  Few of the farmers could read or write.  The
houses were little square Norman cottages,--"wooden boxes" the
commandant called them,--with the inevitable porch shaded by the fruit
trees now grown into splendid orchards.  By diking out the sea the
peasants farmed the marsh lands and saved themselves the trouble of
clearing the forests.  Trade was carried on with Boston and the West
Indies.  No card money here!  The farmers of Acadia demanded coin in
gold from the privateers who called for cargo, and it is said that in
time of such raids as Colonel Church's, great quantities of this gold
were carried out by night and buried in huge pots,--as much as 5000
louis d'ors (pounds) in one pot,--to be dug up after the raiders had
departed.  Naturally, as raids grew frequent, men sometimes made the
mistake of digging up other men's pots, and one officer lost his
reputation over it.  All his knowledge of the outside world, of
politics, of religion, the Acadian farmer obtained from his parish
priest; and the word of the cure was law.

Encouraged by Church's success and stung by the raids of French
corsairs from Port Royal, New England set herself seriously to the task
of conquering Acadia.  Colonel March sailed {197} from Boston with one
thousand men and twenty-three transports, and on June 6, 1707, came
into Port Royal.  Misfortunes began from the first.  March's men were
the rawest of recruits,--fishermen, farmers, carpenters, turned into
soldiers.  Unused to military discipline, they resisted command.  A
French guardhouse stood at the entrance to Port Royal Basin, and
fifteen men at once fled to the fort with warning of the English
invasion.  Consequently, when Colonel March and Colonel Appleton
attempted to land their men, they were serenaded by the shots of an
ambushed foe.  Also French soldiers deserted to the English camp with
fabulous stories about the strength of the French under Subercase.
These yarns ought to have discredited themselves, but they struck
terror to the hearts of March's green fighters.  Then came St. Castin
from St. John River with bushrovers to help Subercase.  To the
amazement of the French the English hoisted sail and returned, on June
16, without having fired more than a round of shot.  The truth is,
March's carpenters and fishermen refused to fight, though
reenforcements joined them halfway home and they made a second attempt
on Port Royal in August.  March returned to Boston heartbroken, for his
name had become a byword to the mob, and he was greeted in the streets
with shouts of "Old Wooden Sword!"


While Boston was attempting to wreak vengeance on Acadia for the
raiders of Quebec, the bushrovers from the St. Lawrence continued to
scourge the outlying settlements of New England.  To post soldiers on
the frontier was useless.  Wherever there were guards the raiders
simply passed on to some unprotected village, and to have kept soldiers
along the line of the whole frontier would have required a standing
army.  Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, northern New
York,--on the frontier of each reigned perpetual terror.  And the
fiendish work was a paying business to the pagan Indian; for the
Christian white men paid well for all scalps, and ransom money could
always be extorted for captives.  Barely had the Boston raid on Port
Royal failed, when Governor de Vaudreuil of Quebec {198} retaliated by
turning his raiders loose on Haverhill.  The English fleet failed at
Port Royal in June.  By dawn of Sunday, August 29, Hertel de Rouville
had swooped on the English village of Haverhill with one hundred
Canadian bushrovers and one hundred and fifty Indians.  The story of
one raid is the story of all; so this one need not be told.  As the
raiders were discovered at daylight, the people had a chance to defend
themselves, and some of the villagers escaped, the family of one being
hidden by a negro nurse under tubs in the cellar.  Alarm had been
carried to the surrounding settlements, and men rode hot haste in
pursuit of the forty prisoners.  Hertel de Rouville coolly sent back
word, if the pursuers did not desist, all the prisoners would be
scalped and left on the roadside.  Some fifty English had fallen in the
fight, but the French lost fifteen, among them young Jared of
Vercheres, brother of the heroine.

[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY PLAN OF PORT ROYAL BASIN]

The only peace for Massachusetts was the peace that would be a victory,
and again New England girded herself to the task of capturing Acadia.
It was open war now, for the crowns of England and France were at odds.
The troops were commanded by General Francis Nicholson, an English
officer who brought out four war ships and four hundred trained
marines.  There were, besides, thirty-six transports and three thousand
provincial troops, clothed and outfitted by Queen Anne of England.
Sunday, September 24, 1710, the fleet glides majestically into Port
Royal Basin.  That night the wind blew a hurricane and the transport
_Caesar_ went aground with a crash that smashed her timbers to kindling
wood and sent twenty-four men to a watery grave; but General Nicholson
gave the raw provincials no time for panic fright.  Day dawn, Monday,
drums rolling a martial tread, trumpets blowing, bugles setting the
echoes flying, flags blowing to the wind in the morning sun, he
commanded Colonel Vetch to lead the men ashore.  Inside Port Royal's
palisades Subercase, the French commander, had less than three hundred
men, half that number absolutely naked of clothing, and all short of
powder.  There were not provisions to last a month; but, game to his
soul's marrow, as all the warriors of {199} those early days, Subercase
put up a brave fight, sending his bombs singing over the heads of the
English troops in a vain attempt to baffle the landing.  Nicholson
retaliated by moving his bomb ship, light of draught, close to the
French fort and pouring a shower of bombs through the roofs of the
French fort.  Spite of the wreck the night before, by four o'clock
Monday afternoon all the English had landed in perfect order and high
spirits.  Slowly the English forces swung in a circle completely round
the fort.  Again and again, by daylight and dark, Subercase's naked
soldiers rushed, screeching the war whoop, to ambush and stampede the
English line; but Nicholson's regulars stood the fire like rocks, and
the desperate sortie of the French ended in fifty of Subercase's
soldiers deserting en masse to the English.  By Friday Nicholson's guns
were all mounted in place to bombard the little wooden fort.  Subercase
was desperate.  Women and children from the settlement had crowded into
the fort for protection, and were now crazed with fear by the bursting
bombs, while the naked soldiers could be kept on the walls only at the
sword point of their commanding officers.  {200} For two hundred French
to have held out longer against three thousand five hundred English
would have been madness.  Subercase made the presence of the women in
Port Royal an excuse to send a messenger with flag of truce across to
Nicholson, asking the English to take the women under their protection.
Nicholson might well have asked what protection the French raiders had
accorded the women of the New England frontiers; but he sent back
polite answer that "as he was not warring on women and children" he
would receive them in the English camp, meanwhile holding Subercase's
messenger prisoner, as he had entered the English camp without warning,
eyes unbound.  Sunday, October 1, the English bombs again began singing
overhead.  Subercase sends word he will capitulate if given honorable
terms.  For a month the parleying continues.  Then November 13 the
terms are signed on both sides, the English promising to furnish ships
to carry the garrison to some French port and pledging protection to
the people of the settlement.  November 14 the French officers and
their ladies come across to the English camp and breakfast in pomp with
the English commanders.  Seventeen New England captives are hailed
forth from Port Royal dungeons, "all in rags, without shirts, shoes, or
stockings."  On the 16th Nicholson draws his men up in two lines, one
on each side of Port Royal gates, and the two hundred French soldiers
marched out, saluting Nicholson as they passed to the transports.  On
the bridge, halfway out, French officers meet the English officers,
doff helmets, and present the keys to the fort.  For the last time Port
Royal changes hands.  Henceforth it is English, and in gratitude for
the Queen's help Nicholson renamed the place as it is known
to-day,--Annapolis.  Among the raiders capitulating is the famous
bushrover Baron St. Castin of Maine.


When Nicholson returned to Boston all New England went mad with
delight.  Thanksgiving services were held, joy bells rang day and night
for a week, and bonfires blazed on village commons to the gleeful
shoutings of rustic soldiers returned to the home settlements glorified
heroes.

{201}

[Illustration: PAUL MASCARENE]

At Annapolis (Port Royal) Paul Mascarene, a French Huguenot of Boston,
has mounted guard with two hundred and fifty New England volunteers.
Colonel Vetch is nominally the English governor; but Vetch is in Boston
the most of the time, and it is on Mascarene the burden of governing
falls.  His duties are not light.  Palisades have been broken down and
must be repaired.  Bombs have torn holes in the fort roofs, and all
that winter the rain leaks in as through a sieve.  The soldier
volunteers grumble and mope and sicken.  And these are not the least of
Paul Mascarene's troubles.  French priests minister to the Acadian
farmers outside the fort, to the sinister Indians ever lying in ambush,
to the French bushrovers under young St. Castin across Fundy Bay on St.
John River.  Not for love or money can Mascarene buy provisions from
the Acadians.  Not by threats can he compel them to help mend the
breaches in the palisades.  The young commandant was only twenty-seven
years of age, but he must have guessed whence came the unspoken
hostility.  The first miserable winter wears slowly past and the winter
of 1711 is setting in, with the English garrison even more poverty
stricken than the year before, when there drifts into Annapolis Basin,
in a birch canoe paddled by a New Brunswick Indian, a white woman with
her little son.  She has come, she says, from the north side of Fundy
Bay, because the French {202} on St. John River are starving.  Whether
the story be true or false matters little.  It was the Widow Freneuse,
the snake woman of mischief-making witchery, who had woven her spells
round the officers in the days of the French at Port Royal.  True or
false, her story, added to her smile, excited sympathy, and she was
welcomed to the shelter of the fort.  It had been almost impossible for
the English to obtain trees to repair the walls of the fort, and
seventy English soldiers were sent out secretly by night to paddle up
the river in a whaleboat for timber.  Who conveyed secret warning of
this expedition to the French bushraiders outside?  No doubt the fair
spy, Widow Freneuse, could have told if she would; but five miles from
Port Royal, where the river narrowed to a place ever since known as
Bloody Brook, a crash of musket shots flared from the woods on each
side.  Painted Indians, and Frenchmen dressed as Indians, among whom
was a son of Widow Freneuse, dashed out.  Sixteen English were killed,
nine wounded, the rest to a man captured, to be held for ransoms
ranging from 10 pounds to 50 pounds.  Oddly enough, the very night
after the attack, before news of it had come to Annapolis, the Widow
Freneuse disappears from the fort.  Henceforth Paul Mascarene's men
kept guard night and day, and slept in their boots.  Ever like a
sinister shadow of evil moved St. Castin and his raiders through the
Acadian wildwoods.

Only one thing prevented the French recapturing Port Royal at this
time.  All troops were required to defend Quebec itself from invasion.


Nicholson's success at Port Royal spurred England and her American
colonies to a more ambitious project,--to capture Quebec and subjugate
Canada.  This time Nicholson was to head twenty-five hundred provincial
troops by way of Lake Champlain to the St. Lawrence, while a British
army of twelve thousand, half soldiers, half marines, on fifteen
frigates and forty-six transports, was to sail from Boston for Quebec.
The navy was under command of Sir Hovender Walker; the army, of General
Jack Hill, a court favorite of Queen Anne's, more noted for {203} his
graces than his prowess.  The whole expedition is one of the most
disgraceful in the annals of English war.  The fleet left Boston on
July 30, 1711, Nicholson meanwhile waiting encamped on Lake Champlain.
Early in August the immense fleet had rounded Sable Island and was off
the shores of Anticosti.  Though there was no good pilot on board, the
two commanders nightly went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.
Off Egg Islands, on the night of August 22, there was fog and a strong
east wind.  Walker evidently thought he was near the south shore,
ignorant of the strong undertow of the tide here, which had carried his
ships thirty miles off the course.  The water was rolling in the lumpy
masses of a choppy cross sea when a young captain of the regulars
dashed breathlessly into Walker's stateroom and begged him "for the
Lord's sake to come on deck, for there are reefs ahead and we shall all
be lost!"

With a seaman's laugh at a landsman's fears, the Admiral donned
dressing gown and slippers and shuffled up to the decks.  A pale moon
had broken through the ragged fog wrack, and through the white light
they plainly saw mountainous breakers straight ahead.  Walker shouted
to let the anchor go and drive to the wind.  Above the roar of breakers
and trample of panic-stricken seamen over decks could be heard the
minute guns of the other ships firing for help.  Then pitch darkness
fell with slant rains in a deluge.  The storm abated, but all night
long, above the boom of an angry sea, could be heard shrieks and
shoutings for help; and by the light of the Admiral's ship could be
seen the faces of the dead cast up by the moil of the sea.  Before dawn
eight transports had suffered shipwreck and one thousand lives were
lost.

It was a night to put fear in the hearts of all but very brave men, and
neither Walker nor Hill proved man enough to stand firm to the shock.
Walker ascribed the loss to the storm and the storm to Providence; and
when war council was held three days later Jack Hill, the court dandy,
was only too glad of excuse to turn tail and flee to England without
firing a gun.  Poor old Nicholson, waiting with his provincials up on
Lake Champlain, {204} goes into apoplexy with tempests of rage and
chagrin, when he hears the news, stamping the ground, tearing off his
wig, and shouting, "Rogues! rogues!"  He burns his fort and disbands
his men.

The Peace of Utrecht in 1713 for the time closed the war.  France had
been hopelessly defeated in Europe, and the terms were favorable to
England.

All of Hudson Bay was to be restored to the English; but--note well--it
was not specified where the boundaries were to be between Hudson Bay
and Quebec.  That boundary dispute came down as a heritage to modern
days--thanks to the incompetency and ignorance of the statesmen who
arranged the treaty.

Acadia was given to England, but Cape Breton was retained by the
French, and--note well--it was not stated whether Acadia included New
Brunswick and Maine, as the French formerly contended, or included only
the peninsula south of the Bay of Fundy.  That boundary dispute, too,
came down.

Newfoundland was acknowledged as an English possession, but the French
retained the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, with fishing
privileges on the shores of Newfoundland.  That concession, too, has
come down to trouble modern days,--thanks to the same defenders of
colonial interests.

The Iroquois were acknowledged to be subjects of England, but it was
not stated whether that concession included the lands of the Ohio
raided and subjugated by the Iroquois; and that vagueness was destined
to cost both New France and New England some of its best blood.


It has been stated, and stated many times without dispute, that when
England sacrificed the interests of her colonies in boundary
settlements, she did so because she was in honor bound to observe the
terms of treaties.  One is constrained to ask whose ignorance was
responsible for the terms of those treaties.

Looking back on the record so far,--both of France and England,--which
has spent the more both of substance and of life for defense; the
mother countries or the colonies?




{205}

CHAPTER XI

FROM 1713 TO 1755

La Verendrye's adventuring to the West--Adventurers reach Lake
Winnipeg--From Assiniboine to Missouri--Intrigue with Indians--The
building of Louisburg--The siege of the great fort--Jokes bandied by
fighters--Quarrels left unsettled--Beyond the Alleghenies--Washington
and Jumonville--Braddock's march--Defeat of Braddock--Abbe Le
Loutre--The Acadians--Deportation of French--At Lake Champlain--Dieskau
defeated


What with clandestine raids and open wars, it might be thought that the
little nation of New France had vent enough for the buoyant energy of
its youth.  While the population of the English colonies was nearing
the million mark, New France had not 60,000 inhabitants by 1759.  Yet
what had the little nation, whose mainspring was at Quebec,
accomplished?  Look at the map!  Her bushrovers had gone overland to
Hudson Bay far north as Nelson.  Before 1700 Duluth had forts at
Kaministiquia (near modern Fort Williams) on Lake Superior.  Radisson,
Marquette, Jolliet, and La Salle had blazed a trail to the Mississippi
from what is now Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.  By 1701 La Motte
Cadillac had built what is now Detroit in order to stop the progress of
the English traders up the lakes to Michilimackinac; and by 1727 the
Company of the Sioux had forts far west as Lake Pepin.  With Quebec as
the hub of the wheel, draw spokes across the map of North America.
Where do they reach?  From Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, to the
Missouri, to the Upper Mississippi, to Lake Superior, to Hudson Bay.
Who blazed the way through these far pathless wilds?  Nameless
wanderers dressed in rags and tatters,--outcasts of society, forest
rovers lured by the Unknown as by a siren, soldiers of fortune,
penniless, in debt, heartbroken, slandered, persecuted, driven by the
demon of their own genius to earth's ends,--and to ruin!

Spite of clandestine raids and open wars, New France was now setting
herself to stretch the lines of her discoveries farther westward.


It will be remembered it was at Three Rivers that the Indians of the Up
Country paused on their way down the St. Lawrence.  {206} From the days
of Radisson in 1660 the passion for discovery had been in the very air
of Three Rivers.  In this little fort was born in 1686 Pierre Gaultier
Varennes de La Verendrye, son of a French officer.  From childhood the
boy's ear must have been accustomed to the uncouth babblings of the
half-naked Indians, whose canoes came swarming down the river soon as
ice broke up in spring.  One can guess that in his play the boy many a
time simulated Indian voyageur, bushrover, coming home clad in furs,
the envy of the villagers.  At fourteen young Pierre had decided that
he would be a great explorer, but destiny for the time ruled otherwise.
At eighteen he was among the bushraiders of New England.  Nineteen
found him fighting the English in Newfoundland.  Then came the honor
coveted by all Canadian boys,--an appointment to the King's army in
Europe.  Young La Verendrye was among the French forces defeated by the
great Marlborough; but the Peace of Utrecht sent him back to Canada,
aged twenty-seven, to serve in the far northern fur post of Nepigon,
eating his heart out with ambition.

It was here the dreams of his childhood emerged like a commanding
destiny.  Old Indian chief Ochagach drew maps on birch bark of a trail
to the Western Sea.  La Verendrye took canoe for Quebec, and, with
heart beating to the passion of a secret ambition, laid the drawings
before Governor Beauharnois.  He came just in the nick of time.
English traders were pressing westward.  New France lent ready ear for
schemes of wider empire.  The court could grant no money for
discoveries, but it gave La Verendrye permission for a voyage and
monopoly in furs over the lands he might discover; but the lands must
be found before there would be furs, and here began the mundane worries
of La Verendrye's glory.

Montreal merchants outfitted him, but that meant debt; and his little
party of fifty grizzled woodrovers set out with their ninety-foot birch
canoes from Montreal on June 8, 1731.  Three sons were in his party and
a nephew, Jemmeraie, from the Sioux country of the west.  Every foot
westward had been consecrated by heroism to set the pulse of
red-blooded men jumping.  There {207} was the seigniory of La Chine,
named in derision of La Salle's project to find a path to China.  There
was the Long Sault, where Dollard had fought the Iroquois.  There were
the pink granite islands of Georgian Bay, where the Jesuits had led
their harried Hurons.  There was Michilimackinac, with the brawl of its
vice and brandy and lawless traders from the woods, where La Motte
Cadillac ruled before going to found Detroit.  Seventy-eight days from
Montreal, there were the pictured rocks of Lake Superior, purple and
silent and deep as ocean, which Radisson had coasted on his way to the
Mississippi.  Then La Verendrye came to Duluth's old stamping
ground--Kaministiquia.

[Illustration: LA VERENDRYE'S FORTS AND THE RIVER OF THE WEST  (After
Jeffery's map, 1762)]


The home-bound boats were just leaving the fur posts for the St.
Lawrence.  Frosts had already stripped the trees of foliage, and winter
would presently lock all avenues of retreat in six months' ice.  La
Verendrye's men began to doubt the wisdom of chasing a will-o'-the-wisp
to an unknown Western Sea.  The explorer sent half the party forward
with his nephew Jemmeraie and his son Jean, while he himself remained
at Kaministiquia with the mutineers to forage for provisions.  {208}
Winter found Jemmeraie's men on the Minnesota side of Rainy Lake, where
they built Fort Pierre and drove a rich trade in furs with the encamped
Crees.  In summer of 1732 came La Verendrye, his men in gayest apparel
marching before the awe-struck Crees with bugle blowing and flags
flying.  Then white men and Crees advanced in canoes to the Lake of the
Woods, coasting from island to island through the shadowy defiles of
the sylvan rocks along the Minnesota shore to the northwest angle.
Here a second winter witnessed the building of a second post, Fort St.
Charles, with four rows of fifteen-foot palisades and thatched-roofed
log cabins.  The Western Sea seemed far as ever,--like the rainbow of
the child, ever fleeing as pursued,--and La Verendrye's merchant
partners were beginning to curse him for a rainbow chaser.  He had been
away three years, and there were no profits.  Suspicious that he might
be defrauding them by private trade or sacrificing their interests to
his own ambitions, they failed to send forward provisions for this
year.  La Verendrye was in debt to his men for three years' wages, in
debt to his partners for three years' provisions.  To fail now he dared
not.  Go forward he could not, so he hurried down to Montreal, where he
prevailed on the merchants to continue supplies by the simple argument
that, if they stopped now, there would be total loss.

Young Jean La Verendrye and Jemmeraie have meanwhile descended Winnipeg
River's white fret of waterfalls to Winnipeg Lake, where they build
Fort Maurepas, near modern Alexander,--and wait.  Fishing failed.  The
hunt failed.  The winter of 1735-1736 proved of such terrible severity
that famine stalked through the western woods.  La Verendrye's three
forts were reduced to diet of skins, moccasin soup, and dog meat.  In
desperation Jemmeraie set out with a few voyageurs to meet the
returning commander, but privation had undermined his strength.  He
died on the way and was buried in his hunter's blanket beside an
unknown stream between Lake Winnipeg and the Lake of the Woods.
Accompanied by the priest Aulneau, young Jean de La Verendrye decided
to rush canoes down from the Lake of the Woods to Michilimackinac for
food and powder.  A furious pace was {209} to be kept all the way to
Lake Superior.  The voyageurs had risen early one morning in June, and
after paddling some miles through the mist had landed to breakfast when
a band of marauding Sioux fell on them with a shout.  The priest
Aulneau fell pierced in the head by a stone-pointed arrow.  Young Jean
La Verendrye was literally hacked to pieces.  Not a man of the
seventeen French escaped, and Massacre Island became a place of ill
omen to the French from that day.  At last came the belated supplies,
and by February of 1737 La Verendrye had moved his main forces west to
Lake Winnipeg.  This was no Western Sea, though the wind whipped the
lake like a tide,--which explained the Indian legend of an inland
ocean.  Though it was no Western Sea, it was a new empire for France.
The bourne of the Unknown still fled like the rainbow, and La Verendrye
still pursued.

[Illustration: MAP PUBLISHED IN PARIS IN 1752 SHOWING THE SUPPOSED SEA
OF THE WEST]

Down to Quebec for more supplies with tales of a vast Beyond Land!
Back to Lake Winnipeg by September of 1738 with canoes gliding up the
muddy current of Red River for the Unknown Land of the Assiniboines;
past Nettley Creek, then known as Massacre Creek or Murderers' River,
from the Sioux having slain the encamped wives and children of the Cree
who had gone to Hudson Bay with their furs; between the wooded banks of
what are now East and West Selkirk, flat to left, high to right;
tracking up the Rapids of St. Andrews, thick oak woods to east, {210}
rippling prairie russet in the autumn rolling to the west,--La
Verendrye and his voyageurs came to the forks of Red River and the
Assiniboine, or what is now known as the city of Winnipeg.  Where the
two rivers met on the flats to the west were the high scaffoldings of
an ancient Cree graveyard, bizarre and eerie and ghostlike between the
voyageurs and the setting sun.  On the high river bank of what is now
known as Assiniboine Avenue gleamed the white skin of ten Cree tepees,
where two war chiefs waited to meet La Verendrye.  Drawing up their
canoes near where the bridge now spans between St. Boniface and
Winnipeg, the voyageurs came ashore.

It was a fair scene that greeted them, such a scene as any westerner
may witness to-day of a warm September night when the sun hangs low
like a blood-red shield, and the evening breeze touches the rustling
grasses of the prairie beyond the city to the waves of an ocean.  It
was not the Western Sea, but it was a Sea of Prairie.  It was a New
World, unbounded by hill or forest, spacious as the very airs of
heaven, fenced only by the blue dip of a shimmering horizon.  It was a
world, though La Verendrye knew it not, five times larger than New
France, half as big as all Europe.  He had discovered the Canadian
Northwest.

One can guess how the tired wanderers at rest beneath the uptilted
canoes that night wondered whither their quest would lead them over the
fire-dyed horizon where the sun was sinking as over a sea.  The Cree
chiefs told them of other lands and other peoples to the south, "who
trade with a people who dwelt on the great waters beyond the mountains
of the setting sun,"--the Spaniards.

Leaving men to knock up a trading post near the suburb now known as
Fort Rouge, La Verendrye, on September 26, steers his canoes up the
shallow Assiniboine far as what is now known as Portage La Prairie,
where a trail leads overland to the Saskatchewan and so down to the
English traders of Hudson Bay.  But this is not the trail to the
Western Sea; La Verendrye's quest is set towards those people "who live
on the great waters to the south."

{211}

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE SUPPOSED SEA OF THE WEST, WITH
APPROACHES TO THE MISSISSIPPI AND GREAT LAKES, PARIS, 1755]

Fort de La Reine is built at the Portage of the Prairie, and October
18, to beat of drum, with flag flying, La Verendrye marches forth with
fifty-two men towards Souris River for the land of the Mandanes on the
Missouri.  December 3 he is welcomed to the Mandane villages; but here
is no Western Sea, only the broad current of the Missouri rolling
turbulent and muddy southward towards the Mississippi; but the Mandanes
tell of a people to the far west, "who live on the great waters bitter
for drinking, who dress in armor and dwell in stone houses."  These
must be the Spaniards.  La Verendrye's quest has become a receding
phantom.  Leaving men to learn the Missouri dialects, La Verendrye
marched in the teeth of mid-winter storms back to the Portage of the
Prairie on the Assiniboine.  Of that march, space forbids to tell.  A
blizzard raged, driving the fine snows into eyes and skin like hot
salt.  When the marchers camped at night they had to bury themselves in
snow to keep from freezing.  Drifts covered all landmarks.  The men
lost their bearings, doubled back on their own tracks, were
frost-bitten, buffeted by the storm, and short of food.  Christmas
{212} was passed in the camps of wandering Assiniboines, and February
10, 1739, the fifty men staggered, weak and starving, back to the
Portage of the Prairie.

The wanderings of La Verendrye and his sons for the next few years led
southwestward far as the Rockies in the region of Montana,
northwestward far as the Bow River branch of the Saskatchewan.
Meanwhile, all La Verendrye's property had been seized by his
creditors.  Jealous rivals were clamoring for possession of his fur
posts.  The King had conferred on him the Order of the Cross of St.
Louis, but eighteen years of exposure and worry had broken the
explorer's health.  On the eve of setting out again for the west he
died suddenly on the 6th of December, 1749, at Montreal.

Look again at the map!  The spokes of the wheel running out from Quebec
extend to the Gulf of Mexico on the south, to the Rockies on the west,
to Hudson Bay on the north.  And the population of New France does not
yet number 60,000 people.  Is it any wonder French Canadians look back
on these days as the Golden Age?


And while the bushrovers of Canada are pushing their way through the
wilderness westward, there come slashing, tramping, swearing, stamping
through the mountainous wilds of West and East Siberia the Cossack
soldiers of Peter the Great, led by the Dane, Vitus Bering, bound on
discovery to the west coast of America.  La Verendrye's men have
crossed only half a continent.  Bering's Russians cross the width of
two continents, seven thousand miles, then launch their crazily planked
ships over unknown northern seas for America.  From 1729 to August of
1742 toil the Russian sea voyagers.  Their story is not part of
Canada's history.  Suffice to say, December of 1741 finds the Russian
crews cast away on two desert islands of Bering Sea west of Alaska, now
known as the Commander Islands.  Half the crew of seventy-seven perish
of starvation and scurvy.  Bering himself lies dying in a sandpit, with
the earth spread over him for warmth.  Outside the sand holes, {213}
where the Russians crouch, scream hurricane gales and white billows and
myriad sea birds.  The ships have been wrecked.  The Russians are on an
unknown island.  Day dawn, December 8, lying half buried in the sand,
Bering breathes his last.  On rafts made of wreckage the remnant of his
crew find way back to Asia, but they have discovered a trail across the
sea to a new land.  Fur hunters are moving from the east, westward.
Fur hunters are moving from the west, eastward.  These two tides will
meet and clash at a later era.


The Treaty of Utrecht had stopped open war, but that did not prevent
the bushrovers from raiding the border lands of Maine, of
Massachusetts, of New York.  The story of one raid is the story of all,
and several have already been related.  Now comes a half century of
petty war that raged on the border lands from Saratoga and Northfield
to Maine and New Brunswick.  The story of these "little wars," as the
French called them, belongs more to the history of the United States
than Canada.

Nor did the Peace of Utrecht stop the double dealing and intrigue by
which European rulers sought to use bigoted missionaries and ignorant
Indians as pawns in the game of statecraft.

"Sentiments of opposition to the English in Acadia must be secretly
fostered," commanded the King of France in 1715, two years after Acadia
had been deeded over to England.  "The King is pleased with the efforts
of Pere Rasle to induce the Indians not to allow the English to settle
on their lands," runs the royal dispatch of 1721 regarding the border
massacres of Maine.  "Advise the missionaries in Acadia to do nothing
that may serve as a pretext for sending them out of the country, but
have them induce the Indians to organize enterprises against the
English," command the royal instructions of 1744.  "The Indians,"
writes the Canadian Governor, "can be depended on to bring in the
scalps of the English as long as we furnish ammunition.  This is the
opinion of the missionary, M. Le Loutre."  Again, from the Governor of
New France: "If the settlers of {214} Acadia hesitate to rise against
their English masters, we can employ threats of the Indians and force.
It is inconceivable that the English would try to remove these people.
Letters from M. Le Loutre report that his Indians have intercepted
dispatches of the English officers.  M. Le Loutre will keep us informed
of everything in Acadia.  We have furnished him with secret signals to
our ships, which will tell us of every movement on the part of the
enemy."


Of all the hotbeds of intrigue, Acadia, from its position, had become
the worst.  Here was a population of French farmers, which in half a
century had increased to 12,000, held in subjection by an English
garrison at Annapolis of less than two hundred soldiers so destitute
they had neither shoes nor stockings, coats nor bedding.  The French
were guaranteed in the Treaty of Utrecht the freedom and privileges of
their religion by the English; but in matters temporal as well as
spiritual they were absolutely subject to priests, acting as spies for
the Quebec plotters.

France, as has been told, retained Cape Breton (Isle Royal) and Prince
Edward Island (Isle St. Jean), and the Treaty of Utrecht had hardly
been signed before plans were drawn on a magnificent scale for a French
fort on Cape Breton to effect a threefold purpose,--to command the sea
towards Boston, to regain Acadia, to protect the approach to the River
St. Lawrence.

The Island of Cape Breton is like a hand with its fingers stuck out in
the sea.  The very tip of a long promontory commanding one of the
southern arms of the sea was chosen for the fort that was to be the
strongest in all America.  On three sides were the sea, with outlying
islands suitable for powerful batteries and a harbor entrance that was
both narrow and deep.  To the rear was impassable muskeg--quaking moss
above water-soaked bog.  Two weaknesses only had the fort.  There were
hills to right and left from which an enemy might pour destruction
inside the walls, but the royal engineers of France depended on the
outlying island batteries preventing any enemy gaining possession of
these hills.  By 1720 walls thirty-six feet thick had encircled {215}
an area of over one hundred acres.  Outside the rear wall had been
excavated a ditch forty feet deep and eighty wide.  Bristling from the
six bastions of the walls were more than one hundred and eighty heavy
cannon.  Besides the two batteries commanding the entrance to the
harbor was an outer Royal Battery of forty cannon directly across the
water from the fort, on the next finger of the island.  Twenty years
was the fort in building, costing what in those days was regarded as an
enormous sum of money,--equal to $10,000,000.  Such was Louisburg,
impregnable as far as human foresight could judge,--the refuge of
corsairs that preyed on Boston commerce; the haven of the schemers who
intrigued to wean away the Acadians from English rule, the guardian
sentinel of all approach to the St. Lawrence.

"It would be well," wrote the King the very next year after the treaty
was signed, "to attract the Acadians to Cape Breton, but act with
caution."  And now twenty years had passed.  Some Acadians had gone to
Cape Breton and others to Prince Edward Island; but statecraft judged
the simple Acadian farmer would be more useful where he was,--on the
spot in Acadia, ready to rebel when open war would give the French of
Louisburg a chance to invade.

Late in 1744 Europe breaks into that flame of war known as the Austrian
Succession.  Before either Quebec or Boston knows of open war,
Louisburg has word of it and sends her rangers burning fishing towns
and battering at the rotten palisades of Annapolis (Port Royal).  Port
Royal is commanded by that same Paul Mascarene of former wars, grown
old in service.  The French bid him save himself by surrender before
their fleet comes.  Though Mascarene has less than a hundred men, the
weather is in his favor.  It is September.  Winter will drive the
invaders home, so he sends back word that he will bide his time till
the hostile fleet comes.  As for the Abbe Le Loutre, let the
treacherous priest beware how he brings his murderous Indians within
range of the fort guns!  Meanwhile the Acadian habitants are threatened
with death if they do not rise to aid the {216} French, but they too
bide their time, for if they rebel and fail, that too means death; and
"_the Neutrals_" refuse to stir till the invaders, from lack of
provisions, are forced to decamp, and the Abbe Le Loutre, with his
black hat drawn down over his eyes, vanishes into forest with his crew
of painted warriors.

News of the war and of the ravaging of Acadian fishing towns set
Massachusetts in flame.  To Boston, above all New England towns, was
Louisburg a constant danger.  The thing seemed absolute stark
madness,--the thoughtless daring of foolhardy enthusiasts,--but it is
ever enthusiasm which accomplishes the impossible; and April 30, 1745,
after only seven weeks of preparation, an English fleet of sixty-eight
ships--some accounts say ninety, including the whalers and transports
gathered along the coast towns--sails into Gabarus Bay, behind
Louisburg, where the waters have barely cleared of ice.  William
Pepperrell, a merchant, commands the four thousand raw levies of
provincial troops, the most of whom have never stepped to martial music
before in their lives.  Admiral Warren has come up from West India
waters with his men-of-war to command the united fleets.  Early Monday
morning, against a shore wind, the boats are tacking to land, when the
alarm bells begin ringing and ringing at Louisburg and a force of one
hundred and fifty men dashes downshore for Flat Cove to prevent the
landing.  Pepperrell out-tricks the enemy by leaving only a few boats
to make a feint of landing at the Cove, while he swings his main fleet
inshore round a bend in the coast a mile away.  Here, with a prodigious
rattling of lowered sails and anchor chains, the crews plunge over the
rolling waves, pontooning a bridge of small boats ashore.  By nightfall
the most of the English have landed, and spies report the harbor of
Louisburg alive with torches where the French are sinking ships to
obstruct the entrance and setting fire to fishing stages that might
interfere with cannon aim.  The next night, May 1, Vaughan's New
Hampshire boys--raw farmers, shambling in their gait, singing as they
march--swing through the woods along the marsh {217} behind the fort,
and take up a position on a hill to the far side of Louisburg, creating
an enormous bonfire with the French tar and ships' tackling stored
here.  The result of this harmless maneuver was simply astounding.  It
will be recalled that Louisburg had an outer battery of forty cannon on
this side.  The French soldiers holding this battery mistook the
bonfire for the {218} English attacking forces, and under cover of
darkness abandoned the position,--battery, guns, powder and all,--which
the English promptly seized.  This was the Royal Battery, which
commanded the harbor and could shell into the very heart of the fort.

[Illustration: WILLIAM PEPPERRELL]

The next thing for the English was to get their heavy guns ashore
through a rolling surf of ice-cold water.  For two weeks the men stood
by turns to their necks in the surf, steadying the pontoon gangway as
the great cannon were trundled ashore; and this was the least of their
difficulties.  The question was how to get their cannon across the
marsh behind the fort to the hill on the far side.  The cannon would
sink from their own weight in such a bog, and either horses or oxen
would flounder to death in a few minutes.  Again, the fool-hardy
enthusiasm of the raw levies overcame the difficulty.  They built large
stone boats, raft-shaped, such as are used on farms to haul stones over
ground too rough for wagons.  Hitching to these, teams of two hundred
men stripped to midwaist, they laboriously hauled the cannon across the
quaking moss to the hills commanding the rear of the fort, bombs and
balls whizzing overhead all the while, fired from the fort bastions.
It was cold, damp spring weather.  The men who were not soaked to their
necks in surf and bog were doing picket duty alongshore, sleeping in
their boots.  Consequently, in three weeks, half Pepperrell's force
became deadly ill.  At this time, within two days, occurred both a
cheering success and a disheartening rebuff.  A French man-of-war with
seventy cannon and six hundred men was seen entering Louisburg.  As if
in panic fright, one of the small English ships fled.  The French ship
pursued.  In a trice she was surrounded by the English fleet and
captured.  The flight of the little vessel had been a trick.  A few
days later four hundred English in whaleboats attempted the mad project
of attacking the Island Battery at the harbor entrance.  The boats set
out about midnight with muffled oars, but a wind rose, setting a
tremendous surf lashing the rocks, and yet the invaders might have
succeeded but for a piece of rashness.  A hundred men had gained the
shore when, with the thoughtlessness of schoolboys, they uttered a
jubilant yell.  {219} Instantly, porthole, platform, gallery, belched
death through the darkness.  The story is told that a raw New England
lad was in the act of climbing the French flagstaff to hang out his own
red coat as English flag when a Swiss guard hacked him to pieces.  The
boats not yet ashore were sunk by the blaze of cannon.  A few escaped
back in the darkness, but by daylight over one hundred English had been
captured.  Cannon, mortars, and musketoons were mounted to command the
fort inside the walls, and a continuous rain of fire began from the
hills.  In vain Duchambon, the French commander, waited for
reenforcements from Canada.  Convent, hospital, barracks, all the
houses of the town, were peppered by bombs till there was not a roof
intact in the place.  The soldiers, of whom there were barely two
thousand, were ready to mutiny.  The citizens besought Duchambon to
surrender.  Provisions ran out.  Looking down from the tops of the
walls, cracking jokes with the English across the ditch, the French
soldiers counted more than a thousand scaling ladders ready for
hand-to-hand assault, and a host of barrels filled with mud behind
which the English sharpshooters crouched.  It had just been arranged
between Warren and Pepperrell that the {220} former should attack by
sea while the latter assaulted by land, when on June 16 the French
capitulated.  How the New England enthusiasts ran rampant through the
abandoned French fort need not be told.  How Parson Moody, famous for
his long prayers, hewed down images in the Catholic chapel till he was
breathless and then came to the officers' state dinner so exhausted
that when asked to pronounce blessing he could only mutter, "Good Lord,
we have so much to thank Thee for, time is too short; we must leave it
to eternity.  Amen"; how the New Englanders, unused to French wines,
drank themselves torpid on the stores of the fort cellar; how the
French the next year made superhuman effort to regain Louisburg, only
to have a magnificent fleet of one hundred and fifty sail wrecked on
Sable Island, Duke d'Anville, the commander, dying of heartbreak on his
ship anchored near Halifax, his successor killing himself with his own
sword,--cannot be told here.  Louisburg was the prize of the war, and
England threw the prize away by giving it back to France in the Treaty
of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.  The English government paid back the
colonies for their outlay, but of all the rich French pirate ships
loaded with booty, captured at Louisburg by leaving the French flag
flying, not a penny's worth went to the provincial troops.  Warren's
seamen received all the loot.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE FORTIFICATIONS AT LOUISBURG]


Like all preceding treaties, the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle left
unsettled the boundaries between New France and New England.  In
Acadia, in New York, on the Ohio, collisions were bound to come.

In Acadia the English send their officers to the Isthmus of Chignecto
to establish a fort near the bounds of what are now Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick.  The priestly spy, Louis Joseph Le Loutre, leads his wild
Micmac savages through the farm settlement round the English fort,
setting fire to houses putting a torch even to the church, and so
compelling the habitants of the boundary to come over to the French and
take sides.  The treaty has restored Louisburg to the French, but the
very {221} next year England sends out Edward Cornwallis with two
thousand settlers to establish the English fort now known as Halifax.
By 1752 there are four thousand people at the new fort, though the
Indian raiders miss no occasion to shoot down wayfarers and farmers;
and the French Governor at Quebec continues his bribes--as much as
eight hundred dollars a year to a man--to stir up hostility to the
English and prevent the Acadian farmers taking the oath of fidelity to
England.  So much for the peace treaty in Acadia.  It was not peace; it
was farce.

[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY PLAN OF THE ATTACK ON LOUISBURG]

In New York state matters were worse.  The Iroquois had been
acknowledged allies of the English, and before 1730 the English fort at
Oswego had been built at the southeast corner of Lake Ontario to catch
the fur trade of the northern tribes coming down the lakes to New
France, and to hold the Iroquois' friendship.  Also, as French traders
pass up the lake to Fort Frontenac (Kingston) and Niagara with their
national flag flying from the prow of canoe and flatboat, chance
bullets from the {222} English fort ricochet across the advancing
prows, and soldiers on the galleries inside Fort Oswego take bets on
whether they can hit the French flag.  Prompt as a gamester, New France
checkmates this move.  Peter Schuyler has been settling English farmers
round Lake Champlain.  At Crown Point, long known as Scalp Point, where
the lake narrows and portage runs across to Lake George and the Mohawk
land, the French in 1731 erect a strong fort.  As for the English
traders at Fort Oswego catching the tribes from the north, New France
counterchecks that by sending Portneuf in April of 1749, only a year
after the peace, to the Toronto portage where the Indians come from the
Upper Lakes by way of Lake Simcoe.  What is now known as Toronto is
named Rouille, after a French minister; and as if this were not
checkmate enough to the English advancing westward, the Sulpician
priest from Montreal, Abbe Picquet, zealously builds a fort straight
north of Oswego, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, to keep the
Iroquois loyal to France.  Picquet calls his fort "Presentation."  His
enemies call it "Picquet's Folly."  It is known to-day as Ogdensburg.
Look at the map.  France's frontier line is guarded by forts that stand
like sentinels at the gateways of all waters leading to the
interior,--Ogdensburg, Kingston, Toronto, Niagara, Detroit,
Michilimackinac, and La Verendrye's string of forts far west as the
Rockies.  New York's frontier line is guarded by one fort
only,--Oswego.  Here too, as in Acadia, the peace is a farce.

[Illustration: FORT PRESENTATION]

But it was in the valley of the Ohio where the greatest struggle over
boundaries took place.  One year after the peace, Celoron de Bienville
is sent in July, 1749, to take possession of the {223} Ohio for France.
France claims right to this region by virtue of La Salle's explorations
sixty years previously, and of all those French bushrangers who have
roved the wilds from the Great Lakes to Louisiana.  Small token did
France take of La Salle's exploits while he lived, but great store do
her statesmen set by his voyages now that he has been sixty years dead.
"But pause!" commands the English Governor of Virginia.  "Since time
immemorial have our traders wandered over the Great Smoky Mountains,
over the Cumberlands, over the Alleghenies, down the Tennessee and the
Kanawha and the Monongahela and the Ohio to the Mississippi."  As a
matter of fact, one Major General Wood had in 1670 and 1674 sent his
men overland, if not so far as the Mississippi, then certainly as far
as the Ohio and the valley of the Mississippi.  But Wood was a private
adventurer.  For years his exploit had been forgotten.  No record of it
remained but an account written by his men, Batts and Hallam.  The
French declared the record was a myth, and it has, in fact, been so
regarded by the most of historians.  Yet, curiously enough, ranging
through some old family papers of the Hudson's Bay Company in the
Public Records, London, I found with Wood's own signature his record of
the trip across the mountains to the Indians of the Ohio and the
Mississippi.  It is probable that the {224} English cared quite as much
for claims founded on La Salle's voyage as the French cared for claims
founded on the horseback trip of Major General Wood's men.  The fact
remained: here were the English traders from Virginia pressing
northward by way of the Ohio; here were the French adventurers pressing
south by way of the Ohio.  As in Acadia and New York, peace or no
peace, a clash was inevitable.

[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF OSWEGO]


Duquesne has come out governor of Canada, and by 1753 has dispatched a
thousand men into the Ohio valley, who blaze a trail through the
wilderness and string a line of forts from Presqu' Isle (Erie) on Lake
Erie southward to Fort Duquesne at the junction of the Allegheny and
Monongahela, where Pittsburg stands to-day.

One December night at Fort Le Boeuf, on the trail to the Ohio, the
French commandant was surprised to see a slim youth of twenty years
ride out of the rain-drenched, leafless woods, followed by four or five
whites and Indians with a string of belled pack-horses.  The young
gentleman introduces himself with great formality, though he must use
an interpreter, for he does not speak French.  He is Major George
Washington, sent by Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia to know why the
French have been seizing the fur posts of English traders in this
region.  The French commander, Saint Pierre, receives the young
Virginian courteously, plies master and men with such lavish
hospitality that Washington has much trouble to keep his drunk Indians
from deserting, and dismisses his visitor with the smooth but bootless
response that as France and England are at peace he cannot answer
Governor Dinwiddie's message till he has heard from the Governor of
Canada, Marquis Duquesne.  Not much satisfaction for emissaries who had
forded ice-rafted rivers and had tramped the drifted forests for three
hundred miles.

[Illustration: GOVERNOR DINWIDDIE OF VIRGINIA]

By January of 1754 Washington is back in Virginia.  By May he is on the
trail again, blazing a path through the wilderness down the Monongahela
towards the French fort; for what purpose one may guess, though these
were times of piping peace.  Come {225} an old Indian chief and an
English bushwhacker one morning with word that fifty French raiders are
on the trail ten miles away; for what purpose one may guess, spite of
peace.  Instantly Washington sends half a hundred Virginia frontiersmen
out scouting.  They find no trace of raiders, but the old chief picks
up the trail of the ambushed French.  Here they had broken branches
going through the woods; there a moccasin track punctures the spongy
mold; here leaves have been scattered to hide camp ashes.  At midnight,
with the rain slashing through the forest black as pitch, Washington
sets out with forty men, following his Indian guide.  Through the dark
they feel rather than follow the trail, and it is a slow but an easy
trick to those acquainted with wildwood travel.  Leave the path by as
much as a foot length and the foliage lashes you back, or the windfall
trips you up, or the punky path becomes punctured beneath moccasin
tread.  By day dawn, misty and gray in the May woods, the English are
at the Indian camp and march forward escorted by the redskins, single
file, silent as ghosts, alert as tigers.  Raindrip swashes on the
buckskin coats.  Muskets are loaded and carefully cased from the wet.
The old chief stops suddenly . . . and points!  There lie the French in
a rock ravine sheltered by the woods like a cave.  The next instant the
French had leaped up with a whoop.  Washington shouted "Fire!"  When
the smoke of the musket crash cleared, ten French lay dead, among them
their officer, Jumonville; {226} and twenty-two others surrendered.  No
need to dispute whether Washington was justified in firing on thirty
bush rovers in time of peace!  The bushrovers had already seized
English forts and were even now scouring the country for English
traders.  For a week their scouts had followed Washington as spies.

Expecting instant retaliation from Fort Duquesne, Washington retreated
swiftly to his camping place at Great Meadows and cast up a log
barricade known as Fort Necessity.  A few days later comes a company of
regular troops.  By July 1 he has some four hundred men, but at Fort
Duquesne are fourteen hundred French.  The French wait only for orders
from Quebec, then march nine hundred bushrovers against Washington.
July 3, towards midday, they burst from the woods whooping and yelling.
Washington chose to meet them on the open ground, but the French were
pouring a cross fire over the meadow; and to compel them to attack in
the open, Washington drew his men behind the barricade.  By nightfall
the Virginians were out of powder.  Twelve had been killed and
forty-three were wounded.  Before midnight the French beat a parley.
All they desired was that the English evacuate the fort.  To fight
longer would have risked the extermination of Washington's troops.
Terms of honorable surrender were granted, and the next day--the day
which Washington was to make immortal, July 4--the English retreated
from Fort Necessity.  Such was the peace in the Ohio valley.

Though the peace is still continued, England dispatches in 1755 two
regiments of the line under Major General Braddock to protect Virginia,
along with a fleet of twelve men-of-war under Admiral Boscawen.  France
keeps up the farce by sending out Baron Dieskau with three thousand
soldiers and Admiral La Motte with eighteen ships.  Coasting off
Newfoundland, the English encounter three of the French ships that have
gone astray in the fog.  "Is it peace or war?" shout the French across
decks.  "Peace," answers a voice from the English deck; and
instantaneously a hurricane cannonade rakes the decks of the French,
killing eighty.  Two of the French ships surrendered.  The other
escaped through the fog.  Such was the peace!

{227} So began the famous Seven Years' War; and Major General Braddock,
in session with the colonial governors, plans the campaign that is to
crush New France's pretensions south of the Great Lakes.  Acadia, Lake
Champlain, the Ohio,--these are to be the theaters of the contest.

[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF WASHINGTON'S JOURNAL]

Braddock himself, accompanied by Washington, marches with twenty-two
hundred men over the Alleghenies along the old trail of the Monongahela
against Fort Duquesne.  Of Braddock, the least said the better.  A
gambler, full of arrogant contempt towards all people and things that
were not British, hail-fellow-well-met to his boon companions,
heartless towards all outside the pale of his own pride, a blustering
bully yet dogged, and withal a gentleman after the standard of the age,
he was neither better nor worse than the times in which he lived.  Of
Braddock's men, fifteen hundred were British regulars, the rest
Virginian bushfighters; and the redcoat troops held such contempt
towards the buckskin frontiersmen that friction arose from the first
about the relative rank of regulars and provincials.  From the time
they set out, the troops had been retarded by countless delays.  There
was trouble buying up supplies of beef cattle {228} among the
frontiersmen.  Scouts scoured the country for horses and wagons to haul
the great guns and heavy artillery.  Braddock's high mightiness would
take no advice from colonials about single-file march on a bush trail
and swift raids to elude ambushed foes.  Everything proceeded slowly,
ponderously, with the system and routine of an English guardroom.
Scouts to the fore and on both flanks, three hundred bushwhackers went
ahead widening the bridle path to a twelve-foot road for the wagons;
and along this road moved the troops, five and six abreast, the red
coats agleam through the forest foliage, drums rolling, flags flying,
steps keeping time as if on parade, Braddock and his officers mounted
on spirited horses, the heavy artillery and supply wagons lagging far
behind in a winding line.

[Illustration: A SKETCH OF THE FIELD OF BATTLE AT BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT]

What happened has been told times without number in story and history.
It was what the despised colonials feared and any bushranger could have
predicted.  July 9, in stifling heat, the marchers had come to a loop
in the Monongahela River.  Braddock thought to avoid the loop by
fording twice.  He was now within eight miles of Fort Duquesne--the
modern Pittsburg.  Though Indian raiders had scalped some wanderers
from the trail and insolent messages had been occasionally found
scrawled in French on birch trees, not a Frenchman had been seen on the
march.  The advance guard had crossed the second ford about midday when
the road makers at a little opening beyond the river saw a white man
clothed in buckskin, but wearing an officer's badge, dash out of the
woods to the fore, wave his hat, . . . and disappear.  A moment later
the well-known war whoop of the French bushrovers tore the air to
tatters; and bullets rained from ambushed foes in a sheet of fire.  In
vain the English drums rolled . . . and rolled . . . and soldiers
shouted, "The King!  God save the King!"  One officer tried to rally
his men to rush the woods, but they were shot down by a torrent of
bullets from an unseen foe.  The Virginian bushfighters alone knew how
to meet such an emergency.  Jumping from tree to tree for shelter like
Indians dancing sideways to avoid the enemy's aim, they had broken from
rank to fight in bushman fashion when Braddock {229} came galloping
furiously from the rear and ordered them back in line.  What use was
military rank with an invisible foe?  As well shoot air as an unseen
Indian!  Again the Virginians broke rank, and the regulars, huddled
together like cattle in the shambles, fired blindly and succeeded only
in hitting their own provincial troops.  Braddock stormed and swore and
rode like a fury incarnate, roaring orders which no one could hear,
much less obey.  Five horses were shot under him and the dauntless
commander had mounted a fresh one when the big guns came plunging
forward; but the artillery on which Braddock had pinned his faith only
plowed pits in the forest mold.  Of eighty officers, sixty had fallen
and a like proportion of men.  Braddock ordered a retreat.  The march
became a panic, the panic frenzied terror, the men who had stood so
stolidly under withering fire now dashing in headlong flight from the
second to the first ford and back over the trail, breathless as if
pursued by demons!  Artillery, cattle, supplies, dispatch boxes,--all
were abandoned.  Washington's clothes had been riddled by bullets, but
he had escaped injury.  Braddock reeled from his horse mortally
wounded, to be carried {230} back on a litter to that scene of
Washington's surrender the year before.  Four days later the English
general died there.  Of the English troops, more than a thousand lay
dead, blistering in the July sun, maimed and scalped by the Indians.
Braddock was buried in his soldier's coat beside the trail, all signs
of the grave effaced to prevent vandalism.

[Illustration: PLAN OF FORT BEAUSEJOUR]

Of all the losses the most serious were the dispatch boxes; for they
contained the English plans of campaign from Acadia to Niagara, and
were carried back to Fort Duquesne, where they put the French on guard.
The jubilant joy at the French fort need not be described.  When he
heard of the English advance, Contrecoeur, the commander, had been
cooped up with less than one thousand men, half of whom were Indians.
Had Braddock once reached Fort Duquesne, he could have starved it into
surrender without firing a gun, or shelled it into kindling wood with
his heavy artillery.  Beaujeu, an officer under Contrecoeur, had
volunteered to go out and meet the English.  "My son, my son, will you
walk into the arms of death?" demanded the Indian chiefs.  "My fathers,
will you allow me to go alone?" answered Beaujeu; and out he sallied
with six hundred picked men.  It was Beaujeu whom Braddock's men had
seen dash out and wave his hat.  The brave Frenchman fell, shot at the
first {231} volley from the English, and his Indian friends avenged his
death by roasting thirty English prisoners alive.


The Isthmus of Chignecto, or the boundary between New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia, was the scene of the border-land fights in Acadia.  To
narrate half the forays, raids, and ambuscades would require a volume.
Fights as gallant as Dollard's at the Sault waged from Beausejour, the
French fort north of the boundary, to Grand Pre and Annapolis, where
the English were stationed.  After the founding of Halifax the Abbe Le
Loutre, whose false, foolish counsels had so often endangered the
habitant farmer, moved from his mission in the center of Acadia up to
Beausejour on the New Brunswick side.  Here he could be seen with his
Indians toiling like a demon over the trenches, when Monckton, the
English general, came on June 1, 1855, with the British fleet, to land
his forces at Fort Lawrence, the English post on the south side.
Colonel Lawrence was now English governor of Acadia, and he had decided
with Monckton that once and for all the French of Acadia must be
subjugated.  The French of Beausejour had in all less than fifteen
hundred men, half of whom were simple Acadian farmers forced into
unwilling service by the priest's threats of Indian raid in this world
and damnation in the next.  Day dawn of June 4 the bugles blew to arms
and the English forces, some four thousand, had marched to the south
shore of the Missaguash River, when the French on the north side
uttered a whoop and emitted a clatter of shots.  Black-hatted,
sinister, tireless, the priest could be seen urging his Indians on.
The English brought up three field cannon and under protection of their
scattering fire laid a pontoon bridge.  Crossing the river, they
marched within a mile of the fort.  That night the sky was alight with
flame; for Vergor, the French commander, and Abbe Le Loutre set fire to
all houses outside the fort walls.  In a few days the English cannon
had been placed in a circle round the fort, and set such strange music
humming in the ears of the besieged that the Acadian farmers deserted
and the priest nervously thought of flight.  Louisburg {232} could send
no aid, and still the bombs kept bursting through the roofs of the fort
houses.  One morning a bomb crashed through the roof of the breakfast
room, killing six officers on the spot; and the French at once hung out
the white flag; but when the English troops marched in on June 16, at
seven in the evening, Le Loutre had fled overland through the forests
of New Brunswick for Quebec.

There scant welcome awaited the renegade priest.  The French governors
had been willing to use him as their tool at a price ($800 a year), but
when the tool failed of its purpose they cast him aside.  Le Loutre
sailed for France, but his ship was captured by an English cruiser and
he was imprisoned for eight years on the island of Jersey.

[Illustration: GENERAL MONCKTON]

Meanwhile, how was fate dealing with the Acadian farmers?  Ever since
the Treaty of Utrecht they had been afraid to take the oath of
unqualified loyalty to England, lest New France, or rather Abbe Le
Loutre, let loose the hounds of Indian massacre on their peaceful
settlements.  Besides, had not the priest assured them year in and year
out that France would recover Acadia and put to the sword those
habitants who had forsworn France?  And they had been equally afraid to
side with the French, for in case of failure the burden of punishment
would fall on them alone.  For almost half a century they had been
known as _Neutrals_.  Of their population of 12,000, 3000 had been
lured away to Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton.  When Cornwallis
had founded Halifax he had intended to wait only till the English were
firmly established, when he would demand an oath of unqualified
allegiance from {233} the Acadians.  They, on their part, were willing
to take the oath with one proviso,--that they should never be required
to take up arms against the French; or they would have been willing to
leave Acadia, as the Treaty of Utrecht had provided, in case they did
not take the oath of allegiance.  But in the early days of English
possession the English governors were not willing they should leave.
If the Acadians had migrated, it would simply have strengthened the
French in Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.
Obstructions had been created that prevented the supply of transports
to move the Acadians.  The years had drifted on, and a new generation
had grown up, knowing nothing of treaty rights, but only that the
French were threatening them on one side if they did not rise against
England, and the English on the other side if they did not take oath of
unqualified allegiance.  Cornwallis had long since left Halifax, and
Lawrence, the English governor, while loyal to a fault, was, like
Braddock, that type of English understrapper who has wrought such
irreparable injury to English prestige purely from lack of sympathetic
insight with colonial conditions.  For years before he had become
governor, Lawrence's days had been embittered by the intrigues of the
French with the Acadian farmers.  He had been in Halifax when the Abbe
Le Loutre's Indian brigands had raided and slain as many as thirty
workmen at a time near the English fort.  He had been at the Isthmus of
Chignecto that fatal morning when some Indians dressed in the suits of
French officers waved a white flag and lured Captain Howe of the
English fort across stream, where they shot him under flag of truce in
cold blood.

These are not excuses for what Lawrence did.  Nothing can excuse the
infamy of his policy toward the Acadians.  There are few blacker crimes
in the history of the world; but these facts explain how a man of
Lawrence's standing could assume the responsibility he did.  In
addition, Lawrence was a bigoted Protestant.  He not only hated the
Acadians because they were French; he hated them as "a colony of
rattlesnakes" because they were Catholics; and being an Englishman, he
despised them {234} because they were colonials.  France and England
were now on the verge of the great struggle for supremacy in America.
Eighteen French frigates had come to Louisburg and three thousand
French regulars to Quebec.  If Lawrence did not yet know that Braddock
had been defeated on July 9 at Duquesne,--as his friends declare in his
defense,--it is a strange thing; for by August the bloody slaughter of
the Monongahela was known everywhere else in America from Quebec to New
Spain.  With Lawrence and Monckton and Murray and Boscawen and the
other English generals sent to conduct the campaign in Acadia, the
question was what to do with the French habitants.  Let two facts be
distinctly stated here and with great emphasis: first, the colonial
officers, like Winslow from Massachusetts, knew absolutely nothing of
the English officers' plans; they were not admitted to the conferences
of the English officers and were simply expected to obey orders;
second, the English government knew absolutely nothing of the English
officers' course till it was too late for remedy.  In fact, later
dispatches of that year inquire sharply what Lawrence meant by an
obscure threat to drive the Acadians out of the country.

[Illustration: GENERAL JOHN WINSLOW]

Did a darker and more sinister motive underlie the policy of Lawrence
and his friends?  Poems, novels, histories have waged war of words over
this.  Only the facts can be stated.  Land to the extent of twenty
thousand acres each, which had belonged to {235} the Acadians, was
ultimately deeded to Lawrence and his friends.  Charges of corruption
against Lawrence himself were lodged with the British government both
by mail and by personal delegates from Halifax.  Unfortunately Lawrence
died in Halifax in 1760 before the investigation could take place; and
whether true or false, the odium of the charges rests upon his fame.

What he did with the Acadians is too well known to require telling.  In
secret conclave the infamous edict was pronounced.  Quickly messengers
were sent with secret dispatches to the officers of land forces and
ships at Annapolis, at Mines, at Chignecto, to repair to the towns of
the Acadians, where, upon opening their dispatches, they would find
their orders, which were to be kept a secret among the officers.  The
colonial officers, on reading the orders, were simply astounded.  "It
is the most grievous affair that ever I was in, in my life," declared
Winslow.  The edict was that every man, woman, and child of the
Acadians should be forcibly deported, in Lawrence's words, "in such a
way as to prevent the reunion of the colonists."  The men of the
Acadian settlements were summoned to the churches to hear the will of
the King of England.  Once inside, doors were locked, English soldiers
placed on guard with leveled bayonet, and the edict read by an officer
standing on the pulpit stairs or on a table.  The Acadians were snared
like rats in a trap.  Outside were their families, hostages for the
peaceable conduct of the men.  Inside were the brothers and husbands,
hostages for the good conduct of the families outside.  Only in a few
places was there any rioting, and this was probably caused by the
brutality of the officers.  Murray and Monckton and Lawrence refer to
their prisoners as "Popish recusants," "poor wretches," "rascals who
have been bad subjects."  While the Acadians were to be deported so
they could never reunite as a colony, it was intended to keep the
families together and allow them to take on board what money and
household goods they possessed; but there were interminable delays for
transports and supplies.  From September to December the deportation
dragged on, and when the Acadians, patient as sheep at the shambles,
became restless, some of the ships were sent off {236} with the men,
while the families were still on land.  In places the men were allowed
ashore to harvest their crops and care for their stock; but harvest and
stock fell to the victors as burning hayricks and barns nightly lighted
to flame the wooded background and placid seas of the fair Acadian
land.  Before winter set in, the Acadians had been scattered from New
England to Louisiana.  A few people in the Chignecto region had escaped
to the woods of New Brunswick, and one shipload overpowered its
officers and fled to St. John River; but in all, six thousand six
hundred people were deported.

It is the blackest crime that ever took place under the British flag,
and the expulsion was only the beginning of the sufferers' woes.  Some
people found their way to Quebec, but Quebec was destitute and in the
throes of war.  The wanderers came to actual starvation.  The others
wandered homeless in Boston, in New York, in Philadelphia, in
Louisiana.  After the peace of 1763 some eight hundred gathered
together in Boston and began the long march overland through the
forests of Maine and New Brunswick, to return to Acadia.  Singing
hymns, dragging their baggage on sleighs, pausing to hunt by the way,
these sad pilgrims toiled more than one thousand miles through forest
and swamp, and at the end of two years found themselves back in Acadia.
But they were like ghosts of the dead revisiting scenes of childhood!
Their lands were occupied by new owners.  Of their herds naught
remained but the bleaching bone heaps where the lowing cattle had
huddled in winter storms.  New faces filled their old houses.  Strange
children rambled beneath the little dormer windows of the Acadian
cottages, and the voices of the boys at play in the apple orchards
shouted in an alien tongue.  The very names of the places had vanished.
Beausejour was now Cumberland.  Beaubassin had become Amherst.
Cobequid was now Truro.  Grand Pre was now known as Horton.  The
heart-broken people hurried on like ghosts to the unoccupied lands of
St. Mary's Bay,--St. Mary's Bay, where long ago Priest Aubry had been
lost.  Here they settled, to hew out for themselves a second home in
the wilderness.

{237} It will be recalled that Braddock's plans had been captured by
the French, and those plans told Baron Dieskau, who had come out to
command the French troops, that the English under William Johnson, a
great leader of the Iroquois, inured to bush life like an Indian, were
to attack the French fort at Crown Point on Lake Champlain.  Now
observe: on the Ohio, Braddock the regular had been defeated; in
Acadia, Lawrence and Monckton and Murray, the English generals, had
brought infamy across England's renown by their failure to understand
colonial conditions.  At Lake Champlain the conditions are reversed.
Johnson, the English leader, is, from long residence in America, almost
a colonial.  Dieskau, the commander of the French, is a veteran of
Saxon wars, but knows nothing of bushfighting.  What happens?

[Illustration: MAP OF ACADIA AND THE ADJACENT ISLANDS, 1755]

Dieskau had intended to attack the English at Oswego, but the plans for
Johnson on Lake Champlain brought the commander of the French rushing
up the Richelieu River with three thousand soldiers, part regulars,
part Canadians.  Crown Point--called Fort Frederick by the French--was
reached in August.  No English are here, but scouts bring word that
Johnson has built a fort on the south end of Lake George, and, leaving
only five hundred men to garrison it, is moving up the lake with his
main troops.

{238}

[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON]

Fired by the French victories over Braddock, Dieskau planned to capture
the English fort and ambush Johnson on the march.  Look at the map!
The south end of Lake Champlain lies parallel with the north end of
Lake George.  The French can advance on the English one of two
ways,--portage over to Lake George and canoe up the lake to Johnson's
fort, or ascend the marsh to the south of Lake Champlain, then cross
through the woods to Johnson's fort.  Dieskau chose the latter trail.
Leaving half his men to guard the baggage, Dieskau bade fifteen hundred
picked men follow him on swiftest march with provisions in haversack
for only eight days.  September 8, 10 A.M., the marchers advance
through the woods on Johnson's fort, when suddenly they learn that
their scout has lied,--_Johnson himself is still at the fort_.  Instead
of five hundred are four thousand English.  Advancing along the trail
V-shape, regulars in the middle, Canadians and Indians on each side,
the French come on a company of five hundred English wagoners.  In the
wild melee of shouts the English retreat in a rabble.  "Pursue!  March!
Fire!  Force the place!" yells Dieskau, dashing forward sword in hand,
thinking to follow so closely on the heels of the rabble that he can
enter the English fort before the enemy know; but his Indians have
forsaken him, and Johnson's scouts have forewarned the approach of the
French.  Instead of ambushing {239} the English, Dieskau finds his own
army ambushed.  He had sneered at the un-uniformed plowboys of the
English.  "The more there are, the more we shall kill," he had boasted;
but now he discovers that the rude bushwhackers, "who fought like boys
in the morning, at noon fought like men, and by afternoon fought like
devils."  Their sharpshooters kept up a crash of fire to the fore, and
fifteen hundred doubled on the rear of his army, "folding us up," he
reported, "like a pack of cards."  Dieskau fell, shot in the leg and in
the knee, and a bullet struck the cartridge box of the servant who was
washing out the wounds.

[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY MAP OF THE REGION OF LAKE GEORGE]

"Lay my telescope and coat by me, and go!" ordered Dieskau.  "This is
as good a deathbed as anyplace.  Go!" he thundered, seeing his second
officer hesitate.  "Don't you see you are needed?  Go and sound a
retreat."

A third shot penetrated the wounded commander's bladder.  Lying alone,
propped against a tree, he heard the drums rolling a retreat, when one
of the enemy jumped from the woods with pointed pistol.

"Scoundrel!" roared the dauntless Dieskau; "dare to shoot a man
weltering in his blood."  The fellow proved to be a Frenchman who had
long ago deserted to the English, and he muttered {240} out some excuse
about shooting the devil before the devil shot him; but when he found
out who Dieskau was, he had him carried carefully to Johnson's tent,
where every courtesy was bestowed upon the wounded commander.  Johnson
himself lay wounded.

All that night Iroquois kept breaking past the guard into the tent.

"What do they want?" asked Dieskau feebly.

"To skin you and eat you," returned Johnson laconically.  Whose was the
victory?  The losses had been about even,--two hundred and fifty on
each side.  Johnson had failed to advance to Crown Point, but Dieskau
had failed to dislodge Johnson.  If Dieskau had not been captured, it
is a question if either side would have considered the fight a victory.
As it was, New France was plunged in grief; joy bells rang in New
England.  Johnson was given a baronetcy and 5000 pounds for his
victory.  He had named the lake south of Lake Champlain after the
English King, Lake George.

So closed the first act in the tragic struggle for supremacy in America.




{241}

CHAPTER XII

FROM 1756 TO 1763

Bigot at Quebec--New France on verge of ruin--Bigot's vampires suck
country's lifeblood--Scene on lake--Massacre at Fort William
Henry--Louisburg besieged--Surrender of famous fort--The attack at
Ticonderoga--Abercrombie's forces flee--Wolfe sails for Quebec--Signal
fires forewarn approach of enemy--Both sides become scalp
raiders--English fail at Montmorency--Slip silently down the great
river--The two armies face each other--Death of Montcalm--Why New
France fell


How stand both sides at the opening of the year 1756, on the verge of
the Seven Years' War,--the struggle for a continent?

There has been open war for more than a year, but war is not formally
declared till May 18, 1756.

Take Acadia first.

The French have been expelled.  The infamous Le Loutre is still in
prison in England, and when he is released, in 1763, he toils till his
death, in 1773, trying to settle the Acadian refugees on some of the
French islands of the English Channel.  The smiling farms of Grand Pre
and Port Royal lie a howling waste.  Only a small English garrison
holds Annapolis, where long ago Marc L'Escarbot and Champlain held
happy revel; and the seat of government has been transferred to
Halifax, now a settlement and fort of some five thousand people.  So
much for the English.  Across a narrow arm of the sea is Isle Royal or
Cape Breton, where the French are intrenched as at a second Gibraltar
in the fortress of Louisburg.  Since the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
restored the fort to the French, millions have been spent strengthening
its walls, adding to the armaments; but Intendant Bigot has had charge
of the funds, and Intendant Bigot has a sponge-like quality of
absorbing all funds that flow through his hands.  Cannon have been
added, but there are not enough balls to go round.  The walls have been
repaired, but with false filling (sand in place of mortar), so that the
first shatter of artillery will send them clattering down in wet
plaster.

Take the Ohio next.

"Beautiful River" is the highway between New France and Louisiana.  By
Braddock's defeat the English have been driven out to a man.  Matters
are a thousandfold worse than before, for {242} the savage allies of
the French now swarm down the bush road cut by Braddock's army and
carry bloody havoc to all the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania and
Virginia.  How many pioneers perished in this border war will never be
known.  It is a tale by itself, and its story is not part of Canada's
history.  George Washington was the officer in charge of a thousand
bushfighters to guard this frontier.

Take the valley of Lake Champlain.

This is the highway of approach to Montreal north, to Albany south.
Johnson had defeated Dieskau here, but neither side was strong enough
to advance from the scene of battle into the territory of the enemy.
The English take possession of Lake George and intrench themselves at
the south end in Fort William Henry.  Sir William Johnson strings a
line of forts up the Mohawk River towards Oswego on Lake Ontario, and
he keeps his forest rangers, under the famous scout Major Robert
Rogers, scouring the forest and mountain trails of Lake Champlain for
French marauder and news of what the French are doing.  Rogers'
Rangers, too, are a story by themselves, but a story which does not
concern Canada.  Skating and snowshoeing by winter, canoeing by night
in summer, Rogers passed and repassed the enemy's lines times without
number, as if his life were charmed, though once his wrist was shot
when he had nothing to stanch the blood but the ribbon tying his wig,
and once he stumbled back exhausted to Fort William Henry, to lie
raging with smallpox for the winter.  Among the forest rangers of New
Hampshire and New York, Major Robert Rogers was without a peer.  No
danger was too great, no feat too daring, for his band of scouts.  The
English have established Fort William Henry at the south end of Lake
George.  The French checkmate the move by strengthening Crown Point on
Lake Champlain and moving a pace farther south into English
territory,--to Carillon, where the waters of Lake George pour into
Champlain.  Here on a high angle between the river and the lake,
commanding all travel north and south, the French build Carillon or
Fort Ticonderoga.

{243} As for the Great Northwest, New France with her string of
posts--Frontenac, Niagara, Detroit, Michilimackinac, Kaministiquia
(Fort William), Fort Rogue (Winnipeg), Portage la Prairie--stretches
clear across to the foothills of the Rockies.  The English fur traders
of Hudson Bay have, in 1754, sent Anthony Hendry up the Saskatchewan,
but when Hendry comes back with word of equestrian Indians--the
Blackfeet on horseback--and treeless plains, the English set him down
as a lying impostor.  Indians on horseback!  They had never seen
Indians but in canoes and on snowshoes!  Hendry was dismissed as
unreliable, and no Englishman went up the Saskatchewan for another ten
years.


If the disasters of 1755 did nothing more, they at last stirred the
home governments to action.  Earl Loudon is sent out in 1756 to command
the English, and to New France in May comes Louis Joseph, Marquis de
Montcalm, age forty-four, soldier, scholar, country gentleman, with a
staff composed of Chevalier de Levis, Bourlamaque, and one
Bougainville, to become famous as a navigator.

Though New France consists of a good three quarters of America, things
are in evil plight that causes Montcalm many sleepless nights.
Vaudreuil, the French governor, descendant of that Vaudreuil who long
ago set the curse of Indian warfare on the borders of New England, had
expected to be appointed chief commander of the troops and jealously
resents Montcalm's coming.  With the Governor is leagued Intendant
Bigot, come up from Louisburg.  Bigot is a man of sixty, of noble
birth, a favorite of the butterfly woman who rules the King of
France,--the Pompadour,--and he has come to New France to mend his
fortunes.  How he planned to do it one may guess from his career at
Louisburg; but Quebec offered better field, and it was to Bigot's
interest to ply Montcalm and Vaudreuil with such tittle-tattle of
enmity as would foment jealousy, keep their attention on each other,
and their eyes off his own doings.  As he had done at Louisburg, so he
now did at Quebec.  The King was requisitioned for enormous sums to
strengthen the fort.  Bigot's {244} ring of friends acted as
contractors.  The outlay was enormous, the results trifling.  "I
think," complained the King, "that Quebec must be fortified in gold, it
has cost so much."  It was time of war.  Enormous sums were to be
expended for presents to keep the Indians loyal; and the King complains
that he cannot understand how baubles of beads and powderhorns cost so
much, or how the western tribes seem to become more and more numerous,
or how the French officers, who distribute the presents, become
millionaires in a few years.  A friend of Bigot's handled these funds.
There are meat contracts for the army.  A worthless, lowbred scamp is
named commissary general.  He handles these contracts, and he, too,
swiftly graduates into the millionaire class, is hail-fellow well met
with Bigot, drinks deep at the Intendant's table, and gambles away as
much as $40,000 in a single night.  It is time of war, and it is time
of famine too; for the crops have failed.  Every inhabitant between the
ages of fifteen and fifty has been drafted into the army.  Not counting
Indians, there is an army of fifteen to twenty thousand to be fed; so
Bigot compels the habitants to sell him provisions at a low price.
These provisions he resells to the King for the army and to the
citizens at famine prices.  The King's warehouse down by the
Intendant's palace becomes known as La Friponne,--The Cheat.

And though the country is on verge of ruin, though poor people of the
three towns are rioting in the streets for food, old women cursing the
little wizened Intendant with his pimpled face as he rolls past
resplendent in carriage with horses whose harness is a blaze of silver,
the troops threatening to mutiny because they are compelled to use
horse flesh,--though New France is hovering over a volcano of disaster,
they dance to their death, thoughtless as butterflies, gay as children,
these manikin imitators of the French court, who are ruining New France
that they may copy the vices of an Old World playing at kingcraft.  The
regular troops are uniformed in white with facings of blue and red and
gold and violet, three-cornered hat, and leather leggings to knee.
What with chapel bells ringing and ringing, and bugle {245} call and
counter call echoing back from Cape Diamond; what with Monsieur Bigot's
prancing horses and Madame Pean's flashy carriage,--Madame Pean of whom
Bigot is so enamored he has sent her husband to some far western post
and passes each evening at her gay receptions,--what with the grounding
of the sentry's arms and the parade of troops, Quebec is a gay place
these years of black ruin, and the gossips have all they can do to keep
track of the amours and the duels and the high personages cultivating
Madame Pean; for cultivated she must be by all who covet place or
power.  A word from Madame Pean to Bigot is of more value than a bribe.
Even Montcalm and De Levis attend her revels.

[Illustration: RUINS OF CHATEAU BIGOT]

Twenty people sup with Monsieur Bigot each night, either at the
Intendant's palace down by Charles River, or nine miles out towards
Beauport, where he has built himself the Forest Hermitage, now known as
Chateau Bigot,--a magnificent country manor house of red brick, hidden
away among the hills with the gay shrubberies of French gardens set
down in an American wilderness.  Supper over by seven, the guests sit
down to play, and the amount a man may gamble is his social barometer,
whether {246} he lose or win, cheat or steal.  If dancing follows
gambling, the rout will not disperse till seven in the morning.  What
time is left of the twenty-four hours in a day will be devoted to
public affairs.

Montcalm's salary is only 25,000 francs, or $5,000.  To maintain the
dignity of the King, the commander in chief must keep the pace, and he
too gives weekly suppers, with places set for forty people, "whom I
don't know," he writes dejectedly to his wife, "and don't want to know;
and wish that I might spend the evenings quietly in my own chamber."
To Montcalm, who was of noble birth with no shamming, this lowbred
pretense and play at courtcraft became a bore; to his staff of
officers, a source of continual amusement; but De Levis presently falls
victim to a pair of fine eyes possessed by the wife of another man.

War filled the summers, but the winters were given up to social life;
and of all midwinter social gayeties the most important was the
official visit of the Governor and the Intendant to Montreal.  By this
time a good road had been cut from Quebec to Montreal along the north
shore, and the sleighs usually set out in January or February.  Bigot
added to the occasion all the prestige of a social rout.  All the grand
dames and cavaliers of Quebec were invited.  Baggage was sent on ahead
with servants to break the way, find quarters for the night, and
prepare meals.  After a dinner at the Intendant's palace the sleighs
set out, two horses to each, driven tandem because the sleigh road was
too narrow for a team.  Each sleigh held only two occupants, and to the
damage done by fair eyes was added the glow of exhilaration from
driving behind spirited horses in frosty air with the bells of a
hundred carryalls ringing across the snow.  At seven was pause for
supper.  High play followed till ten.  Then early to bed and early to
rise and on the road again by seven in the morning!  In Montreal was
one continual round of dinners and dances.  Between times, appointments
were made to the military posts and trading stations of the Up-Country.
He who wanted a good post must pay his court to Madame Pean.  No wonder
Montcalm breathed a sigh of relief when Lent put a stop to the gayeties
and he could quietly pass his evenings with the Sulpician priests.
{247} To break from Bigot's ring during the war was impossible.
Creatures of his choosing filled the army, handled the supplies,
controlled the Indians; and when the King's reproof became too sharp,
Bigot simply threatened to resign, which wrought consternation, for no
man of ability would attempt to unwind the tangle of Bigot's dishonesty
during a critical war.  Montcalm wrote home complaints in cipher.  The
French government bided its time, and Bigot tightened his vampire
suckers on the lifeblood of the dying nation.  The whole era is a theme
for the allegory of artist or poet.

[Illustration: PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, OTTAWA]

[Illustration: QUEBEC, CHATEAU FRONTENAC AND THE CITADEL]


Montcalm had arrived in May of 1756.  By midsummer he was leading three
thousand French artillerymen across Lake Ontario from Fort Frontenac
(Kingston), to attack the English post on the south side, Oswego.
Inside the fort walls were seven hundred raw English provincials, ill
of scurvy from lack of food.  The result need scarcely be told.  Seven
hundred ill men behind wooden walls had no chance against three
thousand soldiers in health with heavy artillery.  To take the English
by surprise, Montcalm had crossed the lake on August 4 by night.  Two
days later all the transport ships had landed the troops and the cannon
had actually been mounted before the English knew of the enemy's
presence.  On the east side of the river was Fort Ontario, a barricade
of logs built in the shape of a star, housing an outguard of three
hundred and seventy men.  On discovering the French, the sentry spiked
their cannon, threw their powder in the river, and retired at midnight
inside Oswego's walls.  Working like beavers, Montcalm's men dragged
twenty cannon to a hill commanding the fort, known as "Fort Rascal"
because the outfort there was useless to the English.  Before
Montcalm's cannonade Oswego's walls, plastered with clay and rubble,
fell like the staves of a dry barrel.  The English sharpshooters then
hid behind pork barrels placed in three tiers filled with sand; but
Colonel Mercer, their officer, was literally cut in two by a cannon
shot, and the women, cooped up inside the barracks, begged the officers
to avoid Indian massacre by surrender.  {248} A white flag was waved.
Including women, something under a thousand English surrendered
themselves prisoners to Montcalm.  The Indians fell at once to mad
plunder.  Spite of the terms of honorable surrender, the English were
stripped of everything, and only Montcalm's promise of $10,000 worth of
presents to the savages prevented butchery.  The victors decamped to
Montreal, well pleased with the campaign of 1756.  It need not be told
that there were constant raids and counter raids along the frontier
during the entire year.

Loudon, the English commander, did not arrive in New York till well on
in midsummer of 1756, and he found far different material from the
trained bushfighters in the hands of Montcalm.  The English soldiers
were raw provincial recruits, dressed, at best, in buckskin, but for
the most part in the rough homespun which they had worn when they had
left plow and carpenter's bench and fishing boat.  While Montcalm was
capturing Oswego, Loudon was licking his rough recruits into shape,
"making men out of mud" for the campaign of 1757.  Indeed, it was said
of Loudon, and the saying stuck to him as characteristic of his
campaign, that he resembled the wooden horse figure of a tavern
sign,--always on horseback but never rode forward.  Instead of striking
at Lake Champlain or on the Ohio, where the French were aggressors,
Loudon planned to repeat the brilliant capture of Louisburg.  July of
1857 found him at Halifax planting vegetable gardens to prevent
scurvy,--"the cabbage campaign" it was derisively called,--and waiting
for Gorham's rangers to reconnoiter Louisburg.  Gorham's scouts brought
back word that the French admiral had come in with twenty-four
men-of-war and seven thousand men.  To overpower such strength meant a
prolonged siege.  It was already August.  Loudon sailed back to New
York without firing a gun, while the English fleet, trying to
reconnoiter Louisburg, suffered terrible shipwreck.

[Illustration: THE EARL OF LOUDON]

Montcalm was not the enemy to let the chance of Loudon's absence from
the scene of action pass unimproved.  While Loudon is pottering at
Halifax, Montcalm marshals his troops to the {249} number of eight
thousand, including one thousand Indians at Carillon or Ticonderoga,
where Lake George empties into Lake Champlain.  Portaging two hundred
and fifty flatboats with as many birch canoes up the river, the French
invade the mountain wilderness of Lake George.  Towards the end of
July, Levis leads part of the troops by land up the west shore towards
the English post of Fort William Henry.  Montcalm advances on the lake
with the flatboats and canoes, and the rafts with the heavy artillery.
Each night Levis' troops kindle their signal fires on the mountain
slope, and each night Montcalm from the lake signals back with torches.
It needs artist's brush to paint the picture: the forested mountains
green and lonely and silent in the shimmering sunlight of the summer
sky; the lake gold as molten metal in the fire of the setting sun; the
soldiers in their gay uniforms of white and blue, hoisting tent cloths
on oar sweeps for sails as a breeze dimples the waters; the French
voyageurs clad in beaded buckskin chanting some ditty of Old-World fame
to the rhythmic dip of the Indian paddles; the Indians naked, painted
for war, with a glitter in their eyes of a sinister intent which they
have no mind to tell Montcalm; and then, at the south of Lake George,
nestling between the hills and the water, the little palisaded
fort,--Fort William Henry,--with gates fast shut and two thousand
bushfighters behind the walls, weak from an epidemic of smallpox, and,
as usual, so short of provisions that siege means starvation.

{250} Twenty miles southeastward is another English fort,--Fort
Edward,--where General Webb with sixteen hundred men is keeping the
road barred against advance to Albany.  Soon as scouts bring word to
Fort William Henry of the advancing French, Lieutenant Monro sends
frantic appeal to Webb for more men; but Webb has already sent all the
men he can spare.  If he leaves Fort Edward, the French by a flank
movement through the woods can march on Albany, so Monro unplugs his
seventeen cannon, locks his gates, and bides his fate.

Montcalm follows the same tactics as at Oswego,--brings heavy artillery
against slab walls.  For the first week of August, eight hundred of his
men are digging trenches by night to avoid giving target for the fiery
bombs whizzing through the dark from Monro's cannon.  By day they lie
hidden in the woods with a cordon of sharpshooters encircling the fort,
Montcalm encamped on the west to prevent help from Sir William Johnson
up the Mohawk, Levis on the southeast to cut off aid from Webb.  Monro
sends yet one last appeal for help: two thousand men against eight
thousand,--the odds are eloquent of his need!  Montcalm's scouts let
the messenger pass through the lines as if unseen, but they make a
point of catching the return messenger and holding Webb's answer that
he cannot come, till their cannon have torn great wounds in the fort
walls.  Then Bougainville blindfold carries Webb's answer to Monro and
demands the surrender of the fort.  Monro still has a little
ammunition, still hopes against hope that Johnson or Webb or Loudon
will come to the rescue, and he keeps his big guns singing over the
heads of the French in their trenches till all the cannon have burst
but seven, and there are not ten rounds of shells left.  Then Colonel
Young, with a foot shot off, rides out on horseback waving a white
flag.  Three hundred English have been killed, as many again are
wounded or ill of smallpox, and to the remaining garrison of sixteen
hundred Montcalm promises safe conduct to General Webb at Fort Edward.
Then the English march out.  That night--August 9--the vanquished
English camp with Montcalm's forces.  The Indians, meanwhile, ramping
through the fort for plunder, {251} have maddened themselves with
traders' rum!  Before daybreak they have butchered all the wounded
lying in the hospital and cut to pieces the men ill of smallpox,--a
crime that brought its own punishment in contagion.  Next morning, when
the French guard tried to conduct the disarmed English along the trail
to Fort Edward, the Indians snatched at the clothing, the haversacks,
the tent kit of the marchers.  With their swords the French beat back
the drunken horde.  In answer, the war hatchets were waved over the
heads of the cowering women.  The march became a panic; the panic, a
massacre; and for twenty-four hours such bedlam raged as might have put
fiends to shame.  The frenzied Indians would listen to no argument but
blows; and when the English prisoners appealed to the French for
protection, the French dared not offend their savage allies by fighting
to protect the English victims.  "Take to the woods," they warned the
men, and the women were quickly huddled back to shelter of the fort.
Of the men, sixty were butchered on the spot and some seven hundred
captured to be held for ransom.  The remnant of the English soldiers,
along with the women, were held till the Indian frenzy had spent
itself, then sent to Fort Edward.  August 16 a torch was put to the
combustibles of the fort ruins, and as the French boats glided out on
Lake George for the St. Lawrence, explosion after explosion, flame
leaping above flame, proclaimed that of Fort William Henry there would
remain naught but ashes and charred ruins and the skeletons of the
dead.  So closed the campaign of 1857 [Transcriber's note: 1757?].  For
three years hand running England had suffered defeat.


The spring of 1758 witnessed a change.  The change was the rise to
power of a man who mastered circumstances instead of allowing them to
master him.  Such men are the milestones of human progress, whether
heroes, or quiet toilers unknown to the world.  The man was Pitt, the
English statesman.  Instead of a weak ministry fighting the
machinations of France, it was now Pitt versus Pompadour, the English
patriot against the light woman who ruled the councils of France.

{252} From fighting weakly on the defensive, England sprang into the
position of aggressor all along the line.  The French were to be
attacked at all points simultaneously, at Louisburg on the east, at
Ticonderoga or Carillon on Lake Champlain, at Duquesne on the Ohio, at
Frontenac on Lake Ontario, and finally at Quebec itself.  London is
recalled as commander in chief.  Abercrombie succeeds to the position,
with the brilliant young soldier, Lord Howe, as right-hand man; but
Pitt takes good care that there shall be good chiefs and good
right-hand men at _all_ points.  The one mistake is Abercrombie,--"Mrs.
Nabby Crombie" the soldiers called him.  He was an indifferent,
negative sort of man; and indifferent, negative sorts of people, by
their dishwater goodness, can sometimes do more harm in critical
positions than the branded criminal.  Red tape had forced him on Pitt,
but Pitt trusted to the excellence of the subordinate officers,
especially Lord Howe.

Louisburg first!

No more dillydallying and delay "to plant cabbages!"  The thing is to
reach Louisburg before the French have entered the harbor.  Men-of-war
are stationed to intercept the French vessels coming from the
Mediterranean, and before winter has passed Admiral Boscawen has sailed
for America with one hundred and fifty vessels, including forty
men-of-war, frigates, and transports carrying twelve thousand men.
General Amherst is to command the land forces, and with Amherst is
Brigadier James Wolfe, age thirty-one, a tall, slim, fragile man, whose
delicate frame is tenanted by a lion spirit; or, to change the
comparison, by a motive power too strong for the weak body that held
it.  By May the fleet is in Halifax.  By June Amherst has joined
Boscawen, and the ships beat out for Louisburg through heavy fog, with
a sea that boils over the reefs in angry surf.

Louisburg was in worse condition than during the siege of 1745.  The
broken walls have been repaired, but the filling is false,--sand grit.
Its population is some four thousand, of whom three thousand eight
hundred are the garrison.  On the ships lying in the harbor are three
thousand marines, a defensive force, in all, {253} of six thousand
eight hundred.  On walls and in bastions are some four hundred and
fifty heavy guns, cannon, and mortars.  Imagine a triangle with the
base to the west, the two sides running out to sea on the east.  The
fort is at the apex.  The wall of the base line is protected by a
marsh.  On the northeast side is the harbor protected by reefs and
three batteries.  Along the south side, Drucourt, the French commander,
has stationed two thousand men at three different points where landing
is possible, to construct batteries behind barricades of logs.

[Illustration: BOSCAWEN]

Fog had concealed the approach of the English, but such a ground swell
was raging over the reefs as threatened any ship with instant
destruction.  For a week Amherst and Wolfe and Lawrence row up and down
through the roiling mist and raging surf and singing winds to take
stock of the situation.  With those batteries at the landing places
there is only one thing to do,--cannonade them, hold their attention in
a life-and-death fight while the English soldiers scramble through the
surf for the shore.  From sunrise to sundown of the 8th furious
cannonading set the green seas churning and tore up the French
barricades as by hurricane.  At sunset the firing ceased, and three
detachments of troops launched out in whaleboats at three in the
morning, two of the detachments to make a feint of landing, while Wolfe
with the other division was to run through the surf for the shore at
Freshwater Cove.  The French were not deceived.  They let Wolfe
approach within range, when the log barricade flashed to flame with a
thousand sharpshooters.  Wolfe had foreseen the snare and had waved his
{254} troops off when he noticed that two boat loads were rowing ashore
through a tremendous surf under shelter of a rocky point.  Quickly he
signaled the other boats to follow.  In a trice the boats had smashed
to kindling on the reefs, but the men were wading ashore, muskets held
high over head, powder pouches in teeth, and rushed with bayonets
leveled against the French, who had dashed from cover to prevent the
landing.  This unexpected landing had cut the French off from
Louisburg.  Retreating in panic, they abandoned their batteries and
fifty dead.  The English had lost one hundred and nine in the surf.  It
is said that Wolfe scrambled from the water like a drowned rat and led
the rush with no other weapon in hand but his cane.

[Illustration: THE SIEGE OF LOUISBURG  (From a contemporary print)]

To land the guns through the jostling sea was the next task.  It was
done, as in 1745, by a pontoon bridge of small boats, but the work took
till the 29th of June.  Wolfe, meanwhile, has marched with twelve
hundred men round to the rear of the marsh and comes so suddenly on the
Grand and Lighthouse Batteries, which defend the harbor, that the
French abandon them to retreat within the walls.  This gives the
English such control of the harbor entrance that Drucourt, the French
commander, sinks six of his ships across the channel to bar out
Boscawen's fleet, the masts of the sunken, vessels sticking above the
water.  Amherst's men are working like demons, building a road for the
cannon across the marsh and trenching up to the back wall; but they
work only at night and are undiscovered by the French till the 9th of
July.  Then the French rush out with a whoop to drive them off, but the
English already have their guns mounted, and Drucourt's men are glad to
dash for shelter behind the cracking walls.  It now became a game of
cannon play pure and simple.  Boscawen from harbor front hurls his
whistling bombs overhead, to crash through roofs inside the walls.
Wolfe from the Lighthouse Battery throws shells and flaming
combustibles straight into the midst of the remaining French fleet.  At
last, on July 21st, masts, sails, tar ropes, take fire in a terrible
conflagration, and three of the fleet burn to the water line with
terrific explosions of their powder magazines; then the flames hiss out
above {255} the rocking hulls.  Only two ships are left to the French,
and the deep bomb-proof casemates inside the fort between outer and
inner walls, where the families and the wounded have been sheltered,
are now in flame.  Amherst loads his shells with combustibles and pours
one continuous rain of fiery death on the doomed fort.  The houses,
which are of logs, flame like kindling wood, and now the timber work of
the stone bastions is burning from bombs hurtling through the roofs.
The walls crash down in masses.  The scared surgeons, all bloody from
amputating shattered limbs, no longer stand in safety above their
operating tables.  It is said that Madame Drucourt, the Governor's
wife, actually stayed on the walls to encourage the soldiers, with her
own hands fired some of the great guns, and, when the overworked
surgeons flagged from terror and lack of sleep, it was Madame Drucourt
who attended to the wounded.  Drucourt is for holding out to the death,
until one dark night the English row into the harbor and capture his
two last ships.  Then Drucourt asks for terms, July 26; but the terms
are stern,--utter surrender,--and Drucourt would have fought till every
man fell from the walls, had not one of the civil officers rushed after
the commander's messenger carrying {256} the refusal, and shouted
across the ditches to the English: "We accept!  We surrender!  We
accept your terms!"

Counting soldiers, marines, and townspeople, in all five thousand
French pass over to Amherst, to be carried prisoners on Boscawen's
fleet to England.  Wolfe was for proceeding at once to Quebec, but
Amherst considered the season too late and determined to complete the
work where he was.  One detachment goes to receive the surrender of
Isle St. John, henceforth known as Prince Edward Island.  Another
division proceeds up St. John River, New Brunswick, burning all
settlements that refuse unconditional surrender.  Wolfe's grenadiers
are sent to reduce Gaspe and Miramichi and northern New Brunswick.  And
now, lest blundering statecraft for a second time return the captured
fort to France, Amherst and Boscawen order the complete disarmament and
destruction of Louisburg.  What cannon cannot be removed are tumbled
into the marsh or upset into the sea.  The stones from the walls are
carried away to Halifax.  By 1760, of Louisburg, the glory of New
France, the pride of America, there remains not a vestige but grassed
slopes overgrown by nettles, ditches with rank growth of weeds, stone
piles where the wild vines grow, and an inner yard where the cows of
the fisher folk pasture.

Not a poor beginning for the campaign of 1758, though bad enough news
has come from Major General Abercrombie, which was the real explanation
of Amherst's refusal to push on to Quebec.

Abercrombie, with fifteen thousand men, the pick of the regulars and
provincials, had launched out on Lake George on the 5th of July with
over one thousand boats, to descend the lake northward to the French
fort of Carillon or Ticonderoga.  Again, it would require artist's
brush to paint the scene.  Rogers' Rangers, dressed in buckskin, led
the way in birch canoes.  Lord Howe was there, dressed like a
bushfighter; and with bagpipes setting the echoes ringing amid the
lonely mountains, were the Highland regiments in their tartan plaids.
Flags floated from the prow of every boat.  Each battalion had its own
regimental {257} band.  Scarcely a breath dimpled the waters of the
lake, and the sun shone without a cloud.  Little wonder those who
passed through the fiery Aceldama that was to come, afterwards looked
back on this scene as the fairest in their lives.

[Illustration: AMHERST]

Montcalm had only arrived at Ticonderoga on June 30th.  There was no
doubting the news.  His bushrovers brought in word that the English
were advancing in such multitudes their boats literally covered the
lake.  It looked as if the fate of Fort William Henry were to be
reversed.  Montcalm never dreamed of Abercrombie attacking without
artillery.  To stay cooped up in the fort would invite destruction.
Therefore Montcalm ordered his men out to construct a circular
breastwork from the River of the Chutes on the southeast, which empties
Lake George, round towards Lake Champlain on the northwest.  Huge trees
were felled, pile on pile, top-most branches spiked and pointed
outwards.  Behind these Montcalm intrenched his four thousand men,
lying in lines three deep, with grenadiers in reserve behind to step up
as the foremost lines fell.  At a cannon signal from the fort the men
were to rise to their places, but not to fire till the English were
entangled in the brushwood.  It was blisteringly hot weather.  It is
said that the troops took off their heavy three-cornered hats and lay
in their shirt sleeves, hand on musket, speaking no word, but waiting.

{258} On came the English in martial array, pausing in the Narrows at
five o'clock for the troops' evening meal, moving on before daylight of
July 6 to the landing place.  The Rangers had brought in word that
Levis was coming posthaste to Montcalm's aid.  Abercrombie thought to
defeat Montcalm before reenforcements could come; and now he committed
his cardinal error.  He advanced across the portage without his heavy
artillery.  Halfway over, the voice of the French scouts rang out, "Who
goes there?"  "French," answer the English soldiers; but the French
were not tricked.  The ambushed scouts fired.  Lord Howe, the very
spirit of the English army, dropped dead, shot through the breast,
though the English avenged his loss by cutting the French scouts to
pieces.  On the night of the 7th the English army bivouacked in sight
of the French barricade.  Promptly at twelve o'clock next day a cannon
shot from Ticonderoga brought every Frenchman behind the tree line to
his place at a leap.  Abercrombie had ordered his men to rush the
barricade.  There was fearful silence till the English were within
twenty paces of the trees.  There they broke from quick march to a run
with a wild halloo!  Death unerring blazed from the French
barricade,--not bullets only, but broken glass and ragged metal that
tore hideous wounds in the ranks of the English.  Caught in the
brushwood, unable even to see their foes, the maddened troops wavered
and fell back.  Again Abercrombie roared the order to charge.  Six
times they hurled themselves against the impassable wall, and six times
the sharpshooters behind the lines met the advance with a rain of fire.
The Highland troops to the right went almost mad.  Lord John Murray,
their commander, had fallen, and not a tenth of their number remained
unwounded; but the broadswords wrought small havoc against the spiked
branches of the log ba