A Historical Geography of the British Colonies Part 14

Even now some of the colonies hung back. Pennsylvania, out of reach of French attack and dominated by Quakers, sent no help in men or money. New Jersey sent money but no men. New York however abandoned its neutrality, threw in its lot with New England, and persuaded some of the Five Nations to take up arms again against the French, the Senecas only, under the influence of a skilful French agent, Joncaire, holding aloof. Fifteen hundred men were gathered for the land march, and, under the command of Colonel Francis Nicholson, advanced to Wood Creek, which is connected with Lake Champlain. He entrenched himself there, and his outposts came into collision with the advance guard of a French force sent to surprise him under Ramesay, Governor of Montreal. The French fell back to Chambly, and Nicholson waited week after week for news of the English fleet, until pestilence broke out among his troops, and he was compelled to retreat.

[Sidenote: _Non-arrival of the English fleet._]

Meanwhile at Boston every preparation had been made, according to the orders of the English Government. Men, stores, transports were gathered, but all to no purpose, for no fleet came. It was due in May, and not till October came the news that the ships and men intended for America had been sent instead to Portugal. Once more there was a respite for Canada, once more the hearts of the English colonists were made sick by hope deferred. They had done their part, and all the trouble and expense and, in Nicholson's army, loss of life had been for nought.

[Sidenote: _Fresh representations to the home Government._]

Yet the representatives of Ma.s.sachusetts still pressed the home Government to take action against New France. Nicholson went to England at the end of the year, and {142} pleaded the cause of the colonies, pleading it with authority, as having been Lieutenant-Governor of New York and Governor of Maryland. One of the Schuylers too followed him to England from New York, bringing a party of Mohawk chiefs to see and be seen.

[Sidenote: _Reduction of Port Royal by Nicholson._]

If Canada were not to be invaded, at least Port Royal might be taken, and Imperial aid was promised to attain the latter object. An English force, timed to reach Boston in March, 1710, arrived there in July; and in September Nicholson sailed for Port Royal at the head of a strong expedition. He reached it on September 24. For a week there was some fighting, but the French were hopelessly outnumbered; and on October 1, the fort surrendered. Port Royal, henceforth known as Annapolis, now pa.s.sed in permanence into English hands, and with it the English became masters of all Acadia.

[Sidenote: _Political changes in England._]

[Sidenote: _Jeremiah Dummer._]

[Sidenote: _The expedition of 1711._]

[Sidenote: _Its arrival at Boston._]

After taking Port Royal Nicholson returned to London, again to urge an attack on Canada. Before he arrived, there had been in August, 1710, a change of ministry. G.o.dolphin had been dismissed, and Marlborough's enemies, Harley and Bolingbroke, were in power.

Bolingbroke had in his service a New Englander, trained at Harvard University--Jeremiah Dummer--who had become agent of Ma.s.sachusetts in England, and who set forth in pamphlets the colonists' case, and urged the vital importance of conquering Canada. His writings, combined with the personal representations of Nicholson, persuaded ministers, who were anxious to father an enterprise which might weigh in the balance of public opinion against Marlborough's victories; and in April, 1711, fifteen men of war, with forty-six transports, sailed for America, carrying seven regiments of the line, five of which were from the army in Flanders. The regulars numbered 5,000 men, exclusive of sailors and marines, and they were to be supplemented on arrival by colonial levies. They reached Boston, after a fair pa.s.sage, towards the end of June.

{143} [Sidenote: _Feeling of the colonists._]

The force was fully strong enough to take Quebec, provided that two requisites were forthcoming--the hearty co-operation of the colonists and capable leaders. The colonists did their part, but not with a whole heart and not without misgivings. They had asked for British troops, but, notwithstanding, there was a suspicion in the minds of many that a strong force landed in America might be used to subvert colonial liberties, and to reduce the communities of New England to the position of Crown Colonies. The French knew that such a spirit was abroad, and did their best to foster it. It was fostered too by other causes. There was something new in the action of the British Government. The American settlers were accustomed to refusal of aid from home, to promises of aid made but not fulfilled, to tardy and inadequate a.s.sistance. But on the present occasion an unusually large force of veteran troops arrived at Boston at a fortnight's notice.

[Sidenote: _The expedition sails from Boston._]

Nicholson landed with the news of the coming fleet on June 8, on the twenty-fourth the fleet appeared. Its destination had been kept secret, and it was provisioned only for the voyage to America. On its arrival, therefore, it was necessary to impress men and supplies: pilots too were wanted and were not forthcoming: the King's officers found the colonists difficult to deal with: the colonists resented peremptory orders, and sheltered deserters from the army and the fleet. Still the authorities of Ma.s.sachusetts loyally backed the expedition; preparations went forward; and on July 30 the ships set sail for the St. Lawrence, carrying, in addition to the English forces, two Ma.s.sachusetts regiments, which numbered about 1,500 men, and were commanded by Vetch, now Governor of Annapolis.

[Sidenote: _Nicholson's advance towards Lake Champlain._]

[Sidenote: _Admiral Walker and General Hill._]

The orthodox plan of invading Canada involved a twofold attack, by land on Montreal, by sea on Quebec. Accordingly, while the fleet was sailing round the North American coast, Nicholson collected troops at Albany, and advanced as far as {144} Wood Creek at the head of 2,300 men, 800 of whom were Iroquois. Thence he intended to push his way down Lake Champlain. He was a competent commander, but the leaders of the main expedition were not. Little is known of the admiral, Sir Hovenden Walker, and it does not appear why he was chosen for so important a post. The general, Hill, familiar enough to London society as Jack Hill, had hitherto shown no military capacity.

Marlborough had set his face against his promotion, and he owed his rise entirely to Court favour, for he was brother of Abigail Hill (Lady Masham), now the ruling favourite of Queen Anne. Sister and brother alike had been befriended by the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough; by intrigue, Abigail Hill had supplanted her benefactress in the Queen's favour; and with her aid Harley and Bolingbroke, themselves arch-intriguers, turned out G.o.dolphin and procured Marlborough's disgrace. The price of her a.s.sistance was the appointment of her incompetent brother to command seasoned troops well fitted to conquer Canada.

[Sidenote: _Disaster to the fleet in the St. Lawrence._]

Rounding Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, the fleet, on August 18, put into Gaspe Bay. By the evening of the twenty-second it was at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and in foggy weather the unskilful admiral, many miles out of his course, headed straight for the northern sh.o.r.e of the river, under the impression that he was too close to land on the southern side. At dead of night he was roused from his berth with the unwelcome news that the ship was among breakers; and turned her head just in time to avoid running upon rocks. The ships which followed his disastrous lead were not so fortunate, and eight of the transports were dashed to pieces on the reefs with a loss of about 1,000 lives.[6] The place where the catastrophe occurred was one of the {145} rocky islets, known as the Egg Islands, about twenty miles to the north of the Point de Monts.

[Footnote 6: According to one English account 884 soldiers were lost, according to another 740 soldiers and women. The number of sailors lost is not given.]

[Sidenote: _The expedition abandoned._]

For two days the ships were busied in picking up survivors from the wrecks. On the twenty-fifth a council of war was held, and it was resolved to abandon the expedition. A message was sent to recall Nicholson and his troops from their advance on Montreal; the fleet sailed back to Sydney harbour in Cape Breton Island. A suggestion to attack Placentia in Newfoundland was rejected. The New England transports returned to Boston, and the English fleet went home to Portsmouth,[7] where--to complete the fiasco--the admiral's ship blew up, costing the lives of some 400 seamen.

[Footnote 7: Swift, in the _Journal to Stella_, says that the ship blew up in the Thames, but the accident seems to have taken place at Spithead; see Kingsford's _History of Canada_, vol. ii, pp. 468-9.

There are various references to this expedition and to Hill in the _Journal to Stella_. Hill was subsequently placed in command at Dunkirk, while that port was being held as security for the execution of the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht.]

Of the two commanders, Hill escaped formal censure. Luckily for him, Swift's bitter pen was at the service of the political clique with which he was connected. Walker, more culpable, was also less fortunate: deprived of his command he emigrated first to South Carolina and afterwards to Barbados, where he died, having written his own version of the expedition,[8] which in no way tended to redeem his reputation.

[Footnote 8: _A full account of the late Expedition to Canada_, by Sir Hovenden Walker (London, 1720).]

[Sidenote: _Ignominious end of the expedition._]

Such was the end of the enterprise, intended to eclipse the great deeds of Marlborough. There have been many shortcomings and many disasters in the military annals of England, but few instances are on record of so much incompetence, verging almost on cowardice. Phipps'

expedition against Quebec was a complete failure, but at least he led his band of untrained farmers and fishermen safely up and down the St. Lawrence, and gave Count Frontenac a taste of powder and shot.

Walker and Hill, {146} with the best of ships and the best of men, blundered and turned back at the mouth of the river; at the first mishap they abandoned everything. No wonder the Frenchmen deemed that the saints watched over Canada.

[Sidenote: _The Treaty of Utrecht._]

The result can hardly have confirmed the American colonies in their allegiance to England. As a matter of fact, England had been fighting their battle against France, but her successes had been on the other side of the Atlantic; whereas in America, under the eyes of the colonists, there had been little but failure. One substantial gain there was--the capture of Port Royal; but this easy feat had been previously achieved by Ma.s.sachusetts alone without any aid from home.

The conquest of Canada, which had been well within reach, now seemed as far off as ever; and the Treaty of Utrecht--which, if Marlborough had been left to follow up his career of victory, and if a commander of his choosing had been sent with his troops across the seas, might have forestalled the famous treaty of fifty years later--did not even secure the whole seaboard to England, or confine the French to the river of Canada. Acadia, according to its ancient limits, was ceded to the British Crown, the French gave up their possessions in Newfoundland, and their hold on Hudson Bay: but on a section of the Newfoundland coast they were granted fishing rights, to be a fruitful source of future trouble; and, keeping Cape Breton Island, they reared in it the fortress of Louisbourg, to be a stronghold second only to that of Quebec. Once more England lost her opportunity, and the settlement, which should have been made in 1713, was postponed till 1763.

NOTE.--For the substance of chaps. iii, iv, and v, see among modern books,

KINGSFORD'S _History of Canada_, vols. i and ii,

and the following works of Parkman:

_The Jesuits in North America_; _The Old Regime in Canada_; _Count Frontenac and New France_; _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_.

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CHAPTER V

THE MISSISSIPPI AND LOUISIANA

[Sidenote: _French and English views in North America._]

What were the French and English fighting for in North America? The answer seems obvious, for North America itself. But what did North America mean? It had a different meaning to different interests. The New Englander cared for little but the New England colonies, and the immediately adjacent lands and seas. To the Acadian settlers the Acadian peninsula, to the Canadian _habitant_ the banks of the St.

Lawrence, were all in all. The inland colonists of New York had in their minds not merely the safety of their colony, within its ill-defined boundaries, but also paramount influence over the Five Nations, and unrestricted trade with the western Indians. Longheaded governors of New York and Ma.s.sachusetts took a still wider view; but the widest of all was held by the French Governors of Canada, and by the roving Canadians, who, with restless spirit and undaunted enterprise, claimed seas and rivers before they were reached or known, magnifying tales of far-off lands and peoples, building in the air and bringing down to earth a fabric of continental dominion. As a rule, the English view was too circ.u.mscribed, the French view was too diffuse. The strength of the English lay in effective occupation within narrow limits; the French committed the blunder of perpetually forcing compet.i.tion upon rivals who had larger resources; but to them belonged the great merit of grasping in some sort the true meaning of North America, and never letting slip the problems of the future.

{148} [Sidenote: _The search for the Western sea._]

The explorers' aim was always to reach the further sea. That it must be somewhere to the west, in the opposite direction to the homes from whence they came, they knew or conjectured; but of the immense distance at which it lay, and of the Rocky Mountain barrier which must be surmounted to find it, they were wholly ignorant. They followed the water, and, when they had gained some knowledge of the great lakes, they reached the closely adjoining sources of the tributaries of the Mississippi, the Wisconsin, the Ohio, and the Illinois; and, borne with the stream, they came in due course not to the west but to the south, not to the Pacific but to the Gulf of Mexico.

[Sidenote: _The missionaries and Western discovery._]

There was the usual mixture of motives--love of adventure, love of gain, political ambition, religious fervour. There was rivalry and compet.i.tion. One trader or band of traders was jealous of another.

One man or set of men was backed by the Governor for the time being, another secured the favour of the Intendant. Missionaries played a great part in exploration. At first they led the van of discovery; they were always in or near the front rank; but, as years went on, and as the simple desire of adding to geographical knowledge, of opening new fields for France and for Christianity, became more and more alloyed with commercial greed, the ministers of religion, when heart-whole themselves, realized that the multiplication of trading posts in the backwoods meant lawlessness of white men, deterioration of natives; and they no longer gave hearty support to the bold French adventurers whose enterprise opened up the West.