A Historical Geography of the British Colonies Part 23

[Footnote 10: In Jeffreys' _American Atlas_, 1775, the a.s.siniboils (sic) or St. Charles river is prolonged to the Pacific by a dotted line, ent.i.tled the 'River of the West.' Below it a range of mountains is traced from north to south, with the note, 'Hereabouts are supposed to be the mountains of bright stones mentioned in the map of the Indian Ochagach.' In Carver's _Travels through North America in 1766-8_, published in 1778, p. 121, the Rocky mountains 'are called the Shining Mountains from an infinite number of chrystal stones of amazing size with which they are covered, and which, when the sun shines full upon them, sparkle so as to be seen at a very great distance.' Morse's _American Geography_, 1794, shows the Rocky mountains on the map of America. In the text they are called 'Shining Mountains.' In Arrowsmith's _Map of North America_, dated 1795-6, they are called Stony Mountains. In a later edition of 1811 the name 'Rocky Mountains' appears.]

NOTE.--For the substance of the above chapter, see

KINGSFORD'S _History of Canada_, vol. iii; PARKMAN'S _A Half Century of Conflict_; Sir J. BOURINOT'S _Cape Breton_ (referred to above on p. 34, note); and _Louisbourg in 1745_, the anonymous _Lettre d'un habitant de Louisbourg_, edited and translated by Professor WRONG, (Toronto, 1897).

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CHAPTER VIII

THE PRELUDE TO THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR

The fifteen years from the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 to the Peace of Paris in 1763 include the most stirring and picturesque times in the history of Canada. They were masculine years, when, in all parts of the world, great men did great things. They were the years when Montcalm and Wolfe fought and died on the St. Lawrence; when Robert Clive mastered India; when Chatham redeemed England from littleness; and when Frederick of Prussia became known for all time as Frederick the Great, by standing grimly foursquare against the continent of Europe in the Seven Years' War.

[Sidenote: _The southern colonies drawn into the struggle with France._]

The Seven Years' War only began in 1756; but before that date, before war between France and England had formally been proclaimed, French and English were fighting hard in North America. We have the same sphere of war as before, and in large measure the same plans of campaign, trouble and conflict in and on the borders of Acadia, siege and capture of Louisbourg, attack up the St. Lawrence against Quebec--at last a successful attack, and prolonged fighting along the line of Lakes George and Champlain. The Five Nation Indians played their part in the war, though a more subordinate part than in earlier times; the cantons most within range of the English remaining under English influence and being more adroitly managed than in earlier days, while the westernmost tribes, the Senecas, inclined to the French side. But a new feature came into the struggle, the {217} result of the inevitable advance of white men on either side in the course of years. The English colonies to the south of New York began to take a more active part than formerly in the conflict with France.

The Virginians appeared on the scene, and among the Virginians was prominent the name of George Washington. The great French scheme of holding the rivers of North America and their basins implied that the English colonies should not cross the Alleghany mountains. Great schemes never allow for the ordinary every day work of nature and man. It was certain that, as the English multiplied, they would go further and further afield; and in due time, from Pennsylvania and from Virginia, English traders and backwoodsmen made their way into the valley of the Ohio.

[Sidenote: _The Ohio._]

[Sidenote: _Celeron de Bienville._]

The Ohio, which La Salle first made known to the world, is, as has been pointed out, the connecting link on the inner line of the North American waterways--starting from the confines of the St. Lawrence basin near the sh.o.r.es of Lake Erie, and reaching the Mississippi comparatively low down in its course. The outer line is much more extensive, continuing along the great lakes until from Lake Michigan the Mississippi is reached by the Wisconsin or the Illinois. Along this outer line the French had hitherto worked. It took them more directly to the far West; and, pa.s.sing along it, they only skirted instead of traversing the region where the Iroquois were in strength; but, had they allowed the English to lay firm hold of the Ohio valley, Canada and Louisiana would have been severed, and down the Ohio would have come a challenge to French sovereignty over the West.

Thus it was that, in the year 1749, the year after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed, the Governor of Canada, the Marquis de la Galissoniere, sent one of his officers, Celeron de Bienville, to register the claims of France to the Ohio river and the lands which it watered and drained.

[Sidenote: _His mission to the Ohio._]

Starting up the St. Lawrence from the island of Montreal, {218} Celeron landed on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Erie; and, making a portage to Lake Chautauqua, reached the head waters of the Ohio. Down stream he went, into the Alleghany, down the Alleghany to where, meeting the Monongahela, it becomes the Ohio, and down the Ohio to the confluence of the Miami river, not far from the site of Cincinnati city. Here he left the Ohio, and, ascending the Miami, crossed overland to the Maumee river, on which there was a small French post. The Maumee flows into the south-western end of Lake Erie, and down its stream he returned to Canada.

[Sidenote: _English intrusion into the Ohio valley._]

At various points along the route he buried leaden plates, with inscriptions a.s.serting the t.i.tle of the King of France to the lands of the Ohio and its tributaries; and he affixed to trees the arms of France on sheets of tin, to tell all comers that the French were lords of the country. It was time that some a.s.sertion of French claims was made in these regions. He found parties of English traders, as he went, and the Indians showed no love for France. There had been for some time past a migration of Indians into the Ohio valley. Many of the Iroquois had settled there: and if among the various races, notably among the Delawares, there were those whose traditional sympathies were with the owners of Canada, there were more who appreciated the present benefit of English trade. Prominent among the friends of the English were the Indians of the Miami confederacy, whose centre was at Pique Town or Pickawillany on the Miami river.

[Sidenote: _The Ohio company._]

Celeron came and went. He had made a demonstration on behalf of France, but not a demonstration in force. His expedition was memorable as the prelude to coming events; but no definite action was taken for about three years. La Galissoniere was succeeded as Governor of Canada by the Marquis de la Jonquiere,[1] who died in 1752, and was {219} followed by the Marquis Duquesne. Meantime, an Ohio company was formed on the English side, consisting mainly of Virginians, and English traders and emissaries were active among the Indians of the Ohio. Yet the English, like the French, achieved no tangible results. Pennsylvania and Virginia were jealous of each other, and the Legislature in each state opposed the Governor. Both a.s.semblies were invited to build a fort at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, which formed the key of the position; but both refused.

[Footnote 1: De la Jonquiere had been named Governor of Canada in 1746, and made two unsuccessful attempts to reach Quebec, one in that year on board D'Anville's fleet, and a second in 1747, when he was taken prisoner in the fight off Cape Finisterre (see above, pp. 207, 208). He finally arrived in 1749.]

[Sidenote: _The French attack the Miamis._]

Thus matters drifted on until, in June, 1752, a Frenchman, Langlade, came down from the lakes with a band of Indian warriors, attacked the Miamis at Pickawillany, took the town, and killed its chief--who was known to the French as La Demoiselle, and who was feared by them as a warm friend of their English rivals. The place was a centre of English trade, there were English traders in it when the attack was made, and this French success was the beginning of action, on a larger scale than had hitherto been attempted, for the conquest and control of the Ohio valley.

[Sidenote: _Halifax._]

Founded in 1749, Halifax, on the coast of Nova Scotia, was, in 1752, a town of 4,000 inhabitants. Had the settlement been made thirty years earlier, immediately after the Peace of Utrecht instead of after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the story of Acadia would have been a different and probably a happier one. Mascarene at Annapolis, and Shirley at Boston, saw the necessity of introducing English settlers into the peninsula in order to balance the French malcontents, and the British Government, when giving back Louisbourg to France, recognized at length that steps must be taken to strengthen the English hold on Nova Scotia. It was determined to recruit the English, or at any rate the Protestant, {220} element in the population from Europe, from the North American colonies, and from the ranks of the men who were withdrawn from Louisbourg; and Chebucto harbour on the Atlantic coast of the Nova Scotian peninsula was selected as the scene of a new township to be well fortified and strongly garrisoned.

[Sidenote: _The first settlers at Halifax._]

[Sidenote: _Cornwallis._]

Here was created the city of Halifax, called after the Earl of Halifax, at the time 'First Lord of Trade and Plantations.' In founding it, the English had regard to the methods by which the French had established their colonies on the St. Lawrence. Halifax was in its origin a military colony. The first settlers consisted largely of officers and privates of the army and navy, who, when peace was concluded, received their discharge and who were supplemented by a certain number of labourers and artizans.

Parliament voted 40,000 pounds in aid of the initial expenses. Free pa.s.sages, free grants of land, and the cost of subsistence for a year after landing were provided, privileges which secured a considerable number of colonists; 1,400 immigrants were landed from the first batch of transports at Chebucto harbour,[2] and others followed. A good Governor was appointed, Colonel Edward Cornwallis, uncle of Lord Cornwallis who surrendered at Yorktown and ruled India.

[Footnote 2: It is difficult to make out the numbers. The above figure is given by Cornwallis in a letter to the Lords of Trade, July 24, 1749 (see Mr. Brymer's _Catalogue of Canadian Archives_, 'Nova Scotia,' p. 142). On the other hand pa.s.sages were taken for over 2,500 (p. 138). Haliburton says, 'in a short time 3,760 adventurers with their families were entered for embarkation.' Parkman puts the number at about 2,500, including women and children, Kingsford at 1,176 settlers with their families. Parliament for some years continued to make annual grants for the colonization of Nova Scotia, 'which collected sums,' says Haliburton, 'amounted to the enormous sum of 415,584 pounds 14_s_. 11_d_.']

[Sidenote: _The Lunenburg settlement._]

Old soldiers do not always make good colonists, and Cornwallis wrote home complaining of their want of industry, contrasting the English unfavourably with a few Swiss who were among the newcomers, and suggesting that an effort {221} should be made to introduce Protestant emigrants from Germany. Accordingly, German Lutherans were brought over through an agent at Rotterdam, the majority of whom were, in 1753, planted out at Lunenburg, a little to the south-west of Halifax, on the same side of the peninsula. Thus the outer margin of Nova Scotia was being spa.r.s.ely colonized with English, Swiss, and German Protestants, while on the side towards the mainland, along the sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Fundy, the Roman Catholic Acadians remained French in heart and sympathies.

[Sidenote: _The commissioners to fix the limits of Acadia._]

[Sidenote: _Designs of the French on Acadia._]

For three years following the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the French and English commissioners, appointed to determine the limits of the French and English possessions in North America, wrangled at Paris, William Shirley being one of the English delegates; but they never came to any conclusion. The French now refused even to concede that the whole of the Acadian peninsula belonged to England, and wished to confine English sovereignty to its southern coasts. They were in fact resolved by bluff or by force either to regain Acadia, or, in default of attaining that object, to make its condition one of permanent insecurity and unrest. As related in the last chapter,[3] immediately after the Peace of Utrecht the intention of the French Government had been to transplant the Acadians to French soil, to Cape Breton Island and to Prince Edward Island, then known as ile St. Jean. For this policy they subsequently subst.i.tuted the more dangerous plan of not removing the Acadians, but encouraging them to consider themselves still as French subjects while remaining under the British flag.

After the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed, however, they reverted to their project of transplantation, finding that the British Government were resolved no longer to treat their subjects in Acadia as neutrals, and realizing that the Governor had now force at his back.

[Footnote 3: See above, p. 193.]

{222} [Sidenote: _Position of the Acadians._]

[Sidenote: _Att.i.tude of Cornwallis._]

The Acadians claimed to be exempt from bearing arms in defence of their country and their country's rulers, in other words against the French and the Indian allies of the French. They were not free agents; they were terrorized by the French Government and the French priests, notorious among whom was a ruffian named Le Loutre, Vicar-General of Acadia. Spiritual excommunication and Indian hostility threatened them, if they acted with loyalty to the British King, whose subjects they had been for nearly forty years. How faithless and unscrupulous was the policy of the French is abundantly shown by official dispatches, proving that the Canadian Governor, La Jonquiere, with the sanction of the French Government at home, accepted and endorsed Le Loutre's villainous schemes for preventing the Acadians from taking the full oath of allegiance, and for instigating the Indians of the peninsula to murder the English settlers. Cornwallis treated the Acadians with kindly firmness. Some of them asked to be allowed to leave the country, and he promised permission to those who should obtain pa.s.sports, when peace and tranquillity were restored. For the moment he declined to allow them to cross the frontier, as it would mean sending them among French and Indians, who would compel them to bear arms against the English Government.

[Sidenote: _Beauba.s.sin occupied by English troops._]

[Sidenote: _Fort Lawrence._]

The frontier, as far as any line was provisionally recognized, was a little stream on the isthmus of Chignecto. On the mainland side the French had occupied a hill called Beausejour, on the Nova Scotian side was the village of Beauba.s.sin. In April, 1750, Cornwallis sent a force of some 400 men under Major Lawrence to occupy a position at or near Beauba.s.sin, and to guard the isthmus. On his arrival, Lawrence found Beauba.s.sin in flames. Le Loutre and his Indians had set fire to the place, and compelled the hapless residents to cross over to the French lines. The English left, but returned in September in stronger force; their landing was disputed by Le Loutre's savages, who were driven off, {223} and a fort was built and garrisoned, called after the name of the commander, Fort Lawrence.

[Sidenote: _Murder of Captain Howe._]

French and English now faced each other across a narrow stream, the French completed their fort at Beausejour, and the temper of Le Loutre's Indians was shown by a horrible incident, the murder of an English officer, Captain Howe. Howe had gone out in answer to a flag of truce, which appeared from the French lines; but the bearer of the white flag was an Indian disguised in French uniform, who lured the Englishman into an ambush, where he was mortally wounded. The French themselves attributed this act of wanton wickedness to Le Loutre.

[Sidenote: _Colonel Lawrence._]

[Sidenote: _Acadian emigration._]

In 1752 Cornwallis returned to England, and was succeeded as Governor of Acadia by Colonel Hopson, who had been in command at Louisbourg, when that town was given back to France; the latter was, in the autumn of 1753, succeeded by Colonel Lawrence. The Acadian population, which in 1749 numbered between 12,000 and 13,000 souls, five years later was reduced to little more than 9,000. The emigration which caused the reduction in numbers was largely the result of a French terror, and on the mainland, or in the ile St.

Jean, the unfortunate emigrants endured misery unknown in their old homes in Acadia. Those who find in the subsequent rooting up of Acadian settlement an instance of English cruelty with little parallel in history, would do well to remember that the process had already been going on at the hands of the French; and the lot of the Acadians under the French flag was in no wise preferable to the fortunes of those who were carried, as it were, into captivity in the English colonies.

[Sidenote: _De Vergor._]