Count Frontenac Part 6

In the winter of 1685-6, a Dutchman, named Johannes Rooseboom, had set out from Albany, by Dongan's directions, with a party of armed traders in eleven canoes, filled with English goods, to trade in the Upper Lakes. There was no resistance to their progress; and after trading most successfully, and to the great satisfaction of the Indians, they returned in safety. This was encouragement for a larger expedition the following year; so, in the fall of 1686, the same adventurer set out with a similar party in twenty canoes. On this occasion they were to winter with the Senecas and resume their journey in the spring, accompanied by fifty men, who were to come from Albany under the charge of a Scots officer named M'Gregory, and a band of Iroquois; the whole party to be under M'Gregory's command. The intention was to form a general treaty of trade and alliance with the tribes that hitherto had been under the domination of the French.

This was a bold step to take, and shows Dongan in the light of an early advocate of the policy of "Forward." It was too bold. Fortunately for Denonville, he had in the early summer of 1686 sent an order to Du Lhut, then at Michilimackinac, to fortify a post at the outlet of Lake Huron, which that capable and zealous officer lost no time in doing. On hearing of the projected expedition, the governor was greatly incensed. He wrote to Dongan in strong terms, and at the same time laid the matter before the minister, declaring that it would be better to have open war with the English than to be in constant danger from their intrigues. A favourite plan of his was that Louis XIV should buy the colony of New York from James II, as he had previously bought Dunkirk from Charles II.

The idea was not taken up by the French court, and there is much reason to doubt whether, with the best will in the world, the English king could have transferred the colony to France. It would have been an easy thing to send out orders, but it would have been quite a different thing to get them obeyed. In the New World men were already learning to put a very wide construction upon their civil rights; and, as far the larger portion of the population were of the reformed faith in one or other of its branches, they would certainly have made strong objection to being handed over to the tender mercies of the monarch who, at this very moment, was extirpating Protestantism in his own kingdom by the cruelest forms of persecution. The appeal to Dongan drew forth from that worthy the declaration that, in his belief, it was "as lawful for the English as for the French to trade with the remotest Indians." He denied, however, that he had incited the Iroquois to acts of aggression, and protested, in regard to the deserters, that he would much rather "such rascalls and bankrouts" would stay in their own country, and that Denonville was welcome to send for them. Negotiations, however, were going on at this time between the English and French courts in relation to affairs in America; and both Denonville and Dongan received injunctions to cultivate peaceful relations with one another pending the settlement of all matters in dispute by a joint commission.

If Dongan was preparing to trespa.s.s upon French rights in the region of the Great Lakes, Denonville himself was acting with even less scruple in another direction. For several years before this, the Hudson's Bay Company, under the charter granted to them by Charles II in the year 1670, had been trading to the bay from which they derived their name, and had established a number of posts along its sh.o.r.es. The charter had been granted in perfect good faith, as the region in question, which had been discovered and explored by navigators sailing under the English flag, Cabot, Hudson, Baffin, and Davis, was regarded as English territory. It is true that a memoir prepared by M. de Callieres, Governor of Montreal, for the minister of marine and colonies,[27]

mentions proceedings taken at different times by governors of Canada, between the years 1656 and 1663, to bring the country under French sovereignty; but there is nothing to show that any attempt was made at settlement or even at trading on the coast. The Hudson's Bay Company, on the other hand, had from the date of its charter, not to mention earlier operations, been carrying on trade, and establishing posts in that region without any remonstrance from the French government, and without disturbance of any kind until the year 1682, in the early winter of which two Frenchmen, named Radisson and Des Groseilliers, sailed into Hudson's Bay with two vessels, and took possession of a fort which the English had established near the mouth of the Nelson River. The explanation given by these parties was that they were acting on behalf of the "Compagnie Francaise de la Baie du Nord de Canada," which had previously formed establishments some distance up that river, and that finding that some English had begun to erect dwellings on an island at the mouth of the river, they had forced them to retire, considering their own claim to the river and its outlet the better.

This was the beginning of trouble. The French king in writing to La Barre on the subject authorized him to check, as far as possible, English encroachments in that quarter. In the spring of 1684 he writes again, and says that he has had a further communication from the English amba.s.sador in regard to the proceedings of Radisson and Des Groseilliers, and that, while he is anxious not to give the English king any cause of complaint, he still thinks it desirable that the English should not be allowed to establish themselves on the Nelson River. La Barre was therefore to make a proposal to the English commandant in Hudson's Bay that no new establishments should be formed there by either French or English. This was at the very least an acknowledgment of the _status quo_. Nevertheless, a charter having been granted by the French king in the following year to a Canadian company authorizing it to trade on the Bourbon River, called in previous correspondence the Nelson, Denonville chose to consider that fact a warrant for making a general attack on the English in the bay. While his discussion with Dongan was in progress in the summer of 1686, he organized an expedition of about a hundred picked men, thirty being regular soldiers, and placed it under the command of a very capable officer, the Chevalier de Troyes, a.s.signing to him as lieutenants three sons of Charles Le Moyne, of Montreal: Iberville, Ste. Helene, and Maricourt. The difficulties of the overland route were most formidable, but Troyes surmounted them with the loss of only one man. He did not attempt any negotiation with the English, nor send any summons to surrender, but fell upon Port Hayes, the first to which he came, in the dead of night, and captured it without difficulty, the garrison being totally unprepared to resist an attack. At this point there does not appear to have been any loss of life; but at Fort Rupert, which was similarly attacked at night, three of the occupants were killed, and two were wounded. Three more men were killed on the same night on board a vessel anch.o.r.ed near the sh.o.r.e. When the a.s.sailants reached Fort Albany, held by a garrison of thirty men, they found that their coming had been antic.i.p.ated, but, with the aid of cannon captured in the other forts, they had little difficulty in forcing a surrender. Leaving Maricourt in command at the bay, Troyes returned to Quebec. The English captured in this buccaneer fashion were sent home in one of their own vessels which happened to arrive opportunely for the purpose.

Denonville had succeeded in arousing the French government to the importance of proceeding vigorously against the Iroquois. Eight hundred men were sent out to him in the spring of 1687, which, with about eight hundred already in the colony, made the force at his disposal quite a formidable one. In the summer of the previous year there had been a change of intendant. M. de Meulles had been recalled, and a new man, Bochart de Champigny, sent out in his place. As the appointment of the latter was made as early as April 1686, it may be surmised that Denonville, shortly after arriving in the country, signified to the king that he and Meulles were not adapted to work together satisfactorily.

Meulles was certainly far from having the fervent piety of the governor; and it may not improbably have been some difference of opinion or policy arising out of this fact that caused his recall. His successor was a man conspicuously devoted to the church; and Denonville in his despatches praises him in high terms. Having now the necessary force at his command, and being zealously seconded in all his views by the new intendant, the governor determined not to let the summer of 1687 pa.s.s without undertaking his long meditated campaign against the Iroquois.

While preparing for war, however, he talked of peace, in the hope of taking the enemy unawares. So far did he carry his dissimulation that he completely misled the colonists, so that, when they discovered that war was intended, they manifested a strong indisposition to respond to the call to arms. There were enough regular soldiers, they said, in the country to meet all military requirements. Denonville was too well advised, however, to dream of taking a force of regulars into the woods, unsupported by militia accustomed to the country and familiar with the methods of Indian warfare. He therefore issued a special proclamation, which the vicars-general, in the absence of the bishop, supported by a _mandement_, with the result that the inhabitants, accustomed to yield to authority, furnished the quota of men required, about eight hundred.

The more effectually to throw the Iroquois off their guard, the governor had instructed his chief agent amongst them, Father Lamberville, a man in whom they had perfect confidence, to invite them to a friendly conference at Fort Frontenac. The good father was kept completely in the dark as to what was really intended, and was allowed to continue his solicitations to the Indians to attend the conference up to the moment when all disguise was thrown off. He was still with them when they discovered that they had been deceived; and, had it not been for the unbounded faith they had learnt to place in the good priest's word, they would certainly have put him to death with torture as a traitor. As it was they charged the deception entirely on Denonville, who, in this case, had certainly carried craft to very dangerous, not to say indefensible, lengths.

The expedition as organized by Denonville consisted of four companies of regulars, men who had been some time in the country, and four of militia, making in all fifteen hundred Frenchmen, to whom were added five hundred mission Indians, Christian in name, but scarcely less savage in instinct than their unreclaimed brethren of the forest. The regulars were commanded by their own officers, amongst whom we recognize Troyes, the hero of the Hudson's Bay exploit. The militia were led by four notable seigneurs, Berthier, Lavaltrie, Grandville, and Le Moyne de Longueuil, brother of the three Le Moynes who had accompanied Troyes. All the French troops were placed under the general command of Callieres, Governor of Montreal, a very capable officer. M. de Vaudreuil, who had just come out from France as commander of the king's forces, accompanied the expedition in the capacity of chief-of-staff to the governor. The troops that he brought with him were left behind to take care of the country in the absence of its other defenders.

Starting from Montreal on the 13th June 1687, the expedition, after encountering the usual perils and fatigues of the St. Lawrence route, and losing one or two men in the rapids, arrived at Fort Frontenac on the 1st July. Here news was received of a reinforcement on which the governor had not permitted himself to count. In October of the previous year orders had been sent to the commanders in the West to rally the Indians of that region for another movement against the Iroquois. As Denonville well knew, there were serious difficulties in the way. The fiasco of 1684 had left a deplorable impression on the minds of the Lake tribes, whose loyalty was being further undermined by the pleasing prospect of trade with the English. These arguments, however, did not weigh with the Illinois, the latest victims of Iroquois barbarity; and Tonty in charge at Fort St. Louis, who had been notified with the others, had little trouble in getting a couple of hundred of them to follow him to Detroit on the way to Niagara. Nicolas Perrot in like manner raised a contingent among the tribes to the west of Lake Michigan, and, pa.s.sing by way of Michilimackinac, joined his efforts to those of La Durantaye who had been labouring all winter to win over the dissatisfied Hurons and Ottawas. The Hurons were at last persuaded to move; but the Ottawas still refused, and La Durantaye and the Hurons started for Detroit, the first place of rendezvous, without them.

Scarcely had they left Michilimackinac when they fell in with a number of the canoes which Dongan had sent to trade in the lakes. La Durantaye at once summoned the intruders to surrender; and, as he seemed to have a formidable force with him, the summons was obeyed. The commander distributed most of the goods among his Indian followers to their great delight, and sent some barrels of rum to the Ottawas in the hope that it would incline them to follow. It is difficult to say what did influence the minds of these savages; but in a few days they set out, taking, however, a route of their own by way of the Georgian Bay and overland to what is now Toronto. Perrot and his men went to Detroit, and from that point he and the others conducted their respective commands to Niagara, arriving there just about the same time that Denonville's force reached Fort Frontenac.

The gratification of the governor on learning that this important reinforcement had arrived just in the nick of time may be imagined. He sent word to the commanders to proceed to Irondequoit Bay, the entrance to the Seneca country; and, conducting his force thither, saw the western men approaching just as he himself was about to land. Such a concentration, on the same day, of troops brought from as far east as Quebec, and from as far west as the sources of the Mississippi, was indeed remarkable. It seemed on this occasion at least as if everything was destined to go well.

Denonville had now nearly three thousand men under his command. Forming a camp and erecting temporary fortifications on the point of land which shuts in Irondequoit Bay from Lake Ontario, he left four hundred men at that place to guard supplies, and arranged his army in marching order.

The van was led by La Durantaye, Du Lhut and Tonty with their _coureurs de bois_, about two hundred in number. On their left were the mission Indians, and on their right the Lake and other western tribes--a wild and motley gathering of, for the most part, naked savages, made hideous with paint and horns and tails. Separated from these by a short interval, the main body of the army followed, regulars and militia in alternate companies. A broad trail ran southwards to the heart of the Seneca country, but on either side was a dense bush in which enemies might well be concealed. The first day a distance of about ten miles was covered. It was mid-July, the heat was intense, the flies were outrageous, and the men were burdened with thirteen days' provisions in addition to their arms and ammunition. On the second day, as they were drawing near to the first fortified habitation of the enemy, whom they supposed to be awaiting them behind their defences, the advance guard was vigorously attacked both in front and rear by a foe as yet invisible. The Senecas had supposed that the advance guard, _coureurs de bois_ and Indians, const.i.tuted the entire army, but learnt their error when those making the rear attack found themselves, as they soon did, between two fires.

Meantime, however, no little confusion had been caused in the ranks of the invaders; and Denonville and his princ.i.p.al officers had to exercise all their powers of command to prevent a panic. As soon as confidence was restored, the vigorous firing of the French and their allies put the enemy to flight. "The Canadians," says Charlevoix, "fought with their accustomed bravery; but the regular troops did themselves little credit in the whole campaign." "What can one do with such men?" wrote Denonville in a despatch to the minister. On the Canadian side five militiamen, one regular soldier and five Indians were killed, and about an equal number, according to Denonville's statement, were wounded. The Senecas left twenty-seven dead upon the field. Their wounded they succeeded in carrying off; to have abandoned them would have meant to leave them to torture at the hands of the hostile Indians. As it was, the victory was followed by horrible scenes of cannibalism, in which the Ottawas, who, in the fight had showed marked cowardice, took the princ.i.p.al part.

This engagement, which has been localized as having occurred near the village of Victor, some fifteen miles south-east of the city of Rochester, N. Y., was the only one of the campaign. Not meeting again with the enemy, the army spent some days in burning the Seneca habitations, in which large quant.i.ties of grain were stored, and in destroying the standing crops. When this had been accomplished, they retraced their steps to their fortified camp on the lake sh.o.r.e. Already the army was getting into bad shape; the Indians were deserting and the French were falling sick through eating too abundantly of green corn and fresh pork; the latter article of diet being furnished by herds of swine kept by the Senecas. Despatching the sick in bateaux to Fort Frontenac, Denonville conducted the rest of his troops to Niagara in order to carry out the long-cherished design, which, in his correspondence with Dongan, he had disavowed, of erecting a fort at that point. This only occupied a few days; and on the 3rd August he was able to set out on the return journey, after detaching one hundred men to garrison the fort, which he placed under the command of M. de Troyes. Proceeding further up the lake to a point where it narrows, he crossed over to the north sh.o.r.e, and so made his way to Fort Frontenac, and thence to Montreal, where he arrived on the 13th of the month. The campaign, as Parkman observes, was but half a success; it certainly fell short of being what Abbe Gosselin calls it, "_une victoire eclatante_." The Senecas had been put to flight; and their dwellings had been destroyed, together with their stores of food; but their loss in men was not serious, and they could rely on the neighbouring Cayugas and Onondagas to tide them over a season of distress. Denonville writes, indeed, that they were succoured by the English. At the same time the injury they had received sank deep into minds not p.r.o.ne to forgive.

An incident which happened before the expedition set out from Fort Frontenac tended greatly to aggravate the situation. It had been intimated to Denonville in a despatch from the French government that the king desired to have some captured Iroquois sent over to France for service in the galleys, as it was understood that they were muscular fellows, well fitted for such work. Champigny, who left Montreal with Denonville, went ahead of the expedition with a few light canoes, in order to make arrangements for its reception at Fort Frontenac. Finding at that place a number of Iroquois, chiefly Onondagas, who, relying on Denonville's professions of peace, had come thither for trade or conference, and being anxious to show his zeal for his royal master, he did not hesitate to make them prisoners. The savages had their wives and children with them, a sure sign that they had come with friendly intent.

This circ.u.mstance did not weigh with the intendant, nor was he influenced by the tears and entreaties of the families of the captured men. He doubtless thought that the formidable force which the governor was leading would strike such terror into the hearts of the Iroquois nation as to put anything in the way of reprisals quite out of the question: in any case there was advantage for himself in obeying the mandate of the king. What kind of a service it was for which the unfortunate captives were destined may be learnt from a description given by a careful French writer: "Chained in gangs of six, with no clothing save a loose short jacket, devoured by itch and vermin, shoeless and stockingless, the galley slaves toiled for ten hours consecutively at a rate of exertion which one would hardly have believed a man could endure for one hour. They were indeed in luck when they were not made to work twenty-four hours consecutively, with nothing to sustain their strength but a biscuit steeped in wine, which was put into their mouths, so that they should not have to stop rowing. If their galley began to lose ground the petty officers would rain curses on their heads and blows on their backs. Many a time, when the pace was being forced under a blazing Mediterranean sun, some poor wretch would sink down dead on his bench. In such a case his companions would pa.s.s on his body, throw it overboard, and that was all."[28]

The total number of Indians sent home to France to be consigned to this fate was thirty-five. They were at Fort Frontenac as captives, bound helplessly to posts when Denonville's army pa.s.sed through, and an eye-witness, the Baron La Hontan, tells how he saw the mission Indians torturing the poor creatures by burning their fingers in the bowls of their pipes. He tried to interfere, but was censured for doing so, and put under arrest. The leaders, doubtless, thought they could not afford to put their Indian allies out of humour by interfering with their amus.e.m.e.nts.[29] The wrong done in this matter seems to have created a far more bitter feeling in the minds of the Iroquois than the open war on the Senecas. The Oneidas retaliated by torturing a Jesuit father named Millet, and would in the end have put him to death if an Indian woman had not interceded for him and adopted him as her son. The temper of the savages generally, in spite of the campaign, was far from being a submissive one; and Denonville himself within a month of his return to Quebec came to the conclusion that another punitive expedition would be necessary before a solid peace could be obtained. He therefore wrote home asking that eight hundred additional troops should be supplied to him, observing that his Indian allies were not to be depended on, and that the Canadians were not at all zealous for military service. His opinion was that he should have a force of not less than three or four thousand men at his disposal for two years. The French government did not agree with him on this point. The troops could not be spared, and the king thought that it ought to be possible to arrange matters by negotiation. There were those, indeed, in Canada who thought the whole war had been unnecessary; certainly, for some time before the Senecas were attacked, they were not acting on the aggressive. The Iroquois tribes generally had been impressed by the fact that the military forces of the colony had been considerably augmented; and the character of the governor himself, who seemed to possess much more firmness and resolution than his immediate predecessor, had more or less influenced them in favour of peace. Had Denonville made the most of these advantages, and shown in addition a disposition to act with good faith, it is altogether probable a satisfactory peace could have been arranged without resort to war.

However, the mischief had been done. All the Iroquois tribes had been angered, and the hives were ominously buzzing. Acts of reprisal became frequent. Even the immediate neighbourhood of Fort Frontenac was not secure, for during the following winter a woman and three soldiers were carried off within gunshot of its walls. The Onondagas who effected these captures stated expressly that they were made in retaliation for those so treacherously made by Champigny. The captives were not put to death, but were held as hostages, which gave them an opportunity of appealing to Dongan. That worthy was not at all sorry that his rival had got himself into trouble; and answered the appeal by saying that he could not do anything for them till Fort Niagara, unjustly planted by their governor on English territory, had been evacuated. On the last day of the year Denonville sent to Albany an able negotiator in the person of Father Vaillant, Jesuit, but with no satisfactory result. The only terms on which Dongan would consent to use his influence in favour of peace were that the prisoners sent to France for the galleys should be restored; that the mission Indians at Laprairie and the Montreal Mountain should be sent back to the Iroquois country to which they originally belonged; that Forts Niagara and Frontenac should be razed; and that the goods captured by the French from English traders on the Upper Lakes should be restored. Scarcely had Vaillant left Albany on his return when Dongan summoned representatives of the tribes, and, acquainting them with the terms he had demanded, asked for their ratification, which was readily granted. He told the chiefs not to bury the hatchet, but simply to lay it in the gra.s.s where they could get it if it was wanted, and meantime to post themselves along the lines of communication to the French country.

The advice was promptly taken. Some bands operated along the St.

Lawrence, others along the Richelieu. Early in the season of 1688 a convoy had been sent to revictual Forts Frontenac and Niagara. It pa.s.sed up the river safely, but on its return it was attacked, though greatly superior in force, by a party of twenty-five or thirty Indians, who killed eight men, and took one prisoner. Other raids more or less destructive were made at Chambly, St. Ours, Contrecoeur, and even as far east as Riviere du Loup. In the face of these attacks a sort of lethargy seemed to have seized upon the colonists, making them slow to defend themselves even when the conditions were in their favour. In other respects also the state of affairs was one of great depression. The war had been costly and burdensome; and, owing to the withdrawal of so many men from the work of the fields, agriculture had greatly suffered. The pillaging carried on by scattered bands of Iroquois made matters still worse. Beggars began to be numerous in the streets of Quebec and Montreal. It is interesting to note that mendicity was not looked upon with favour in those days, and that praiseworthy attempts were made to regulate it and restrain it within the narrowest possible limits.

Charitable ladies undertook to inquire into cases of ostensible want so as to distinguish those which merited relief from others which might proceed from idleness or misconduct. M. de Saint Vallier, who had returned to France in the autumn of 1687, came back as bishop in August of the following year. He brought with him two hundred copies of his work on _The Present State of the Church in Canada_, written by him after his arrival in France, and published at Paris in March 1688, in which, as already seen, a glowing tribute was paid to the piety of the Canadian people. Instead, however, of distributing this work in the country, as he had doubtless intended, he virtually suppressed it; and, in almost his first episcopal utterances, told the people that the troubles and distresses from which they were suffering were the result of their lukewarmness in religious matters. The statement was not received in the most submissive spirit. There were some who said that the mundane causes of the sad plight in which the country found itself were only too apparent, and that it was not necessary to look further.[30]

In the course of the summer of 1688, while Denonville had still under consideration the unpalatable terms proposed by Dongan, he received at Montreal, through the useful mediation of Father Lamberville, a visit from La Barre's old friend, the famous Onondaga orator, Big Mouth, who brought with him six other warriors. As on the occasion of his meeting with the former governor, Big Mouth occupied a strong position, and made the most of it. He had been holding back his own people, he said; otherwise they would have swarmed down on the colony and destroyed it.

The conditions of peace which he proposed were those already outlined by Dongan; and he wanted an answer in four days. Denonville told him that he was prepared to treat for peace if the tribes would send delegates to Montreal duly empowered for that purpose. Big Mouth promised that this should be done, and meantime signed a treaty of neutrality. Denonville had by this time brought himself to the point of agreeing to abandon Fort Niagara, the garrison of which had been reduced by sickness from about a hundred men to ten or twelve, and with which, moreover, he found it impossible to maintain satisfactory communication. He had also been forced to give way as regards the captives sent to France, and had written asking that as many of them as survived might be sent out; suggesting at the same time that, to produce as good an effect as possible, they should be decently clothed. These were the princ.i.p.al points, and he hoped to be able to make peace without any further concessions.

The negotiations, however, were destined to be badly wrecked. The Indian allies, Hurons and Algonquins, had only too good reason to suspect that the peace would not include them. Big Mouth had been ominously non-committal on that point. It was doubtless remembered that, when La Barre had made peace with the Iroquois, he had abandoned the Illinois to their mercy. A leading Huron, Kondiaronk, or the Rat, by name, determined that there should be no peace if he could help it. He was at Fort Frontenac with a party of forty warriors when he heard that negotiations for peace were in progress and that delegates from the Five Nations were expected to arrive in a few days. His plan was at once formed. Pretending to have set out with his party for Michilimackinac, he really paddled over to La Famine, placed himself in ambush in the path of the delegates, and waited their coming. It was four or five days before they appeared, and no sooner were they within gun shot than the Huron party fired. One chieftain was killed outright; several were wounded; the rest, all but one who escaped wounded, and made his way to Fort Frontenac, were captured. The captives in great indignation explained to the Rat the mission they were on, when the wily Huron expressed the most profound regret, saying that the French had sent him out on the war-path, and had never given him the slightest hint that peace negotiations were in progress. He was eloquent in denouncing the bad faith of Onontio, and at once let his captives go. True, the warrior who had escaped heard a very different story at Fort Frontenac--that the Rat had been specially informed of the negotiations, and had professed that he was starting for home; nevertheless, as the Rat expected, the peace was killed. The party attacked had consisted of some men of consequence who were preceding the delegates to give a.s.surance to the governor that the latter would soon be at hand. They never came. Other thoughts now occupied the Iroquois mind.

For months there was an ominous calm. The winter of 1688-9 pa.s.sed without incident, and so did the following summer. Marauding on the part of the Iroquois had so entirely ceased, that the opinion began to prevail in the colony that the enemy had lost courage, and were no longer disposed for war. Some rumours, it is true, reached the governor that mischief was brewing, but he paid little heed to them: no special measures of defence whatever were taken. A strange kind of somnolence seems to have crept over almost the entire population. The intendant, in a despatch written just about this time (6th November 1688), after speaking of the disastrous effect of brandy drinking upon the Indians, goes on to say: "The Canadians also ruin their health thereby; and, as the greater number of these drink a large quant.i.ty of it early in the morning, they are incapable of doing anything the remainder of the day."

It may safely be a.s.sumed that the morning potations were indulged in without prejudice to a tolerably free use of the bottle in the evening.

It is remarkable that so serious a judgment upon the habits of the people should have preceded by only a few months a striking and fatal example of their unreadiness and incapacity.

The night of the 4th August 1689 was dark and stormy with rain and hail.

It was just such a night as might serve to cover the approach of a stealthy foe; and the foe, vengeful and relentless, was at hand.

Fourteen hundred Iroquois had descended the St. Lawrence and taken up their station on the south side of the Lake St. Louis, opposite Lachine.

About midnight, amid the darkness and the noise of the elements, they crossed the lake, and, landing, posted themselves in small bands close to the dwellings of the slumbering inhabitants. An hour or so before daybreak, a war-whoop, the preconcerted signal, was raised. Instantly a thousand savage throats gave forth the dismal howl; and then began the work of slaughter that made "the ma.s.sacre of Lachine" a name of terror for generations. The account of the disaster given by Charlevoix, who puts the number of the slain at two hundred, has been generally followed by later writers; but there is fortunately reason to believe that the ma.s.sacre was much less in extent, and perhaps somewhat less horrible in character, than the reverend father represents. Judge Girouard,[31] who has gone into the matter in a most careful and painstaking manner, places the number of persons killed at Lachine--men, women, and children--at twenty-four. The place was defended by three forts, all of which had garrisons; but from these no help seems to have been afforded to the wretched inhabitants. The torch did its work as well as the tomahawk, and fifty-six houses were burnt. There were some regular troops--about two hundred--under an officer named Subercase, encamped about three miles off. A shot from one of the forts gave the alarm, and Subercase with his men marched to the scene of action. Many of the Indians had inebriated themselves with brandy seized in the houses of the inhabitants; and it is probable that, had they been promptly and vigorously attacked, they might have been defeated with heavy loss.

Subercase was just on the point of leading his men against them, when M.

de Vaudreuil, acting-governor of Montreal in the absence of M. de Callieres who had gone to France, appeared on the scene with formal and positive orders from M. de Denonville, who, as ill-luck would have it, was at Montreal, to remain strictly on the defensive. Subercase was extremely indignant, and felt strongly tempted to disobey; but the instinct of subordination prevailed, and he remained inactive. The Indians meanwhile dispersed themselves over the Island of Montreal, killing, capturing, burning, and meeting with little or no resistance.

A really circ.u.mstantial and consistent account of the whole occurrence is lacking; and it is therefore uncertain how long the Iroquois remained in the neighbourhood. The probability would seem to be that the main body retreated with their prisoners and booty after a brief campaign, but that some bands of warriors stayed behind for further pillage. On the 13th of November a b.l.o.o.d.y raid was made on the settlement at La Chesnaye, on the north sh.o.r.e of the St. Lawrence, some twenty miles below Montreal; all the houses were burnt, and the majority of the inhabitants either killed or captured. The total number of persons killed elsewhere than at Lachine is estimated by Judge Girouard, who has endeavoured to trace the names in the parish registers, at forty-two, making, with the twenty-four killed at Lachine, a total of sixty-six. As regards the number of captives, the same authority, whose careful methods inspire much confidence, accepts the statement of Belmont, who places it at ninety. We read that, when the savages left Lachine, which they did without any attempt being made from the forts to hara.s.s their retreat, they crossed Lake St. Louis, and, encamping on the opposite sh.o.r.e, lit their fires and began to torture their prisoners. Torture, there can be no doubt, was sufficiently congenial to the Iroquois nature; and yet there is room for doubt whether there is sufficient warrant for the highly coloured narrative which has become the popular legend on this subject. It was usual with the Iroquois to carry their captives with them into their villages; and it is known that they did this with at least the great majority of those whom they secured on the Island of Montreal, for many of them were alive years afterwards.

Moreover had there been many burnings on the south sh.o.r.e of Lake St.

Louis, the same pious care which caused the re-burial a few years later (1694) of the remains of the victims of the Lachine ma.s.sacre would have been extended to any that might have been found on the site of the last encampment. There is no record of the discovery of any such remains or of their burial or re-burial. It is true that some burnings of captives occurred in the Iroquois villages; still it is some satisfaction to think that the calamity as a whole was not on the scale that tradition has represented.[32]

It is related that as the savages paddled away from the Lachine sh.o.r.e, they called out: "Onontio, you deceived us; now we have deceived you."

The last days of Onontio, in his official capacity at least, were at hand. The king had decided early in the year that he was not the man to support a falling state or rescue an imperilled community, and had offered the position again to Count Frontenac notwithstanding the many troubles that had marked that gallant soldier's former tenure of office.

Evidently, with all his faults of temper, he had at least impressed himself on the king as a man who could be relied on in the hour of danger. Denonville's last act was one which strikingly ill.u.s.trated the condition of feebleness and dejection into which he had fallen. Dongan and the Iroquois had demanded the abandonment of Fort Frontenac.

Denonville now determined that this was the only course to follow, and accordingly sent orders to the garrison to blow up the walls, destroy the stores, and make the best of their way to Montreal.

[Footnote 27: _New York Colonial Doc.u.ments_, vol. ix. p. 268. See also "Transactions between England and France, relating to Hudson's Bay, 1687," in _Canadian Archives_, 1883, p. 173.]

[Footnote 28: Clement, _Vie de Colbert_, p. 456.]

[Footnote 29: "In dealing with indigenous races," observes M. Lorin, "governors were sometimes obliged to sacrifice a few victims to the ferocity of savages; and it was not on the eve of a campaign that it would have been wise to exhibit towards the Iroquois a humanity that would have been mistaken for weakness."--_Comte de Frontenac_, p. 333.

We may certainly agree that it would have been difficult for those who had captured peaceful and unsuspecting natives for the horrible regime of the galleys to adopt a high humanitarian tone in reproving the cruelties of their Indian confederates and converts.]

[Footnote 30: _New York Colonial Doc.u.ments_, vol. ix. p. 389.]

[Footnote 31: See his _Lake St. Louis, Old and New_.]

[Footnote 32: Both as regards the number of the slain and the details of the ma.s.sacre Charlevoix simply repeats the statements made by Frontenac in a despatch dated the 15th November 1689, one month after his return to Canada, and after several days spent at the scene of the disaster and at Montreal. It is he who speaks of the "_enlevement de cent vingt personnes apres un ma.s.sacre de deux cents brules, rotis vifs, manges, et les enfans arraches du ventre de leurs meres_." The tendency in furnishing information to the French government was always to exaggerate the havoc wrought by the Indians. At the time Frontenac wrote this despatch he was not aware of the further ma.s.sacre at La Chesnaye, the news of which only reached him on the 17th of November.]

CHAPTER IX

FRONTENAC TO THE RESCUE

From the moment that Prince William of Orange, the one unconquerable foe of Louis XIV, was called to the throne of England, war between England and France was a foregone conclusion. It was not declared, however, in France till the 25th June 1689. Frontenac sailed from Roch.e.l.le on the 5th August following, the very day of the Lachine ma.s.sacre. The king in an interview with him is reported to have said: "I am sending you back to Canada, where I am sure that you will serve me as well as you did before; I ask nothing more of you." His Majesty also intimated, we are told, that he believed the charges made against him were without foundation. During the intervals between his two terms of office, Frontenac had been living for the most part at court, in rather reduced circ.u.mstances. The king once at least came to his relief with a gratuity of three thousand five hundred francs, and possibly other liberalities may have flowed to him from the same royal source, though Mr. Ernest Myrand, after careful research, has not been able to discover trace of any.[33]

The mission which was tendered to the aged count--he was now in his seventieth year--was one which a younger man might have felt some hesitation in accepting. The last accounts from Canada showed the country to be in a deplorable condition, equally unable to make an enduring peace or to wage a successful war; and the worst was yet to be told on the governor's arrival. The situation was rendered decidedly more critical by the fact of the war with England. True, a treaty had been made by Louis XIV with James II, providing that, should war break out between France and England, it should not extend to their American possessions; but Louis, who did not recognize William III as a legitimate sovereign, probably felt under no obligation to observe a treaty made with his predecessor. We know, at least, that a scheme for the conquest of the English colonies was arranged before Frontenac's departure. Callieres, Governor of Montreal, had been sent to France by Denonville in the fall of 1688 to represent the perilous situation of the colony, and to urge the king to adopt a system of reprisals against the English for the misdeeds of the Iroquois. Callieres and Frontenac had some friends in common, and were thus brought together at court, and the plan that was adopted was probably one that they had jointly suggested to the court. It was, briefly, that two or three war vessels should accompany Frontenac to Canada; that the count should disembark at some point on the coast of Acadia, and proceed by the first private vessel he could secure to Quebec; that on arrival there he should organize a force of sixteen hundred men, one thousand regulars, and six hundred militia, to march on New York by way of Albany; and that when he was ready to move, he should notify the commander of the squadron, so that the latter might advance to New York, and be prepared to co-operate in the capture and occupation of the place. Meantime, the naval force was to employ itself in picking up any English trading vessels that might fall in its way.

Not only were plans thus formed for invading and seizing the English colonies, but the French king made complete arrangements as to the treatment of the inhabitants when conquered. Those who either were Catholics, or were prepared to embrace the Catholic faith, might be allowed to remain in possession of their property and civil rights; the citizens of means were to be imprisoned and held for ransom, the rest of the population, numbering about eighteen thousand, were to forfeit everything and be driven penniless out of the country. It was proposed to deport them, in the first place, to New England, pending the ulterior conquest of that region. M. Lorin truly observes that Louis XIV, having just deprived his own subjects of religious liberty by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, could not possibly be expected to tolerate it in any country of which he might acquire control.[34] A more ruthless policy could scarcely have been devised, nor, it may be added, a more senseless one. The deportation of so large a body of inhabitants, mainly of Dutch origin, and all accustomed to the use of arms, was a task ridiculously beyond the ability of the forces he was proposing to employ for the purpose.

The plan was followed, so far as the sending out of a small squadron with the new governor-general was concerned. Sailing, as already mentioned, on the 5th August, Frontenac arrived at Chedabucto (Guysborough), near the Straits of Canso, on the 12th September, and there embarked in a small vessel, the _Francois Xavier_, for Quebec. On the way he stopped at Perce, where the Recollet missionaries informed him of the ma.s.sacre of Lachine. His vessel must have been detained by contrary winds, for it was the 12th October before he arrived at Quebec.

Here he was received by the citizens with the liveliest manifestations of joy. The ecclesiastics a.s.sociated themselves, _bon gre mal gre_, with the popular feeling. The town was illuminated by night and hung with banners by day; a _Te Deum_ was sung; and a Jesuit father delivered what is recorded to have been a most pathetic discourse. On all hands the count was acclaimed as the man the country needed to restore its fallen fortunes and stay the hand of the destroyer. Denonville and Champigny did not grace the rejoicings; they were at Montreal.

Quebec, however, was not the point of danger, nor that at which the governor's services were most required. Still he remained there eight days before proceeding to Montreal, where he arrived on the 27th October. At that place he learnt from Denonville of the instructions he had given for the abandonment and destruction of Fort Frontenac. The indignation of the old warrior, to whom the fort called after his name was a spot of peculiar predilection, can better be imagined than described. He could hardly believe that a French governor could perform so craven an act. If we may trust the Baron La Hontan, who does not in this case tax very seriously our powers of belief, the interview between the two dignitaries was a decidedly stormy one.[35] There was no time to waste, however, in useless debate. Something possibly had happened to delay or prevent the carrying out of the orders, and the fort might perhaps yet be saved. An expedition was hastily organized to proceed to the spot and ascertain the facts, but scarcely had it well started before it encountered the entire garrison of the fort, minus six men, whom they had lost in the rapids on the way down, returning to Montreal.

The deed had therefore been done. Valrennes, the commandant, told how he had destroyed the stores, thrown such arms and ammunition as he could not remove into the river, undermined the walls and fired the train, and how, as they retreated, they had heard a dull explosion. Yes, the deed had been done; but, as it turned out later, not with the full result intended. The mines had exploded, but probably they had been hastily and not over skilfully placed, and the injury to the walls was but slight.

Not long afterwards Frontenac was able to repair the damage and put the fort once more in a condition of defence.