Old Quebec: The Fortress of New France Part 6

[Footnote 12: Later called Fort Frontenac, and the site of the present city of Kingston.]

To La Salle the commission was full of promise, for his ardent mind was filled with bold designs. He foresaw a time when French enterprise, leaving the rugged civilisation on the banks of the St.

Lawrence, would seize upon the rich valley of the Mississippi; a fortified post at the mouth of the Father of Waters would hold the interior of the continent against the Spaniards; and the peltries and buffalo hides of the great West would fill his forts with gold. With Henri de Tonty, La Motte de Lussiere, Father Hennepin, and thirty men, La Salle hastened to Quebec in the summer of 1678, and without loss of time he organised his first expedition to the distant Mississippi.

The story of that enterprise is a tale of disaster which has few parallels in history. A perilous pa.s.sage over Lake Ontario in a ten-ton vessel brought them to Niagara. Above the falls they built _The Griffin_, a schooner of forty-five tons, to carry the necessities of the Mississippi settlement westward by way of the Great Lakes. This vessel was lost by some obscure calamity, and the conjecture is that she foundered in Lake Michigan. La Salle now found himself at the head of a mutinous company stranded at Fort Crevecoeur on the Illinois, facing a winter with practically no provisions. Six of his men deserted, and on two occasions treachery all but deprived him of his life.

In the circ.u.mstances La Salle saw only one possible course before him: to return to Fort Frontenac for fresh supplies and material for further progress. Leaving Tonty his trusted lieutenant in charge of Fort Crevecoeur, he set out with an Indian guide and four Frenchmen.

The hardships and disasters of the journey deprived him of his companions, one by one, but he pressed on alone. "During sixty-five days he had toiled almost incessantly, travelling about a thousand miles through a country beset with every form of peril and obstruction.... In him an unconquerable mind held at its service a frame of iron, and taxed it to its utmost endurance. The pioneer of Western pioneers was no rude son of toil, but a man of thought, trained amid arts and letters."[13]

This first chapter of his reverses, however, was not yet completed; for even while La Salle was getting succour for his company on the Illinois, a letter arrived from Tonty telling him of the mutiny of the garrison and the wilful destruction of Fort Crevecoeur with all it held. The calamitous news would have killed the spirit of any one less courageous than La Salle; but the bold explorer, whose whole life was a long grapple with adversity, prepared with all haste to return to the rescue of Tonty, who, he hoped forlornly, had survived the mutinous treachery. By the 10th of August he was ready, and with a new outfit and twenty-five men he set out once more for the distant Illinois.

[Footnote 13: Parkman, _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_, chap. xiv.]

After three months of toil and hardship he came again to Fort Crevecoeur. Anxiety for Tonty and his faithful companions had consumed him all the way. Yet he was unprepared for the shocking sight that met his eyes. The once populous town of the Illinois was now a valley of dry bones; the bodies of women and children strewed the plain, and the charred trophies of Illinois warriors hung tragically upon blackened stakes. Such were the terrible marks of an Iroquois visitation.

Wolves ran howling away as the Frenchmen drew near, and voracious buzzards wheeled overhead. Anxiously La Salle sought among the revolting remnants for any sign of Tonty; but none was to be found, and although the relief expedition continued for weeks and months to search for their missing comrades, it was spring before the explorer heard with joy that his lieutenant had found refuge among the Pottawattamies. Meanwhile, his resources for the Mississippi expedition had been again dissipated, and once more he returned to Fort Frontenac for fresh supplies.

Soon, for the third time, the persistent adventurer set his face towards the west. His company now included twenty-three Frenchmen and eighteen Indians, equipped with all the care his former experiences could suggest. Summer had gone before his plans were completed; but all seasons were alike to La Salle, and in the early autumn his expedition began. Lake Huron was reached in October, Fort Miami a few weeks later, and on the 6th of February their canoes glided out of the Illinois into the eddying current of the Mississippi.

Down past the turbid Missouri they swept, and beyond the mouth of the Ohio. Every day brought them newer signs of spring, and every day saw the spirits of La Salle rising at the happy consciousness of fulfilled ambition. On the 13th of March they encamped near the mouth of the Arkansas, and three hundred miles below they were well received by the Natchez Indians. On the 6th of April the great river divided before them into three wide channels: La Salle followed that of the west; Tonty took the middle course; and D'Autray descended the eastern pa.s.sage. On the 19th of April the three parties met on the Gulf of Mexico. A cross bearing the arms of France was set up, and the country was named Louisiana after the Grand Monarch.

The Louisiana of to-day conveys no idea of the vast tract of country defined by La Salle's proclamation of 1682. To the explorer it meant the extent of the mighty continent, stretching westward from the Alleghanies to the Rockies, and north and south from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. All former accessions of territory were small beside it, and to his eyes it seemed the fertile Canaan of French enterprise. Yet the very magnitude of this new success made for the undoing of New France, by scattering her feeble forces over the length and breadth of a continent and distending her line of defence so far that it could be easily pierced. La Salle, however, was driven irresistibly forward by the hot ambition which ruled him. His romantic vision pictured a greater New France in the valley of the Mississippi, governed by himself--a prosperous trading colony shipping cargoes of beaver-skins directly to Europe by way of the Gulf of Mexico. Quebec, however, was the home of his enemies. His former reverses had shattered the faith of creditors, while the Canadian merchants envied him the monopoly of the Western trade. They heaped calumny upon his enterprises, labelled him a _coureur de bois_, and persistently wrecked his schemes. Final success enabled La Salle in a measure to disregard these annoyances; but when the new Governor, La Barre, went the length of seizing Fort Frontenac--thus cutting off the far west from its supplies--and even declared him an outlaw, La Salle, although he had but lately recovered from a fever, made up his mind to carry his cause to France.

In the spring of 1684, therefore, the weatherbeaten woodsman of the New World stood before the throne of the Grand Monarch; and although the Court had greater terrors for him than the Canadian forests, yet he was able to set forth the rights of his case with the honest boldness of a frontiersman and the force of a cultured intellect.

Louis followed his words with deepest interest, and was moved to carry out a purpose which for some time had possessed his mind. Within three months four armed vessels, bearing nearly four hundred men, set sail from Roch.e.l.le for the Gulf of Mexico. A new commission empowered the explorer to establish a fort on the southern gulf, from which to hara.s.s the Spaniards, and to fortify a base near the mouth of the Mississippi for the effective control of Louisiana.

But the story of this, the final enterprise of La Salle, is a sickening record of disaster. After a stormy pa.s.sage three of the four vessels reached St. Domingo, the _St. Francois_ having fallen a prey to Spanish buccaneers. At St. Domingo a violent fever threatened the leader's life and mind, and delayed further progress for almost two months. At length, near the end of December, they entered the Gulf of Mexico; but the uncertainties of its navigation were further increased by dense fogs; and when, after days of anxious searching, the fleet came to anchor off a low-lying marshy coast, La Salle had sailed four hundred miles beyond the mouth of the river he sought. Unaware of his mistake, he determined to land and build a temporary fort; but the frigate _Aimable_, laden with stores, was wrecked upon a reef; Beaujeu, the recreant commander of the _Joly_, deserted his leader and made sail for France, and presently La Salle was left with only the little frigate _Belle_. Soon afterwards this vessel also sank beneath the stormy waters of the forbidden sea.

Thus, by accident and by disease the imposing expedition which had left Roch.e.l.le in the midsummer of 1684 was now reduced to a wretched band of starvelings, huddled together on the malarial sands of the Mexican gulf. In this last extremity La Salle saw one hope of salvation, and the magnitude of his new project was characteristic of the invincible adventurer whom fate had so often buffeted in vain. At the head of half his followers he boldly set out for Canada overland, hoping to bring back succour to the desolate maroons who still remained at Matagorda Bay.

Throughout his undertakings the virile mind of La Salle had always held his fellows in willing or unwilling subjection. The weak were glad to lean upon his strength, and to these he was the "guardian angel."[14] To others, however, his fine reserve and distinguished manner were causes of gnawing discontent. This evident lack of frankness in dealing with his companions contrasted strangely with that keen appreciation of the character of the Indians which had brought him such success in his intercourse with them. The handful of men with whom he set out from Matagorda Bay on the 7th of June, 1687, besides a few whose admiration for their leader knew no bounds, also included others who, like the children of Israel, thirsted for the life of him who had led them out into the wilderness to die.

[Footnote 14: "...Notre Ange tutelaire, le Sieur de la Salle."--Douay.]

Week after week the little band of Frenchmen struggled on, now through a sea of prairie gra.s.s, now wading through deep savannahs, and presently swimming or fording streams which blocked their progress.

Despair invaded the camp, and hostile murmurings arose against La Salle and the little group who remained true to him. A terrible plot was on foot. Presently the blow fell. Moranget, La Salle's nephew, was despatched with an axe; Nika, the faithful Shawanoe, and Saget, the leader's servant, were murdered as they slept. As for La Salle, a wanton bullet pierced his brain. Thus the man who had braved the poisoned arrows of the Iroquois and the hatchets of Indians without number, against whose iron strength deadly fevers had stormed in vain, whose fort.i.tude had been unbroken by the almost incredible perversities of fortune--this paladin of the wilderness was at last laid low by the hand of a traitor. The New World has no more piteous tale than that of the unabated sufferings of La Salle, who knew no fear and acknowledged no defeat, even at the hands of a relentless destiny. It has no n.o.bler record than the tale of his life.

CHAPTER VIII

FIRE, Ma.s.sACRE, AND SIEGE

At Quebec, Frontenac did what he could to promote the bold designs of La Salle. Nevertheless, the explorer had been forced to furnish his own men and supplies, getting trading privileges in return--an arrangement by which the King had all the glory without any of the risk. There were those in Quebec, indeed, who suspected the Governor of having a personal interest in La Salle's adventures, and enemies were not slow to credit him further with a share in profits from illegal trade in furs. The Intendant d.u.c.h.esneau fomented these suspicions, and his letters to the King and the minister were filled with black charges against Frontenac. The latter, in his turn, called the Intendant to account; and Quebec was then ranged into two camps--the Bishop and the Jesuits siding with the Intendant, while the Recollet friars and the merchants supported Frontenac. Every ship carried home to France a budget of letters filled with charges and countercharges, until it became apparent to the Court that a bitter civil strife was raging in the distant colony; and the King, unable to judge between the antagonists, finally recalled them both.

The new Governor, La Barre, met with ill-omens on arrival. His predecessor had scarce departed when Quebec was visited by the first of those destructive fires which were destined to rage so often through its winding streets. The summer of 1682 had been exceptionally dry, and on the night of the 4th of August a fire began in the house of etienne Planchon and spread with dreadful speed over the whole of Lower Town. Fifty-five houses were burnt to the ground on this occasion, and Lower Town became a heap of ashes. One house alone escaped, that of the merchant Aubert de la Chesnaye; and more than half the wealth of Canada was destroyed.

If so be that misfortunes ever come singly, the history of Quebec at least has never been able to afford an example; and as if destructive fire were an insufficient visitation of angry fate, other misfortunes, no less cruel, now came upon the city. In these years, indeed, it seemed that Nature herself was leagued with the enemies of Quebec; for in the _Jesuit Relations_ we have a circ.u.mstantial if highly imaginative account of a violent earthquake which visited the Province in 1663:--

"Many of the French inhabitants and Indians," says the writer, "who were eye-witnesses to the scene, state that a great way up the river of Trois Rivieres, about eighteen miles below Quebec, the hills which bordered the river on either side, and which were of a prodigious height, were torn from their foundations and plunged into the river, causing it to change its course and spread itself over a large tract of land recently cleared;...lakes appeared where none ever existed before; mountains were overthrown, swallowed up by the gaping earth, or precipitated into adjacent rivers, leaving in their place frightful chasms or level plains....Rivers in many parts of the country sought other beds, or totally disappeared. The earth and mountains were violently split and rent in innumerable places, creating chasms and precipices whose depths have never yet been ascertained.

Such devastation was also occasioned in the woods, that more than a thousand acres in one neighbourhood were completely overturned."

Another account of this event is given by an Ursuline sister:--

"The first shock of earthquake took place on 5th February, 1663, about half-past five in the evening. The weather was calm and serene, when we heard a terrible noise and humming sound like that of a great number of heavy carriages rolling over a paved floor swiftly. After this one heard, both above and below the earth and on all sides, as it were a confused mingling of waves and billows, which caused sensations of horror. Sounds were heard as of stones upon the roof, in the garrets, and chambers; a thick dust spread around; doors opened and shut of themselves. The bells of all our churches and clocks sounded of themselves; and the steeples as well as the houses swayed to and fro, like trees in a great wind.

And all this in the midst of a horrible confusion of furniture turned over, stones falling, boards breaking, walls cracking, and the cries of domestic animals, of which some entered the houses and some went out; in a word, it seemed to be the eve of the Day of Judgment whose signs were witnessed. Very different impressions were made on us. Some went forth for fear of being buried in the ruins of our house, which was seen to jog as if made of cards; others prostrated themselves at the foot of the altar, as if to die there. One good lay sister was so terrified that her body trembled for an hour without ability to stop the agitation. When the second shock came, at eight o'clock the same evening, we were all ranged in our stalls at the choir. It was very violent, and we all expected death every moment, and to be engulfed in the ruins of the building....No person was killed. The conversions were extraordinary, and one ecclesiastic a.s.sured me that he had taken more than eight hundred confessions."

Such things as these seemed not to dampen the ardour of those whose fortunes were cast in New France. Personal prowess and force of character were the natural result of trouble and disaster. La Barre, however, proved a dire exception to the rule. His hands shook in the hour of trial; he weakly grasped occasion. The magnificent but tragical career of La Salle had annexed a vast domain to the French possessions in North America, while Du Lhut, La Durantaye, Nicolas Perrot, and the rest of the _coureurs de bois_ had, by their adventurous trading, given even the remote Sioux and a.s.siniboins an interest in the fur trade of France. By this rapid expansion of French influence the Five Nation Indians at last saw themselves hemmed in by tribes under the influence of Quebec, their hunting grounds limited to a small and now partly exhausted area. In order to procure guns and ammunition from their English friends they were compelled to take thought for the decreasing peltries. A destructive raid into the Illinois valley was the first step in their new policy, which was the annihilation of all those tribes which traded with the French, and the diversion of the beaver trade to the wealthier merchants of New England.

At all hazards New France was bound to prevent this dire blow from falling upon her allies, whose adherence to the pact rested upon the ability of French arms to protect them. But French prestige among the Indians so suffered under the weak-kneed administration of La Barre, that the Iroquois became bolder in contravening the treaty of peace, while the Western tribes were on the point of going over to the English. These circ.u.mstances prompted the expedition of 1684.

With a hundred regulars, an equal number of Canadians, and a composite band of Indians, La Barre set out from Quebec to destroy the Senecas.

News had been sent to the French trading posts of the north, and it was arranged that the main column should be joined at Niagara by a force of Hurons, Ottawas, Ojibwas, Pottawattamies, and Foxes, whom the _coureurs de bois_ had rallied for a last supreme effort. But in spite of the strength of this array, it was not expected by those who knew the vacillating Governor that he would be successful. Even the most sceptical, however, were not prepared for the woeful fiasco which followed. Instead of advancing to destroy his enemies, La Barre summoned them to a council, where the Seneca deputies were not slow to perceive the weakness of their foe, and contemptuously dictated terms of peace. Thus the French were degraded in the eyes of their Indian allies, who returned disgusted to their homes. The event being taken seriously in France, La Barre was recalled, and the Marquis de Denonville appointed in his place.

It was now becoming clearer that English intrigue was behind all these troubles with the Iroquois. Dongan, the Catholic Governor of New York at this period, a resourceful and adroit politician, formed the design of absorbing the territory of the Iroquois into the domain of James II. of England; and the Indians, while they resisted his ulterior purpose, were yet glad enough to get English guns for their warfare against the French. Besides this direct official action, Dongan encouraged English traders to go among the Canadian Indians and wean them from their alliance with Quebec.

At first the rivalry was but a diplomatic duel between Denonville and Dongan, England and France being then at peace. Soon, however, the colonies of the two nations were waging a border warfare of their own.

While the English were urging the Iroquois against their rivals, the furtive hand of the French was evident in the raids of the Abenakis upon the woods of Acadie; but at this early stage of the dispute the two Powers disclaimed all approval of these savage reprisals.

In 1687 Governor Denonville, mustering a strong force at Quebec, moved quickly up the St. Lawrence upon the Senecas. Like La Barre he invited a number of chiefs to a conference, but when they came he treacherously seized and sent them to the galleys of France. He then crossed from Fort Frontenac, ravaging and burning their villages and towns. Not only the Senecas but the whole Iroquois confederacy burned to avenge the terrible warfare of Denonville. In small bands they ranged the woods round about Quebec and the river settlements, darting to and fro like silent shadows, so that for months the French suffered daily the anguish of battle, murder, and sudden death. Disciplined soldiers were helpless against this stealthy warfare, and a man walked in danger of his life even within the palisades.

Great as was their distress, however, it was but a prelude to one of the cruellest incidents in Canadian history. The night of the 4th of August, 1689, being heavy with thunderclouds, fifteen hundred Iroquois warriors, under cover of the darkness, crept upon the settlement of Lachine, at the western end of the Island of Montreal. They scattered stealthily among the cabins, and at a given signal surprised the victims in their beds. More than two hundred men, women, and children were tomahawked in cold blood or carried off to a lingering death, the lurid flames of the burning seigneury telling their bitter tale to the watchers at Montreal. New France was faint with horror; and once more she sighed for the strong protecting arm of Frontenac.

Meanwhile, the English Revolution of 1688 had driven James II. from the throne, and the French king had taken up the cause of the Stuarts against William of Orange. England and France were face to face in Europe, and in the New World the veiled conflict between the rival colonies now gave place to open war. The King by this time realised that Frontenac, for all his seventy years and his reputation for rashness, was the only man qualified to fill the difficult post of Governor, and accordingly sent him again to New France. He reached Quebec about the middle of October. It was evening, and the citizens had gathered at the quay with torches of welcome, while fireworks and illuminations blazed in his honour over the streets of the Upper Town.

Vigorous in spite of his years, the grizzled hero of the siege of Arras stood once more on the soil of New France, and notwithstanding the perfunctory homage of the Jesuits and the studied reserve of the Intendant Champigny, a feeling of relief thrilled Quebec. An enterprise of almost incredible difficulty was to be laid upon the shoulders of the veteran ruler. This was nothing less than an attack upon New York as a preliminary step to the overthrow of all New England. A land force was to descend on Albany, proceeding by way of the Richelieu, Lake Champlain, and the Hudson, while two frigates were to a.s.sail New York from the sea. The naval project, however, was so feeble and uncertain, so ill-starred, that adverse winds on the Atlantic brought it to an untimely end.

Having abandoned for the moment the expedition against New York, Frontenac turned his attention first to the ever-present Indian problem. The defection of the north-western tribes was becoming more and more probable notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the _coureurs de bois_. Indians were fast losing faith in French protection, and before all else it was necessary to make the Iroquois understand that the great _Onontio_[15] had returned to chastise them.

Aiming therefore at the revival of French prestige, the Governor organised "The three war-parties," a step which may be considered as the initial move in that desperate conflict which left the flag of England floating over the citadel of Quebec.

The three war-parties, each consisting of regulars, _coureurs de bois_, and Indians, were now despatched from Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec. The deep snows of a Canadian winter lay upon the ground as these forces of destruction sallied forth. Leaving Montreal, the first party pa.s.sed down the frozen St. Lawrence, and into the wintry ravines of the Richelieu, and after a march of terrible hardship, now plunging through snow-drifts, now benumbed by frost, wading knee-deep through the melting swamps, they came at last to the unguarded palisades of the Dutch settlement of Corlaer, or Schenectady. It was midnight as they stole through the streets of the sleeping village, now suddenly wakened by a hideous war-whoop, the signal for a ma.s.sacre as terrible as that of Lachine.

[Footnote 15: The Indian name for Count Frontenac.]

With a similarity of grim details the other two war-parties attacked the rival colonies of New England. Under cover of the night the band from Three Rivers fell upon Salmon Falls, a village on the borders of New Hampshire, and put its inhabitants to the sword. The victors then joined the column which Portneuf had led from Quebec, and together they moved down Cas...o...b..y to Fort Loyal, where the settlers of the district had a.s.sembled for a vigorous defence. The New Englanders held out for several days against the French and the Abenakis, but at length agreed to surrender with the honours of war. Portneuf's pledge of protection, however, was shamelessly broken, and the Indian allies fell upon the helpless captives without restraint.

Such success amply fulfilled the expectations of Frontenac, and the wavering tribes of the West now hastened to Quebec to confirm their allegiance. In New France elation took the place of gloom, and bonfires burned among the settlements along the St. Lawrence. In New England, however, the threefold atrocity produced an effect that boded ill for Canada. In their eagerness to avenge this outrage, the Atlantic colonies, up to this time disunited and isolated, now pledged themselves to union against a common peril, and planned the conquest of the country. A force of colonial militia set out from Albany against Montreal, while a naval attack was directed against Port Royal and Quebec. Sir William Phipps sailed from Nantasket with a fleet of seven vessels, appearing on the 11th of May before Port Royal, whose commandant surrendered without a blow.

The admiral who won this bloodless victory is one of the most notable figures in New World history. William Phipps was born on the Kennebec in 1650, and spent his early life tending sheep in the rude border settlement of New England. But ambition and love of adventure not being satisfied by a pastoral life, the youth soon adopted the trade of a ship-carpenter and came to Boston. Here fortune in the form of a wealthy widow smiled upon him, and he is next found searching for a wrecked treasure-ship in the Spanish Main. The romantic sailor was, however, at first unsuccessful in his quest; but as he had awakened the interest of the Duke of Albemarle, he obtained from this n.o.bleman a frigate for a similar adventure off the coast of Hispaniola. In the course of this latter voyage his buccaneer crew rebelled, and single-handed the powerful Phipps drove them from the quarter-deck.

Success at length rewarded him, the treasure-ship was raised, and through the influence of his ill.u.s.trious patron the bucolic New Englander received a knighthood. Sir William Phipps thus returned to his castle in the Green Lane of North Boston with the glamour of the court upon him, and was chosen by the colonists of Ma.s.sachusetts to carry out their bold designs against Quebec.

Meanwhile, Frontenac antic.i.p.ated coming danger by strengthening the city. Nature had made the position impregnable on the river side, but in the rear it was still open to attack. All through the winter gangs of men were employed in cutting timber in the forest, and dragging hewn palisades to the city, where Frontenac superintended the erection of stout barricades. While the Governor was thus engaged news reached him that Winthrop was marching upon Montreal, and thither he hastened with all speed. Circ.u.mstances, however, had conspired to render futile the expedition from New York and Connecticut; and intestine quarrels, followed by Iroquois defection, wrecked the English enterprise before it had come within striking distance of Montreal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR WILLIAM PHIPPS]

In the meantime Sir William Phipps had sailed for Quebec with a fleet of more than thirty sail, two thousand men, and four months' supplies.

The hope of receiving help from England had somewhat delayed the expedition, and it was the 9th of August before the admiral slipped his cables in the harbour of Nantasket. As this American armada comprised vessels ranging in size from the flag-ship _Six Friends_, with forty-four guns, down to the fishing smacks of Gloucester, its progress was slow. The most serious difficulty, however, was the absence of a pilot who knew the dangerous navigation of the St.