The History of the Thirteen Colonies of North America 1497-1763 Part 11

Church life was in no way connected with town life as in New England, for the simple reason that towns were very uncommon, having "no place in the social and industrial economy of the south."[238] They consisted for the most part of scattered houses, an inn, a gaol, and a court-house.

They were visited by the planters nominally for business, but mostly for pleasure, and the tavern, which was in some cases enforced by law, became the meeting-place for gossip. Jamestown and Williamsburg in Virginia, St Mary's and Annapolis in Maryland, are not worth considering as busy centres of trade. They were rather the meeting-places of pleasure parties who came for b.a.l.l.s and horse races, and when these gaieties were over they slumbered until again roused for the next joyous gathering. Charlestown in South Carolina had always been somewhat different; from its foundation it had taken upon itself the position of the most important town in the south, and it proved that it was ready to progress with the times by being the first town to possess a theatre, which was built in 1735. In the middle colonies the towns played a very considerable part in the social and economic life of the settlers, and in this way resembled the northern corporate communities. New York and Philadelphia were both good towns with wide streets lined with trees; along the edge were the orchards and gardens surrounding stone or brick houses with overhanging gables. The two other towns of importance were Germantown which was very busy, and Newport which is described as ill-built.

Such in brief were the towns, industries, and style of living of the southern and middle colonists. The English-born planter depended upon slave labour or indentured servants; he lived upon a large estate in a magnificent and often too lavish manner. But they were men of as much grit as the New Englanders; certainly they were descended from a different stock, and they looked upon the present life and the future with very different eyes, but that was all. The settlers of the middle colonies plunged with readiness into the intricacies of trade, and the merchant and tradesman were far more conspicuous figures in daily life than in either Virginia or Maryland. The colonists were, too, far more cosmopolitan than in the north. In the Carolinas there were a few Huguenots, Swiss, and German Palatines, but in Virginia and Maryland there was little trace of any foreign element. But in the middle colonies there were regular waves of aliens from Germany and Switzerland intermixed with the earlier Dutch and English settlers. They all helped to play their little parts in the world's history, and they all came to look upon England as the home country. Then by the middle of the eighteenth century they were called upon to resist the aggressions of France; and during those years of struggle they partly learnt their power. United at last, English settler and foreigner, Northern Puritan and Southern planter, they made the one supreme effort, throwing off the yoke of England, and became no longer colonists, but Americans.

FOOTNOTES:

[228] So lucrative did the slave trade become that, even after the Abolition Act of 1807, slave dealers realised an enormous profit if one ship out of three with its living cargo reached an American port.

[229] New Jersey Historical Society, _Proceedings_ (1850), iv. p. 118.

[230] Morley, Walpole, _Twelve English Statesmen_ (1896), p. 168.

[231] _A Declaration of the Present State of Virginia_, etc.

[232] Doyle, _The English in America, Virginia, etc._ (1882), p. 525.

[233] See p. 46.

[234] Lawson, p. 3.

[235] Quoted by Thwaites, _op. cit._, p. 221.

[236] Doyle, _Colonies under the House of Hanover_ (1907), p. 289.

[237] Meade, _Old Churches of Virginia_ (1861), i. p. 385.

[238] Doyle, _The Colonies under the House of Hanover_ (1907), pp.

42-43.

CHAPTER X

THE FRENCH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA

"The French empire in the New World has vanished, leaving behind it ineffaceable monuments of the grand political conception of which it formed part."[239] Frenchmen were amongst the earliest to be roused by the discoveries of Columbus, Cabot, and Vasco da Gama; but it was not until the sixth year of the sixteenth century that any real attempt at discovery was made. In that year, 1506, Denys of Harfleur sailed across the Atlantic, hoping to reach the East, but finding instead the great Gulf of St Lawrence. He was not the only adventurer, for Aubert of Dieppe followed two years later and astonished his countrymen by bringing to France some natives of North America. Baron de Lery was the first to see the advantages of colonisation, and long before Sir Walter Raleigh was born the quick-witted Frenchman had planned within his fertile brain a new France beyond the sea. He attempted to carry out his purpose in 1518, but it was bound to fail, for the time was not yet ripe for a French colony, since France itself was still unsettled and imperfectly concentrated. Francis I., realising the advantages gained by his rival Charles V. from the rich mines of Peru, employed Verrazano, a Venetian, to "discover new lands by the ocean." He sailed in January 1524, and first reached that part of America now known as the Carolinas, and then coasted as far north as Newfoundland. "Sayling northeast for the s.p.a.ce of 150 leagues," Verrazano writes, "we approached to the land that in times past was discovered by the Britons, which is in fiftie degrees. Having now spent all our provision and victuals, and having discovered about 700 leagues and more of new countries, and being furnished with water and wood, we concluded to return into France."[240]

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUEBEC FROM POINT LEVY IN 1761 _From an engraving by R. Short._]

The year 1534 is the most memorable of all concerning those early French voyages; it is a year of the very greatest importance in the history of both France and North America; from this time may be dated the beginning of New France, for now Jacques Cartier made his first voyage to the St Lawrence. He found that the people had "great store of Mushe-milions, Pompions, Gourds, Cuc.u.mbers, Peasen and Beanes of every colour.... There groweth also a certaine kind of herbe, whereof in Sommer they make great provision for all the yeere, ... and onely men use it, and first they cause it to be dried in the sunne, then weare it about their neckes wrapped in a little beast's skinne made like a little bagge, with a hollow peece of stone or wood like a pipe: then when they please they make pouder of it, and then put it in one of the ends of the said Cornet or pipe, and laying a cole of fire upon it, at the other ende sucke so long, that they fill their bodies full of Smoke, till that it commeth out of their mouth and nostrils, even as out of the Tonnell of a chimney.... We our selves have tryed the same smoke and having put it in our mouthes, it seemed almost as hot as Pepper."[241] On his return to St Malo, Cartier brought with him some Indian children as a proof of the success of his enterprise. He was not content with this voyage, and in the following year sailed again to this land of promise. On this occasion he penetrated still further up the St Lawrence, bringing his ship to anchor beneath the cliffs where now stands the city of Quebec.

"It is called," he writes, "Stadacona, ... & beyond, is as faire and plaine as ever was seen."[242] This second voyage was marked by the naming of his discoveries, and it is recorded that the new found lands were by him called New France. Six years later Cartier sailed again to the West, a.s.sociated with a royal officer of the name of De Roberval.

Cartier started first and was met by his superior when returning in disgust. De Roberval, with the t.i.tle of Lord of Norumbega, proceeded as he was bound to establish a colony, but by 1542 he proved unsuccessful owing to the insufficiency of supplies and his own brutal despotism.

There can be little doubt that all concerned in De Roberval's venture were deeply disappointed with its disastrous failure; its chief interest lies in the fact that it marks the end of the prologue of this drama of discovery, and the curtain was rung down not to rise again for half a century.

In the year celebrated for the Edict of Nantes, the Treaty of Vervins and the death of Philip II., the French once again started their attempts to colonise Canada. In that year, 1598, the Marquis de la Roche established a small settlement of convicts on Sable Island, which lies off the coast of Nova Scotia. The settlers, however, were incapable, the callous n.o.bleman sailed away to sunny France, and the unhappy survivors were left to quarrel among themselves, till eleven only of the original forty remained alive to be rescued after five long years of misery and starvation. The spirit of adventure was not crushed, and in 1599 Chauvin, a sea captain, and Pontgrave, a St Malo merchant, obtained a patent to colonise Canada, and so established a settlement at Tadoussac. Their object was to monopolise the lucrative fur trade, rather than to establish any permanent colony. Four years later De Chastes, a grey-haired veteran of the civil wars, a.s.sociated himself with Pontgrave, and they were fortunate in obtaining the services of Samuel Champlain, whose name is the greatest in the history of French colonisation. Almost immediately the small a.s.sociation of Chastes was amalgamated with another under De Monts, a Huguenot n.o.bleman of the King's household, and together in 1604 they entered the Bay of Fundy. In the next year Port Royal was established in Nova Scotia on Annapolis Basin, and the fur traders pa.s.sed the winter there under the leadership of Champlain. Supplies were brought out in 1606 by an expedition, which was accompanied by Lescarbot the historian, but, as De Monts' patent was cancelled in 1607, Port Royal was abandoned.

The French colonies differed in many respects from the British, but in one particular most essentially. The story of the British settlements which has already been told is the story of the progress of communities; in the case of the French colonies the history is really composed of a long series of entrancing biographies. The record of Canada from 1608 to 1635 is in fact the biography of Samuel Champlain. His first exploit was the erection of a _habitation_ at Quebec in 1608, his two main objects being to support exploration and encourage missionary work. He thus established the French nation in Canada less than twelve months after the settlement of the British in Virginia; the two rival nations, therefore, started their great work of colonisation at practically the same moment. The progress and results of their settlements resembled each other in no single item. Not content with founding Quebec, the adventurous Frenchmen left Pontgrave to encourage commerce and pushed up the St Lawrence. In 1609 he discovered the Lake that still bears his name; and for the first time came into direct hostile contact with the warriors of the Five Nations, whom he defeated at Ticonderoga. In the same year he returned to France, but re-sailed to Canada in 1610, leaving a few months afterwards for his native country. On landing in France he was dismayed to find that his patron, Henry of Navarre, had been a.s.sa.s.sinated by the fanatic Ravaillac in the streets of Paris. The year 1611 found the intrepid voyager once again in Canada preparing the way for a French settlement at Montreal.

The great change in France, and indeed throughout Europe, caused by Henry IV.'s untimely end, was felt with almost equal intensity in the far-distant region of Canada. A new system was immediately inaugurated, and that most unsatisfactory Regent, Marie de Medici, appointed the Count de Soissons as supreme Governor of New France. Before the Count could take over his unaccustomed duties, he died, and the Prince de Conde was nominated in his place. Champlain was at once created his deputy, with the main work of regulating the fur-trade and keeping some semblance of order amongst the turbulent French backwoodsmen.

Champlain's objects, however, were neither commercial nor pecuniary. His ambition soared above the merely lucrative, and he looked to the increase of French possessions, and if possible by means of the great waterways to the discovery of a short route to China and the East. It was for this latter reason that he was persuaded by Nicholas Vignau, one of his companions who had pa.s.sed the previous winter among the northern Indians, to explore toilfully the waters of the upper Ottawa in 1613; Vignau having concocted a story about an outlet to the east, a fabrication which, when discovered after many hardships, nearly cost him his life.

It is an interesting fact that behind all these adventurous expeditions undertaken by either the English or the French, there was always something of the missionary spirit. The first French attempt to convert the Indians was in 1615, when the Recollet branch of the Franciscan Order sent out a few brethren to undertake the hazardous task of instructing the savages in the doctrines of the Christian faith. The chief of this worthy band was Le Caron, who, taking his life in his hands, penetrated far into the dangerous Huron country. Ten years had still to elapse before the Jesuits embarked on a duty which, though in many ways erroneously carried out, has rightly received the admiration of the world. It so happened, in 1625, that the Viceroy of Canada, the Duc de Ventadour, was closely connected with the Jesuit order; and he celebrated the beginning of his term of office by introducing Jesuit priests and supporting them from his private purse. The difference between the newcomers and the Franciscans, who had already bought their experience, was very marked. The Franciscans, although devoted missionaries, were not bigots, and they claimed no religious monopoly; the Jesuits, on the contrary, imported religious despotism. The coming of the Jesuit fathers had two effects which may perhaps seem contradictory. They stimulated in many ways the progress of Canada and did much for her advance; but equally they r.e.t.a.r.ded the true evolution of the young nation. They were brave men who were ready to sacrifice themselves for the cause; no body of men have ever shown to the savages such tactfulness and diplomacy as these members of the Society of Jesus.

As map-makers and discoverers they were pre-eminent. On the other hand they were the upholders of exclusiveness and the bitterest enemies of freedom; they formulated a rigid system which was necessarily inimical to the expansion of a youthful community. Above all, deeming the Huguenots to be heretics, they excluded from Canada the very people who might have made the French in Canada a great nation. In supporting the Jesuits in this action the French Government did itself a double injury, for by debarring the best artizans of France from French colonies, it turned them in after years to the British settlements, and they thus helped to advance those very colonies which were the inveterate foes of their native land.

Between the years 1620 and 1627 the government of Canada pa.s.sed through numerous hands, including those of the Duc de Montmorenci and the already mentioned Duc de Ventadour; but had it not been for the striking qualities of Champlain, all must have failed. These years were troubled by continuous squabbles, and it was only Champlain's steadfastness that saved the colony. At last in 1627 affairs began to improve. Richelieu had now become a power in France, and for the better regulation of Canada he formed the "Company of the One Hundred a.s.sociates." Even now the difficulties of Champlain appeared overwhelming, not the least being the war between England and France. Richelieu had successfully defeated the Huguenots and their English allies, and the "weatherc.o.c.k fancy" of Buckingham had been incapable of devising any further scheme for the protection of La Roch.e.l.le. The war, however, lingered on, and although it was extremely languid in Europe, it was waged with more smartness in the New World. David Kirke, nominally a captain in the British service, but really little more than a pirate, with his three sons entered the St Lawrence in July 1628; they attacked the French trading station of Tadoussac, and in the following year starved Champlain into surrender at Quebec. The victory proved a barren one, for before it had actually been accomplished, Richelieu had brought about a treaty with Charles I. at St Germain-en-Laye, by which the newly conquered Canada was restored to the French in 1632.

Champlain returned to his adopted country in May 1633, and for the next two years he controlled the affairs of the French Company until his death on Christmas Day, 1635. New France then lost the man to whom she owed her all, and the French nation was deprived of one who has been fitly called "the Father of French Colonisation." From thirty-six years of age to the time of his death, Champlain had given up the whole of his energies to increase the power of his native country and to encourage the welfare and prosperity of New France. He was a hardy explorer, an excellent administrator, and one of the most trustworthy writers of his time. His ambitions were lofty, his foresight keen and intelligent, while the whole of his life was pure and resolute. His biography is one of the most interesting among the many entrancing stories of colonial founders, and his memory receives the lasting respect and honour which his great works naturally demand, not only from the Frenchman or French Canadian, but from posterity throughout the civilised world.

Champlain was succeeded by Monsieur de Montmagny, who arrived at Quebec in 1636. Six years later the first permanent settlement was established at Montreal, which was at first entirely of a religious character; this was soon to be followed by another at Fort Richelieu at the point where the Richelieu River joins the St Lawrence. These new settlements may be taken as an indication of the progress and general advance of the French Empire in the West. But as a matter of fact up to the year 1663 the government of Canada was far from being satisfactory, for the "Company of One Hundred a.s.sociates" had been continually checked by Indian wars, and was by no means capable of creating a great nation. Colbert, the successor of Mazarin, and chief minister of Louis XIV., realised the incapacity of the Company, and in 1663 deprived it of all rights. It is not surprising that the minister should take this action if a colony's prosperity is to be judged by its population. It has already been shown how remarkably the English settlements increased in number; but the French colony starting at practically the same time had in 1663 a meagre population of 2500. Father Christian le Clercq, writing at that time, says, "The colony far from increasing began to diminish. Some returned to France, others were taken and killed by the Indians. Many died of misery; the clearing and cultivation of lands advanced but little, and they were obliged to expect all from France."[243] The Jesuits were to a certain extent to be blamed for this lack of population; they had for some years been expending their energies upon the spiritual needs of Canada, but what Canada wanted, as a new colony, was what the English settlements had got, married men and women who willingly found new homes, whose children grew up around them, and whose aims were to create no temporary but permanent abiding-places. The Jesuits supplied rather both by teaching and example martyrs and virgins, whose history is filled with heroic records, but whose actual value to a new colony was extremely slight. The mission of Le Moyne to the Iroquois in 1653 and the establishment of those from St Sulpice under Maisonneuve at Montreal, are both fine examples of reckless devotion and self-sacrifice, but the outlook on life of these religious enthusiasts was an erroneous one.

The clear-sighted judgment and the financial genius of Colbert was needed to remedy the mistakes in the work which had been started so rashly by Richelieu. As Le Clercq recorded, the progress of New France required "a more powerful arm than that of the gentlemen of the Company."[244] Colbert, in 1663, supplied the "more powerful arm" by making Canada a royal province, and in the following year creating the "Company of the West." The members of the Company claimed to be the Seigniors of New France, with the right of nominating the Council for the government of Canada. The Crown, however, insisted on retaining the privileges of appointing the Governor and the Intendant. As soon as Canada became a Crown Colony with such a splendid guide as Colbert the progress and prosperity of the settlers were a.s.sured.

The government of Canada was purely despotic under the all-powerful Governor, Intendant, and Supreme Council, and the settlers were never allowed the political freedom exercised by the English colonists in New England or the Southern States. The law was the customary law of Paris, added to which were certain ordinances and, on occasions, royal edicts which received the ratification of the Council. This body had both legislative and judicial functions, and for the better maintenance of peace and order minor law-courts were established at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal. In addition to these courts the seigniors had in some cases the right to try crimes that were committed on their estates, and nominally to pa.s.s the extreme penalty of death upon their va.s.sals.

The Governor controlled the armed forces, and was in continual conflict with the Intendant, for each was jealous of the other. The latter was the King's steward, a civilian, and usually a member of the legal profession; he was President of the Council, and by controlling the sinews of war was often more powerful than the Governor. The Bishop sat in Council with these two, and was spiritually supreme in name and fact.

The great defects of Canada's political system were over-centralisation and lack of popular representation. The feudal system had been transferred to Canadian territory, and by its means the seigniors attempted to tie the peasant to the soil. The whole scheme was that of a benevolent despot exercising power over a closely restricted people; and yet the system itself, which was purely artificial, proved the skill of its originators, for under it the peasants of Canada lived happy and contented lives for almost a hundred years after they had pa.s.sed under British rule.

This scheme of government as devised by Colbert and Louis XIV. was put into execution by the Marquis de Tracy, who arrived at Quebec in 1665 as Lieutenant-General of all the French forces in America. His coadjutors were Courcelles, the Governor, and Talon, the Intendant. These men made numerous expeditions against the Indians, and in particular against the Iroquois; but their work was completely overshadowed by that of the next Governor. The name of Count Frontenac has been ever dear to the French Canadian from the moment that he came to administer New France in 1672.

He is one of those great figures in history who are perhaps particularly human; he was not a cold image, but composed of warm flesh and blood; he was neither a villain nor a saint. His great merits are to a certain extent balanced by his great defects; his temper was most violent, his manner haughty, pretentious, and arrogant. It is said with some truth that he was not altogether clean-handed in the methods he employed in repairing his fortunes; but grave as his faults were, they were weighed down on the other side not so much by his kindness, his firm alliance with those he regarded as his friends, but because his heart warmed to the land and the people of the land to whom he had been sent as a guide and governor. Frontenac's memory remains a happy one, because, like Champlain, he believed in the great future of the Daughter of the Snows.

Canada was unknown to him when he was fifty years of age; when he was appointed Governor for the second time he was twenty years older; but this long roll of years did not prevent him from adapting himself to his surroundings, and with such excellent effect that at the time of his death in 1698 he left Canada on the highroad to prosperity and greatness. In particular he must be praised for ridding Canada of murdering savages, as a means towards which he established, in 1673, an outpost at Fort Frontenac.[245] His return to France, however, emboldened the Seneca Indians, the most numerous of the Five Nations, to make frequent raids until his restoration to office in 1689. Five years later Frontenac began his great work of suppression, which was marked by an act of ferocious brutality in 1695, which has deeply stained the old man's reputation. In the same year he retook Fort Frontenac, which had been lost, and twelve months later was so successful against the Iroquois that he not only humbled their pride but actually won their respect. Ruthless he may have been; brutal in a time when brutality was common; but whatever his faults, he came to Canada when Canada cried aloud for such a man, and had the future governors been of the character and possessed the daring spirit of Frontenac, the Great Dominion might still have been the New France in the West.

Meantime, brave, devoted adventurers and Jesuits had been endeavouring to extend the French dominions west and south-west. It has already been mentioned that Champlain, in 1613, had been tempted to make an arduous journey to discover by means of the numerous waterways some route to China. The Great Lakes were first explored; but it was found that none of these vast sheets of water contained the tantalising secret that was interesting and engaging the attention of so many European seamen. From Lake Michigan, then called the Lake of Illinois, the discoverers moved to the narrows of Lake Huron and onward to the Fox River, following the course of which they came to Lake Winnebago. Moving still farther south, they found that a narrow strip of land divided them from another waterway, the Wisconsin, and that in turn they were destined to discover was a tributary of the mighty Mississippi. But some adventurers were more daring than their brethren, and instead of clinging to their canoes and following the course of streams, boldly skirted the territory of the dreaded Five Nations and found the "Beautiful" River, or Ohio.

As early as 1635 Jean Nicollet had reached Lake Michigan, and so successful was he in his explorations of the rivers and lakes that it has been supposed that he was the original white discoverer of the Mississippi. Plausible as this would seem, historians have conclusively disproved his claims; and that honour must be divided between the two famous explorers Joliet and Marquette.[246] Louis Joliet was a layman, though connected by early training with the Jesuits; he was a Canadian born, and had been employed by the Intendant Talon to discover copper in the neighbourhood of Lake Superior. His companion, Jacques Marquette, was a Jesuit in priest's orders; he was a man of pure and saintly life, and within his delicate body there burnt a fiery spirit of endeavour to convert, a spirit which consumed him, as it were, so that his life was but a brief one in labouring for his faith. He landed in Canada in 1666; two years later he was sent forward into the almost unknown wilds and established himself on Lake Superior, teaching both the Hurons and the Illinois. It was indeed from the latter that he first heard of the Mississippi. Being forced by the savages to retire from this outpost, he and his little following took refuge in 1670 at the mission station of St Ignace, now known as Mackinaw. It was here that Marquette determined to make an expedition for the discovery of the great river of which he had heard. He has left an account of his journeyings written from memory, as unfortunately he lost his papers on his return. "I embarked with M. Joliet, who had been chosen to conduct this enterprise, on the 13th May 1673, with five other Frenchmen, in two bark canoes. We laid in some Indian corn and smoked beef for our voyage. We first took care, however, to draw from the Indians all the information we could concerning the countries through which we had designed to travel, and drew up a map, on which we marked down the rivers, nations, and points of the compa.s.s to guide us in our journey."[247] The discoverers followed the route laid down by others as far as Lake Winnebago, but no white man had up to that time crossed over to the river Wisconsin.

Canoeing down that stream, hardly realising where fortune was leading them, the plucky Jesuit and his companions were carried out on the face of the broad waters of the Mississippi on 17th June 1673. "We met from time to time monstrous fish, which struck so violently against our canoes that at first we took them to be large trees, which threatened to upset us. We saw also a hideous monster; his head was like that of a tiger, his nose was sharp and somewhat resembled a wild cat; his beard was long; his ears stood upright; the colour of his head was grey, and his neck black."[248] But even this terrible apparition did not discourage them, and they still pushed on, hoping at first that the great river would bear them into the Gulf of California. They pa.s.sed the mouths of the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Ohio, and came to the Arkansas; here they learnt their mistake. "We judged by the compa.s.s that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Gulf of Mexico. It would, however, have been more agreeable if it had discharged into the South Sea or Gulf of California."[249] They turned back, therefore, having found out what they wanted to know, and "we considered that the advantage of our travels would be altogether lost to our nation if we fell into the hands of the Spaniards, from whom we could expect no other treatment than death or slavery."[250] Neither Marquette nor Joliet reaped any great advantage during their lifetime for their plucky endeavour, but they have had and will have the respect of those who come after them. Marquette made one more voyage on the stream that was his own. His burning zeal for the faith made him set out in the winter of 1674-5 to carry the Christian religion to the Indians of the Illinois River. He returned to Lake Michigan in the May of 1675, but he was a dying man. Death came suddenly, and his companions rapidly interred him far away from his friends; but so great was the love inspired by this faithful priest amongst the savages that they fetched his bones and laid them, with every sign of affection, respect, and grief, in the little mission-chapel where he had laboured for the faith.

Marquette was followed by a man whose name is even better known, but who was cast in a different mould. Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was born at Rouen and had landed in Canada in the same year as Marquette. His object was to discover a route to the East, and the name that he gave to his seignory, La Chine, testifies to this desire. He began his work of discovery in 1669, and in the next two years he pa.s.sed from Lakes Ontario and Erie right through the Illinois country, finally discovering the Ohio. In 1675 he took up his seignory on the Cataraqui River at Fort Frontenac. He was only thirty-two years of age, but he had already made himself famous. He was a man of strong character, and as such had many enemies amongst his fellow French Canadians; his want of sympathy turned men against him, and his want of tact wounded their feelings. To the Jesuits he was most unwelcome, for they recognised in him a rival discoverer; with the merchants and traders he was no less unpopular, a fact which was possibly intensified by his seignory being one of the best positions in New France for pecuniary gain. He was in every way an austere man, solitary and self-communing; and as his mind was filled with ambitions and even statesmanlike conceptions for New France, it is not surprising that the trading element and even his own followers failed to understand him. From 1675 to 1677 this man of extraordinary energy employed himself in commerce with the Indians by means of vessels of his own construction on Lake Ontario; but such work was too petty for La Salle. He therefore, in 1678, obtained from Louis XIV. permission "to labour at the discovery of the Western parts of New France through which to all appearance a way may be found to Mexico,"[251] in addition to which La Salle was strengthened in his possession of Fort Frontenac and was granted the privilege of constructing forts if necessary on his expeditions. On his enterprises he was accompanied by Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer and ever faithful to La Salle, and by Father Hennepin, a brave Flemish friar, whose overwhelming vanity tempted him in later years to try to rob his leader of the honour of first reaching the sea by the Mississippi River.

The early efforts of La Salle were unsatisfactory. He built a fort at Niagara and constructed a vessel called the _Griffin_, which foundered on Lake Michigan and left him in a hostile country swarming with savages, without supplies, and with mutinous followers. Nevertheless he kept on and descended the Illinois River, determined to reach the Gulf of Mexico. In 1680 his men began to desert, but Tonty and a faithful few a.s.sisted him to construct Fort Crevecoeur on the Illinois. Here the discoverer left his lieutenant for a time while he returned to Canada for supplies. The men mutinied, abandoned the fort, and followed La Salle with the intention of murdering him. Meantime he had sent out an expedition under Father Hennepin which had been captured by the Sioux Indians on the Upper Mississippi in what is now Minnesota. The Flemish friar and his followers were rescued by a Canadian backwoodsman, Du Luth, and Hennepin returned to France to write his account of the Mississippi.

Father Membre has left a record of La Salle's great expedition. "M. La Salle having arrived safely at Miamies on the 3rd of November 1681, began with his ordinary activity and vast mind to make all preparations for his departure.... The whole party consisted of about fifty-four persons, including the Sieur de Tonty and the Sieur Dautray, the son of the late Sieur Bourdon."[252] The expedition safely pa.s.sed the mouths of the Missouri and Ohio; after building a fort, the adventurers reached the Arkansas, where they were welcomed by the Indians, who knew nothing of white men. "The Sieur de la Salle took possession of this country with great ceremony. He planted a cross and set up the king's arms, at which the Indians showed a great joy.... On our return from the sea we found that they had surrounded the cross with a palisade."[253] Pa.s.sing still farther south, "we arrived on the 6th of April at a point where the river divides into three channels. The Sieur de la Salle divided his party the next day into three bands, to go and explore them. He took the western, the Sieur Dautray the southern, the Sieur Tonty ... the middle one."[254] On the 9th of April the three parties met on the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Mexico. This success was marked by the ceremony of planting the cross and raising the arms of France. La Salle took possession of the river and all the country round in the name of the king, and amidst a volley of muskets a leaden plate inscribed with the action and the names of the discoverers was deposited in the ground. Such was the foundation of the French in Louisiana. La Salle and his party returned to the North, but he was not the man to rest upon his laurels, for in the autumn of 1682 and the spring of 1683 he is to be found busily establishing a French colony on the Illinois. Fort Louis was built on a rocky summit and promised to be a most important station in the future, always on the one condition that the connection with Canada was in no way broken, or even threatened.

Perpetual envy and jealousy tended to keep Canada weak and the French in the West powerless. When La Salle returned he found himself surrounded by enemies, and without his friend and supporter, Count Frontenac, who had retired to France. Seeing no chance of accomplishing anything in Canada, La Salle sailed to Europe to put his version of the story before King Louis. He reached Versailles at exactly the right moment for his fortunes. France and Spain in 1683 were again on the verge of war; and even before La Salle's arrival, Seignelay, the son of the late grim Colbert, had proposed to Louis a scheme for the seizure of some port on the Gulf of Mexico so as to discomfit Spain. La Salle was heard with respect and attention, and was, in fact, welcomed as the very man required to carry out the prearranged plans of the king and his minister. All La Salle's possessions in Canada were restored, and he was commissioned to conduct a party for the purpose of colonising some strip of territory upon the Mexican Gulf. The scheme was from the outset hopeless. La Salle may have seen that it was the last toss of the dice, fortune or ruin. He may have been blinded by his successful discovery; but it is impossible to imagine that a man who had always kept his ends clearly in view, and who had accurately measured the means to attain them, should now have embarked blindly upon so hazardous a task.

Whatever his private opinions were, he readily undertook the leadership in conjunction with Admiral Beaujeu. The party embarked in four vessels, and sailed from La Roch.e.l.le on July 24, 1684. At the very outset their troubles began. One of the most important of the vessels carrying their supplies was captured by a Spanish buccaneer. The other three ships managed to reach San Domingo, where the little band of soldiers, artizans, and women were kept in idleness for two months owing to their leaders being stricken with fever. At last on January 1, 1685, La Salle brought the expedition to the sh.o.r.es of Texas, where the colony was settled within a palisade at a point called Fort St Louis. The distress of the settlement was terrible, and still further intensified by the realisation of their distance from Canada. In October, La Salle, driven to despair, set out to discover a way to the outposts of the northern colony. In March 1686 he was back again, but unsuccessful. Having rested for a month, he once more started for Canada, but after wandering until October he returned to the settlement utterly baffled. What was worse still was that he found a heavy mortality amongst the colonists; out of one hundred and eighty who had originally started he now had but forty-five followers, and very few of these he could really trust. All his ships were lost, escape to France was impossible, starvation stared them in the face. The only thing to do was to try to cut a way through to Canada. On January 7, 1687, La Salle, his brother, two of his nephews, and half his party set out; mutiny was evident from the beginning, and on March 19th, ambushed by his own men, the daring explorer was murdered. His brother, one of his nephews, and Jontel, who told the tale, escaped, and succeeded after terrible suffering in reaching Canada.

Louis XIV. and his ministers were far too busy at home to care about the death of one who had dared so much for France. The insane idea of Louis'

European policy blinded him to the prospects of an empire in the West, which La Salle might, had he been properly supported, have made so great. The people in authority in Canada were equally oblivious to the loss of one of Canada's greatest sons. They were too envious of this remarkable man who had done so much. One man, however, remembered his old master. Henri de Tonty, the faithful friend, had set out in 1686 to find this man whom he regarded with such affection. When he discovered that La Salle had been murdered, he did what he knew his great leader would have done and turned his attention to the rescue of the remnant at Fort St Louis. His efforts were unavailing, for the Spaniards had learnt, and from them Tonty heard, that the few who had remained on the sh.o.r.es of Texas had been annihilated by the Indians. Thus the grandiose schemes of La Salle appeared to end in failure, mystery, and death; but like his forerunner Marquette, his name still lives in Canada, where the names of his detractors have long since been forgotten. La Salle will be remembered as one of the boldest explorers, as a man who, even above any Englishman of his day, really grasped the imperial idea of a New France beyond the sea. He was the first to realise the great conception of uniting the French settlement from the snow-clad plains of Canada to the sunny sh.o.r.es of Mexico; and he it was who saw that should this dream be turned to reality, the Anglo-Saxon people would be confined to the narrow strip along the coast, and the illimitable expanses of the North American continent, with the enormous wealth of the West, would be the inheritance of the Gallic race.

There were, however, a few Frenchmen who had glimmerings of the dream of La Salle. As early as 1686 a party under Du Luth established a French outpost between Lakes Huron and Erie. Eight years later La Mothe Cadillac urged upon the French government the importance of holding this post, which in fact controlled the outlet of the two lakes. The consent of those in authority having been obtained, the French began in 1701 the erection of the city of Detroit. The Iroquois at last realised what was happening; they saw that, just as Fort Frontenac some years before had very seriously curtailed their rights of hunting and had indeed endangered their power, so now that they might again be trapped. To prevent this, on July 19, 1701, they ceded their hunting grounds to the King of England, retaining the right of free hunting. They were not versed in European politics; nor did they know that the magnificent Louis was gradually being ruined by William III. and Marlborough. The war of the Spanish Succession, fought for the most part in the Netherlands and Spain, had a vital effect upon those Iroquois nations of the Western prairies. The victories of Marlborough brought to England many possessions, and amongst them those lands which had been so trustingly conceded in 1701.

The Treaty of Utrecht, although it brought peace after a long and expensive war, may be said to mark a new epoch in the stories of both British and French colonial expansion. This epoch is not one of peace in the true sense; the actual fighting, when it occurred, was not always sanctioned by the home government; but the period was one of aggression on the part of the French in Canada and resistance on the part of the British colonists along the Eastern seaboard.

FOOTNOTES:

[239] Bateson, _Cambridge Modern History_ (1905), vol. vii. p. 70.

[240] _Hakluyt's Voyages_ (1904), viii. 438.