Part 9 (2/2)

The enmity between Philibert and the Intendant was common talk, and over his doorway the merchant had hung, beneath the figure of a dog in bas-relief, the following whimsical quatrain:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: LE CHIEN D'OR]

”Je suis un chien qui ronge l'os, En le rongeant je prends mon repos; Un jour viendra, qui n'est pas venu, Que je mordrai qui m'aura mordu.”

The bitter conflict continued until Philibert was murdered in the street. The escape of the a.s.sa.s.sin was well contrived; but there was no avoiding the vengeance of Philibert's son, who, after years of searching, struck down his father's slayer in far-off Pondicherry.

Meanwhile the walls and bastions of Louisbourg were rising stronger than ever upon their old foundations, and the French Acadians, relying upon the Cape Breton stronghold and the nearer fortress of Beausejour, grew more and more restless beneath the English yoke. By founding Halifax in 1749, England had taken faster hold upon the peninsula, and through every possible means she had endeavoured to secure the true allegiance of her Acadian subjects. In spite of all these efforts, however, Acadia was sown with treason, and when at last disloyalty became intolerable and dangerous, the innocent as well as the guilty must reap the harvest of tears and bitterness. There could only be one end to it all; and however hard the fate, the land of Acadia now ceased to be the home of its makers, who had been goaded and inveigled into covert rebellion and treason.

”This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?

Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands, Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?

Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for ever departed!

Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean-- Nought but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand Pre.”

So sang Longfellow in his sorrowful tale of _Evangeline_; and the cold page of history is hardly less mournful.

The 5th of September, 1755, was a day memorable alike to the Acadians and to those whose bitter duty it was to carry out King George's orders for their expulsion from the peninsula. At three o'clock in the afternoon the peasants of Grand Pre, Piziquid, Chipody, and the other parishes a.s.sembled in their chapels to listen to a royal proclamation declaring their lands and houses forfeited to the Crown, and themselves condemned to exile. The scenes following this unexpected order wrung the hearts of the rugged soldiers who were sent to execute the sentence. Reluctantly and forbearingly they carried out the royal command, and soon six thousand Acadians, who had persistently refused allegiance to the English in the vain belief that New France would regain the peninsula, found themselves transported to the English colonies farther south. Those who swore allegiance were left undisturbed; while many, escaping both deportation and the oath of subjection, fled to Quebec. These were doomed, however, to misery far greater than that of their comrades who were set down as strangers among the English colonists. Quebec, which had fomented and abetted their treason, now declined to share the burden of their misfortune.

The years of Bigot's _regime_ were the lean years of the city, and this influx of a thousand new starvelings was a most unwelcome addition to the population. Yet even the unfavourable circ.u.mstances of the time cannot justify the official neglect and the cruel inhospitality with which the miserable exiles were received in the capital of New France. ”In vain,” says a chronicler, ”they asked that the promises they had received should be kept, and they pleaded the sacrifices they had made for France. All was useless. The former necessity for their services had pa.s.sed away. They were looked upon as a troublesome people, and if they received a.s.sistance they were made to feel that it was only granted out of pity. They were almost reduced to die of famine. The little food they obtained, its bad quality, their natural want of cleanliness, their grief, and their idleness caused the death of many. They were forced to eat boiled leather during the greater part of the winter, and to wait for spring in the hope that their condition would be bettered. On this point they were deceived.”[24]

”To supplement a miserable daily ration of four ounces of bread and horseflesh,” says another writer, ”they were obliged to seek sc.r.a.ps in the gutters; and those who survived starvation were brought low with a virulent smallpox, which carried off whole families in its loathsome tumbril.”

[Footnote 24: Archives of Nova Scotia.]

In the meantime, a series of events had happened in the Ohio valley which set the New World on fire. Celoron de Bienville had indeed staked out his boundary line, but the new Governor of Quebec, the Marquis Duquesne, saw clearly that a line of bayonets was the only limit which English expansionists would respect. Accordingly, a strong French force marched into the troublesome valley, and established themselves at a new post called Fort Le Boeuf.

The report of this incursion was evil news for Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, the most diligent and watchful of the thirteen governors of the English colonies. Having never ceased to regard Lake Erie as a northern boundary of British territory, this latest invasion on the part of the French was to him beyond endurance, and he forthwith despatched the Adjutant-General of the Virginia Militia to deliver England's protest to the French commander. The messenger was a tall handsome youth of twenty-one, and the message was the first important commission of George Was.h.i.+ngton.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of the CITY OF QUEBEC 1759]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ISAAC BARRE (Paymaster of Wolfe's Forces)]

In spite of the studied courtesy of his reception by Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, the English envoy saw the hopelessness of his errand, and hastened back to Williamsburg with his report. Dinwiddie thereupon resolved to meet force with force. Although he scarcely persuaded the disunited colonies to take a serious view of the French invasion, he was presently able to send George Was.h.i.+ngton back again into the Ohio valley at the head of a company of regulars and three hundred soldiers of the Old Dominion.

Meanwhile the French had seized an English trading-post at the junction of the Ohio and Monongahela rivers, and named it Fort Duquesne. This post was Was.h.i.+ngton's immediate objective, and as he approached it his advance-guard met a French reconnoitring party under Jumonville, sent, it is alleged, by the commandant of Fort Duquesne to warn the Virginians off French soil. The precise purpose served by this handful of Frenchmen has never, however, been fully determined.

Jumonville's movements are certainly hard to reconcile with the theory of a peaceful mission, and to Major Was.h.i.+ngton they certainly appeared hostile. In the sharp fight which followed, Jumonville and nine others were killed, while of the remaining twenty-three only one escaped. By the English, the affair was described as a successful skirmish, by the French as the ”_a.s.sa.s.sinat de Jumonville_”; for all it meant precipitation of the death-struggle for North America.

Antic.i.p.ating the French attack, Was.h.i.+ngton fell back upon Great Meadows, and the hasty and inadequate intrenchments which he there threw up received the name of Fort Necessity. Here he awaited an a.s.sault with a short supply of ammunition and almost no provisions.

Nor was his patience long tried; for nine hundred Frenchmen under Coulon de Villiers, brother of the unfortunate Jumonville, were already marching against him through the woods. Wis.h.i.+ng to entice them to an immediate attack, Was.h.i.+ngton had arrayed his men on the open meadow before the fort; but as his opponent declined to be drawn from the cover of the surrounding hills, the Virginians also took shelter in their shallow intrenchments. A blind fusillade now began in torrents of rain and was maintained for nine hours, punctuated by the booming of a few light swivel guns upon the ramparts.

At nightfall, however, the French proposed a parley, and having weighed the chances of his little army against such overwhelming numbers, Was.h.i.+ngton agreed to capitulate. Next day the English marched out of Fort Necessity with beating drums and flying colours; but heart-sick and weary they toiled back over the mountains to Virginia, leaving the valley of the Ohio in the full possession of the enemy.

Moreover, the defeat at Fort Necessity was a double blow, for it threw the fickle Indians back into the arms of the French, a consideration of great weight in border warfare.

In Europe the rival powers were still maintaining the semblance of peace, while yet secretly abetting the open enmity of their American colonies. The despatch of Major-General Braddock with two regiments of the line, although accounted for by the lips of diplomacy, was, with equally pacific a.s.surances, promptly checkmated by France.

Eighteen s.h.i.+ps of war, carrying the six battalions of La Reine, Bourgogne, Languedoc, Guienne, Artois, and Bearn, and convoyed by an auxiliary squadron of nine battles.h.i.+ps, were hurried off to New France under the joint command of Baron Dieskau and the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the new Governor of Quebec. As in the case of former expeditions on so large a scale, some of the vessels failed to reach their destination, and two frigates fell into the hands of Admiral Boscawen, who had secret orders to intercept this French flotilla.

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