Part 9 (2/2)

Following on the arrival of the western Indians, M. de Tonty, with a large body of _coureurs de bois_, had come down from the Illinois and lake country to discuss questions of trade and defence and receive the governor's orders for their future movements. After being well entertained and receiving all necessary instructions, they departed laden with fresh supplies and equipments, as well as with presents for the tribes amongst whom they were stationed. While New France was thus strengthened in its distant outposts its home defences had not been neglected. Extensive improvements had been made in the fortifications of Quebec, according to plans prepared by the celebrated French engineer Vauban, and carried out under the superintendence of M. de Beaucour, the officer already mentioned as having conducted a winter expedition against the Iroquois. A new and very strong palisade had been erected around Three Rivers; and the forts at Sorel and Chambly, virtually outposts of Montreal, had been greatly strengthened. Taking everything into account, there was much to justify a more confident and hopeful feeling throughout the country.

Meantime Frontenac's trusty allies, the Abenaquis, incited by the governor of Acadia and their missionary priests, and led by M. de Portneuf, a brother of M. de Villebon, had been fighting Canada's battles on the New England frontier. In February 1692 a band of between two and three hundred fell on the small frontier settlement of York, situated on the Maine coast, not far from the New Hamps.h.i.+re border, and killed, according to the French accounts, about a hundred persons, chiefly women and children, taking at the same time about eighty captives. New England authorities place the number of killed at forty-eight, and that of the captives at seventy-three. Amongst the slain was the minister of the parish, Dummer by name, a graduate of Harvard, and a man greatly respected. His gown was carried off, and one of the Indians afterwards, arraying himself in it, preached a mock sermon to his companions. As soon as spring opened a body of the warriors proceeded to carry the good news to Villebon, who had established himself in a fort at a place called Naxouat, on the river St. John, near the site of the present town of Fredericton, Port Royal, as he thought, being too open to attack. Villebon received them right royally. Speeches, drinking, and feasting were the order of the day, and presents were distributed with calculated generosity. They had done n.o.bly, but there was more work of the same kind to be done. Their next venture, however, was not equally successful. The settlement of Wells was but a short distance from York, and thither they bent their steps in the early summer. Some of the houses at Wells were fortified; one in particular was defended by fifteen men under a militia captain named Convers. Fourteen more men with supplies arrived in two sloops on the 9th June, the very day on which the enemy made their appearance. The fourteen men managed to get into the fort, and the sloops, which were stranded in the bay by the ebbing tide, were left with no defenders save their crews. An unfortunate man named Diamond was captured in an attempt to pa.s.s from the fort to the sloops. The latter were first attacked, but the crew were well armed and shot two or three of the a.s.sailants, who then desisted. Turning their attention to the fort they fired some futile shots, and did not a little shouting and threatening. Enraged at their want of success, they wreaked their fury on their unfortunate captive, whom they mutilated horribly before putting him to death. Then, after butchering all the cattle they could see, and burning some empty houses, they departed. Some went to Naxouat to see Villebon, who mentions in his journal that he ”gave them a prisoner to burn, and that it would be impossible to add anything to the tortures they made him endure.” Such was the frontier warfare of the time, and such were the men who incited it and sanctioned its worst excesses.

The hostility of the Abenaquis to the English was largely a cultivated one. The French could not afford to let it die out, and the influence of the missionaries was exerted in the same direction. Left to themselves, these savages, who, like their western brethren, wanted English goods, which were still cheaper at Boston than at Albany, would doubtless have come to terms with their English neighbours. Two circ.u.mstances at this time were inclining them to a change of policy. One was their ill success at Wells, and the second the fact that Phipps, who had returned from England in May 1692 with a commission as governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, had proceeded, in the summer of that year, to rebuild and render much stronger than before the fort at Pemaquid, opposite Pentagouet, which had been destroyed in 1689, and also to erect another at the falls of the Saco. The one at Pemaquid had scarcely been completed before two French vessels under the command of Iberville were sent against it by Frontenac; and why they did not capture it has never been satisfactorily explained. True, the government of Ma.s.sachusetts had received word of the approach of the enemy, and had sent an armed vessel for its protection; but the advantage was still greatly on the side of the French, who were under the command, moreover, of a man noted both for daring and for capacity. Whatever the reason, the French vessels sailed away without accomplis.h.i.+ng anything. In August of the following year, both forts being garrisoned and equipped, most of the chiefs, including Madocawando, father-in-law of the famous Saint-Castin,[53] recognizing how seriously their own position had been weakened by the establishment of these outposts, negotiated a peace on behalf of their respective tribes. The French leaders, lay and clerical, alarmed at this abandonment of their cause, set to work at once to repair the mischief.

Certain of the tribes were still disposed for war; and the final result of prolonged debate and a profuse distribution of presents, together with skilfully contrived appeals to the mutual jealousy of the different chieftains, was that the peace was repudiated by those who had signed it, and that all alike declared for hostilities.

This was in the month of June 1694. In July a force of over two hundred Indians, accompanied by two missionaries, and conducted by Villieu, successor to M. de Portneuf, who had been removed for peculation, attacked by night the settlement of Oyster River, now Durham, some twelve miles north-west of the present town of Portsmouth, New Hamps.h.i.+re, and murdered one hundred and four persons, chiefly women and children. A few days later a similar descent was made on the settlements near Groton, fifty or sixty miles inland, where some forty persons were killed. Then pus.h.i.+ng on to Quebec, Villieu gratified Count Frontenac by the exhibition of thirteen English scalps. More could have been had, but these sufficed as samples. The scalps of many of the slain would have been too pitifully small to add much grace to a warrior's belt. Villebon himself says in his journal that ”the slaughter did not stop even at infants in the cradle.”

These deeds were wrought, in part at least, by men who, a short time before, had signed a peace with the English. Phipps, who had proclaimed the peace through the settlements, felt a measure of responsibility for having, to that extent, induced a false sense of security among the inhabitants. He repaired to Pemaquid, and sent messengers to invite delegates of the tribes to meet him there. A number came. He reproached them for their bad faith, and secured from them expressions of regret and promises to keep the peace in future. It was in vain, however; his work was quickly undone by the same influences which had been active before in the perpetuation of strife.

Phipps, whose appointment as governor had not been well received at Boston, and who consequently found himself involved in constant wrangling with some of the leading men of the place, was recalled about this time to England, where he died in the following year (1695). His successor, Stoughton, wrote a peremptory letter to the Abenaquis, calling upon them to bring in the prisoners they had taken. Those on the Kennebec returned a haughty answer; but a band from Father Thury's mission approached Fort Pemaquid under a flag of truce, and entered into a parley with the commandant, Chubb by name. Whether they sincerely meant to treat for peace is uncertain; Villebon says they were only pretending to do so. However this may have been, Chubb, without any positive knowledge of treachery on their part, opened fire on them, killed several, and made their chief, Egermet, a prisoner. A year later two French vessels under command of Iberville appeared before Pemaquid, landed cannon, and prepared to attack the place in concert with a large band of Indians led by Saint-Castin. Chubb at first put on a bold front; but scarcely had the firing begun before he offered to surrender, stipulating only that the lives of the garrison should be spared, and that they should be exchanged for French and Indian prisoners then at Boston. Iberville honourably observed the conditions, though his Indian allies, in their eagerness to be avenged on Chubb, were hard to restrain. Their vengeance, however, was only deferred. Chubb was accused at Boston of cowardice in surrendering the fort, and suffered imprisonment there for some months. After his release he retired to his home at Andover. Thither his relentless foes tracked him, and murdered both him and his wife at their own fireside.

[Footnote 51: As Belmont was a very ardent enemy of the drink traffic he may have been a little inclined to exaggerate in these matters.]

[Footnote 52: Chapter xiv.]

[Footnote 53: The Baron de Saint-Castin had come to Canada in 1665 as an ensign in the Carignan-Salieres Regiment, being then only in his seventeenth year. On the disbanding of the regiment he had gone to Acadia, and betaken himself to the life of the woods. He became a famous hunter and trader, and acquired great influence over the Indian tribes.

The chief Madocawando, as above mentioned, was his father-in-law, but he had others.]

CHAPTER XII

THE DRAMA OF WAR--PEACE AT THE LAST

Our narrative of the warfare on the New England frontier has somewhat outrun that of events in Canada proper. The safe arrival of the canoes from the West, the consequent revival of trade, and the comparative immunity from attack enjoyed by the country towards the close of the year 1693 had, as we have seen, made the governor more popular in the country than ever before. Still there were not a few who acknowledged his merits but grudgingly, while they had much to say in regard to the defects of his administration. Charlevoix says that, could he only have added to his own high qualities the virtues of his predecessor, the pious Denonville, he would have been perfect, and the condition of the colony would have left nothing to desire. Frontenac, however, could not be a Denonville any more than Denonville could have been a Frontenac. He was a religious man in the practical, businesslike way in which men with strong political instincts and apt.i.tudes are apt to be religious. There was nothing mystical about him, and little that was sentimental.

Religion, in his opinion, was a good thing, but it had its own place; it was meant to co-operate to good ends with the state, but not to dominate the state. In France such views might have pa.s.sed unchallenged, for these were the days when Gallicanism was at its height, but in Canada they met with keen opposition. There, as already remarked, the leaders of the church hoped to be able to mould a state in which the secular power should find its greatest glory in being the handmaiden of the spiritual.

Resuming the complaints made against the governor, Charlevoix tells us that he was censured for his indulgence to the officers, whose esteem and attachment he was very anxious to enjoy, and that he let all the burden of the war fall on the colonists. There may have been a slight measure of truth in the accusation; but it is certain that many officers of the regular army died bravely fighting the battles of the country.

That the militia were, on the whole, better and more skilful fighters than the regular troops was early discovered. Denonville, it may be recalled, made some very disparaging remarks in regard to the latter on the occasion of his expedition against the Senecas. Another accusation, for which there was undoubted foundation, was that the officers were allowed to retain the pay of the soldiers who received permission to do civilian work. A soldier could always earn in one form or another of manual labour, much more than his military wages amounted to; and the custom sprang up of retaining and dividing amongst the officers the pay of those who engaged in such labour. The court finally took cognizance of the practice, and condemned it. Still more serious complaint was made, Charlevoix says, of Frontenac's toleration of the liquor trade. He quotes on this subject a letter written by an ecclesiastic, the Abbe de Brisacier, to Pere Lachaise, the king's confessor, in which it is stated that ”brutalities and murders are being committed in the streets of Quebec by intoxicated Indian men and women, who in that condition have neither shame nor fear.” There is also a letter extant from the worthy Superior of the Sulpicians at Montreal, M. Dollier de Ca.s.son, dated 7th October 1691, to a friend in France, that is really pathetic in its terms. If, he says, ”our incomparable monarch” only knew the truth of the matter, ”the uprightness of his intentions would not be misled by those numerous emissaries of the Evil One who spread the belief that without liquor we should have no savages visiting us and no fur trade.”

He speaks of liquor as ”_un d.a.m.nable ecueil_”--a d.a.m.nable rock on which the poor Indian makes s.h.i.+pwreck--and gives a pitiful account of some of the horrors to be seen almost daily in the Indian missions. It may be doubted whether the condition of things was any worse in this respect under Frontenac than under Denonville, when the whole country seemed to be more or less paralyzed through the excessive use of brandy. It may possibly, indeed, have been better; the comparative efficiency of military operations may not unreasonably be held to point in that direction.

Frontenac and Champigny were not openly at strife, but judging by a letter written by the latter, and dated 4th November 1693, the governor acted very tyrannically towards him. He quotes the bishop as saying that Frontenac treats him (Champigny) worse than he ever treated d.u.c.h.esneau. He only puts up with it, he says, in order to carry out his instructions to live peaceably with the governor at all costs, and in the hope that the minister will appreciate the sacrifice he is making.

Frontenac, when in France, had lived much at court, and had doubtless witnessed and partic.i.p.ated in many of the elaborate festivities which royalty was wont to grace with its presence. It is not surprising that he was ambitious to have some little echo of Versailles in his mimic court at Quebec. Never had the public of that capital been so disposed to relaxation and enjoyment as in the winter of 1693-4 when the country seemed to see some days of prosperity and tranquillity before it. Great, therefore, was the enthusiasm when in the holiday season two dramatic representations were given at the chateau. Officers and ladies took part in the performances, and the plays _Nicomede_ and _Mithridate_ were wholly un.o.bjectionable. Everybody was happy except the clergy, who saw in such mundanities the most serious danger to the spiritual welfare of the community. The Abbe Glandelet of the Seminary was the first to raise a cry of alarm, preaching a sermon in the cathedral, in which he essayed to prove that no one could attend a play without incurring mortal sin.

Then the bishop issued a mandate a little more moderate in its terms, in which he distinguished between comedies innocent in their nature, but which under certain circ.u.mstances may be dangerous, and those which are absolutely bad and criminal in themselves, such as the comedy of _Tartuffe_ and similar ones. _Tartuffe_, although his Majesty had listened to it on more than one occasion, and entertained a particular friends.h.i.+p for its author, was to the ecclesiastical world a terror. The bishop had heard a report that it was to be put upon the boards next, and fearing that his mandate alone might not have sufficient effect, he took occasion of a chance meeting with Frontenac to offer him a thousand francs if he would not produce it. Frontenac's friends say that he never had any intention of producing it; but he took the bishop's money all the same, and, it is stated, gave it next day to the hospitals. It is somewhat remarkable that Frontenac should have taken the money whether he did or did not intend to produce the play, and equally so that the bishop should have considered him accessible to a purely pecuniary argument in a matter of the kind.

It has been mentioned that in the summer of 1693 an Oneida chief had come to Quebec and talked of peace, and that, having gone back to his people, he returned in October with propositions which the governor contemptuously rejected. In the month of January following, two messengers came from the Iroquois country to say that, if they could have a safe-conduct, chiefs from each of the Five Nations would come down with authority to negotiate for peace. A safe-conduct was promised, but Frontenac expressly stipulated that one particular Onondaga chief, Teganissorens, with whom he had had negotiations many years before, should accompany the delegation. In April a number of delegates came, but without Teganissorens. Frontenac refused to deal with them, and said that if any of them dared to come to see him again without that chief, he would put them into the kettle. This had its effect, for towards the end of May two delegates from each nation came down, Teganissorens being of the number. Belts were presented, and the language of the delegates was all that could be desired. ”Onontio,” said Teganissorens, presenting the sixth belt, ”I speak to you in the name of the Five Nations. You have devoured all our chief men, and scarce any more are left. I ought to feel resentment on account of our dead. By this belt I say to you that we forget them; and, as a token that we do not wish to avenge them, we throw away and bury our hatchet under the ground, that it may never more be seen. To preserve the living we shall think no more of the dead.” The personal appearance of the orator, known to the English as Decanisora, has been described by Colden in his _History of the Five Nations_, published in 1727. According to that author he was a tall, well-formed man, with a face not unlike the busts of Cicero; and we know from the French official narrative that he spoke with remarkable fluency and grace. The count replied in a conciliatory manner; on both sides there seemed to be good dispositions towards peace, but yet no definite understanding was arrived at. The Iroquois wished to include the English in the peace, but Frontenac, of course, was not at liberty to make peace with a people with whom his master, the French king, was at war. The savages agreed, however, to give up their prisoners; and Orehaoue was sent with them to accept delivery of the captives and bring them back. The Onondagas for some reason refused to surrender theirs, but the other tribes made good the promise of their delegates. Among those who were released were some who had been detained since the ma.s.sacre of Lachine, and in general they had not much complaint to make of their treatment. It was a proud day for Orehaoue when, completing the important duty entrusted to him, he was able to restore the long missing ones to country and home.

The majority of the tribes must have wished for peace, or they would not have given up their prisoners. It was, however, as much against the interest of the English to have peace established between the Iroquois and the French, as it was against the interest of the latter that there should be peace between the Abenaquis and the New Englanders. A long period of intrigue followed, with plotting and counter-plotting between the different parties concerned. The English on their side were striving to stir up the Iroquois against the French, and the French on theirs to incite the Abenaquis against the English; the Iroquois talked peace to the French, but were working all the time to draw the Lake tribes away from their alliance; while the French commanders in the West were doing their best to keep their Indians on the war-path against the Iroquois.

Intrigue reigned too among the Lake tribes; for an influential chief called the Baron was trying hard to persuade them to join the Iroquois.

Some horrible treacheries and cruelties were meantime being perpetrated in that region. The French at Michilimackinac, where La Motte Cadillac had replaced Louvigny, killed two Iroquois who had been brought into the camp in the guise of prisoners, but who were suspected of being emissaries from their nation acting in collusion with the Baron. The latter and his a.s.sociates were very angry at first, but in the end yielded to the French, and handed over another Iroquois, whom they had with them. The French determined, La Potherie says, to make an example of him. The Ottawas were invited ”to drink the broth of an Iroquois,”

which they did after the victim had been put to death with cruel tortures in which a Frenchman took the lead. Not long after four others were similarly treated. The object, of course, in getting the Ottawas and Hurons to partic.i.p.ate in these cruelties was to render peace with the Iroquois impossible.

In the summer of 1695, Frontenac carried out his long-cherished design of restoring the fort at Cataraqui. The scheme was strongly opposed by the intendant, Champigny, who had managed in some way to win the court over to his views. The expedition organized by Frontenac consisted of seven hundred men, and was placed by him under the command of the Marquis of Crisafy, a Neapolitan n.o.ble, who, as Charlevoix informs us, had been guilty of treason in his own country, and so been obliged to take service under the French king. Scarcely had the expedition started before a letter from the Comte de Pontchartrain was placed in Frontenac's hand enjoining him not to take any steps in the matter of re-establis.h.i.+ng the fort. Anything more _mal a propos_ could scarcely have happened. Had Frontenac been a timid man, he would have sent a messenger after Crisafy, and ordered him back; but his service of many years in many lands had accustomed the veteran to taking responsibility; and, persuaded as he was that he knew better what the interest of the country required than the king and the minister put together, he allowed the expedition to proceed. Within a month it had returned to Montreal after having put the fort once more in a condition of defence at a cost of sixteen thousand francs. Forty-eight men were left behind as a garrison. Frontenac had now a base for the operations which he felt sure would be required against the Iroquois, and which in point of fact were carried out in the following year. The king, on hearing of what had been done, did not censure the governor, but merely asked him to consider carefully, in consultation with M. de Champigny, whether it was really for the advantage of the colony that the fort should be maintained. In the interest of harmony the court had for some time followed the practice of writing to the governor and the intendant jointly, and requiring them to make joint despatches. Notwithstanding this prudent arrangement, each of the high officials managed to bring his own private views before the minister or the king, as the case might be. In joint consultations the will of Frontenac was pretty sure to carry the day. His fort henceforth was safe.

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