Part 11 (2/2)
Now ensued a curious scene. Frontenac took a hatchet, brandished it in the air and sang the war-song. The princ.i.p.al Frenchmen present followed his example. The Christian Iroquois of the two neighboring missions rose and joined them, and so also did the Hurons and the Algonquins of Lake Nip.i.s.sing, stamping and screeching like a troop of madmen; while the governor led the dance, whooping like the rest. His predecessor would have perished rather than play such a part in such company; but the punctilious old courtier was himself half Indian at heart, as much at home in a wigwam as in the halls of princes. Another man would have lost respect in Indian eyes by such a performance. In Frontenac, it roused his audience to enthusiasm. They s.n.a.t.c.hed the proffered hatchet and promised war to the death. [4]
Then came a solemn war-feast. Two oxen and six large dogs had been chopped to pieces for the occasion, and boiled with a quant.i.ty of prunes. Two barrels of wine with abundant tobacco were also served out to the guests, who devoured the meal in a species of frenzy.
[Footnote: La Potherie, III. 96, 98.] All seemed eager for war except the Ottawas, who had not forgotten their late dalliance with the Iroquois. A Christian Mohawk of the Saut St. Louis called them to another council, and demanded that they should explain clearly their position. Thus pushed to the wall, they no longer hesitated, but promised like the rest to do all that their father should ask.
Their sincerity was soon put to the test. An Iroquois convert called La Plaque, a notorious reprobate though a good warrior, had gone out as a scout in the direction of Albany. On the day when the market opened and trade was in full activity, the buyers and sellers were suddenly startled by the sound of the death-yell. They s.n.a.t.c.hed their weapons, and for a moment all was confusion; when La Plaque, who had probably meant to amuse himself at their expense, made his appearance, and explained that the yells proceeded from him. The news that he brought was, however, sufficiently alarming. He declared that he had been at Lake St. Sacrement, or Lake George, and had seen there a great number of men making canoes as if about to advance on Montreal.
Frontenac, thereupon, sent the Chevalier de Clermont to scout as far as Lake Champlain. Clermont soon sent back one of his followers to announce that he had discovered a party of the enemy, and that they were already on their way down the Richelieu. Frontenac ordered cannon to be fired to call in the troops, crossed the St. Lawrence followed by all the Indians, and encamped with twelve hundred men at La Prairie to meet the expected attack. He waited in vain. All was quiet, and the Ottawa scouts reported that they could find no enemy. Three days pa.s.sed. The Indians grew impatient, and wished to go home. Neither English nor Iroquois had shown themselves; and Frontenac, satisfied that their strength had been exaggerated, left a small force at La Prairie, recrossed the river, and distributed the troops again among the neighboring parishes to protect the harvesters. He now gave ample presents to his departing allies, whose chiefs he had entertained at his own table, and to whom, says Charlevoix, he bade farewell ”with those engaging manners which he knew so well how to a.s.sume when he wanted to gain anybody to his interest.” Scarcely were they gone, when the distant cannon of La Prairie boomed a sudden alarm.
The men whom La Plaque had seen near Lake George were a part of the combined force of Connecticut and New York, destined to attack Montreal. They had made their way along Wood Creek to the point where it widens into Lake Champlain, and here they had stopped. Disputes between the men of the two colonies, intestine quarrels in the New York militia, who were divided between the two factions engendered by the late revolution, the want of provisions, the want of canoes, and the ravages of small-pox, had ruined an enterprise which had been mismanaged from the first. There was no birch bark to make more canoes, and owing to the lateness of the season the bark of the elms would not peel. Such of the Iroquois as had joined them were cold and sullen; and news came that the three western tribes of the confederacy, terrified by the small-pox, had refused to move. It was impossible to advance; and Winthrop, the commander, gave orders to return to Albany, leaving Phips to conquer Canada alone. [5] But first, that the campaign might not seem wholly futile, he permitted Captain John Schuyler to make a raid into Canada with a band of volunteers. Schuyler left the camp at Wood Creek with twenty-nine whites and a hundred and twenty Indians, pa.s.sed Lake Champlain, descended the Richelieu to Chambly, and fell suddenly on the settlement of La Prairie, whence Frontenac had just withdrawn with his forces. Soldiers and inhabitants were reaping in the wheat-fields.
Schuyler and his followers killed or captured twenty-five, including several women. He wished to attack the neighboring fort, but his Indians refused; and after burning houses, barns, and hay-ricks, and killing a great number of cattle, he seated himself with his party at dinner in the adjacent woods, while cannon answered cannon from Chambly, La Prairie, and Montreal, and the whole country was astir.
”We thanked the Governor of Canada,” writes Schuyler, ”for his salute of heavy artillery during our meal.” [Footnote: _Journal of Captain John Schuyler_, in Doc. Hist. N. Y., II. 285. Compare La Potherie, III. 101, and _Relation de Monseignat_.]
The English had little to boast in this affair, the paltry termination of an enterprise from which great things had been expected. Nor was it for their honor to adopt the savage and cowardly mode of warfare in which their enemies had led the way. The blow that had been struck was less an injury to the French than an insult; but, as such, it galled Frontenac excessively, and he made no mention of it in his despatches to the court. A few more Iroquois attacks and a few more murders kept Montreal in alarm till the tenth of October, when matters of deeper import engaged the governor's thoughts.
A messenger arrived in haste at three o'clock in the afternoon, and gave him a letter from Prevost, town major of Quebec. It was to the effect that an Abenaki Indian had just come over land from Acadia, with news that some of his tribe had captured an English woman near Portsmouth, who told them that a great fleet had sailed from Boston to attack Quebec. Frontenac, not easily alarmed, doubted the report.
Nevertheless, he embarked at once with the intendant in a small vessel, which proved to be leaky, and was near foundering with all on board. He then took a canoe, and towards evening set out again for Quebec, ordering some two hundred men to follow him. On the next day, he met another canoe, bearing a fresh message from Prevost, who announced that the English fleet had been seen in the river, and that it was already above Tadoussac. Frontenac now sent back Captain de Ramsay with orders to Callieres, governor of Montreal, to descend immediately to Quebec with all the force at his disposal, and to muster the inhabitants on the way. Then he pushed on with the utmost speed. The autumnal storms had begun, and the rain pelted him without ceasing; but on the morning of the fourteenth he neared the town. The rocks of Cape Diamond towered before him; the St. Lawrence lay beneath them, lonely and still; and the Basin of Quebec outspread its broad bosom, a solitude without a sail. Frontenac had arrived in time.
He landed at the Lower Town, and the troops and the armed inhabitants came crowding to meet him. He was delighted at their ardor. [Footnote: _Frontenac au Ministre, 9 et 12 Nov., 1690._] Shouts, cheers, and the waving of hats greeted the old man as he climbed the steep ascent of Mountain Street. Fear and doubt seemed banished by his presence. Even those who hated him rejoiced at his coming, and hailed him as a deliverer. He went at once to inspect the fortifications. Since the alarm a week before, Prevost had accomplished wonders, and not only completed the works begun in the spring, but added others to secure a place which was a natural fortress in itself. On two sides, the Upper Town scarcely needed defence. The cliffs along the St. Lawrence and those along the tributary river St. Charles had three accessible points, guarded at the present day by the Prescott Gate, the Hope Gate, and the Palace Gate. Prevost had secured them by barricades of heavy beams and casks filled with earth. A continuous line of palisades ran along the strand of the St. Charles, from the great cliff called the Saut au Matelot to the palace of the intendant. At this latter point began the line of works constructed by Frontenac to protect the rear of the town. They consisted of palisades, strengthened by a ditch and an embankment, and flanked at frequent intervals by square towers of stone. Pa.s.sing behind the garden of the Ursulines, they extended to a windmill on a hillock called Mt. Carmel, and thence to the brink of the cliffs in front. Here there was a battery of eight guns near the present Public Garden; two more, each of three guns, were planted at the top of the Saut au Matelot; another at the barricade of the Palace Gate; and another near the windmill of Mt. Carmel; while a number of light pieces were held in reserve for such use as occasion might require. The Lower Town had no defensive works; but two batteries, each of three guns, eighteen and twenty-four pounders, were placed here at the edge of the river. [Footnote: _Relation de Monseignat; Plan de Quebec, par Villeneuve_, 1690; _Relation du Mercure Galant_, 1691. The summit of Cape Diamond, which commanded the town, was not fortified till three years later, nor were any guns placed here during the English attack.]
Two days pa.s.sed in completing these defences under the eye of the governor. Men were flocking in from the parishes far and near; and on the evening of the fifteenth about twenty-seven hundred, regulars and militia, were gathered, within the fortifications, besides the armed peasantry of Beauport and Beaupre, who were ordered to watch the river below the town, and resist the English, should they attempt to land.
[Footnote: _Diary of Sylva.n.u.s Davis_, prisoner in Quebec, in _Ma.s.s.
Hist. Coll._ 3, I. 101. There is a difference of ten days in the French and English dates, the _New Style_ having been adopted by the former and not by the latter.] At length, before dawn on the morning of the sixteenth, the sentinels on the Saut au Matelot could descry the slowly moving lights of distant vessels. At daybreak the fleet was in sight. Sail after sail pa.s.sed the Point of Orleans and glided into the Basin of Quebec. The excited spectators on the rock counted thirty-four of them. Four were large s.h.i.+ps, several others were of considerable size, and the rest were brigs, schooners, and fis.h.i.+ng craft, all thronged with men.
[1] _Relation de Monseignat_. Nevertheless, a considerable number seem to have refused the oath, and to have been pillaged. The _Relation de la Prise du Port Royal par les Anglois de Baston_, written on the spot immediately after the event, says that, except that n.o.body was killed, the place was treated as if taken by a.s.sault. Meneval also says that the inhabitants were pillaged. _Meneval au Ministre_, 29 _Mai_, 1600; also _Rapport de Champigny_, _Oct._, 1690. Meneval describes the New England men as excessively irritated at the late slaughter of settlers at Salmon Falls and elsewhere.
[2] _An Account of the Silver and Effects which Mr. Phips keeps back from Mr. Meneval_, in _3 Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll._, I. 115.
Monseignat and La Potherie describe briefly this expedition against Port Royal. In the archives of Ma.s.sachusetts are various papers concerning it, among which are Governor Bradstreet's instructions to Phips, and a complete invoice of the plunder. Extracts will be found in Professor Bowen's _Life of Phips_, in Sparks's _American Biography_, VII. There is also an order of council, ”Whereas the French soldiers lately brought to this place from Port Royal _did surrender on capitulation_,” they shall be set at liberty. Meneval, _Lettre au Ministre_, 29 _Mai, 1690_, says that there was a capitulation, and that Phips broke it. Perrot, former governor of Acadia, accuses both Meneval and the priest Pet.i.t of being in collusion with the English. _Perrot a de Chevry, 2 Juin_, 1690. The same charge is made as regards Pet.i.t in _Memoire sur l'Acadie_, 1691.
Charlevoix's account of this affair is inaccurate. He ascribes to Phips acts which took place weeks after his return, such as the capture of Chedabucto.
[3] ”M. le Gouverneur luy a repondu qu'il avoit reconnu avec plaisir que la Compagnie (_le Conseil_) conservoit la consideration qu'elle avoit pour son caractere et pour sa personne, et qu'elle pouvoit bien s'a.s.surer qu'encore qu'elle luy eust fait des propositions au dela de ce qu'elle auroit cru devoir faire pour sa reception au Conseil, il ne les auroit pas acceptees, l'honneur de la Compagnie luy estant d'autant plus considerable, qu'en estant le chef, il n'auroit rien voulu souffrir qui peust estre contraire a sa dignite.” _Registre du Conseil Souverain, seance du_ 13 _Mars_, 1690. The affair had occupied the preceding sessions of 20 and 27 February and 6 March. The submission of the councillors did not prevent them from complaining to the minister. _Champigny au Ministre_, 10 _Mai_, 1691; _Memoire instructif sur le Canada_, 1691.
[4] ”Je leur mis moy-mesme la hache a la main en chantant la chanson de guerre pour m'accommoder a leurs facons de faire.” _Frontenac au Ministre_, 9 _et_ 12 _Nov_., 1690.
”Monsieur de Frontenac commenca la Chanson de guerre, la Hache a la main, les princ.i.p.aux Chefs des Francois se joignant a luy avec de pareilles armes, la chanterent ensemble. Les Iroquois du Saut et de la Montagne, les Hurons et les Nipisiriniens donnerent encore le branle: l'on eut dit, Monsieur, que ces Acteurs etoient des possedez par les gestes et les contorsions qu'ils faisoient. Les _Sa.s.sakouez_, ou les cris et les hurlemens que Mr. de Frontenac etoit oblige de faire pour se conformer a leur maniere, augmentoit encore la fureur bachique.” La Potherie, III. 97.
[5] On this expedition see the _Journal of Major General Winthrop_, in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, IV. 193; _Publick Occurrences_, 1690, in _Historical Magazine_, I. 228; and various doc.u.ments in _N. Y. Col.
Docs._, III. 727, 752, and in _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, II. 266, 288.
Compare La Potherie, III. 126, and _N. Y. Col. Docs._, IX. 513. These last are French statements. A Sokoki Indian brought to Canada a greatly exaggerated account of the English forces, and said that disease had been spread among them by boxes of infected clothing, which they themselves had provided in order to poison the Canadians.
Bishop Laval, _Lettre du_ 20 _Nov_., 1690, says that there was a quarrel between the English and their Iroquois allies, who, having plundered a magazine of spoiled provisions, fell ill, and thought that they were poisoned. Colden and other English writers seem to have been strangely ignorant of this expedition. The Jesuit Michel Germain declares that the force of the English alone amounted to four thousand men (_Relation de la Defaite des Anglois_, 1690). About one tenth of this number seem actually to have taken the field.
CHAPTER XIII.
1690.
DEFENCE OF QUEBEC.
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