Part 12 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Duluth in the West.]

Simultaneously with the receipt of this letter from his monarch, there came to the perplexed Governor a letter from the Sieur Duluth, stating that at great expense of presents he had prevented the western tribes from further carrying their beaver trade to the English. He had, it appeared, met the Sieur de la Croix with his two comrades, who had presented the despatches in which the Governor had urged him to use every endeavour in forwarding letters to Chouart, at Nelson River.

”To carry out your instructions,” wrote Duluth, ”there was only Monsieur Pere, who would have to go himself, the savages having all at that time withdrawn into the interior.” He added that Pere had left during the previous month, and doubtless at that time had accomplished his mission. Duluth invariably expressed himself with great confidence on the subject of the implicit trust which the savages reposed in him.

More than once in his letters, as well as in verbal messages forwarded to his superiors, he boasted that before a couple of years were out not a single savage would visit the English at Hudson's Bay. To this end they had bound themselves by the numerous presents they had received at his hands; and he was a.s.sured that they would not go back on their word.

As with Duluth so with the other officials, pioneers and emissaries amongst the French, great importance was attached to treaties and compacts with the aborigines. Every endeavour was made to obtain the good-will and amity of the Indians.

[Sidenote: French and English relations with the Indians.]

Perhaps nothing exhibits so powerfully the totally differing att.i.tude and motives of the Company, compared with the French traders, than the manner in which, in those early times, the Red man was trusted and believed by the one and distrusted and contemned by the other. One may peruse neither the narratives of the Jesuits nor of the traders without an emotion of awe at the simple faith of those pioneers in the honesty and probity of the Red men. To the very end, when disaster succeeding disaster overwhelmed the propaganda of Loyola amongst the northern tribes and exterminated its disciples, we read of the Frenchman trusting to the word and deferring to the prejudices of his Indian brother. It was as if the latter were indeed of a common steadfastness and moral nature with his own. Contrast that trait in the English character which is exhibited in his early dealings with inferior and black peoples in India and Africa, to that he has retained to the present day. Never was the contrast greater than during the acute conflict of English and French interests in Hudson's Bay at this time. The early governors and traders almost without exception openly despised the Indian and secretly derided his most solemn counsels. August treaties were set aside on the most flimsy pretexts, and if the virtues of the savages were too highly esteemed by the French, they were on the other hand perhaps much too cheaply held by their rivals.

But to whatever extent they may have held themselves bound by compacts of this kind, the Company's officials were not so foolish as to doubt their potency amongst savages. Thus we find that from the years 1682 to 1688 the Company regularly instructed its servants to enact the strongest treaties with the ”captains and kings of the rivers and territories where they had settlements.” ”These compacts,” observes one of the Company's servants, ”were rendered as firm and binding as the Indians themselves could make them. Ceremonies of the most solemn and sacred character accompanied them.”

Duluth had already built a fort near the River a la Maune, at the bottom of Lake Nepigon, and thither he expected at least six of the northern nations to resort in the spring. Lest this should not be sufficient for the purpose he designed building another in the Christineaux River, which would offer an effectual barrier to the expansion of the English trade. With characteristic zeal Duluth, in a letter written at this time, concluded with these words:

”Finally, sir, I wish to lose my life if I do not absolutely prevent the savages from visiting the English.”

But with every good will to serve his monarch and stifle in infancy the growing trade of the Hudson's Bay Company in the northern regions, Duluth vastly undervalued the forces of circ.u.mstance as well of enterprise at the command of the enemy. The plans of the French were destined to be confounded by the unforeseen and treacherous action of Radisson and Chouart in the following year.

”What am I to do?” now became the burden of La Barre's appeals to the King. The young priest who acted as his secretary at Quebec was kept perpetually writing to Versailles for instructions. His letters are long, and filled with explanations of the situation, which only served to confuse his superiors. Fearful of offending the English on one hand and thereby precipitating New France in a war with New England, and on the other of arousing the resentment of the colonists by a supine behaviour, the unhappy Denonville was in an unpleasant dilemma.

”Am I to oppose force to force?” he asks in one letter. ”Am I to venture against those who have committed these outrages against your Majesty's subjects at sea? It is a matter in which your Majesty will please to furnish me with some precise and decisive orders whereunto I shall conform my conduct and actions.”

[Sidenote: Lewis unwilling to oppose the English.]

But the Most Christian King was by no means anxious to quarrel with his cousin Charles either for the dominion of, or the fur-trade monopoly in, the north. Charles was in possession of a handsome subsidy paid out of the exchequer of Lewis. Europe was spectator of the most cordial relations between these two monarchs, relations which are described by more than one candid historian as those commonly subsisting between master and va.s.sal. That tempest of indignation which was to break over England in the reign of Charles's successor would have not so long been deferred had but a real knowledge of the ”good understanding and national concord” been known to Englishmen at large.

Under the circ.u.mstances it is not surprising that Lewis concluded to do nothing. It was not that opportunities to regain what was lost were lacking. An old soldier, Gauthier de Comportier, who with a number of other patriots had learned of the jeopardy in which French interests lay in the north, presented a memoir to the King offering, if a grant were made him, to win all back from the English and to establish three posts on the Bourbon River. The grant was refused.

A change then came which altered the aspect of affairs.

In February, 1685, Charles II. died, and the Duke of York, second Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, ascended the throne of England.

Lewis was not the last to perceive that the accession of James would cause but little real difference, as the latter and himself were bound together by ties as strong as had bound Charles, yet saw at the same time that full advantage might safely be reaped from the change of monarchs. Proceedings were instantly therefore set on foot to retrieve the fortunes of the French in the fur countries.

The conduct of Groseilliers and Radisson had deeply offended the inhabitants of Quebec. An excited populace burnt the pair in effigy, and a decree was issued for their arrest should they at any time be apprehended, and for their delivery to those whom they had betrayed.

But it was the anger of La Chesnaye and his a.s.sociates of the Company which was especially strong. An expedition which they had sent out to Port Nelson, with the intention of collecting the wealth in peltries, returned to the St. Lawrence without so much as a single beaver.

The success of the English made some decided action on the part of the French inevitable. La Barre was recalled and his successor, the Marquis de Denonville, determined to take matters into his own hands, rather than see the interests of New France in the Bay suffer. He relied upon the success of the expedition to atone for the boldness of the initiative, but his action was not taken without repeated warnings addressed to the Minister. ”All the best of our furs, both as to quality and quant.i.ty, we must expect to see shortly in the hands of the English.” If the English were not expelled they would secure all the fat beaver from an infinite number of tribes in the north who were being discovered every day; besides abstracting the greater portion of the peltries that ordinarily reached them at Montreal through the Ottawas, a.s.siniboines and other tribes.[21]

[Sidenote: The French capture a Company's s.h.i.+p.]

In the month of July, 1685, two s.h.i.+ps belonging to the French Company, returning in disappointment to Canada from Port Nelson, met, at the mouth of the Straits, one of the Hudson's Bay Company's vessels named the _Merchant of Perpetuana_, commanded by one Edward Humes. She was bound for York Fort with a cargo of merchandise and provisions. No time was lost on the part of the French in intercepting her. Captain Humes not surrendering with sufficient alacrity to please the enemy, the _Merchant of Perpetuana_ was boarded and forcibly possessed in the name of King Lewis. Several English sailors lost their lives. The vessel having been seized in this manner, her prow was headed for Quebec, where her master and crew were summarily cast into gaol.

After a miserable confinement, lasting eleven months, the sufferings of Captain Humes ended with his death, and the other prisoners, exposed to the insults and indignities of the Quebec populace, were ultimately sent away to Martinique on board their own s.h.i.+p, and there sold as slaves. The mate, Richard Smithsend by name, managed to escape. Upon reaching London the tale he unfolded to his employers excited general indignation. A memorial of the outrage, couched in vigorous language, was presented to the King, but James, resolved not to give offence to his friend and ally the Most Christian King, took no notice of the matter.