Part 18 (1/2)

Round about these unhappy savages, loudly lamenting the pa.s.sing of the English dominion when powder and shot was plenty, were the heaps of furs which to them were useless. They had journeyed to the fort in all good faith, across mountain and torrent, as was their custom, only to find their goods rejected by the white men of the fort, who told them to wait. When the French hunting party came to encamp near them, several of the younger braves amongst the Indians crept up to where they feasted, and returned with the news to their comrades. The tribe was fired with resentment. Exasperated by the cruelty of their fate, they hatched a plan of revenge and rapine. Two of their youngest and comeliest women entered the a.s.semblage of the white men, and by seductive wiles drew two of them away to their own lodges. The remaining six, having eaten and drunk their fill, and believing in their security, turned to slumber. Hardly had the two roysterers arrived at the Indian camp than instead of the cordial privacy they expected, they were confronted by two score famished men drawn up in front of the lodges, knives in hand and brandis.h.i.+ng hatchets. All unarmed as they were, they were unceremoniously seized and slain. As no trace was ever found of their bodies, they were, although denied by the eye-witness of the tragedy, a squaw, probably devoured on the spot. The younger men now stole again to the French camp and ma.s.sacred all the others in their sleep, save one, who being wounded feigned death, and afterwards managed to crawl off. But he, with his companions, had been stripped to the skin by the savages, and in this state, and half-covered with blood, he made his way back to the fort.

The distance being ten leagues, his survival is a matter of wonder, even to those hardy men of the wilderness.

The Governor naturally apprehended that the Indians would attempt to follow up their crime by an attack upon the fort.

As only nine men remained in the garrison, it was felt impossible to defend both of the French establishments. He therefore withdrew the men hastily from the little Fort Philipeaux near by, and none too quickly, for the Indians came immediately before it. Finding n.o.body in charge they wrought a speedy and vigorous pillage, taking many pounds of powder which Jeremie had not had time to transfer to Bourbon.

The condition of the French during the winter of 1708-9 was pitiable in the extreme. Surrounded by starving, blood-thirsty savages, with insufficient provisions, and hardly ever daring to venture out, they may well have received the tidings with joy that the indomitable English Company had re-established a Factory some leagues distant, and were driving a brisk trade with the eager tribes.

It was not until 1713 that the French Fur Company succeeded in relieving its post of Fort Bourbon. It had twice sent s.h.i.+ps, but these had been intercepted on the high seas by the English and pillaged or destroyed. The _Providence_ arrived the very year of the Treaty of Utrecht.

[Sidenote: Starvation amongst the Indians.]

But wretched as was the case of the French, that of the Indians was lamentable indeed. A few more years of French occupation and the forests and rivers of the Bay would know its race of hunters no more.

Many hundreds lay dead within a radius of twenty leagues from the fort, the flesh devoured from their bones. They had lost the use of the bow and arrow since the advent of the Europeans, and they had no resource as cultivators of the soil; besides their errant life forbade this. Pressed by a long hunger, parents had killed their children for food; the strong had devoured the weak. One of these unhappy victims of civilization and commercial rivalries, confessed to the commandant that he had eaten his wife and six children. He had, he declared, not experienced the pangs of tenderness until the time came for him to sacrifice his last child, whom he loved more than the others, and that he had gone away weeping, leaving a portion of the body buried in the earth.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] ”Six or seven times over,” the Company say in their reply.

[38] After the battle of Port Nelson, Iberville had returned to France leaving Martigny in command of the Fort. His subsequent career may be read elsewhere; the Bay was no longer to be the theatre of his exploits. He perished in 1707 at Havana.

[39] At Albany they were surrounded by the French on every side, a circ.u.mstance which greatly sapped their commerce. Yet, even at this period, the importation of beaver and other peltries from the single fort remaining to them was above thirty thousand annually.

CHAPTER XVI.

1697-1712.

Company Seriously Damaged by Loss of Port Nelson -- Send an Account of their Claims to Lords of Trade -- Definite Boundary Propositions of Trade -- Lewis anxious to Create Boundaries -- Company look to Outbreak of War -- War of Spanish Succession breaks out -- Period of Adversity for the Company -- Employment of Orkneymen -- Attack on Fort Albany -- Desperate Condition of the French at York Fort -- Pet.i.tion to Anne.

The Treaty of Ryswick[40] had aimed a severe blow at the prosperity of the Company,[41] in depriving them of that important quarter of the Bay known as Port Nelson.

Although now on the threshold of a long period of adversity, the Merchants-Adventurers, losing neither hope nor courage, continued to raise their voice for rest.i.tution and justice. Pet.i.tion after pet.i.tion found its way to King, Commons, and the Lords of Trade and Plantations.

[Sidenote: The Company's claims.]

In May, 1700, the Company were requested by the Lord of Trade and Plantations to send an account of the encroachments of the French on Her Majesty's Dominion in America within the limits of the Company's charter; to which the Company replied, setting forth their right and t.i.tle, and praying rest.i.tution.

It has been stated, and urged as a ground against the later pretensions of the Hudson's Bay Company, that at this time they were willing to contract their limits. While willing to do this for the purpose of effecting a settlement, it was only on condition of their not being able to obtain ”the whole Straits and Bay which of right belongs to them.”

”This,” remarked a counsel for the Company in a later day, ”is like a man who has a suit of ejectment, who, in order to avoid the expense and trouble of a law suit, says, 'I will be willing to allow you certain bounds, but if you do not accept that I will insist on getting all my rights and all that I am ent.i.tled to.'”

The Company's propositions soon began to take a definite form.

THE COMPANY'S CLAIMS AFTER THE TREATY OF RYSWICK.

[_To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations._]

The limits which the Hudson's Bay Company conceive to be necessary as boundaries between the French and them in case of an exchange of places, and that the Company cannot obtain the whole Streights and Bay, which of right belongs to them, viz.:--