Part 32 (2/2)
The difficulties of transport are pointed out in letters of Frobisher and McGill. The value of each canoe load, on arrival at Michilimackinac, had been estimated, in 1780, to be 660 currency, equal to $2,640, showing the cost of transport by the Ottawa to have been $640 for each canoe; the value at Montreal having been $2,000. In April, 1784, Benjamin Frobisher wrote that twenty-eight canoes were ready to be sent off, valued at 20,000 currency, or $80,000, a sum for each canoe largely in excess of the estimate of four years before.
Frobisher's success in intercepting the Company's Indians induced others to attempt a similar course. The idea was, of course, to give goods of a better character, and to travel so far into the savage country as to relieve the Indian, who always contemplated the annual journey to the Company's post with repugnance of such necessity. In 1779 Peter Pond, an able, but desperate character, was the first to attempt storing such goods as he could not bring back immediately, in one of the wintering huts at Elk River, against his return the following season. This imitation of a Company's post proved successful, and led to its being repeated on a larger scale.
But matters were not equally propitious with the vast bulk of the peddlers, bushrangers, swashbucklers, and drunken half-breeds who were comprised in the Canadian trading fraternity. A numerous crew of them got from their winter quarters at Saskatchewan to the Eagle Hills in the spring of 1780. Here they held high carouse amidst a body of Indians as drunken, and much more noisy and abandoned, as themselves.
One of the traders becoming tired of the continued application of an Indian for more grog, gave him a dose of laudanum. The savage thereupon staggered a few steps away, lay down and died. A cry went up from the man's wives, a skirmish ensued, and the sun went down on seven corpses. One of the traders, two of his men, and four half-breed voyageurs lost their lives, and the rest were forced to abandon their all and take to flight.
[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN TRAPPERS.
(_From ”Picturesque Canada,” by permission._)]
The same spring, two of the Canadian posts on the a.s.siniboine River were a.s.sailed during a quarrel. Several white men and a large number of Indians were killed.
[Sidenote: Terrible smallpox epidemic.]
The fearful act of vengeance which might now have been meditated at this juncture was never carried out, for in 1781 an epidemic of smallpox broke out, wreaking a memorable destruction upon all the Indians of Rupert's Land.
It is worthy of remark, the extraordinary and fatal facility with which this disease had always made headway among the aborigines of the North American continent. There must have been some predisposition in their const.i.tutions which rendered them an easy prey to this scourge of Europe. Later, when the boon, brought into Europe by Lady Mary Montague arrested and partially disarmed the monster, smallpox had wrought unmitigated havoc amongst whole tribes and circles of the Red men, more than decimating the entire population and occasionally destroying whole camps, while leaving scarcely more than one shrivelled hag to relate to the Company's factors the fell tale of destruction.
The scourge which depopulated vast regions naturally cleared the country of white traders. Two parties did, indeed, set out from Montreal in 1781-82, with the avowed intention of making permanent settlements on Churchill River and at Athabasca. But the smallpox had not yet done its worst, and drove them back with only seven packages of beaver. This season was a better one than the preceding for the Company's factories; but an event now happened scarcely foreseen by anyone. England and France had been again at war, but none had as yet dreamt of a sea attack on the Company's posts in the Bay. Such a thing had not happened for upwards of eighty years, and the conquest of Canada seemed to so preclude its probability that the Adventurers had not even instructed its governors to be on the alert for a possible foe.
Up to the era of the terrible smallpox visitation in 1782, the remote Chippewas and far-off tribes from Athabasca and the Great Slave Lake, travelling to Prince of Wales' Fort, must have gazed with wonder at its solid masonry and formidable artillery. The great cannon whose muzzles stared grimly from the walls had already been woven into Indian legend, and the Company's factors were fond of telling how the visiting Red men stood in astonishment for hours at a time before this fortress, whose only parallel on the continent was Quebec itself.
[Sidenote: French attack Fort Prince of Wales, 1782.]
Fort Prince of Wales had been built, as we have seen, at a time when the remembrance of burned factories and posts easily captured and pillaged by French and Indians was keen amongst the Honourable Adventurers. But that remembrance had long since faded; the reasons for which the fort had been built had seemingly vanished. Wherefore gradually the garrison waned in numbers, until on the 8th of August, 1782, only thirty-nine defenders[80] within its walls witnessed the arrival of three strange s.h.i.+ps in the Bay. Instantly the word ran from mouth to mouth that they were three French men-of-war. All was consternation and incredulity at first, quickly succeeded by anxiety.
Two score pair of English eyes watched the strangers, as pinnace, gig and long-boat were lowered, and a number of swarthy whiskered sailors began busily to sound the approaches to the harbour. As may be believed, an anxious night was pa.s.sed in the fort by Governor Samuel Hearne and his men. Daybreak came and showed the strangers already disembarking in their boats, and as the morning sun waxed stronger, an array of four hundred troops was seen to be drawn up on the sh.o.r.e of Churchill Bay, at a place called Hare Point. Orders were given to march, and with the flag of France once more unfurled on these distant sub-Arctic sh.o.r.es, the French attacking party approached the Company's stronghold.
When about four hundred yards from the walls they halted, and two officers were sent on ahead to summon the Governor to surrender. The French s.h.i.+ps turned out to be the _Sceptre_, seventy-four guns, the _Astarte_, and the _Engageante_, of thirty-six guns each, and the force possessed besides four field guns, two mortars, and three hundred bomb-sh.e.l.ls. This fleet was in command of Admiral Perouse.
It appears that La Perouse had counted on arriving just in time to secure a handsome prize in the Company's s.h.i.+ps, for which he had lain in wait in the Bay. Hearne seems to have been panic-stricken and believed resistance useless.
To the surprise of the French, a table cloth s.n.a.t.c.hed up by the Governor was soon seen waving from the parapet of the fort. Fort Prince of Wales had thus yielded without a shot being fired on either side.
The French admiral lost no time in transporting what guns he could find to his s.h.i.+ps, and replenis.h.i.+ng his depleted commissariat from the well-filled provision stores of the fort.[81]
La Perouse was both angry and disappointed at the escape of the Company's s.h.i.+ps and cargoes. One of these s.h.i.+ps, bound for Fort Churchill, he had met in the Bay and immediately sent a frigate in pursuit. But Captain Christopher, by the steering of the French frigate, judged rightly that her commander knew nothing of the course, and so resorted to strategy. When night came he furled his sails, as if about to anchor, a proceeding which the French captain imitated. When he had anch.o.r.ed, the Company's vessel re-set her sails, and was soon many leagues distant by the time the French fleet reached Churchill River.
Possession was followed by license on the part of the soldiers, and the utter looting of the fort. An attempt was made, occupying two days, to demolish it; but although French gunpowder was freely added to the Company's store, yet the walls resisted their best efforts.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF FORT PRINCE OF WALES.]
Of solid masonry, indeed, was Prince of Wales' Fort. The French artillerymen could only displace the upper rows of the ma.s.sive granite stones, dismount its guns, and blow up the gateway, together with the stone outwork protecting it.
It has been remarked as strange that Hearne, who had proved his personal bravery in his Arctic travels, should have shown such a craven front on this occasion to the enemy.
Indeed, Umfreville, who was himself taken prisoner at the capture of the fort, declared that he, with others, were disgusted at the Governor's cowardice. He a.s.serted that the French were weak and reduced in health after a long sea voyage, most of them wretchedly clad, and half of the entire number barefoot.
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