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+Project Gutenberg's France and England in North America, Part VII: A Half-Century of Conflict, Vol 1, by Francis Parkman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: France and England in North America, Part VII: A Half-Century of Conflict, Vol 1
+
+Author: Francis Parkman
+
+Release Date: January 29, 2008 [EBook #24457]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HALF CENTURY OF CONFLICT - VOL I ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Chris Logan, Joseph Cooper and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HALF-CENTURY OF
+CONFLICT.
+
+
+FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN
+NORTH AMERICA.
+
+PART SIXTH.
+
+BY
+
+FRANCIS PARKMAN.
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+
+VOL. I.
+
+
+BOSTON:
+LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
+1898.
+
+
+
+
+_Copyright, 1892_,
+By Francis Parkman.
+
+_Copyright, 1897_,
+By Little, Brown, and Company.
+
+
+University Press:
+John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+This book, forming Part VI. of the series called France and England in
+North America, fills the gap between Part V., "Count Frontenac," and
+Part VII., "Montcalm and Wolfe;" so that the series now forms a
+continuous history of the efforts of France to occupy and control this
+continent.
+
+In the present volumes the nature of the subject does not permit an
+unbroken thread of narrative, and the unity of the book lies in its
+being throughout, in one form or another, an illustration of the
+singularly contrasted characters and methods of the rival claimants to
+North America.
+
+Like the rest of the series, this work is founded on original documents.
+The statements of secondary writers have been accepted only when found
+to conform to the evidence of contemporaries, whose writings have been
+sifted and collated with the greatest care. As extremists on each side
+have charged me with favoring the other, I hope I have been unfair to
+neither.
+
+The manuscript material collected for the preparation of the series now
+complete forms about seventy volumes, most of them folios. These have
+been given by me from time to time to the Massachusetts Historical
+Society, in whose library they now are, open to the examination of those
+interested in the subjects of which they treat. The collection was begun
+forty-five years ago, and its formation has been exceedingly slow,
+having been retarded by difficulties which seemed insurmountable, and
+for years were so in fact. Hence the completion of the series has
+required twice the time that would have sufficed under less unfavorable
+conditions.
+
+Boston, March 26, 1892.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  1700-1713.
+
+  EVE OF WAR.
+
+  The Spanish Succession.--Influence of Louis XIV.
+  on History.--French Schemes of Conquest in
+  America.--New York.--Unfitness of the Colonies for War.--The
+  Five Nations.--Doubt and Vacillation.--The Western
+  Indians.--Trade and Politics                                       3
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  1694-1704.
+
+  DETROIT.
+
+  Michilimackinac.--La Mothe-Cadillac: his Disputes with the
+  Jesuits.--Opposing Views.--Plans of Cadillac: his Memorial
+  to the Court; his Opponents.--Detroit founded.--The
+  New Company.--Detroit changes Hands.--Strange
+  Act of the Five Nations                                           17
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  1703-1713.
+
+  QUEEN ANNE'S WAR.
+
+  The Forest of Maine.--A Treacherous Peace.--A Frontier
+  Village.--Wells and its People.--Attack upon it.--Border
+  Ravages.--Beaubassin's War-party.--The "Woful Decade."--A
+  Wedding Feast.--A Captive Bridegroom                              34
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  1704-1740.
+
+  DEERFIELD.
+
+  Hertel de Rouville.--A Frontier Village.--Rev. John
+  Williams.--The Surprise.--Defence of the Stebbins
+  House.--Attempted Rescue.--The Meadow Fight.--The
+  Captives.--The Northward March.--Mrs. Williams killed.--The
+  Minister's Journey.--Kindness of Canadians.--A Stubborn
+  Heretic.--Eunice Williams.--Converted Captives.--John
+  Sheldon's Mission.--Exchange of Prisoners.--An English
+  Squaw.--The Gill Family                                           55
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  1704-1713.
+
+  THE TORMENTED FRONTIER.
+
+  Border Raids.--Haverhill.--Attack and Defence.--War to
+  the Knife.--Motives of the French.--Proposed
+  Neutrality.--Joseph Dudley.--Town and Country                     94
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  1700-1710.
+
+  THE OLD RÉGIME IN ACADIA.
+
+  The Fishery Question.--Privateers and Pirates.--Port
+  Royal.--Official Gossip.--Abuse of Brouillan.--Complaints of
+  De Goutin.--Subercase and his Officers.--Church and
+  State.--Paternal Government                                      110
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  1704-1710.
+
+  ACADIA CHANGES HANDS.
+
+  Reprisal for Deerfield.--Major Benjamin Church: his Ravages
+  at Grand-Pré.--Port Royal Expedition.--Futile Proceedings.--A
+  Discreditable Affair.--French Successes in
+  Newfoundland.--Schemes of Samuel Vetch.--A Grand
+  Enterprise.--Nicholson's Advance.--An Infected
+  Camp.--Ministerial Promises broken.--A New Scheme.--Port Royal
+  attacked.--Acadia conquered                                      120
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  1710, 1711.
+
+  WALKER'S EXPEDITION.
+
+  Scheme of La Ronde Denys.--Boston warned against British
+  Designs.--Boston to be ruined.--Plans of the Ministry.--Canada
+  doomed.--British Troops at Boston.--The Colonists
+  denounced.--The Fleet sails for Quebec.--Forebodings of the
+  Admiral.--Storm and Wreck.--Timid Commanders.--Retreat.--Joyful
+  News for Canada.--Pious Exultation.--Fanciful Stories.--Walker
+  disgraced                                                        156
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  1712-1749.
+
+  LOUISBOURG AND ACADIA.
+
+  Peace of Utrecht.--Perilous Questions.--Louisbourg
+  founded.--Annapolis attacked.--Position of the
+  Acadians.--Weakness of the British Garrison.--Apathy of the
+  Ministry.--French Intrigue.--Clerical Politicians.--The Oath
+  of Allegiance.--Acadians refuse it: their Expulsion proposed;
+  they take the Oath                                               183
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  1713-1724.
+
+  SEBASTIEN RALE.
+
+  Boundary Disputes.--Outposts of Canada.--The Earlier and
+  Later Jesuits.--Religion and Politics.--The Norridgewocks
+  and their Missionary.--A Hollow Peace.--Disputed Land
+  Claims.--Council at Georgetown.--Attitude of Rale.--Minister
+  and Jesuit.--The Indians waver.--An Outbreak.--Covert
+  War.--Indignation against Rale.--War declared.--Governor
+  and Assembly.--Speech of Samuel Sewall.--Penobscots
+  attack Fort St. George.--Reprisal.--Attack on
+  Norridgewock.--Death of Rale                                     212
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  1724, 1725.
+
+  LOVEWELL'S FIGHT.
+
+  Vaudreuil and Dummer.--Embassy to Canada.--Indians
+  intractable.--Treaty of Peace.--The Pequawkets.--John
+  Lovewell.--A Hunting Party.--Another Expedition.--The
+  Ambuscade.--The Fight.--Chaplain Frye: his Fate.--The
+  Survivors.--Susanna Rogers                                       250
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  1712.
+
+  THE OUTAGAMIES AT DETROIT.
+
+  The West and the Fur-trade.--New York and Canada.--Indian
+  Population.--The Firebrands of the West.--Detroit in
+  1712.--Dangerous Visitors.--Suspense.--Timely
+  Succors.--The Outagamies attacked: their Desperate
+  Position.--Overtures.--Wavering Allies.--Conduct of
+  Dubuisson.--Escape of the Outagamies.--Pursuit and
+  Attack.--Victory and Carnage                                     272
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  1697-1750.
+
+  LOUISIANA.
+
+  The Mississippi to be occupied.--English
+  Rivalry.--Iberville.--Bienville.--Huguenots.--Views of
+  Louis XIV.--Wives for the Colony.--Slaves.--La
+  Mothe-Cadillac.--Paternal Government.--Crozat's
+  Monopoly.--Factions.--The Mississippi Company.--New
+  Orleans.--The Bubble bursts.--Indian Wars.--The Colony firmly
+  established.--The two Heads of New France                        298
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  1700-1732.
+
+  THE OUTAGAMIE WAR.
+
+  The Western Posts.--Detroit.--The Illinois.--Perils of the
+  West.--The Outagamies.--Their Turbulence.--English
+  Instigation.--Louvigny's Expedition.--Defeat of
+  Outagamies.--Hostilities renewed.--Lignery's
+  Expedition.--Outagamies attacked by Villiers; by Hurons and
+  Iroquois.--La Butte des Morts.--The Sacs and Foxes               326
+
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+
+  1697-1741.
+
+  FRANCE IN THE FAR WEST.
+
+  French Explorers.--Le Sueur on the St. Peter.--Canadians
+  on the Missouri.--Juchereau de Saint-Denis.--Bénard de la
+  Harpe on Red River.--Adventures of Du Tisné.--Bourgmont
+  visits the Comanches.--The Brothers Mallet in Colorado
+  and New Mexico.--Fabry de la Bruyère                             346
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+1700-1713.
+
+EVE OF WAR.
+
+The Spanish Succession.--Influence of Louis XIV. on History.--French
+Schemes of Conquest in America.--New York.--Unfitness of the Colonies
+for War.--The Five Nations.--Doubt and Vacillation.--The Western
+Indians.--Trade and Politics.
+
+
+The war which in the British colonies was called Queen Anne's War, and
+in England the War of the Spanish Succession, was the second of a series
+of four conflicts which ended in giving to Great Britain a maritime and
+colonial preponderance over France and Spain. So far as concerns the
+colonies and the sea, these several wars may be regarded as a single
+protracted one, broken by intervals of truce. The three earlier of them,
+it is true, were European contests, begun and waged on European
+disputes. Their American part was incidental and apparently subordinate,
+yet it involved questions of prime importance in the history of the
+world.
+
+The War of the Spanish Succession sprang from the ambition of Louis XIV.
+We are apt to regard the story of that gorgeous monarch as a tale that
+is told; but his influence shapes the life of nations to this day. At
+the beginning of his reign two roads lay before him, and it was a
+momentous question for posterity, as for his own age, which one of them
+he would choose,--whether he would follow the wholesome policy of his
+great minister Colbert, or obey his own vanity and arrogance, and plunge
+France into exhausting wars; whether he would hold to the principle of
+tolerance embodied in the Edict of Nantes, or do the work of fanaticism
+and priestly ambition. The one course meant prosperity, progress, and
+the rise of a middle class; the other meant bankruptcy and the
+Dragonades,--and this was the King's choice. Crushing taxation, misery,
+and ruin followed, till France burst out at last in a frenzy, drunk with
+the wild dreams of Rousseau. Then came the Terror and the Napoleonic
+wars, and reaction on reaction, revolution on revolution, down to our
+own day.
+
+Louis placed his grandson on the throne of Spain, and insulted England
+by acknowledging as her rightful King the son of James II., whom she had
+deposed. Then England declared war. Canada and the northern British
+colonies had had but a short breathing time since the Peace of Ryswick;
+both were tired of slaughtering each other, and both needed rest. Yet
+before the declaration of war, the Canadian officers of the Crown
+prepared, with their usual energy, to meet the expected crisis. One of
+them wrote: "If war be declared, it is certain that the King can very
+easily conquer and ruin New England." The French of Canada often use the
+name "New England" as applying to the British colonies in general. They
+are twice as populous as Canada, he goes on to say; but the people are
+great cowards, totally undisciplined, and ignorant of war, while the
+Canadians are brave, hardy, and well trained. We have, besides,
+twenty-eight companies of regulars, and could raise six thousand
+warriors from our Indian allies. Four thousand men could easily lay
+waste all the northern English colonies, to which end we must have five
+ships of war, with one thousand troops on board, who must land at
+Penobscot, where they must be joined by two thousand regulars, militia,
+and Indians, sent from Canada by way of the Chaudière and the Kennebec.
+Then the whole force must go to Portsmouth, take it by assault, leave a
+garrison there, and march to Boston, laying waste all the towns and
+villages by the way; after destroying Boston, the army must march for
+New York, while the fleet follows along the coast. "Nothing could be
+easier," says the writer, "for the road is good, and there is plenty of
+horses and carriages. The troops would ruin everything as they advanced,
+and New York would quickly be destroyed and burned."[1]
+
+Another plan, scarcely less absurd, was proposed about the same time by
+the celebrated Le Moyne d'Iberville. The essential point, he says, is to
+get possession of Boston; but there are difficulties and risks in the
+way. Nothing, he adds, referring to the other plan, seems difficult to
+persons without experience; but unless we are prepared to raise a great
+and costly armament, our only hope is in surprise. We should make it in
+winter, when the seafaring population, which is the chief strength of
+the place, is absent on long voyages. A thousand Canadians, four hundred
+regulars, and as many Indians should leave Quebec in November, ascend
+the Chaudière, then descend the Kennebec, approach Boston under cover of
+the forest, and carry it by a night attack. Apparently he did not know
+that but for its lean neck--then but a few yards wide--Boston was an
+island, and that all around for many leagues the forest that was to have
+covered his approach had already been devoured by numerous busy
+settlements. He offers to lead the expedition, and declares that if he
+is honored with the command, he will warrant that the New England
+capital will be forced to submit to King Louis, after which New York can
+be seized in its turn.[2]
+
+In contrast to those incisive proposals, another French officer breathed
+nothing but peace. Brouillan, governor of Acadia, wrote to the governor
+of Massachusetts to suggest that, with the consent of their masters,
+they should make a treaty of neutrality. The English governor being
+dead, the letter came before the council, who received it coldly.
+Canada, and not Acadia, was the enemy they had to fear. Moreover, Boston
+merchants made good profit by supplying the Acadians with necessaries
+which they could get in no other way; and in time of war these profits,
+though lawless, were greater than in time of peace. But what chiefly
+influenced the council against the overtures of Brouillan was a passage
+in his letter reminding them that, by the Treaty of Ryswick, the New
+England people had no right to fish within sight of the Acadian coast.
+This they flatly denied, saying that the New England people had fished
+there time out of mind, and that if Brouillan should molest them, they
+would treat it as an act of war.[3]
+
+While the New England colonies, and especially Massachusetts and New
+Hampshire, had most cause to deprecate a war, the prospect of one was
+also extremely unwelcome to the people of New York. The conflict lately
+closed had borne hard upon them through the attacks of the enemy, and
+still more through the derangement of their industries. They were
+distracted, too, with the factions rising out of the recent revolution
+under Jacob Leisler. New York had been the bulwark of the colonies
+farther south, who, feeling themselves safe, had given their protector
+little help, and that little grudgingly, seeming to regard the war as no
+concern of theirs. Three thousand and fifty-one pounds, provincial
+currency, was the joint contribution of Virginia, Maryland, East Jersey,
+and Connecticut to the aid of New York during five years of the late
+war.[4] Massachusetts could give nothing, even if she would, her hands
+being full with the defence of her own borders. Colonel Quary wrote to
+the Board of Trade that New York could not bear alone the cost of
+defending herself; that the other colonies were "stuffed with
+commonwealth notions," and were "of a sour temper in opposition to
+government," so that Parliament ought to take them in hand and compel
+each to do its part in the common cause.[5] To this Lord Cornbury adds
+that Rhode Island and Connecticut are even more stubborn than the rest,
+hate all true subjects of the Queen, and will not give a farthing to the
+war so long as they can help it.[6] Each province lived in selfish
+isolation, recking little of its neighbor's woes.
+
+New York, left to fight her own battles, was in a wretched condition
+for defence. It is true that, unlike the other colonies, the King had
+sent her a few soldiers, counting at this time about one hundred and
+eighty, all told;[7] but they had been left so long without pay that
+they were in a state of scandalous destitution. They would have been
+left without rations had not three private gentlemen--Schuyler,
+Livingston, and Cortlandt--advanced money for their supplies, which
+seems never to have been repaid.[8] They are reported to have been
+"without shirts, breeches, shoes, or stockings," and "in such a shameful
+condition that the women when passing them are obliged to cover their
+eyes." "The Indians ask," says the governor, "'Do you think us such
+fools as to believe that a king who cannot clothe his soldiers can
+protect us from the French, with their fourteen hundred men all well
+equipped?'"[9]
+
+The forts were no better than their garrisons. The governor complains
+that those of Albany and Schenectady "are so weak and ridiculous that
+they look more like pounds for cattle than forts." At Albany the rotten
+stockades were falling from their own weight.
+
+If New York had cause to complain of those whom she sheltered, she
+herself gave cause of complaint to those who sheltered her. The Five
+Nations of the Iroquois had always been her allies against the French,
+had guarded her borders and fought her battles. What they wanted in
+return were gifts, attentions, just dealings, and active aid in war; but
+they got them in scant measure. Their treatment by the province was
+short-sighted, if not ungrateful. New York was a mixture of races and
+religions not yet fused into a harmonious body politic, divided in
+interests and torn with intestine disputes. Its Assembly was made up in
+large part of men unfitted to pursue a consistent scheme of policy, or
+spend the little money at their disposal on any objects but those of
+present and visible interest. The royal governors, even when personally
+competent, were hampered by want of means and by factious opposition.
+The Five Nations were robbed by land-speculators, cheated by traders,
+and feebly supported in their constant wars with the French.
+Spasmodically, as it were, on occasions of crisis, they were summoned to
+Albany, soothed with such presents as could be got from unwilling
+legislators, or now and then from the Crown, and exhorted to fight
+vigorously in the common cause. The case would have been far worse but
+for a few patriotic men, with Peter Schuyler at their head, who
+understood the character of these Indians, and labored strenuously to
+keep them in what was called their allegiance.
+
+The proud and fierce confederates had suffered greatly in the late war.
+Their numbers had been reduced about one half, and they now counted
+little more than twelve hundred warriors. They had learned a bitter and
+humiliating lesson, and their arrogance had changed to distrust and
+alarm. Though hating the French, they had learned to respect their
+military activity and prowess, and to look askance on the Dutch and
+English, who rarely struck a blow in their defence, and suffered their
+hereditary enemy to waste their fields and burn their towns. The English
+called the Five Nations British subjects, on which the French taunted
+them with being British slaves, and told them that the King of England
+had ordered the governor of New York to poison them. This invention had
+great effect. The Iroquois capital, Onondaga, was filled with wild
+rumors. The credulous savages were tossed among doubts, suspicions, and
+fears. Some were in terror of poison, and some of witchcraft. They
+believed that the rival European nations had leagued to destroy them and
+divide their lands, and that they were bewitched by sorcerers, both
+French and English.[10]
+
+After the Peace of Ryswick, and even before it, the French governor kept
+agents among them. Some of these were soldiers, like Joncaire,
+Maricourt, or Longueuil, and some were Jesuits, like Bruyas,
+Lamberville, or Vaillant. The Jesuits showed their usual ability and
+skill in their difficult and perilous task. The Indians derived various
+advantages from their presence, which they regarded also as a flattering
+attention; while the English, jealous of their influence, made feeble
+attempts to counteract it by sending Protestant clergymen to Onondaga.
+"But," writes Lord Bellomont, "it is next to impossible to prevail with
+the ministers to live among the Indians. They [the Indians] are so nasty
+as never to wash their hands, or the utensils they dress their victuals
+with."[11] Even had their zeal been proof to these afflictions, the
+ministers would have been no match for their astute opponents. In vain
+Bellomont assured the Indians that the Jesuits were "the greatest lyars
+and impostors in the world."[12] In vain he offered a hundred dollars
+for every one of them whom they should deliver into his hands. They
+would promise to expel them; but their minds were divided, and they
+stood in fear of one another. While one party distrusted and disliked
+the priests, another was begging the governor of Canada to send more.
+Others took a practical view of the question. "If the English sell goods
+cheaper than the French, we will have ministers; if the French sell them
+cheaper than the English, we will have priests." Others, again, wanted
+neither Jesuits nor ministers, "because both of you [English and French]
+have made us drunk with the noise of your praying."[13]
+
+The aims of the propagandists on both sides were secular. The French
+wished to keep the Five Nations neutral in the event of another war;
+the English wished to spur them to active hostility; but while the
+former pursued their purpose with energy and skill, the efforts of the
+latter were intermittent and generally feeble.
+
+"The Nations," writes Schuyler, "are full of factions." There was a
+French party and an English party in every town, especially in Onondaga,
+the centre of intrigue. French influence was strongest at the western
+end of the confederacy, among the Senecas, where the French officer
+Joncaire, an Iroquois by adoption, had won many to France; and it was
+weakest at the eastern end, among the Mohawks, who were nearest to the
+English settlements. Here the Jesuits had labored long and strenuously
+in the work of conversion, and from time to time they had led their
+numerous proselytes to remove to Canada, where they settled at St.
+Louis, or Caughnawaga, on the right bank of the St. Lawrence, a little
+above Montreal, where their descendants still remain. It is said that at
+the beginning of the eighteenth century two-thirds of the Mohawks had
+thus been persuaded to cast their lot with the French, and from enemies
+to become friends and allies. Some of the Oneidas and a few of the other
+Iroquois nations joined them and strengthened the new mission
+settlement; and the Caughnawagas afterwards played an important part
+between the rival European colonies.
+
+The "Far Indians," or "Upper Nations," as the French called them,
+consisted of the tribes of the Great Lakes and adjacent regions,
+Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Sacs, Foxes, Sioux, and many more. It was from
+these that Canada drew the furs by which she lived. Most of them were
+nominal friends and allies of the French, who in the interest of trade
+strove to keep these wild-cats from tearing one another's throats, and
+who were in constant alarm lest they should again come to blows with
+their old enemies, the Five Nations, in which case they would call on
+Canada for help, thus imperilling those pacific relations with the
+Iroquois confederacy which the French were laboring constantly to
+secure.
+
+In regard to the "Far Indians," the French, the English, and the Five
+Iroquois Nations all had distinct and opposing interests. The French
+wished to engross their furs, either by inducing the Indians to bring
+them down to Montreal, or by sending traders into their country to buy
+them. The English, with a similar object, wished to divert the "Far
+Indians" from Montreal and draw them to Albany; but this did not suit
+the purpose of the Five Nations, who, being sharp politicians and keen
+traders, as well as bold and enterprising warriors, wished to act as
+middle-men between the beaver-hunting tribes and the Albany merchants,
+well knowing that good profit might thus accrue. In this state of
+affairs the converted Iroquois settled at Caughnawaga played a peculiar
+part. In the province of New York, goods for the Indian trade were of
+excellent quality and comparatively abundant and cheap; while among the
+French, especially in time of war, they were often scarce and dear. The
+Caughnawagas accordingly, whom neither the English nor the French dared
+offend, used their position to carry on a contraband trade between New
+York and Canada. By way of Lake Champlain and the Hudson they brought to
+Albany furs from the country of the "Far Indians," and exchanged them
+for guns, blankets, cloths, knives, beads, and the like. These they
+carried to Canada and sold to the French traders, who in this way, and
+often in this alone, supplied themselves with the goods necessary for
+bartering furs from the "Far Indians." This lawless trade of the
+Caughnawagas went on even in time of war; and opposed as it was to every
+principle of Canadian policy, it was generally connived at by the French
+authorities as the only means of obtaining the goods necessary for
+keeping their Indian allies in good humor.
+
+It was injurious to English interests; but the fur-traders of Albany and
+also the commissioners charged with Indian affairs, being Dutchmen
+converted by force into British subjects, were, with a few eminent
+exceptions, cool in their devotion to the British Crown; while the
+merchants of the port of New York, from whom the fur-traders drew their
+supplies, thought more of their own profits than of the public good. The
+trade with Canada through the Caughnawagas not only gave aid and comfort
+to the enemy, but continually admitted spies into the colony, from whom
+the governor of Canada gained information touching English movements and
+designs.
+
+The Dutch traders of Albany and the importing merchants who supplied
+them with Indian goods had a strong interest in preventing active
+hostilities with Canada, which would have spoiled their trade. So, too,
+and for similar reasons, had influential persons in Canada. The French
+authorities, moreover, thought it impolitic to harass the frontiers of
+New York by war parties, since the Five Nations might come to the aid of
+their Dutch and English allies, and so break the peaceful relations
+which the French were anxious to maintain with them. Thus it happened
+that, during the first six or seven years of the eighteenth century,
+there was a virtual truce between Canada and New York, and the whole
+burden of the war fell upon New England, or rather upon Massachusetts,
+with its outlying district of Maine and its small and weak neighbor, New
+Hampshire.[14]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _Premier Projet pour L'Expédition contre la Nouvelle Angleterre,
+1701._ _Second Projet_, etc. Compare _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 725.
+
+[2] _Mémoire du Sieur d'Iberville sur Boston et ses Dépendances_, 1700
+(1701?). Baron de Saint-Castin also drew up a plan for attacking Boston
+in 1702 with lists of necessary munitions and other supplies.
+
+[3] _Brouillan à Bellomont, 10 Août, 1701. Conseil de Baston à
+Brouillan, 22 Août, 1701._ Brouillan acted under royal orders, having
+been told, in case of war being declared, to propose a treaty with New
+England, unless he should find that he can "se garantir des insultes des
+Anglais" and do considerable harm to their trade, in which case he is to
+make no treaty. _Mémoire du Roy au Sieur de Brouillan, 23 Mars, 1700._
+
+[4] Schuyler, _Colonial New York_, i. 431, 432.
+
+[5] _Colonel Quary to the Lords of Trade, 16 June, 1703._
+
+[6] _Cornbury to the Lords of Trade, 9 September, 1703._
+
+[7] _Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, 28 February, 1700._
+
+[8] _Ibid._
+
+[9] Schuyler, _Colonial New York_, i. 488.
+
+[10] _N. Y. Col. Docs._, iv. 658.
+
+[11] _Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, 17 October, 1700._
+
+[12] _Conference of Bellomont with the Indians, 26 August, 1700._
+
+[13] _Journal of Bleeker and Schuyler on their visit to Onondaga,
+August, September, 1701._
+
+[14] The foregoing chapter rests on numerous documents in the Public
+Record Office, Archives de la Marine, Archives Nationales, _N. Y.
+Colonial Documents_, vols. iv. v. ix., and the _Second and Third Series
+of the Correspondance Officielle_ at Ottawa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+1694-1704.
+
+DETROIT.
+
+Michilimackinac.--La Mothe-Cadillac: his Disputes with the
+Jesuits.--Opposing Views.--Plans of Cadillac: his Memorial to the Court;
+his Opponents.--Detroit founded. The New Company.--Detroit changes
+Hands.--Strange Act of the Five Nations.
+
+
+In the few years of doubtful peace that preceded Queen Anne's War, an
+enterprise was begun, which, nowise in accord with the wishes and
+expectations of those engaged in it, was destined to produce as its last
+result an American city.
+
+Antoine de La Mothe-Cadillac commanded at Michilimackinac, whither
+Frontenac had sent him in 1694. This old mission of the Jesuits, where
+they had gathered the remnants of the lake tribes dispersed by the
+Iroquois at the middle of the seventeenth century, now savored little of
+its apostolic beginnings. It was the centre of the western fur-trade and
+the favorite haunt of the _coureurs de bois_. Brandy and squaws
+abounded, and according to the Jesuit Carheil, the spot where Marquette
+had labored was now a witness of scenes the most unedifying.[15]
+
+At Michilimackinac was seen a curious survival of Huron-Iroquois
+customs. The villages of the Hurons and Ottawas, which were side by
+side, separated only by a fence, were surrounded by a common enclosure
+of triple palisades, which, with the addition of loopholes for musketry,
+were precisely like those seen by Cartier at Hochelaga, and by Champlain
+in the Onondaga country. The dwellings which these defences enclosed
+were also after the old Huron-Iroquois pattern,--those long arched
+structures covered with bark which Brébeuf found by the shores of
+Matchedash Bay, and Jogues on the banks of the Mohawk. Besides the
+Indians, there was a French colony at the place, chiefly of fur-traders,
+lodged in log-cabins, roofed with cedar bark, and forming a street along
+the shore close to the palisaded villages of the Hurons and Ottawas. The
+fort, known as Fort Buade, stood at the head of the little bay.[16]
+
+The Hurons and Ottawas were thorough savages, though the Hurons retained
+the forms of Roman Catholic Christianity. This tribe, writes Cadillac,
+"are reduced to a very small number; and it is well for us that they
+are, for they are ill-disposed and mischievous, with a turn for intrigue
+and a capacity for large undertakings. Luckily, their power is not
+great; but as they cannot play the lion, they play the fox, and do their
+best to make trouble between us and our allies."
+
+La Mothe-Cadillac[17] was a captain in the colony troops, and an admirer
+of the late governor, Frontenac, to whose policy he adhered, and whose
+prejudices he shared. He was amply gifted with the kind of intelligence
+that consists in quick observation, sharpened by an inveterate spirit of
+sarcasm, was energetic, enterprising, well instructed, and a bold and
+sometimes a visionary schemer, with a restless spirit, a nimble and
+biting wit, a Gascon impetuosity of temperament, and as much devotion as
+an officer of the King was forced to profess, coupled with small love of
+priests and an aversion to Jesuits.[18] Carheil and Marest, missionaries
+of that order at Michilimackinac, were objects of his especial
+antipathy, which they fully returned. The two priests were impatient of
+a military commandant to whose authority they were in some small measure
+subjected; and they imputed to him the disorders which he did not, and
+perhaps could not, prevent. They were opposed also to the traffic in
+brandy, which was favored by Cadillac on the usual ground that it
+attracted the Indians, and so prevented the English from getting control
+of the fur-trade,--an argument which he reinforced by sanitary
+considerations based on the supposed unwholesomeness of the fish and
+smoked meat which formed the chief diet of Michilimackinac. "A little
+brandy after the meal," he says, with the solemnity of the learned
+Purgon, "seems necessary to cook the bilious meats and the crudities
+they leave in the stomach."[19]
+
+Cadillac calls Carheil, superior of the mission, the most passionate and
+domineering man he ever knew, and further declares that the Jesuit tried
+to provoke him to acts of violence, in order to make matter of
+accusation against him. If this was Carheil's aim, he was near
+succeeding. Once, in a dispute with the commandant on the brandy-trade,
+he upbraided him sharply for permitting it; to which Cadillac replied
+that he only obeyed the orders of the court. The Jesuit rejoined that he
+ought to obey God, and not man,--"on which," says the commandant, "I
+told him that his talk smelt of sedition a hundred yards off, and begged
+that he would amend it. He told me that I gave myself airs that did not
+belong to me, holding his fist before my nose at the same time. I
+confess I almost forgot that he was a priest, and felt for a moment
+like knocking his jaw out of joint; but, thank God, I contented myself
+with taking him by the arm, pushing him out, and ordering him not to
+come back."[20]
+
+Such being the relations of the commandant and the Father Superior, it
+is not surprising to find the one complaining that he cannot get
+absolved from his sins, and the other painting the morals and manners of
+Michilimackinac in the blackest colors.
+
+I have spoken elsewhere of the two opposing policies that divided
+Canada,--the policies of concentration and of expansion, on the one hand
+leaving the west to the keeping of the Jesuits, and confining the
+population to the borders of the St. Lawrence; on the other, the
+occupation of the interior of the continent by posts of war and
+trade.[21] Through the force of events the latter view had prevailed;
+yet while the military chiefs of Canada could not but favor it, the
+Jesuits were unwilling to accept it, and various interests in the colony
+still opposed it openly or secretly. Frontenac had been its strongest
+champion, and Cadillac followed in his steps. It seemed to him that the
+time had come for securing the west for France.
+
+The strait--_détroit_--which connects Lake Huron with Lake Erie was the
+most important of all the western passes. It was the key of the three
+upper lakes, with the vast countries watered by their tributaries, and
+it gave Canada her readiest access to the valley of the Mississippi. If
+the French held it, the English would be shut out from the northwest;
+if, as seemed likely, the English should seize it, the Canadian
+fur-trade would be ruined.[22] The possession of it by the French would
+be a constant curb and menace to the Five Nations, as well as a barrier
+between those still formidable tribes and the western Indians, allies of
+Canada; and when the intended French establishment at the mouth of the
+Mississippi should be made, Detroit would be an indispensable link of
+communication between Canada and Louisiana.
+
+Denonville had recognized the importance of the position, and it was by
+his orders that Greysolon Du Lhut, in 1686, had occupied it for a time,
+and built a picket fort near the site of Fort Gratiot.[23]
+
+It would be idle to imagine that the motives of Cadillac were wholly
+patriotic. Fur-trading interests were deeply involved in his plans, and
+bitter opposition was certain. The fur-trade, in its nature, was a
+constant breeder of discord. The people of Montreal would have the
+tribes come down every summer from the west and northwest and hold a
+fair under the palisades of their town. It is said that more than four
+hundred French families lived wholly or in part by this home trade, and
+therefore regarded with deep jealousy the establishment of interior
+posts, which would forestall it. Again, every new western post would
+draw away trade from those already established, and every trading
+license granted to a company or an individual would rouse the animosity
+of those who had been licensed before. The prosperity of Detroit would
+be the ruin of Michilimackinac, and those whose interests centred at the
+latter post angrily opposed the scheme of Cadillac.
+
+He laid his plans before Count de Maurepas by a characteristic memorial,
+apparently written in 1699. In this he proposed to gather all the tribes
+of the lakes at Detroit, civilize them and teach them French, "insomuch
+that from pagans they would become children of the Church, and therefore
+good subjects of the King." They will form, he continues, a considerable
+settlement, "strong enough to bring the English and the Iroquois to
+reason, or, with help from Montreal, to destroy both of them." Detroit,
+he adds, should be the seat of trade, which should not be permitted in
+the countries beyond it. By this regulation the intolerable glut of
+beaver-skins, which spoils the market, may be prevented. This proposed
+restriction of the beaver-trade to Detroit was enough in itself to raise
+a tempest against the whole scheme. "Cadillac well knows that he has
+enemies," pursues the memorial, "but he keeps on his way without turning
+or stopping for the noise of the puppies who bark after him."[24]
+
+Among the essential features of his plan was a well-garrisoned fort, and
+a church, served not by Jesuits alone, but also by Récollet friars and
+priests of the Missions Étrangères. The idea of this ecclesiastical
+partnership was odious to the Jesuits, who felt that the west was their
+proper field, and that only they had a right there. Another part of
+Cadillac's proposal pleased them no better. This was his plan of
+civilizing the Indians and teaching them to speak French; for it was the
+reproach of the Jesuit missions that they left the savage a savage
+still, and asked little of him but the practice of certain rites and the
+passive acceptance of dogmas to him incomprehensible.
+
+"It is essential," says the memorial, "that in this matter of teaching
+the Indians our language the missionaries should act in good faith, and
+that his Majesty should have the goodness to impose his strictest orders
+upon them; for which there are several good reasons. The first and most
+stringent is that when members of religious orders or other
+ecclesiastics undertake anything, they never let it go. The second is
+that by not teaching French to the Indians they make themselves
+necessary [as interpreters] to the King and the governor. The third is
+that if all Indians spoke French, all kinds of ecclesiastics would be
+able to instruct them. This might cause them [the Jesuits] to lose some
+of the presents they get; for though these Reverend Fathers come here
+only for the glory of God, yet the one thing does not prevent the
+other,"--meaning that God and Mammon may be served at once. "Nobody can
+deny that the priests own three quarters of Canada. From St. Paul's Bay
+to Quebec, there is nothing but the seigniory of Beauport that belongs
+to a private person. All the rest, which is the best part, belongs to
+the Jesuits or other ecclesiastics. The Upper Town of Quebec is composed
+of six or seven superb palaces belonging to Hospital Nuns, Ursulines,
+Jesuits, Récollets, Seminary priests, and the bishop. There may be some
+forty private houses, and even these pay rent to the ecclesiastics,
+which shows that _the one thing does not prevent the other_." From this
+it will be seen that, in the words of one of his enemies, Cadillac "was
+not quite in the odor of sanctity."
+
+"One may as well knock one's head against a wall," concludes the
+memorial, "as hope to convert the Indians in any other way [than that of
+civilizing them]; for thus far all the fruits of the missions consist in
+the baptism of infants who die before reaching the age of reason."[25]
+This was not literally true, though the results of the Jesuit missions
+in the west had been meagre and transient to a surprising degree.
+
+Cadillac's plan of a settlement at Detroit was not at first received
+with favor by Callières, the governor; while the intendant Champigny, a
+fast friend of the Jesuits, strongly opposed it. By their order the
+chief inhabitants of Quebec met at the Château St. Louis,--Callières,
+Champigny, and Cadillac himself being present. There was a heated debate
+on the beaver-trade, after which the intendant commanded silence,
+explained the projects of Cadillac, and proceeded to oppose them. His
+first point was that the natives should not be taught French, because
+the Indian girls brought up at the Ursuline Convent led looser lives
+than the young squaws who had received no instruction, while it was much
+the same with the boys brought up at the Seminary.
+
+"M. de Champigny," returned the sarcastic Cadillac, "does great honor to
+the Ursulines and the Seminary. It is true that some Indian women who
+have learned our language have lived viciously; but that is because
+their teachers were too stiff with them, and tried to make them
+nuns."[26]
+
+Champigny's position, as stated by his adversary, was that "all intimacy
+of the Indians with the French is dangerous and corrupting to their
+morals," and that their only safety lies in keeping them at a distance
+from the settlements. This was the view of the Jesuits, and there is
+much to be said in its favor; but it remains not the less true that
+conversion must go hand in hand with civilization, or it is a failure
+and a fraud.
+
+Cadillac was not satisfied with the results of the meeting at the
+Château St. Louis, and he wrote to the minister: "You can never hope
+that this business will succeed if it is discussed here on the spot.
+Canada is a country of cabals and intrigues, and it is impossible to
+reconcile so many different interests."[27] He sailed for France,
+apparently in the autumn of 1699, to urge his scheme at court. Here he
+had an interview with the colonial minister, Ponchartrain, to whom he
+represented the military and political expediency of his proposed
+establishment;[28] and in a letter which seems to be addressed to La
+Touche, chief clerk in the Department of Marine and Colonies, he
+promised that the execution of his plan would insure the safety of
+Canada and the ruin of the British colonies.[29] He asked for fifty
+soldiers and fifty Canadians to begin the work, to be followed in the
+next year by twenty or thirty families and by two hundred picked men of
+various trades, sent out at the King's charge, along with priests of
+several communities, and nuns to attend the sick and teach the Indian
+girls. "I cannot tell you," continues Cadillac, "the efforts my enemies
+have made to deprive me of the honor of executing my project; but so
+soon as M. de Ponchartrain decides in its favor, the whole country will
+applaud it."
+
+Ponchartrain accepted the plan, and Cadillac returned to Canada
+commissioned to execute it. Early in June, 1701, he left La Chine with a
+hundred men in twenty-five canoes loaded with provisions, goods,
+munitions, and tools. He was accompanied by Alphonse de Tonty, brother
+of Henri de Tonty, the companion of La Salle, and by two half-pay
+lieutenants, Dugué and Chacornacle, together with a Jesuit and a
+Récollet.[30] Following the difficult route of the Ottawa and Lake
+Huron, they reached their destination on the twenty-fourth of July, and
+built a picket fort sixty yards square, which by order of the governor
+they named Fort Ponchartrain.[31] It stood near the west bank of the
+strait, about forty paces from the water.[32] Thus was planted the germ
+of the city of Detroit.
+
+Cadillac sent back Chacornacle with the report of what he had done, and
+a description of the country written in a strain of swelling and gushing
+rhetoric in singular contrast with his usual sarcastic utterances. "None
+but enemies of the truth," his letter concludes, "are enemies of this
+establishment, so necessary to the glory of the King, the progress of
+religion, and the destruction of the throne of Baal."[33]
+
+What he had, perhaps, still more at heart was making money out of it by
+the fur-trade. By command of the King a radical change had lately been
+made in this chief commerce of Canada, and the entire control of it had
+been placed in the hands of a company in which all Canadians might take
+shares. But as the risks were great and the conditions ill-defined, the
+number of subscribers was not much above one hundred and fifty; and the
+rest of the colony found themselves shut out from the trade,--to the
+ruin of some, and the injury of all.[34]
+
+All trade in furs was restricted to Detroit and Fort Frontenac, both of
+which were granted to the company, subject to be resumed by the King at
+his pleasure.[35] The company was to repay the eighty thousand francs
+which the expedition to Detroit had cost; and to this were added various
+other burdens. The King, however, was to maintain the garrison.
+
+All the affairs of the company were placed in the hands of seven
+directors, who began immediately to complain that their burdens were too
+heavy, and to beg for more privileges; while an outcry against the
+privileges already granted rose from those who had not taken shares in
+the enterprise. Both in the company and out of it there was nothing but
+discontent. None were worse pleased than the two Jesuits Carheil and
+Marest, who saw their flocks at Michilimackinac, both Hurons and
+Ottawas, lured away to a new home at Detroit. Cadillac took a peculiar
+satisfaction in depriving Carheil of his converts, and in 1703 we find
+him writing to the minister Ponchartrain, that only twenty-five Hurons
+are left at Michilimackinac; and "I hope," he adds, "that in the autumn
+I shall pluck this last feather from his wing; and I am convinced that
+this obstinate priest will die in his parish without one parishioner to
+bury him."[36]
+
+If the Indians came to Detroit, the French would not come. Cadillac had
+asked for five or six families as the modest beginning of a settlement;
+but not one had appeared. The Indians, too, were angry because the
+company asked too much for its goods; while the company complained that
+a forbidden trade, fatal to its interests, went on through all the
+region of the upper lakes. It was easy to ordain a monopoly, but
+impossible to enforce it. The prospects of the new establishment were
+deplorable; and Cadillac lost no time in presenting his views of the
+situation to the court. "Detroit is good, or it is bad," he writes to
+Ponchartrain. "If it is good, it ought to be sustained, without allowing
+the people of Canada to deliberate any more about it. If it is bad, the
+court ought to make up its mind concerning it as soon as may be. I have
+said what I think. I have explained the situation. You have felt the
+need of Detroit, and its utility for the glory of God, the progress of
+religion, and the good of the colony. Nothing is left me to do but to
+imitate the governor of the Holy City,--take water, and wash my hands of
+it." His aim now appears. He says that if Detroit were made a separate
+government, and he were put at the head of it, its prospects would
+improve. "You may well believe that the company cares for nothing but to
+make a profit out of it. It only wants to have a storehouse and clerks;
+no officers, no troops, no inhabitants. Take this business in hand,
+Monseigneur, and I promise that in two years your Detroit shall be
+established of itself." He then informs the minister that as the company
+complain of losing money, he has told them that if they will make over
+their rights to him, he will pay them back all their past outlays. "I
+promise you," he informs Ponchartrain, "that if they accept my proposal
+and you approve it, I will make our Detroit flourish. Judge if it is
+agreeable to me to have to answer for my actions to five or six
+merchants [the directors of the company], who not long ago were blacking
+their masters' boots." He is scarcely more reserved as to the Jesuits.
+"I do what I can to make them my friends, but, impiety apart, one had
+better sin against God than against them; for in that case one gets
+one's pardon, whereas in the other the offence is never forgiven in this
+world, and perhaps never would be in the other, if their credit were as
+great there as it is here."[37]
+
+The letters of Cadillac to the court are unique. No governor of New
+France, not even the audacious Frontenac, ever wrote to a minister of
+Louis XIV. with such off-hand freedom of language as this singular
+personage,--a mere captain in the colony troops; and to a more stable
+and balanced character it would have been impossible.
+
+Cadillac's proposal was accepted. The company was required to abandon
+Detroit to him on his paying them the expenses they had incurred. Their
+monopoly was transferred to him; but as far as concerned beaver-skins,
+his trade was limited to twenty thousand francs a year. The governor was
+ordered to give him as many soldiers as he might want, permit as many
+persons to settle at Detroit as might choose to do so, and provide
+missionaries.[38] The minister exhorted him to quarrel no more with the
+Jesuits, or anybody else, to banish blasphemy and bad morals from the
+post, and not to offend the Five Nations.
+
+The promised era of prosperity did not come. Detroit lingered on in a
+weak and troubled infancy, disturbed, as we shall see, by startling
+incidents. Its occupation by the French produced a noteworthy result.
+The Five Nations, filled with jealousy and alarm, appealed to the King
+of England for protection, and, the better to insure it, conveyed the
+whole country from Lake Ontario northward to Lake Superior, and westward
+as far as Chicago, "unto our souveraigne Lord King William the Third"
+and his heirs and successors forever. This territory is described in the
+deed as being about eight hundred miles long and four hundred wide, and
+was claimed by the Five Nations as theirs by right of conquest.[39] It
+of course included Detroit itself. The conveyance was drawn by the
+English authorities at Albany in a form to suit their purposes, and
+included terms of subjection and sovereignty which the signers could
+understand but imperfectly, if at all. The Five Nations gave away their
+land to no purpose. The French remained in undisturbed possession of
+Detroit. The English made no attempt to enforce their title, but they
+put the deed on file, and used it long after as the base of their claim
+to the region of the Lakes.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] See "Old Régime in Canada," 383.
+
+[16] _Relation de La Mothe-Cadillac_, in Margry, v. 75.
+
+[17] He wrote his name as above. It is often written La Motte, which has
+the advantage of conveying the pronunciation unequivocally to an
+unaccustomed English ear. La Mothe-Cadillac came of a good family of
+Languedoc. His father, Jean de La Mothe, seigneur de Cadillac et de
+Launay, or Laumet, was a counsellor in the Parliament of Toulouse. The
+date of young Cadillac's birth is uncertain. The register of his
+marriage places it in 1661, and that of his death in 1657. Another
+record, cited by Farmer in his _History of Detroit_, makes it 1658. In
+1703 he himself declared that he was forty-seven years old. After
+serving as lieutenant in the regiment of Clairembault, he went to Canada
+about the year 1683. He became skilled in managing Indians, made himself
+well acquainted with the coasts of New England, and strongly urged an
+attack by sea on New York and Boston, as the only sure means of securing
+French ascendency. He was always in opposition to the clerical party.
+
+[18] See _La Mothe-Cadillac à ----, 3 Août, 1695_.
+
+[19] _La Mothe-Cadillac à ----, 3 Août, 1695._
+
+[20] "Il me dit que je me donnois des airs qui ne m'appartenoient pas,
+en me portant le poing au nez. Je vous avoue, Monsieur, que je pensai
+oublier qu'il étoit prêtre, et que je vis le moment où j'allois luy
+démonter la mâchoire; mais, Dieu merci, je me contentai de le prendre
+par le bras et de le pousser dehors, avec ordre de n'y plus rentrer."
+Margry, v. (author's edition), Introduction, civ. This introduction,
+with other editorial matter, is omitted in the edition of M. Margry's
+valuable collection, printed under a vote of the American Congress.
+
+[21] See "Count Frontenac," 440.
+
+[22] Robert Livingston urged the occupation of Detroit as early as 1700.
+_N. Y. Col. Docs._, iv. 650.
+
+[23] _Denonville à Du Lhut, 6 Juin, 1686._ Count Frontenac, 133.
+
+[24] "Sans se destourner et sans s'arrester au bruit des jappereaux qui
+crient après luy."--_Mémoire de La Mothe-Cadillac adressé au Comte de
+Maurepas._
+
+[25] _Mémoire adressé au Comte de Maurepas_, in Margry, v. 138.
+
+[26] La Mothe-Cadillac, _Rapport au Ministre_, 1700, in Margry, v. 157.
+
+[27] _Rapport au Ministre_, 1700.
+
+[28] Cadillac's report of this interview is given in Sheldon, _Early
+History of Michigan_, 85-91.
+
+[29] _La Mothe-Cadillac à un premier commis, 18 Octobre, 1700_, in
+Margry, v. 166.
+
+[30] _Callières au Ministre, 4 Octobre, 1701. Autre lettre du même, sans
+date_, in Margry, v. 187, 190.
+
+[31] _Callières et Champigny au Ministre, sans date._
+
+[32] _Relation du Destroit_ (by the Jesuit who accompanied the
+expedition).
+
+[33] _Description de la Rivière du Détroit, jointe à la lettre de MM. de
+Callières et de Champigny, 8 Octobre, 1701._
+
+[34] _Callières au Ministre, 9 Novembre, 1700._
+
+[35] _Traité fait avec la Compagnie de la Colonie de Canada, 31 Octobre,
+1701._
+
+[36] _Lamothe-Cadillac à Ponchartrain, 31 Aoust, 1703_ (Margry, v. 301).
+On Cadillac's relations with the Jesuits, see _Conseils tenus par
+Lamothe-Cadillac avec les Sauvages_ (Margry, v. 253-300); also a curious
+collection of Jesuit letters sent by Cadillac to the minister, with
+copious annotations of his own. He excepts from his strictures Father
+Engelran, who, he says, incurred the ill-will of the other Jesuits by
+favoring the establishment of Detroit, and he also has a word of
+commendation for Father Germain.
+
+[37] _La Mothe-Cadillac à Ponchartrain, 31 Août, 1703._ "Toute impiété à
+part, il vaudroit mieux pescher contre Dieu que contre eux, parce que
+d'un costé on en reçoit son pardon, et de l'autre, l'offense, mesme
+prétendue, n'est jamais remise dans ce monde, et ne le seroit peut-estre
+jamais dans l'autre, si leur crédit y estoit aussi grand qu'il est dans
+ce pays."
+
+[38] _Ponchartrain à La Mothe-Cadillac, 14 Juin, 1704._
+
+[39] _Deed from the Five Nations to the King of their Beaver Hunting
+Ground_, in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, iv. 908. It is signed by the totems of
+sachems of all the Nations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+1703-1713.
+
+QUEEN ANNE'S WAR.
+
+The Forest of Maine.--A Treacherous Peace.--A Frontier Village.--Wells
+and its People.--Attack upon it.--Border Ravages.--Beaubassin's
+War-party.--The "Woful Decade."--A Wedding Feast.--A Captive Bridegroom.
+
+
+For untold ages Maine had been one unbroken forest, and it was so still.
+Only along the rocky seaboard or on the lower waters of one or two great
+rivers a few rough settlements had gnawed slight indentations into this
+wilderness of woods; and a little farther inland some dismal clearing
+around a blockhouse or stockade let in the sunlight to a soil that had
+lain in shadow time out of mind. This waste of savage vegetation
+survives, in some part, to this day, with the same prodigality of vital
+force, the same struggle for existence and mutual havoc that mark all
+organized beings, from men to mushrooms. Young seedlings in millions
+spring every summer from the black mould, rich with the decay of those
+that had preceded them, crowding, choking, and killing one another,
+perishing by their very abundance,--all but a scattered few, stronger
+than the rest, or more fortunate in position, which survive by blighting
+those about them. They in turn, as they grow, interlock their boughs,
+and repeat in a season or two the same process of mutual suffocation.
+The forest is full of lean saplings dead or dying with vainly stretching
+towards the light. Not one infant tree in a thousand lives to maturity;
+yet these survivors form an innumerable host, pressed together in
+struggling confusion, squeezed out of symmetry and robbed of normal
+development, as men are said to be in the level sameness of democratic
+society. Seen from above, their mingled tops spread in a sea of verdure
+basking in light; seen from below, all is shadow, through which spots of
+timid sunshine steal down among legions of lank, mossy trunks,
+toadstools and rank ferns, protruding roots, matted bushes, and rotting
+carcasses of fallen trees. A generation ago one might find here and
+there the rugged trunk of some great pine lifting its verdant spire
+above the undistinguished myriads of the forest. The woods of Maine had
+their aristocracy; but the axe of the woodman has laid them low, and
+these lords of the wilderness are seen no more.
+
+The life and light of this grim solitude were in its countless streams
+and lakes, from little brooks stealing clear and cold under the alders,
+full of the small fry of trout, to the mighty arteries of the Penobscot
+and the Kennebec; from the great reservoir of Moosehead to a thousand
+nameless ponds shining in the hollow places of the forest.
+
+It had and still has its beast of prey,--wolves, savage, cowardly, and
+mean; bears, gentle and mild compared to their grisly relatives of the
+Far West, vegetarians when they can do no better, and not without
+something grotesque and quaint in manners and behavior; sometimes,
+though rarely, the strong and sullen wolverine; frequently the lynx; and
+now and then the fierce and agile cougar.
+
+The human denizens of this wilderness were no less fierce, and far more
+dangerous. These were the various tribes and sub-tribes of the Abenakis,
+whose villages were on the Saco, the Kennebec, the Penobscot, and the
+other great watercourses. Most of them had been converted by the
+Jesuits, and, as we have seen already, some had been persuaded to remove
+to Canada, like the converted Iroquois of Caughnawaga.[40] The rest
+remained in their native haunts, where, under the direction of their
+missionaries, they could be used to keep the English settlements in
+check.
+
+We know how busily they plied their tomahawks in William and Mary's War,
+and what havoc they made among the scattered settlements of the
+border.[41] Another war with France was declared on the fourth of May,
+1702, on which the Abenakis again assumed a threatening attitude. In
+June of the next year Dudley, governor of Massachusetts, called the
+chiefs of the various bands to a council at Casco. Here presently
+appeared the Norridgewocks from the Kennebec, the Penobscots and
+Androscoggins from the rivers that bear their names, the Penacooks from
+the Merrimac, and the Pequawkets from the Saco, all well armed, and
+daubed with ceremonial paint. The principal among them, gathered under a
+large tent, were addressed by Dudley in a conciliatory speech. Their
+orator replied that they wanted nothing but peace, and that their
+thoughts were as far from war as the sun was from the earth,--words
+which they duly confirmed by a belt of wampum.[42] Presents were
+distributed among them and received with apparent satisfaction, while
+two of their principal chiefs, known as Captain Samuel and Captain
+Bomazeen, declared that several French missionaries had lately come
+among them to excite them against the English, but that they were "firm
+as mountains," and would remain so "as long as the sun and moon
+endured." They ended the meeting with dancing, singing, and whoops of
+joy, followed by a volley of musketry, answered by another from the
+English. It was discovered, however, that the Indians had loaded their
+guns with ball, intending, as the English believed, to murder Dudley and
+his attendants if they could have done so without danger to their
+chiefs, whom the governor had prudently kept about him. It was
+afterwards found, if we may believe a highly respectable member of the
+party, that two hundred French and Indians were on their way, "resolved
+to seize the governor, council, and gentlemen, and then to sacrifice the
+inhabitants at pleasure;" but when they arrived, the English officials
+had been gone three days.[43]
+
+The French governor, Vaudreuil, says that about this time some of the
+Abenakis were killed or maltreated by Englishmen. It may have been so:
+desperadoes, drunk or sober, were not rare along the frontier; but
+Vaudreuil gives no particulars, and the only English outrage that
+appears on record at the time was the act of a gang of vagabonds who
+plundered the house of the younger Saint-Castin, where the town of
+Castine now stands. He was Abenaki by his mother; but he was absent when
+the attack took place, and the marauders seem to have shed no blood.
+Nevertheless, within six weeks after the Treaty of Casco, every
+unprotected farmhouse in Maine was in a blaze.
+
+The settlements of Maine, confined to the southwestern corner of what is
+now the State of Maine, extended along the coast in a feeble and broken
+line from Kittery to Casco. Ten years of murderous warfare had almost
+ruined them. East of the village of Wells little was left except one or
+two forts and the so-called "garrisons," which were private houses
+pierced with loopholes and having an upper story projecting over the
+lower, so that the defenders could fire down on assailants battering the
+door or piling fagots against the walls. A few were fenced with
+palisades, as was the case with the house of Joseph Storer at the east
+end of Wells, where an overwhelming force of French and Indians had been
+gallantly repulsed in the summer of 1692.[44] These fortified houses
+were, however, very rarely attacked, except by surprise and treachery.
+In case of alarm such of the inhabitants as found time took refuge in
+them with their families, and left their dwellings to the flames; for
+the first thought of the settler was to put his women and children
+beyond reach of the scalping-knife. There were several of these asylums
+in different parts of Wells; and without them the place must have been
+abandoned. In the little settlement of York, farther westward, there
+were five of them, which had saved a part of the inhabitants when the
+rest were surprised and massacred.
+
+Wells was a long, straggling settlement, consisting at the beginning of
+William and Mary's War of about eighty houses and log-cabins,[45] strung
+at intervals along the north side of the rough track, known as the
+King's Road, which ran parallel to the sea. Behind the houses were rude,
+half-cleared pastures, and behind these again, the primeval forest. The
+cultivated land was on the south side of the road; in front of the
+houses, and beyond it, spread great salt-marshes, bordering the sea and
+haunted by innumerable game-birds.
+
+The settlements of Maine were a dependency of Massachusetts,--a position
+that did not please their inhabitants, but which they accepted because
+they needed the help of their Puritan neighbors, from whom they differed
+widely both in their qualities and in their faults. The Indian wars that
+checked their growth had kept them in a condition more than half
+barbarous. They were a hard-working and hard-drinking race; for though
+tea and coffee were scarcely known, the land flowed with New England
+rum, which was ranked among the necessaries of life. The better sort
+could read and write in a bungling way; but many were wholly illiterate,
+and it was not till long after Queen Anne's War that the remoter
+settlements established schools, taught by poor students from Harvard or
+less competent instructors, and held at first in private houses or under
+sheds. The church at Wells had been burned by the Indians; and though
+the settlers were beggared by the war, they voted in town-meeting to
+build another. The new temple, begun in 1699, was a plain wooden
+structure thirty feet square. For want of money the windows long
+remained unglazed, the walls without plaster, and the floor without
+seats; yet services were duly held here under direction of the minister,
+Samuel Emery, to whom they paid £45 a year, half in provincial currency,
+and half in farm-produce and fire-wood.
+
+In spite of these efforts to maintain public worship, they were far from
+being a religious community; nor were they a peaceful one. Gossip and
+scandal ran riot; social jealousies abounded; and under what seemed
+entire democratic equality, the lazy, drunken, and shiftless envied the
+industrious and thrifty. Wells was infested, moreover, by several
+"frightfully turbulent women," as the chronicle styles them, from whose
+rabid tongues the minister himself did not always escape; and once, in
+its earlier days, the town had been indicted for not providing a
+ducking-stool to correct these breeders of discord.
+
+Judicial officers were sometimes informally chosen by popular vote, and
+sometimes appointed by the governor of Massachusetts from among the
+inhabitants. As they knew no law, they gave judgment according to their
+own ideas of justice, and their sentences were oftener wanting in wisdom
+than in severity. Until after 1700 the county courts met by beat of drum
+at some of the primitive inns or taverns with which the frontier
+abounded.
+
+At Wells and other outlying and endangered hamlets life was still
+exceedingly rude. The log-cabins of the least thrifty were no better
+furnished than Indian wigwams. The house of Edmond Littlefield, reputed
+the richest man in Wells, consisted of two bedrooms and a kitchen, which
+last served a great variety of uses, and was supplied with a table, a
+pewter pot, a frying-pan, and a skillet; but no chairs, cups, saucers,
+knives, forks, or spoons. In each of the two bedrooms there was a bed, a
+blanket, and a chest. Another village notable--Ensign John Barrett--was
+better provided, being the possessor of two beds, two chests and a box,
+four pewter dishes, four earthen pots, two iron pots, seven trays, two
+buckets, some pieces of wooden-ware, a skillet, and a frying-pan. In the
+inventory of the patriarchal Francis Littlefield, who died in 1712, we
+find the exceptional items of one looking-glass, two old chairs, and two
+old books. Such of the family as had no bed slept on hay or straw, and
+no provision for the toilet is recorded.[46]
+
+On the tenth of August, 1703, these rugged borderers were about their
+usual callings, unconscious of danger,--the women at their household
+work, the men in the fields or on the more distant salt-marshes. The
+wife of Thomas Wells had reached the time of her confinement, and her
+husband had gone for a nurse. Some miles east of Wells's cabin lived
+Stephen Harding,--hunter, blacksmith, and tavern-keeper, a sturdy,
+good-natured man, who loved the woods, and whose frequent hunting trips
+sometimes led him nearly to the White Mountains. Distant gunshots were
+heard from the westward, and his quick eye presently discovered Indians
+approaching, on which he told his frightened wife to go with their
+infant to a certain oak-tree beyond the creek while he waited to learn
+whether the strangers were friends or foes.
+
+That morning several parties of Indians had stolen out of the dismal
+woods behind the houses and farms of Wells, and approached different
+dwellings of the far-extended settlement at about the same time. They
+entered the cabin of Thomas Wells, where his wife lay in the pains of
+childbirth, and murdered her and her two small children. At the same
+time they killed Joseph Sayer, a neighbor of Wells, with all his family.
+
+Meanwhile Stephen Harding, having sent his wife and child to a safe
+distance, returned to his blacksmith's shop, and, seeing nobody, gave a
+defiant whoop; on which four Indians sprang at him from the bushes. He
+escaped through a back-door of the shop, eluded his pursuers, and found
+his wife and child in a cornfield, where the woman had fainted with
+fright. They spent the night in the woods, and on the next day, after a
+circuit of nine miles, reached the palisaded house of Joseph Storer.
+
+They found the inmates in distress and agitation. Storer's daughter
+Mary, a girl of eighteen, was missing. The Indians had caught her, and
+afterwards carried her prisoner to Canada. Samuel Hill and his family
+were captured, and the younger children butchered. But it is useless to
+record the names and fate of the sufferers. Thirty-nine in all, chiefly
+women and children, were killed or carried off, and then the Indians
+disappeared as quickly and silently as they had come, leaving many of
+the houses in flames.
+
+This raid upon Wells was only part of a combined attack on all the
+settlements from that place to Casco. Those eastward of Wells had been,
+as we have seen, abandoned in the last war, excepting the forts and
+fortified houses; but the inhabitants, reassured, no doubt, by the
+Treaty of Casco, had begun to return. On this same day, the tenth of
+August, they were startled from their security. A band of Indians mixed
+with Frenchmen fell upon the settlements about the stone fort near the
+Falls of the Saco, killed eleven persons, captured twenty-four, and
+vainly attacked the fort itself. Others surprised the settlers at a
+place called Spurwink, and killed or captured twenty-two. Others, again,
+destroyed the huts of the fishermen at Cape Porpoise, and attacked the
+fortified house at Winter Harbor, the inmates of which, after a brave
+resistance, were forced to capitulate. The settlers at Scarborough were
+also in a fortified house, where they made a long and obstinate defence
+till help at last arrived. Nine families were settled at Purpooduck
+Point, near the present city of Portland. They had no place of refuge,
+and the men being, no doubt, fishermen, were all absent, when the
+Indians burst into the hamlet, butchered twenty-five women and children,
+and carried off eight.
+
+The fort at Casco, or Falmouth, was held by Major March, with thirty-six
+men. He had no thought of danger, when three well-known chiefs from
+Norridgewock appeared with a white flag, and asked for an interview. As
+they seemed to be alone and unarmed, he went to meet them, followed by
+two or three soldiers and accompanied by two old men named Phippeny and
+Kent, inhabitants of the place. They had hardly reached the spot when
+the three chiefs drew hatchets from under a kind of mantle which they
+wore and sprang upon them, while other Indians, ambushed near by, leaped
+up and joined in the attack. The two old men were killed at once; but
+March, who was noted for strength and agility, wrenched a hatchet from
+one of his assailants, and kept them all at bay till Sergeant Hook came
+to his aid with a file of men and drove them off.
+
+They soon reappeared, burned the deserted cabins in the neighborhood,
+and beset the garrison in numbers that continually increased, till in a
+few days the entire force that had been busied in ravaging the scattered
+settlements was gathered around the place. It consisted of about five
+hundred Indians of several tribes, and a few Frenchmen under an officer
+named Beaubassin. Being elated with past successes, they laid siege to
+the fort, sheltering themselves under a steep bank by the water-side and
+burrowing their way towards the rampart. March could not dislodge them,
+and they continued their approaches till the third day, when Captain
+Southack, with the Massachusetts armed vessel known as the "Province
+Galley," sailed into the harbor, recaptured three small vessels that the
+Indians had taken along the coast, and destroyed a great number of their
+canoes, on which they gave up their enterprise and disappeared.[47]
+
+Such was the beginning of Queen Anne's War. These attacks were due less
+to the Abenakis than to the French who set them on. "Monsieur de
+Vaudreuil," writes the Jesuit historian Charlevoix, "formed a party of
+these savages, to whom he joined some Frenchmen under the direction of
+the Sieur de Beaubassin, when they effected some ravages of no great
+consequence; they killed, however, about three hundred men." This last
+statement is doubly incorrect. The whole number of persons killed and
+carried off during the August attacks did not much exceed one hundred
+and sixty;[48] and these were of both sexes and all ages, from
+octogenarians to newborn infants. The able-bodied men among them were
+few, as most of the attacks were made upon unprotected houses in the
+absence of the head of the family; and the only fortified place captured
+was the garrison-house at Winter Harbor, which surrendered on terms of
+capitulation. The instruments of this ignoble warfare and the revolting
+atrocities that accompanied it were all, or nearly all, converted
+Indians of the missions. Charlevoix has no word of disapproval for it,
+and seems to regard its partial success as a gratifying one so far as it
+went.
+
+One of the objects was, no doubt, to check the progress of the English
+settlements; but, pursues Charlevoix, "the essential point was to commit
+the Abenakis in such a manner that they could not draw back."[49] This
+object was constantly kept in view. The French claimed at this time that
+the territory of Acadia reached as far westward as the Kennebec, which
+therefore formed, in their view, the boundary between the rival nations,
+and they trusted in the Abenakis to defend this assumed line of
+demarcation. But the Abenakis sorely needed English guns, knives,
+hatchets, and kettles, and nothing but the utmost vigilance could
+prevent them from coming to terms with those who could supply their
+necessities. Hence the policy of the French authorities on the frontier
+of New England was the opposite of their policy on the frontier of New
+York. They left the latter undisturbed, lest by attacking the Dutch and
+English settlers they should stir up the Five Nations to attack Canada;
+while, on the other hand, they constantly spurred the Abenakis against
+New England, in order to avert the dreaded event of their making peace
+with her.
+
+The attack on Wells, Casco, and the intervening settlements was
+followed by murders and depredations that lasted through the autumn and
+extended along two hundred miles of frontier. Thirty Indians attacked
+the village of Hampton, killed the Widow Mussey, a famous Quakeress, and
+then fled to escape pursuit. At Black Point nineteen men going to their
+work in the meadows were ambushed by two hundred Indians, and all but
+one were shot or captured. The fort was next attacked. It was garrisoned
+by eight men under Lieutenant Wyatt, who stood their ground for some
+time, and then escaped by means of a sloop in the harbor. At York the
+wife and children of Arthur Brandon were killed, and the Widow Parsons
+and her daughter carried off. At Berwick the Indians attacked the
+fortified house of Andrew Neal, but were repulsed with the loss of nine
+killed and many wounded, for which they revenged themselves by burning
+alive Joseph Ring, a prisoner whom they had taken. Early in February a
+small party of them hovered about the fortified house of Joseph Bradley
+at Haverhill, till, seeing the gate open and nobody on the watch, they
+rushed in. The woman of the house was boiling soap, and in her
+desperation she snatched up the kettle and threw the contents over them
+with such effect that one of them, it is said, was scalded to death. The
+man who should have been on the watch was killed, and several persons
+were captured, including the woman. It was the second time that she had
+been a prisoner in Indian hands. Half starved and bearing a heavy load,
+she followed her captors in their hasty retreat towards Canada. After a
+time she was safely delivered of an infant in the midst of the winter
+forest; but the child pined for want of sustenance, and the Indians
+hastened its death by throwing hot coals into its mouth when it cried.
+The astonishing vitality of the woman carried her to the end of the
+frightful journey. A Frenchman bought her from the Indians, and she was
+finally ransomed by her husband.
+
+By far the most dangerous and harassing attacks were those of small
+parties skulking under the edge of the forest, or lying hidden for days
+together, watching their opportunity to murder unawares, and vanishing
+when they had done so. Against such an enemy there was no defence. The
+Massachusetts government sent a troop of horse to Portsmouth, and
+another to Wells. These had the advantage of rapid movement in case of
+alarm along the roads and forest-paths from settlement to settlement;
+but once in the woods, their horses were worse than useless, and they
+could only fight on foot. Fighting, however, was rarely possible; for on
+reaching the scene of action they found nothing but mangled corpses and
+burning houses.
+
+The best defence was to take the offensive. In September Governor Dudley
+sent three hundred and sixty men to the upper Saco, the haunt of the
+Pequawket tribe; but the place was deserted. Major, now Colonel, March
+soon after repeated the attempt, killing six Indians, and capturing as
+many more. The General Court offered £40 for every Indian scalp, and one
+Captain Tyng, in consequence, surprised an Indian village in midwinter
+and brought back five of these disgusting trophies. In the spring of
+1704 word came from Albany that a band of French Indians had built a
+fort and planted corn at Coos meadows, high up the river Connecticut. On
+this, one Caleb Lyman with five friendly Indians, probably Mohegans, set
+out from Northampton, and after a long march through the forest,
+surprised, under cover of a thunderstorm, a wigwam containing nine
+warriors,--bound, no doubt, against the frontier. They killed seven of
+them; and this was all that was done at present in the way of reprisal
+or prevention.[50]
+
+The murders and burnings along the borders were destined to continue
+with little variety and little interruption during ten years. It was a
+repetition of what the pedantic Cotton Mather calls _Decennium
+luctuosum_, or the "woful decade" of William and Mary's War. The wonder
+is that the outlying settlements were not abandoned. These ghastly,
+insidious, and ever-present dangers demanded a more obstinate courage
+than the hottest battle in the open field.
+
+One curious frontier incident may be mentioned here, though it did not
+happen till towards the end of the war. In spite of poverty, danger, and
+tribulation, marrying and giving in marriage did not cease among the
+sturdy borderers; and on a day in September there was a notable wedding
+feast at the palisaded house of John Wheelwright, one of the chief men
+of Wells. Elisha Plaisted was to espouse Wheelwright's daughter Hannah,
+and many guests were assembled, some from Portsmouth, and even beyond
+it. Probably most of them came in sailboats; for the way by land was
+full of peril, especially on the road from York, which ran through dense
+woods, where Indians often waylaid the traveller. The bridegroom's
+father was present with the rest. It was a concourse of men in homespun,
+and women and girls in such improvised finery as their poor resources
+could supply; possibly, in default of better, some wore nightgowns, more
+or less disguised, over their daily dress, as happened on similar
+occasions half a century later among the frontiersmen of West
+Virginia.[51] After an evening of rough merriment and gymnastic dancing,
+the guests lay down to sleep under the roof of their host or in adjacent
+barns and sheds. When morning came, and they were preparing to depart,
+it was found that two horses were missing; and not doubting that they
+had strayed away, three young men--Sergeant Tucker, Joshua Downing, and
+Isaac Cole--went to find them. In a few minutes several gunshots were
+heard. The three young men did not return. Downing and Cole were killed,
+and Tucker was wounded and made prisoner.
+
+Believing that, as usual, the attack came from some small
+scalping-party, Elisha Plaisted and eight or ten more threw themselves
+on the horses that stood saddled before the house, and galloped across
+the fields in the direction of the firing; while others ran to cut off
+the enemy's retreat. A volley was presently heard, and several of the
+party were seen running back towards the house. Elisha Plaisted and his
+companions had fallen into an ambuscade of two hundred Indians. One or
+more of them were shot, and the unfortunate bridegroom was captured. The
+distress of his young wife, who was but eighteen, may be imagined.
+
+Two companies of armed men in the pay of Massachusetts were then in
+Wells, and some of them had come to the wedding. Seventy marksmen went
+to meet the Indians, who ensconced themselves in the edge of the forest,
+whence they could not be dislodged. There was some desultory firing, and
+one of the combatants was killed on each side, after which the whites
+gave up the attack, and Lieutenant Banks went forward with a flag of
+truce, in the hope of ransoming the prisoners. He was met by six
+chiefs, among whom were two noted Indians of his acquaintance, Bomazeen
+and Captain Nathaniel. They well knew that the living Plaisted was worth
+more than his scalp; and though they would not come to terms at once,
+they promised to meet the English at Richmond's Island in a few days and
+give up both him and Tucker on payment of a sufficient ransom. The flag
+of truce was respected, and Banks came back safe, bringing a hasty note
+to the elder Plaisted from his captive son. This note now lies before
+me, and it runs thus, in the dutiful formality of the olden time:--
+
+     Sir,--I am in the hands of a great many Indians, with which there
+     is six captains. They say that what they will have for me is 50
+     pounds, and thirty pounds for Tucker, my fellow prisoner, in good
+     goods, as broadcloth, some provisions, some tobacco pipes,
+     Pomisstone [pumice-stone], stockings, and a little of all things.
+     If you will, come to Richmond's Island in 5 days at farthest, for
+     here is 200 Indians, and they belong to Canada.
+
+     If you do not come in 5 days, you will not see me, for Captain
+     Nathaniel the Indian will not stay no longer, for the Canada
+     Indians is not willing for to sell me. Pray, Sir, don't fail, for
+     they have given me one day, for the days were but 4 at first. Give
+     my kind love to my dear wife. This from your dutiful son till
+     death,
+
+     Elisha Plaisted.
+
+The alarm being spread and a sufficient number of men mustered, they set
+out to attack the enemy and recover the prisoners by force; but not an
+Indian could be found.
+
+Bomazeen and Captain Nathaniel were true to the rendezvous; in due time
+Elisha Plaisted was ransomed and restored to his bride.[52]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] Count Frontenac, 231.
+
+[41] _Ibid._, chaps, xi. xvi. xvii.
+
+[42] Penhallow, _History of the Wars of New England with the Eastern
+Indians_, 16 (ed. 1859). Penhallow was present at the council. In Judge
+Sewall's clumsy abstract of the proceedings (_Diary of Sewall_, ii. 85)
+the Indians are represented as professing neutrality. The governor and
+intendant of Canada write that the Abenakis had begun a treaty of
+neutrality with the English, but that as "les Jésuites observoient les
+sauvages, le traité ne fut pas conclu." They add that Rale, Jesuit
+missionary at Norridgewock, informs them that his Indians were ready to
+lift the hatchet against the English. _Vaudreuil et Beauharnois au
+Ministre_, 1703.
+
+[43] Penhallow, 17, 18 (ed. 1859). There was a previous meeting of
+conciliation between the English and the Abenakis in 1702. The Jesuit
+Bigot says that the Indians assured him that they had scornfully
+repelled the overtures of the English, and told them that they would
+always stand fast by the French. (_Relation des Abenakis_, 1702.) This
+is not likely. The Indians probably lied both to the Jesuit and to the
+English, telling to each what they knew would be most acceptable.
+
+[44] See "Count Frontenac," 371.
+
+[45] Bourne, _History of Wells and Kennebunk_.
+
+[46] The above particulars are drawn from the _History of Wells and
+Kennebunk_, by the late Edward E. Bourne, of Wells,--a work of admirable
+thoroughness, fidelity, and candor.
+
+[47] On these attacks on the frontier of Maine, Penhallow, who well knew
+the country and the people, is the best authority. Niles, in his _Indian
+and French Wars_, copies him without acknowledgment, but not without
+blunders. As regards the attack on Wells, what particulars we have are
+mainly due to the research of the indefatigable Bourne. Compare Belknap,
+i. 330; Folsom, _History of Saco and Biddeford_, 198; _Coll. Maine Hist.
+Soc._, iii. 140, 348; Williamson, _History of Maine_, ii. 42. Beaubassin
+is called "Bobasser" in most of the English accounts.
+
+[48] The careful and well-informed Belknap puts it at only 130. _History
+of New Hampshire_, i. 331.
+
+[49] Charlevoix, ii. 289, 290 (quarto edition).
+
+[50] Penhallow, _Wars of New England with the Eastern Indians_.
+
+[51] Doddridge, _Notes on Western Virginia and Pennsylvania_.
+
+[52] On this affair, see the note of Elisha Plaisted in Massachusetts
+Archives; _Richard Waldron to Governor Dudley, Portsmouth, 19 September,
+1712_; Bourne, _Wells and Kennebunk_, 278.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+1704-1740.
+
+DEERFIELD.
+
+Hertel de Rouville.--A Frontier Village.--Rev. John Williams.--The
+Surprise.--Defence of the Stebbins House.--Attempted Rescue.--The Meadow
+Fight.--The Captives.--The Northward March.--Mrs. Williams killed.--The
+Minister's Journey.--Kindness of Canadians.--A Stubborn Heretic.--Eunice
+Williams.--Converted Captives.--John Sheldon's Mission.--Exchange of
+Prisoners.--An English Squaw.--The Gill Family.
+
+
+About midwinter the governor of Canada sent another large war-party
+against the New England border. The object of attack was an unoffending
+hamlet, that from its position could never be a menace to the French,
+and the destruction of which could profit them nothing. The aim of the
+enterprise was not military, but political. "I have sent no war-party
+towards Albany," writes Vaudreuil, "because we must do nothing that
+might cause a rupture between us and the Iroquois; but we must keep
+things astir in the direction of Boston, or else the Abenakis will
+declare for the English." In short, the object was fully to commit these
+savages to hostility against New England, and convince them at the same
+time that the French would back their quarrel.[53]
+
+The party consisted, according to French accounts, of fifty Canadians
+and two hundred Abenakis and Caughnawagas,--the latter of whom, while
+trading constantly with Albany, were rarely averse to a raid against
+Massachusetts or New Hampshire.[54] The command was given to the younger
+Hertel de Rouville, who was accompanied by four of his brothers. They
+began their march in the depth of winter, journeyed nearly three hundred
+miles on snow-shoes through the forest, and approached their destination
+on the afternoon of the twenty-eighth of February, 1704. It was the
+village of Deerfield, which then formed the extreme northwestern
+frontier of Massachusetts,--its feeble neighbor, the infant settlement
+of Northfield, a little higher up the Connecticut, having been abandoned
+during the last war. Rouville halted his followers at a place now called
+Petty's Plain, two miles from the village; and here, under the shelter
+of a pine forest, they all lay hidden, shivering with cold,--for they
+dared not make fires,--and hungry as wolves, for their provisions were
+spent. Though their numbers, by the lowest account, were nearly equal
+to the whole population of Deerfield,--men, women, and children,--they
+had no thought of an open attack, but trusted to darkness and surprise
+for an easy victory.
+
+Deerfield stood on a plateau above the river meadows, and the
+houses--forty-one in all--were chiefly along the road towards the
+villages of Hadley and Hatfield, a few miles distant. In the middle of
+the place, on a rising ground called Meeting-house Hill, was a small
+square wooden meeting-house. This, with about fifteen private houses,
+besides barns and sheds, was enclosed by a fence of palisades eight feet
+high, flanked by "mounts," or blockhouses, at two or more of the
+corners. The four sides of this palisaded enclosure, which was called
+the fort, measured in all no less than two hundred and two rods, and
+within it lived some of the principal inhabitants of the village, of
+which it formed the centre or citadel. Chief among its inmates was John
+Williams, the minister, a man of character and education, who, after
+graduating at Harvard, had come to Deerfield when it was still suffering
+under the ruinous effects of King Philip's War, and entered on his
+ministry with a salary of sixty pounds in depreciated New England
+currency, payable, not in money, but in wheat, Indian-corn, and
+pork.[55] His parishioners built him a house, he married, and had now
+eight children, one of whom was absent with friends at Hadley.[56] His
+next neighbor was Benoni Stebbins, sergeant in the county militia, who
+lived a few rods from the meeting-house. About fifty yards distant, and
+near the northwest angle of the enclosure, stood the house of Ensign
+John Sheldon, a framed building, one of the largest in the village, and,
+like that of Stebbins, made bullet-proof by a layer of bricks between
+the outer and inner sheathing, while its small windows and its
+projecting upper story also helped to make it defensible.
+
+The space enclosed by the palisade, though much too large for effective
+defence, served in time of alarm as an asylum for the inhabitants
+outside, whose houses were scattered,--some on the north towards the
+hidden enemy, and some on the south towards Hadley and Hatfield. Among
+those on the south side was that of the militia captain, Jonathan Wells,
+which had a palisade of its own, and, like the so-called fort, served as
+an asylum for the neighbors.
+
+These private fortified houses were sometimes built by the owners alone,
+though more often they were the joint work of the owners and of the
+inhabitants, to whose safety they contributed. The palisade fence that
+enclosed the central part of the village was made under a vote of the
+town, each inhabitant being required to do his share; and as they were
+greatly impoverished by the last war, the General Court of the province
+remitted for a time a part of their taxes in consideration of a work
+which aided the general defence.[57]
+
+Down to the Peace of Ryswick the neighborhood had been constantly
+infested by scalping-parties, and once the village had been attacked by
+a considerable force of French and Indians, who were beaten off. Of late
+there had been warnings of fresh disturbance. Lord Cornbury, governor of
+New York, wrote that he had heard through spies that Deerfield was again
+to be attacked, and a message to the same effect came from Peter
+Schuyler, who had received intimations of the danger from Mohawks lately
+on a visit to their Caughnawaga relatives. During the autumn the alarm
+was so great that the people took refuge within the palisades, and the
+houses of the enclosure were crowded with them; but the panic had now
+subsided, and many, though not all, had returned to their homes. They
+were reassured by the presence of twenty volunteers from the villages
+below, whom, on application from the minister, Williams, the General
+Court had sent as a garrison to Deerfield, where they were lodged in the
+houses of the villagers. On the night when Hertel de Rouville and his
+band lay hidden among the pines there were in all the settlement a
+little less than three hundred souls, of whom two hundred and
+sixty-eight were inhabitants, twenty were yeomen soldiers of the
+garrison, two were visitors from Hatfield, and three were negro slaves.
+They were of all ages,--from the Widow Allison, in her eighty-fifth
+year, to the infant son of Deacon French, aged four weeks.[58]
+
+Heavy snows had lately fallen and buried the clearings, the meadow, and
+the frozen river to the depth of full three feet. On the northwestern
+side the drifts were piled nearly to the top of the palisade fence, so
+that it was no longer an obstruction to an active enemy.
+
+As the afternoon waned, the sights and sounds of the little border
+hamlet were, no doubt, like those of any other rustic New England
+village at the end of a winter day,--an ox-sledge creaking on the frosty
+snow as it brought in the last load of firewood, boys in homespun
+snowballing one another in the village street, farmers feeding their
+horses and cattle in the barns, a matron drawing a pail of water with
+the help of one of those long well-sweeps still used in some remote
+districts, or a girl bringing a pail of milk from the cow-shed. In the
+houses, where one room served as kitchen, dining-room, and parlor, the
+housewife cooked the evening meal, children sat at their bowls of mush
+and milk, and the men of the family, their day's work over, gathered
+about the fire, while perhaps some village coquette sat in the corner
+with fingers busy at the spinning-wheel, and ears intent on the
+stammered wooings of her rustic lover. Deerfield kept early hours, and
+it is likely that by nine o'clock all were in their beds. There was a
+patrol inside the palisade, but there was little discipline among these
+extemporized soldiers; the watchers grew careless as the frosty night
+went on; and it is said that towards morning they, like the villagers,
+betook themselves to their beds.
+
+Rouville and his men, savage with hunger, lay shivering under the pines
+till about two hours before dawn; then, leaving their packs and their
+snow-shoes behind, they moved cautiously towards their prey. There was a
+crust on the snow strong enough to bear their weight, though not to
+prevent a rustling noise as it crunched under the feet of so many men.
+It is said that from time to time Rouville commanded a halt, in order
+that the sentinels, if such there were, might mistake the distant sound
+for rising and falling gusts of wind. In any case, no alarm was given
+till they had mounted the palisade and dropped silently into the
+unconscious village. Then with one accord they screeched the war-whoop,
+and assailed the doors of the houses with axes and hatchets.
+
+The hideous din startled the minister, Williams, from his sleep.
+Half-wakened, he sprang out of bed, and saw dimly a crowd of savages
+bursting through the shattered door. He shouted to two soldiers who were
+lodged in the house; and then, with more valor than discretion, snatched
+a pistol that hung at the head of the bed, cocked it, and snapped it at
+the breast of the foremost Indian, who proved to be a Caughnawaga chief.
+It missed fire, or Williams would, no doubt, have been killed on the
+spot. Amid the screams of his terrified children, three of the party
+seized him and bound him fast; for they came well provided with cords,
+since prisoners had a market value. Nevertheless, in the first fury of
+their attack they dragged to the door and murdered two of the children
+and a negro woman called Parthena, who was probably their nurse. In an
+upper room lodged a young man named Stoddard, who had time to snatch a
+cloak, throw himself out of the window, climb the palisade, and escape
+in the darkness. Half-naked as he was, he made his way over the snow to
+Hatfield, binding his bare feet with strips torn from the cloak.
+
+They kept Williams shivering in his shirt for an hour while a frightful
+uproar of yells, shrieks, and gunshots sounded from without. At length
+they permitted him, his wife, and five remaining children to dress
+themselves. Meanwhile the Indians and their allies burst into most of
+the houses, killed such of the men as resisted, butchered some of the
+women and children, and seized and bound the rest. Some of the villagers
+escaped in the confusion, like Stoddard, and either fled half dead with
+cold towards Hatfield, or sought refuge in the fortified house of
+Jonathan Wells.
+
+The house of Stebbins, the minister's next neighbor, had not been
+attacked so soon as the rest, and the inmates had a little time for
+preparation. They consisted of Stebbins himself, with his wife and five
+children, David Hoyt, Joseph Catlin, Benjamin Church, a namesake of the
+old Indian fighter of Philip's War, and three other men,--probably
+refugees who had brought their wives and families within the palisaded
+enclosure for safety. Thus the house contained seven men, four or five
+women, and a considerable number of children. Though the walls were
+bullet-proof, it was not built for defence. The men, however, were well
+supplied with guns, powder, and lead, and they seem to have found some
+means of barricading the windows. When the enemy tried to break in, they
+drove them back with loss. On this, the French and Indians gathered in
+great numbers before the house, showered bullets upon it, and tried to
+set it on fire. They were again repulsed, with the loss of several
+killed and wounded; among the former a Caughnawaga chief, and among the
+latter a French officer. Still the firing continued. If the assailants
+had made a resolute assault, the defenders must have been overpowered;
+but to risk lives in open attack was contrary to every maxim of forest
+warfare. The women in the house behaved with great courage, and moulded
+bullets, which the men shot at the enemy. Stebbins was killed outright,
+and Church was wounded, as was also the wife of David Hoyt. At length
+most of the French and Indians, disgusted with the obstinacy of the
+defence, turned their attention to other quarters; though some kept up
+their fire under cover of the meeting-house and another building within
+easy range of gunshot.
+
+This building was the house of Ensign John Sheldon, already mentioned.
+The Indians had had some difficulty in mastering it; for the door being
+of thick oak plank, studded with nails of wrought iron and well barred,
+they could not break it open. After a time, however, they hacked a hole
+in it, through which they fired and killed Mrs. Sheldon as she sat on
+the edge of a bed in a lower room. Her husband, a man of great
+resolution, seems to have been absent. Their son John, with Hannah his
+wife, jumped from an upper chamber window. The young woman sprained her
+ankle in the fall, and lay helpless, but begged her husband to run to
+Hatfield for aid, which he did, while she remained a prisoner. The
+Indians soon got in at a back door, seized Mercy Sheldon, a little girl
+of two years, and dashed out her brains on the door-stone. Her two
+brothers and her sister Mary, a girl of sixteen, were captured. The
+house was used for a short time as a depot for prisoners, and here also
+was brought the French officer wounded in the attack on the Stebbins
+house. A family tradition relates that as he lay in great torment he
+begged for water, and that it was brought him by one of the prisoners,
+Mrs. John Catlin, whose husband, son, and infant grandson had been
+killed, and who, nevertheless, did all in her power to relieve the
+sufferings of the wounded man. Probably it was in recognition of this
+charity that when the other prisoners were led away, Mrs. Catlin was
+left behind. She died of grief a few weeks later.
+
+The sun was scarcely an hour high when the miserable drove of captives
+was conducted across the river to the foot of a mountain or high hill.
+Williams and his family were soon compelled to follow, and his house was
+set on fire. As they led him off he saw that other houses within the
+palisade were burning, and that all were in the power of the enemy
+except that of his neighbor Stebbins, where the gallant defenders still
+kept their assailants at bay. Having collected all their prisoners, the
+main body of the French and Indians began to withdraw towards the pine
+forest, where they had left their packs and snow-shoes, and to prepare
+for a retreat before the country should be roused, first murdering in
+cold blood Marah Carter, a little girl of five years, whom they probably
+thought unequal to the march. Several parties, however, still lingered
+in the village, firing on the Stebbins house, killing cattle, hogs, and
+sheep, and gathering such plunder as the place afforded.
+
+Early in the attack, and while it was yet dark, the light of burning
+houses, reflected from the fields of snow, had been seen at Hatfield,
+Hadley, and Northampton. The alarm was sounded through the slumbering
+hamlets, and parties of men mounted on farm-horses, with saddles or
+without, hastened to the rescue, not doubting that the fires were
+kindled by Indians. When the sun was about two hours high, between
+thirty and forty of them were gathered at the fortified house of
+Jonathan Wells, at the southern end of the village. The houses of this
+neighborhood were still standing, and seem not to have been
+attacked,--the stubborn defence of the Stebbins house having apparently
+prevented the enemy from pushing much beyond the palisaded enclosure.
+The house of Wells was full of refugee families. A few Deerfield men
+here joined the horsemen from the lower towns, as also did four or five
+of the yeoman soldiers who had escaped the fate of most of their
+comrades. The horsemen left their horses within Wells's fence; he
+himself took the lead, and the whole party rushed in together at the
+southern gate of the palisaded enclosure, drove out the plunderers, and
+retook a part of their plunder. The assailants of the Stebbins house,
+after firing at it for three hours, were put to flight, and those of its
+male occupants who were still alive joined their countrymen, while the
+women and children ran back for harborage to the house of Wells.
+
+Wells and his men, now upwards of fifty, drove the flying enemy more
+than a mile across the river meadows, and ran in headlong pursuit over
+the crusted snow, killing a considerable number. In the eagerness of the
+chase many threw off their overcoats, and even their jackets. Wells saw
+the danger, and vainly called on them to stop. Their blood was up, and
+most of them were young and inexperienced.
+
+Meanwhile the firing at the village had been heard by Rouville's main
+body, who had already begun their retreat northward. They turned back to
+support their comrades, and hid themselves under the bank of the river
+till the pursuers drew near, when they gave them a close volley and
+rushed upon them with the war-whoop. Some of the English were shot down,
+and the rest driven back. There was no panic. "We retreated," says
+Wells, "facing about and firing." When they reached the palisade they
+made a final stand, covering by their fire such of their comrades as had
+fallen within range of musket-shot, and thus saving them from the
+scalping-knife. The French did not try to dislodge them. Nine of them
+had been killed, several were wounded, and one was captured.[59]
+
+The number of English carried off prisoners was one hundred and eleven,
+and the number killed was according to one list forty-seven, and
+according to another fifty-three, the latter including some who were
+smothered in the cellars of their burning houses. The names, and in most
+cases the ages, of both captives and slain are preserved. Those who
+escaped with life and freedom were, by the best account, one hundred and
+thirty-seven. An official tabular statement, drawn up on the spot, sets
+the number of houses burned at seventeen. The house of the town clerk,
+Thomas French, escaped, as before mentioned, and the town records, with
+other papers in his charge, were saved. The meeting-house also was left
+standing. The house of Sheldon was hastily set on fire by the French and
+Indians when their rear was driven out of the village by Wells and his
+men; but the fire was extinguished, and "the Old Indian House," as it
+was called, stood till the year 1849. Its door, deeply scarred with
+hatchets, and with a hole cut near the middle, is still preserved in the
+Memorial Hall at Deerfield.[60]
+
+Vaudreuil wrote to the minister, Ponchartrain, that the French lost two
+or three killed, and twenty or twenty-one wounded, Rouville himself
+being among the latter. This cannot include the Indians, since there is
+proof that the enemy left behind a considerable number of their dead.
+Wherever resistance was possible, it had been of the most prompt and
+determined character.[61]
+
+Long before noon the French and Indians were on their northward march
+with their train of captives. More armed men came up from the
+settlements below, and by midnight about eighty were gathered at the
+ruined village. Couriers had been sent to rouse the country, and before
+evening of the next day (the first of March) the force at Deerfield was
+increased to two hundred and fifty; but a thaw and a warm rain had set
+in, and as few of the men had snow-shoes, pursuit was out of the
+question. Even could the agile savages and their allies have been
+overtaken, the probable consequence would have been the murdering of the
+captives to prevent their escape.
+
+In spite of the foul blow dealt upon it, Deerfield was not abandoned.
+Such of its men as were left were taken as soldiers into the pay of the
+province, while the women and children were sent to the villages below.
+A small garrison was also stationed at the spot, under command of
+Captain Jonathan Wells, and thus the village held its ground till the
+storm of war should pass over.[62]
+
+We have seen that the minister, Williams, with his wife and family,
+were led from their burning house across the river to the foot of the
+mountain, where the crowd of terrified and disconsolate
+captives--friends, neighbors, and relatives--were already gathered. Here
+they presently saw the fight in the meadow, and were told that if their
+countrymen attempted a rescue, they should all be put to death. "After
+this," writes Williams, "we went up the mountain, and saw the smoke of
+the fires in town, and beheld the awful desolation of Deerfield; and
+before we marched any farther they killed a sucking child of the
+English."
+
+The French and Indians marched that afternoon only four or five
+miles,--to Greenfield meadows,--where they stopped to encamp, dug away
+the snow, laid spruce-boughs on the ground for beds, and bound fast such
+of the prisoners as seemed able to escape. The Indians then held a
+carousal on some liquor they had found in the village, and in their
+drunken rage murdered a negro man belonging to Williams. In spite of
+their precautions, Joseph Alexander, one of the prisoners, escaped
+during the night, at which they were greatly incensed; and Rouville
+ordered Williams to tell his companions in misfortune that if any more
+of them ran off, the rest should be burned alive.[63]
+
+The prisoners were the property of those who had taken them. Williams
+had two masters, one of the three who had seized him having been shot in
+the attack on the house of Stebbins. His principal owner was a surly
+fellow who would not let him speak to the other prisoners; but as he was
+presently chosen to guard the rear, the minister was left in the hands
+of his other master, who allowed him to walk beside his wife and help
+her on the way. Having borne a child a few weeks before, she was in no
+condition for such a march, and felt that her hour was near. Williams
+speaks of her in the strongest terms of affection. She made no
+complaint, and accepted her fate with resignation. "We discoursed," he
+says, "of the happiness of those who had God for a father and friend, as
+also that it was our reasonable duty quietly to submit to his will." Her
+thoughts were for her remaining children, whom she commended to her
+husband's care. Their intercourse was short. The Indian who had gone to
+the rear of the train soon returned, separated them, ordered Williams to
+the front, "and so made me take a last farewell of my dear wife, the
+desire of my eyes and companion in many mercies and afflictions." They
+came soon after to Green River, a stream then about knee-deep, and so
+swift that the water had not frozen. After wading it with difficulty,
+they climbed a snow-covered hill beyond. The minister, with strength
+almost spent, was permitted to rest a few moments at the top; and as the
+other prisoners passed by in turn, he questioned each for news of his
+wife. He was not left long in suspense. She had fallen from
+weakness in fording the stream, but gained her feet again, and, drenched
+in the icy current, struggled to the farther bank, when the savage who
+owned her, finding that she could not climb the hill, killed her with
+one stroke of his hatchet. Her body was left on the snow till a few of
+her townsmen, who had followed the trail, found it a day or two after,
+carried it back to Deerfield, and buried it in the churchyard.
+
+[Illustration: _The Return from Deerfield._
+
+Drawn by Howard Pyle.]
+
+On the next day the Indians killed an infant and a little girl of eleven
+years; on the day following, Friday, they tomahawked a woman, and on
+Saturday four others. This apparent cruelty was in fact a kind of mercy.
+The victims could not keep up with the party, and the death-blow saved
+them from a lonely and lingering death from cold and starvation. Some of
+the children, when spent with the march, were carried on the backs of
+their owners,--partly, perhaps, through kindness, and partly because
+every child had its price.
+
+On the fourth day of the march they came to the mouth of West River,
+which enters the Connecticut a little above the present town of
+Brattleboro'. Some of the Indians were discontented with the
+distribution of the captives, alleging that others had got more than
+their share; on which the whole troop were mustered together, and some
+changes of ownership were agreed upon. At this place dog-trains and
+sledges had been left, and these served to carry their wounded, as well
+as some of the captive children. Williams was stripped of the better
+part of his clothes, and others given him instead, so full of vermin
+that they were a torment to him through all the journey. The march now
+continued with pitiless speed up the frozen Connecticut, where the
+recent thaw had covered the ice with slush and water ankle-deep.
+
+On Sunday they made a halt, and the minister was permitted to preach a
+sermon from the text, "Hear, all people, and behold my sorrow: my
+virgins and my young men are gone into captivity." Then amid the ice,
+the snow, the forest, and the savages, his forlorn flock joined their
+voices in a psalm.[64] On Monday guns were heard from the rear, and the
+Indians and their allies, in great alarm, bound their prisoners fast,
+and prepared for battle. It proved, however, that the guns had been
+fired at wild geese by some of their own number; on which they recovered
+their spirits, fired a volley for joy, and boasted that the English
+could not overtake them.[65] More women fainted by the way and died
+under the hatchet,--some with pious resignation, some with despairing
+apathy, some with a desperate joy.
+
+Two hundred miles of wilderness still lay between them and the Canadian
+settlements. It was a waste without a house or even a wigwam, except
+here and there the bark shed of some savage hunter. At the mouth of
+White River, the party divided into small bands,--no doubt in order to
+subsist by hunting, for provisions were fast failing. The Williams
+family were separated. Stephen was carried up the Connecticut; Samuel
+and Eunice, with two younger children, were carried off in various
+directions; while the wretched father, along with two small children of
+one of his parishioners, was compelled to follow his Indian masters up
+the valley of White River. One of the children--a little girl--was
+killed on the next morning by her Caughnawaga owner, who was unable to
+carry her.[66] On the next Sunday the minister was left in camp with one
+Indian and the surviving child,--a boy of nine,--while the rest of the
+party were hunting. "My spirit," he says, "was almost overwhelmed within
+me." But he found comfort in the text, "Leave thy fatherless children, I
+will preserve them alive." Nor was his hope deceived. His youngest
+surviving child,--a boy of four,--though harshly treated by his owners,
+was carried on their shoulders or dragged on a sledge to the end of the
+journey. His youngest daughter--seven years old--was treated with great
+kindness throughout. Samuel and Eunice suffered much from hunger, but
+were dragged on sledges when too faint to walk. Stephen nearly starved
+to death; but after eight months in the forest, he safely reached
+Chambly with his Indian masters.
+
+Of the whole band of captives, only about half ever again saw friends
+and home. Seventeen broke down on the way and were killed; while David
+Hoyt and Jacob Hix died of starvation at Coos Meadows, on the upper
+Connecticut. During the entire march, no woman seems to have been
+subjected to violence; and this holds true, with rare exceptions, in all
+the Indian wars of New England. This remarkable forbearance towards
+female prisoners, so different from the practice of many western tribes,
+was probably due to a form of superstition, aided perhaps by the
+influence of the missionaries.[67] It is to be observed, however, that
+the heathen savages of King Philip's War, who had never seen a Jesuit,
+were no less forbearing in this respect.
+
+The hunters of Williams's party killed five moose, the flesh of which,
+smoked and dried, was carried on their backs and that of the prisoner
+whom they had provided with snow-shoes. Thus burdened, the minister
+toiled on, following his masters along the frozen current of White River
+till, crossing the snowy backs of the Green Mountains, they struck the
+headwaters of the stream then called French River, now the Winooski, or
+Onion. Being in great fear of a thaw, they pushed on with double speed.
+Williams was not used to snow-shoes, and they gave him those painful
+cramps of the legs and ankles called in Canada _mal à la raquette_. One
+morning at dawn he was waked by his chief master and ordered to get up,
+say his prayers, and eat his breakfast, for they must make a long march
+that day. The minister was in despair. "After prayer," he says, "I arose
+from my knees; but my feet were so tender, swollen, bruised, and full of
+pain that I could scarce stand upon them without holding on the wigwam.
+And when the Indians said, 'You must run to-day,' I answered I could not
+run. My master, pointing to his hatchet, said to me, 'Then I must dash
+out your brains and take your scalp.'" The Indian proved better than his
+word, and Williams was suffered to struggle on as he could. "God
+wonderfully supported me," he writes, "and my strength was restored and
+renewed to admiration." He thinks that he walked that day forty miles on
+the snow. Following the Winooski to its mouth, the party reached Lake
+Champlain a little north of the present city of Burlington. Here the
+swollen feet of the prisoner were tortured by the rough ice, till snow
+began to fall and cover it with a soft carpet. Bending under his load,
+and powdered by the falling flakes, he toiled on till, at noon of a
+Saturday, lean, tired, and ragged, he and his masters reached the French
+outpost of Chambly, twelve or fifteen miles from Montreal.
+
+Here the unhappy wayfarer was treated with great kindness both by the
+officers of the fort and by the inhabitants, one of the chief among whom
+lodged him in his house and welcomed him to his table. After a short
+stay at Chambly, Williams and his masters set out in a canoe for Sorel.
+On the way a Frenchwoman came down to the bank of the river and invited
+the party to her house, telling the minister that she herself had once
+been a prisoner among the Indians, and knew how to feel for him. She
+seated him at a table, spread a table-cloth, and placed food before him,
+while the Indians, to their great indignation, were supplied with a meal
+in the chimney-corner. Similar kindness was shown by the inhabitants
+along the way till the party reached their destination, the Abenaki
+village of St. Francis, to which his masters belonged. Here there was a
+fort, in which lived two Jesuits, directors of the mission, and here
+Williams found several English children, captured the summer before
+during the raid on the settlements of Maine, and already transformed
+into little Indians both in dress and behavior. At the gate of the fort
+one of the Jesuits met him, and asked him to go into the church and give
+thanks to God for sparing his life, to which he replied that he would
+give thanks in some other place. The priest then commanded him to go,
+which he refused to do. When on the next day the bell rang for mass, one
+of his Indian masters seized him and dragged him into the church, where
+he got behind the door, and watched the service from his retreat with
+extreme disapprobation. One of the Jesuits telling him that he would go
+to hell for not accepting the apostolic traditions, and trusting only in
+the Bible, he replied that he was glad to know that Christ was to be
+his judge, and not they. His chief master, who was a zealot in his way,
+and as much bound to the rites and forms of the Church as he had been
+before his conversion to his "medicines," or practices of heathen
+superstition, one day ordered him to make the sign of the cross, and on
+his refusal, tried to force him. But as the minister was tough and
+muscular, the Indian could not guide his hand. Then, pulling out a
+crucifix that hung at his neck, he told Williams in broken English to
+kiss it; and being again refused, he brandished his hatchet over him and
+threatened to knock out his brains. This failing of the desired effect,
+he threw down the hatchet and said he would first bite out the
+minister's finger-nails,--a form of torture then in vogue among the
+northern Indians, both converts and heathen. Williams offered him a hand
+and invited him to begin; on which he gave the thumb-nail a gripe with
+his teeth, and then let it go, saying, "No good minister, bad as the
+devil." The failure seems to have discouraged him, for he made no
+further attempt to convert the intractable heretic.
+
+The direct and simple narrative of Williams is plainly the work of an
+honest and courageous man. He was the most important capture of the
+year; and the governor, hearing that he was at St. Francis, despatched a
+canoe to request the Jesuits of the mission to send him to Montreal.
+Thither, therefore, his masters carried him, expecting, no doubt, a good
+price for their prisoner. Vaudreuil, in fact, bought him, exchanged his
+tattered clothes for good ones, lodged him in his house, and, in the
+words of Williams, "was in all respects relating to my outward man
+courteous and charitable to admiration." He sent for two of the
+minister's children who were in the town, bought his eldest daughter
+from the Indians, and promised to do what he could to get the others out
+of their hands. His youngest son was bought by a lady of the place, and
+his eldest by a merchant. His youngest daughter, Eunice, then seven or
+eight years old, was at the mission of St. Louis, or Caughnawaga.
+Vaudreuil sent a priest to conduct Williams thither and try to ransom
+the child. But the Jesuits of the mission flatly refused to let him
+speak to or see her. Williams says that Vaudreuil was very angry at
+hearing of this; and a few days after, he went himself to Caughnawaga
+with the minister. This time the Jesuits, whose authority within their
+mission seemed almost to override that of the governor himself, yielded
+so far as to permit the father to see his child, on condition that he
+spoke to no other English prisoner. He talked with her for an hour,
+exhorting her never to forget her catechism, which she had learned by
+rote. Vaudreuil and his wife afterwards did all in their power to
+procure her ransom; but the Indians, or the missionaries in their name,
+would not let her go. "She is there still," writes Williams two years
+later, "and has forgotten to speak English." What grieved him still
+more, Eunice had forgotten her catechism.
+
+While he was at Montreal, his movements were continually watched, lest
+he should speak to other prisoners and prevent their conversion. He
+thinks these precautions were due to the priests, whose constant
+endeavor it was to turn the captives, or at least the younger and more
+manageable among them, into Catholics and Canadians. The governor's
+kindness towards him never failed, though he told him that he should not
+be set free till the English gave up one Captain Baptiste, a noted
+sea-rover whom they had captured some time before.
+
+He was soon after sent down the river to Quebec along with the superior
+of the Jesuits. Here he lodged seven weeks with a member of the council,
+who treated him kindly, but told him that if he did not avoid
+intercourse with the other English prisoners he would be sent farther
+away. He saw much of the Jesuits, who courteously asked him to dine;
+though he says that one of them afterwards made some Latin verses about
+him, in which he was likened to a captive wolf. Another Jesuit told him
+that when the mission Indians set out on their raid against Deerfield,
+he charged them to baptize all children before killing them,--such, he
+said, was his desire for the salvation even of his enemies. To murdering
+the children after they were baptized, he appears to have made no
+objection. Williams says that in their dread lest he should prevent the
+conversion of the other prisoners, the missionaries promised him a
+pension from the King and free intercourse with his children and
+neighbors if he would embrace the Catholic faith and remain in Canada;
+to which he answered that he would do so without reward if he thought
+their religion was true, but as he believed the contrary, "the offer of
+the whole world would tempt him no more than a blackberry."
+
+To prevent him more effectually from perverting the minds of his captive
+countrymen, and fortifying them in their heresy, he was sent to Château
+Richer, a little below Quebec, and lodged with the parish priest, who
+was very kind to him. "I am persuaded," he writes, "that he abhorred
+their sending down the heathen to commit outrages against the English,
+saying it is more like committing murders than carrying on war."
+
+He was sorely tried by the incessant efforts to convert the prisoners.
+"Sometimes they would tell me my children, sometimes my neighbors, were
+turned to be of their religion. Some made it their work to allure poor
+souls by flatteries and great promises; some threatened, some offered
+abuse to such as refused to go to church and be present at mass; and
+some they industriously contrived to get married among them. I
+understood they would tell the English that I was turned, that they
+might gain them to change their religion. These their endeavors to
+seduce to popery were very exercising to me."
+
+After a time he was permitted to return to Quebec, where he met an
+English Franciscan, who, he says, had been sent from France to aid in
+converting the prisoners. Lest the minister should counteract the
+efforts of the friar, the priests had him sent back to Château Richer;
+"but," he observes, "God showed his dislike of such a persecuting
+spirit; for the very next day the Seminary, a very famous building, was
+most of it burnt down, by a joiner letting a coal of fire drop among the
+shavings."[68]
+
+The heaviest of all his tribulations now fell upon him. His son Samuel,
+about sixteen years old, had been kept at Montreal under the tutelage of
+Father Meriel, a priest of St. Sulpice. The boy afterwards declared that
+he was promised great rewards if he would make the sign of the cross,
+and severe punishment if he would not. Proving obstinate, he was whipped
+till at last he made the sign; after which he was told to go to mass,
+and on his refusal, four stout boys of the school were ordered to drag
+him in. Williams presently received a letter in Samuel's handwriting,
+though dictated, as the father believed, by his priestly tutors. In this
+was recounted, with many edifying particulars, the deathbed conversion
+of two New England women; and to the minister's unspeakable grief and
+horror, the messenger who brought the letter told him that the boy
+himself had turned Catholic. "I have heard the news," he wrote to his
+recreant son, "with the most distressing, afflicting, sorrowful spirit.
+Oh, I pity you, I mourn over you day and night. Oh, I pity your weakness
+that, through the craftiness of man, you are turned from the simplicity
+of the gospel." Though his correspondence was strictly watched, he
+managed to convey to the boy a long exposition, from his own pen, of the
+infallible truth of Calvinistic orthodoxy, and the damnable errors of
+Rome. This, or something else, had its effect. Samuel returned to the
+creed of his fathers; and being at last exchanged, went home to
+Deerfield, where he was chosen town-clerk in 1713, and where he soon
+after died.[69]
+
+Williams gives many particulars of the efforts of the priests to convert
+the prisoners, and his account, like the rest of his story, bears the
+marks of truth. There was a treble motive for conversion: it recruited
+the Church, weakened the enemy, and strengthened Canada, since few of
+the converts would peril their souls by returning to their heretic
+relatives. The means of conversion varied. They were gentle when
+gentleness seemed likely to answer the purpose. Little girls and young
+women were placed in convents, where it is safe to assume that they were
+treated with the most tender kindness by the sisterhood, who fully
+believed that to gain them to the faith was to snatch them from
+perdition. But when they or their brothers proved obdurate, different
+means were used. Threats of hell were varied by threats of a whipping,
+which, according to Williams, were often put into execution. Parents
+were rigorously severed from their families; though one Lalande, who
+had been sent to watch the elder prisoners, reported that they would
+persist in trying to see their children, till some of them were killed
+in the attempt. "Here," writes Williams, "might be a history in itself
+of the trials and sufferings of many of our children, who, after
+separation from grown persons, have been made to do as they would have
+them. I mourned when I thought with myself that I had one child with the
+Maquas [Caughnawagas], a second turned papist, and a little child of six
+years of age in danger to be instructed in popery, and knew full well
+that all endeavors would be used to prevent my seeing or speaking with
+them." He also says that he and others were told that if they would turn
+Catholic their children should be restored to them; and among other
+devices, some of his parishioners were assured that their pastor himself
+had seen the error of his ways and bowed in submission to Holy Church.
+
+In midwinter, not quite a year after their capture, the prisoners were
+visited by a gleam of hope. John Sheldon, accompanied by young John
+Wells, of Deerfield, and Captain Livingston, of Albany, came to Montreal
+with letters from Governor Dudley, proposing an exchange. Sheldon's wife
+and infant child, his brother-in-law, and his son-in-law had been
+killed. Four of his children, with his daughter-in-law, Hannah,--the
+same who had sprained her ankle in leaping from her chamber
+window,--besides others of his near relatives and connections, were
+prisoners in Canada; and so also was the mother of young Wells. In the
+last December, Sheldon and Wells had gone to Boston and begged to be
+sent as envoys to the French governor. The petition was readily granted,
+and Livingston, who chanced to be in the town, was engaged to accompany
+them. After a snow-shoe journey of extreme hardship they reached their
+destination, and were received with courtesy by Vaudreuil. But
+difficulties arose. The French, and above all the clergy, were unwilling
+to part with captives, many of whom they hoped to transform into
+Canadians by conversion and adoption. Many also were in the hands of the
+Indians, who demanded payment for them,--which Dudley had always
+refused, declaring that he would not "set up an Algiers trade" by buying
+them from their pretended owners; and he wrote to Vaudreuil that for his
+own part he "would never permit a savage to tell him that any Christian
+prisoner was at his disposal." Vaudreuil had insisted that his Indians
+could not be compelled to give up their captives, since they were not
+subjects of France, but only allies,--which, so far as concerned the
+mission Indians within the colony, was but a pretext. It is true,
+however, that the French authorities were in such fear of offending even
+these that they rarely ventured to cross their interests or their
+passions. Other difficulties were raised, and though the envoys remained
+in Canada till late in spring, they accomplished little. At last,
+probably to get rid of their importunities, five prisoners were given
+up to them,--Sheldon's daughter-in-law, Hannah; Esther Williams, eldest
+daughter of the minister; a certain Ebenezer Carter; and two others
+unknown. With these, Sheldon and his companions set out in May on their
+return; and soon after they were gone, four young men,--Baker, Nims,
+Kellogg, and Petty,--desperate at being left in captivity, made their
+escape from Montreal, and reached Deerfield before the end of June, half
+dead with hunger.
+
+Sheldon and his party were escorted homeward by eight soldiers under
+Courtemanche, an officer of distinction, whose orders were to "make
+himself acquainted with the country." He fell ill at Boston, where he
+was treated with much kindness, and on his recovery was sent home by
+sea, along with Captain Vetch and Samuel Hill, charged to open a fresh
+negotiation. With these, at the request of Courtemanche, went young
+William Dudley, son of the governor.[70]
+
+They were received at Quebec with a courtesy qualified by extreme
+caution, lest they should spy out the secrets of the land. The mission
+was not very successful, though the elder Dudley had now a good number
+of French prisoners in his hands, captured in Acadia or on the adjacent
+seas. A few only of the English were released, including the boy,
+Stephen Williams, whom Vaudreuil had bought for forty crowns from his
+Indian master.
+
+In the following winter John Sheldon made another journey on foot to
+Canada, with larger powers than before. He arrived in March, 1706, and
+returned with forty-four of his released countrymen, who, says Williams,
+were chiefly adults permitted to go because there was no hope of
+converting them. The English governor had by this time seen the
+necessity of greater concessions, and had even consented to release the
+noted Captain Baptiste, whom the Boston merchants regarded as a pirate.
+In the same summer Samuel Appleton and John Bonner, in the brigantine
+"Hope," brought a considerable number of French prisoners to Quebec, and
+returned to Boston at the end of October with fifty-seven English, of
+all ages. For three, at least, of this number money was paid by the
+English, probably on account of prisoners bought by Frenchmen from the
+Indians. The minister, Williams, was exchanged for Baptiste, the
+so-called pirate, and two of his children were also redeemed, though the
+Caughnawagas, or their missionaries, refused to part with his daughter
+Eunice. Williams says that the priests made great efforts to induce the
+prisoners to remain in Canada, tempting some with the prospect of
+pensions from the King, and frightening others with promises of
+damnation, joined with predictions of shipwreck on the way home. He
+thinks that about one hundred were left in Canada, many of whom were
+children in the hands of the Indians, who could easily hide them in the
+woods, and who were known in some cases to have done so. Seven more were
+redeemed in the following year by the indefatigable Sheldon, on a third
+visit to Canada.[71]
+
+The exchanged prisoners had been captured at various times and places.
+Those from Deerfield amounted in all to about sixty, or a little more
+than half the whole number carried off. Most of the others were dead or
+converted. Some married Canadians, and others their fellow-captives. The
+history of some of them can be traced with certainty. Thus, Thomas
+French, blacksmith and town clerk of Deerfield, and deacon of the
+church, was captured, with his wife and six children. His wife and
+infant child were killed on the way to Canada. He and his two eldest
+children were exchanged and brought home. His daughter Freedom was
+converted, baptized under the name of Marie Françoise, and married to
+Jean Daulnay, a Canadian. His daughter Martha was baptized as
+Marguerite, and married to Jacques Roy, on whose death she married Jean
+Louis Ménard, by whom she became ancestress of Joseph Plessis, eleventh
+bishop of Quebec. Elizabeth Corse, eight years old when captured, was
+baptized under her own name, and married to Jean Dumontel. Abigail
+Stebbins, baptized as Marguerite, lived many years at Boucherville, wife
+of Jacques de Noyon, a sergeant in the colony troops. The widow, Sarah
+Hurst, whose youngest child, Benjamin, had been murdered on the
+Deerfield meadows, was baptized as Marie Jeanne.[72] Joanna Kellogg,
+eleven years old when taken, married a Caughnawaga chief, and became, at
+all points, an Indian squaw.
+
+She was not alone in this strange transformation. Eunice Williams, the
+namesake of her slaughtered mother, remained in the wigwams of the
+Caughnawagas, forgot, as we have seen, her English and her catechism,
+was baptized, and in due time married to an Indian of the tribe, who
+thenceforward called himself Williams. Thus her hybrid children bore her
+family name. Her father, who returned to his parish at Deerfield, and
+her brother Stephen, who became a minister like his parent, never ceased
+to pray for her return to her country and her faith. Many years after,
+in 1740, she came with her husband to visit her relatives in Deerfield,
+dressed as a squaw and wrapped in an Indian blanket. Nothing would
+induce her to stay, though she was persuaded on one occasion to put on a
+civilized dress and go to church; after which she impatiently discarded
+her gown and resumed her blanket. As she was kindly treated by her
+relatives, and as no attempt was made to detain her against her will,
+she came again in the next year, bringing two of her half-breed
+children, and twice afterwards repeated the visit. She and her husband
+were offered a tract of land if they would settle in New England; but
+she positively refused, saying that it would endanger her soul. She
+lived to a great age, a squaw to the last.[73]
+
+One of her grandsons, Eleazer Williams, turned Protestant, was educated
+at Dartmouth College at the charge of friends in New England, and was
+for a time missionary to the Indians of Green Bay, in Wisconsin. His
+character for veracity was not of the best. He deceived the excellent
+antiquarian, Hoyt, by various inventions touching the attack on
+Deerfield, and in the latter part of his life tried to pass himself off
+as the lost Dauphin, son of Louis XVI.[74]
+
+Here it may be observed that the descendants of young captives brought
+into Canada by the mission Indians during the various wars with the
+English colonies became a considerable element in the Canadian
+population. Perhaps the most prominent example is that of the Gill
+family. In June, 1697, a boy named Samuel Gill, then in his tenth year,
+was captured by the Abenakis at Salisbury in Massachusetts, carried to
+St. Francis, and converted. Some years later he married a young English
+girl, said to have been named James, and to have been captured at
+Kennebunk.[75] In 1866 the late Abbé Maurault, missionary at St.
+Francis, computed their descendants at nine hundred and fifty-two, in
+whose veins French, English, and Abenaki blood were mixed in every
+conceivable proportion. He gives the tables of genealogy in full, and
+says that two hundred and thirteen of this prolific race still bear the
+surname of Gill. "If," concludes the worthy priest, "one should trace
+out all the English families brought into Canada by the Abenakis, one
+would be astonished at the number of persons who to-day are indebted to
+these savages for the blessing of being Catholics and the advantage of
+being Canadians,"[76]--an advantage for which French-Canadians are so
+ungrateful that they migrate to the United States by myriads.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[53] _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 14 Novembre, 1703_; _Ibid., 3 Avril, 1704_;
+_Vaudreuil et Beauharnois au Ministre 17 Novembre, 1704_. French writers
+say that the English surprised and killed some of the Abenakis, who
+thereupon asked help from Canada. This perhaps refers to the expeditions
+of Colonel March and Captain Tyng, who, after the bloody attacks upon
+the settlements of Maine, made reprisal upon Abenaki camps.
+
+[54] English accounts make the whole number 342.
+
+[55] Stephen W. Williams, _Biographical Memoir of Rev. John Williams_.
+
+[56] _Account of ye destruction at Derefd, February 29, 1703/4._
+
+[57] Papers in the Archives of Massachusetts. Among these, a letter of
+Rev. John Williams to the governor, 21 October, 1703, states that the
+palisade is rotten, and must be rebuilt.
+
+[58] The names of nearly all the inhabitants are preserved, and even the
+ages of most of them have been ascertained, through the indefatigable
+research of Mr. George Sheldon, of Deerfield, among contemporary
+records. The house of Thomas French, the town clerk, was not destroyed,
+and his papers were saved.
+
+[59] On the thirty-first of May, 1704, Jonathan Wells and Ebenezer
+Wright petitioned the General Court for compensation for the losses of
+those who drove the enemy out of Deerfield and chased them into the
+meadow. The petition, which was granted, gives an account of the affair,
+followed by a list of all the men engaged. They number fifty-seven,
+including the nine who were killed. A list of the plunder retaken from
+the enemy, consisting of guns, blankets, hatchets, etc., is also added.
+Several other petitions for the relief of men wounded at the same time
+are preserved in the archives of Massachusetts. In 1736 the survivors of
+the party, with the representatives of those who had died, petitioned
+the General Court for allotments of land, in recognition of their
+services. This petition also was granted. It is accompanied by a
+narrative written by Wells. These and other papers on the same subject
+have been recently printed by Mr. George Sheldon, of Deerfield.
+
+[60] After the old house was demolished, this door was purchased by my
+friend Dr. Daniel Denison Slade, and given by him to the town of
+Deerfield, on condition that it should be carefully preserved. For an
+engraving of "the Old Indian House," see Hoyt, _Indian Wars_ (ed. 1824).
+
+[61] Governor Dudley, writing to Lord ---- on 21 April, 1704, says that
+thirty dead bodies of the enemy were found in the village and on the
+meadow. Williams, the minister, says that they did not seem inclined to
+rejoice over their success, and continued for several days to bury
+members of their party who died of wounds on the return march. He adds
+that he learned in Canada that they lost more than forty, though
+Vaudreuil assured him that they lost but eleven.
+
+[62] On the attack of Deerfield, see Williams, _The Redeemed Captive
+Returning to Zion_. This is the narrative of the minister, John
+Williams. _Account of the Captivity of Stephen Williams, written by
+himself._ This is the narrative of one of the minister's sons, eleven
+years old when captured. It is printed in the Appendix to the
+_Biographical Memoir of Rev. John Williams_ (Hartford, 1837); _An
+account of ye destruction at Derefd. febr. 29, 1703/4_, in
+_Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc._, 1867, p. 478. This valuable
+document was found among the papers of Fitz-John Winthrop, governor of
+Connecticut. The authorities of that province, on hearing of the
+catastrophe at Deerfield, promptly sent an armed force to its relief,
+which, however, could not arrive till long after the enemy were gone.
+The paper in question seems to be the official report of one of the
+Connecticut officers. After recounting what had taken place, he gives a
+tabular list of the captives, the slain, and those who escaped, with the
+estimated losses in property of each inhabitant. The list of captives is
+not quite complete. Compare the lists given by Stephen Williams at the
+end of his narrative. The town records of Hatfield give various
+particulars concerning the attack on its unfortunate neighbor, as do the
+letters of Colonel Samuel Partridge, commanding the militia of the
+county. Hoyt, _Antiquarian Researches_, gives a valuable account of it.
+The careful and unwearied research of Mr. George Sheldon, the lineal
+descendant of Ensign John Sheldon, among all sources, public or private,
+manuscript or in print, that could throw light on the subject cannot be
+too strongly commended, and I am indebted to him for much valued
+information.
+
+Penhallow's short account is inexact, and many of the more recent
+narratives are not only exaggerated, but sometimes absurdly incorrect.
+
+The French notices of the affair are short, and give few particulars.
+Vaudreuil in one letter sets the number of prisoners at one hundred and
+fifty, and increases it in another to two hundred and fifty. Ramesay,
+governor of Montreal, who hated Hertel de Rouville, and bore no love to
+Vaudreuil, says that fifty-six women and children were murdered on the
+way to Canada,--which is a gross exaggeration. (_Ramesay au Ministre, 14
+Novembre, 1704._) The account by Dr. Ethier in the _Revue Canadienne_ of
+1874 is drawn entirely from the _Redeemed Captive_ of Williams, with
+running comments by the Canadian writer, but no new information. The
+comments chiefly consist in praise of Williams for truth when he speaks
+favorably of the Canadians, and charges of lying when he speaks
+otherwise.
+
+[63] John Williams, _The Redeemed Captive_. Compare Stephen Williams,
+_Account of the Captivity_, etc.
+
+[64] The small stream at the mouth of which Williams is supposed to have
+preached is still called Williams River.
+
+[65] Stephen Williams, _Account of the Captivity_, etc. His father also
+notices the incident.
+
+[66] The name Macquas (Mohawks) is always given to the Caughnawagas by
+the elder Williams.
+
+[67] The Iroquois are well known to have had superstitions in connection
+with sexual abstinence.
+
+[68] Williams remarks that the Seminary had also been burned three years
+before. This was the fire of November, 1701. See "Old Régime in Canada,"
+451.
+
+[69] Note of Mr. George Sheldon.
+
+[70] The elder Dudley speaks with great warmth of Courtemanche, who, on
+his part, seems equally pleased with his entertainers. Young Dudley was
+a boy of eighteen. "Il a du mérite," says Vaudreuil. _Dudley to
+Vaudreuil, 4 July, 1705; Vaudreuil au Ministre, 19 Octobre, 1705._
+
+[71] In 1878 Miss C. Alice Baker, of Cambridge, Mass., a descendant of
+Abigail Stebbins, read a paper on John Sheldon before the Memorial
+Association at Deerfield. It is the result of great research, and
+contains much original matter, including correspondence between Sheldon
+and the captives when in Canada, as well as a full and authentic account
+of his several missions. Mr. George Sheldon has also traced out with
+great minuteness the history of his ancestor's negotiations.
+
+[72] The above is drawn mainly from extracts made by Miss Baker from the
+registers of the Church of Notre Dame at Montreal. Many of the acts of
+baptism bear the signature of Father Meriel, so often mentioned in the
+narrative of Williams. Apparently, Meriel spoke English. At least there
+is a letter in English from him, relating to Eunice Williams, in the
+Massachusetts Archives, vol. 51. Some of the correspondence between
+Dudley and Vaudreuil concerning exchange of prisoners will be found
+among the Paris documents in the State House at Boston. Copies of these
+papers were printed at Quebec in 1883-1885, though with many
+inaccuracies.
+
+[73] Stephen W. Williams, _Memoir of the Rev. John Williams_, 53.
+_Sermon preached at Mansfield, August 4, 1741, on behalf of Mrs. Eunice,
+the daughter of Rev. John Williams; by Solomon Williams, A.M._ _Letter
+of Mrs. Colton, great granddaughter of John Williams_ (in appendix to
+the _Memoir of Rev. John Williams_).
+
+[74] I remember to have seen Eleazer Williams at my father's house in
+Boston, when a boy. My impression of him is that of a good-looking and
+somewhat portly man, showing little trace of Indian blood, and whose
+features, I was told, resembled those of the Bourbons. Probably this
+likeness, real or imagined, suggested the imposition he was practising
+at the time. The story of the "Bell of St. Regis" is probably another of
+his inventions. It is to the effect that the bell of the church at
+Deerfield was carried by the Indians to the mission of St. Regis, and
+that it is there still. But there is reason to believe that there was no
+church bell at Deerfield, and it is certain that St. Regis did not exist
+till more than a half-century after Deerfield was attacked. It has been
+said that the story is true, except that the name of Caughnawaga should
+be substituted for that of St. Regis; but the evidence for this
+conjecture is weak. On the legend of the bell, see Le Moine, _Maple
+Leaves, New Series_ (1873), 29; _Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc._,
+1869, 1870, 311; _Hist. Mag. 2d Series_, ix. 401. Hough, _Hist. St.
+Lawrence and Franklin Counties_, 116, gives the story without criticism.
+
+[75] The earlier editions of this book follow, in regard to Samuel Gill,
+the statements of Maurault, which are erroneous, as has been proved by
+the careful and untiring research of Miss C. Alice Baker, to whose
+kindness I owe the means of correcting them. Papers in the archives of
+Massachusetts leave no doubt as to the time and place of Samuel Gill's
+capture.
+
+[76] Maurault, _Hist. des Abenakis_, 377. I am indebted to R. A. Ramsay,
+Esq., of Montreal, for a paper on the Gill family, by Mr. Charles Gill,
+who confirms the statements of Maurault so far as relates to the
+genealogies.
+
+John and Zechariah Tarbell, captured when boys at Groton, became
+Caughnawaga chiefs; and one of them, about 1760, founded the mission of
+St. Regis. Green, _Groton during the Indian Wars_, 116, 117-120.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+1704-1713.
+
+THE TORMENTED FRONTIER.
+
+Border Raids.--Haverhill.--Attack and Defence.--War to the
+Knife.--Motives of the French.--Proposed Neutrality.--Joseph
+Dudley.--Town and Country.
+
+
+I have told the fate of Deerfield in full, as an example of the
+desolating raids which for years swept the borders of Massachusetts and
+New Hampshire. The rest of the miserable story may be passed more
+briefly. It is in the main a weary detail of the murder of one, two,
+three, or more men, women, or children waylaid in fields, woods, and
+lonely roads, or surprised in solitary cabins. Sometimes the attacks
+were on a larger scale. Thus, not long after the capture of Deerfield, a
+band of fifty or more Indians fell at dawn of day on a hamlet of five
+houses near Northampton. The alarm was sounded, and they were pursued.
+Eight of the prisoners were rescued, and three escaped; most of the
+others being knocked in the head by their captors. At Oyster River the
+Indians attacked a loopholed house, in which the women of the
+neighboring farms had taken refuge while the men were at work in the
+fields. The women disguised themselves in hats and jackets, fired from
+the loopholes, and drove off the assailants. In 1709 a hundred and
+eighty French and Indians again attacked Deerfield, but failed to
+surprise it, and were put to flight. At Dover, on a Sunday, while the
+people were at church, a scalping-party approached a fortified house,
+the garrison of which consisted of one woman,--Esther Jones, who, on
+seeing them, called out to an imaginary force within, "Here they are!
+come on! come on!" on which the Indians disappeared.
+
+Soon after the capture of Deerfield, the French authorities, being,
+according to the prisoner Williams, "wonderfully lifted up with pride,"
+formed a grand war-party, and assured the minister that they would catch
+so many prisoners that they should not know what to do with them.
+Beaucour, an officer of great repute, had chief command, and his force
+consisted of between seven and eight hundred men, of whom about a
+hundred and twenty were French, and the rest mission Indians.[77] They
+declared that they would lay waste all the settlements on the
+Connecticut,--meaning, it seems, to begin with Hatfield. "This army,"
+says Williams, "went away in such a boasting, triumphant manner that I
+had great hopes God would discover and disappoint their designs." In
+fact, their plans came to nought, owing, according to French accounts,
+to the fright of the Indians; for a soldier having deserted within a
+day's march of the English settlements, most of them turned back,
+despairing of a surprise, and the rest broke up into small parties to
+gather scalps on the outlying farms.[78]
+
+In the summer of 1708 there was a more successful attempt. The converts
+of all the Canadian missions were mustered at Montreal, where Vaudreuil,
+by exercising, as he says, "the patience of an angel," soothed their
+mutual jealousies and persuaded them to go upon a war-party against
+Newbury, Portsmouth, and other New England villages. Fortunately for the
+English, the Caughnawagas were only half-hearted towards the enterprise;
+and through them the watchful Peter Schuyler got hints of it which
+enabled him, at the eleventh hour, to set the intended victims on their
+guard. The party consisted of about four hundred, of whom one hundred
+were French, under twelve young officers and cadets; the whole commanded
+by Saint-Ours des Chaillons and Hertel de Rouville. For the sake of
+speed and secrecy, they set out in three bodies, by different routes.
+The rendezvous was at Lake Winnepesaukee, where they were to be joined
+by the Norridgewocks, Penobscots, and other eastern Abenakis. The
+Caughnawagas and Hurons turned back by reason of evil omens and a
+disease which broke out among them. The rest met on the shores of the
+lake,--probably at Alton Bay,--where, after waiting in vain for their
+eastern allies, they resolved to make no attempt on Portsmouth or
+Newbury, but to turn all their strength upon the smaller village of
+Haverhill, on the Merrimac. Advancing quickly under cover of night, they
+made their onslaught at half an hour before dawn, on Sunday, the
+twenty-ninth of August.
+
+Haverhill consisted of between twenty and thirty dwelling-houses, a
+meeting-house, and a small picket fort. A body of militia from the lower
+Massachusetts towns had been hastily distributed along the frontier, on
+the vague reports of danger sent by Schuyler from Albany; and as the
+intended point of attack was unknown, the men were of necessity widely
+scattered. French accounts say that there were thirty of them in the
+fort at Haverhill, and more in the houses of the villagers; while others
+still were posted among the distant farms and hamlets.
+
+In spite of darkness and surprise, the assailants met a stiff resistance
+and a hot and persistent fusillade. Vaudreuil says that they could
+dislodge the defenders only by setting fire to both houses and fort. In
+this they were not very successful, as but few of the dwellings were
+burned. A fire was kindled against the meeting-house, which was saved by
+one Davis and a few others, who made a dash from behind the adjacent
+parsonage, drove the Indians off, and put out the flames. Rolfe, the
+minister, had already been killed while defending his house. His wife
+and one of his children were butchered; but two others--little girls of
+six and eight years--were saved by the self-devotion of his
+maid-servant, Hagar, apparently a negress, who dragged them into the
+cellar and hid them under two inverted tubs, where they crouched, dumb
+with terror, while the Indians ransacked the place without finding them.
+English accounts say that the number of persons killed--men, women, and
+children--was forty-eight; which the French increase to a hundred.
+
+The distant roll of drums was presently heard, warning the people on the
+scattered farms; on which the assailants made a hasty retreat. Posted
+near Haverhill were three militia officers,--Turner, Price, and
+Gardner,--lately arrived from Salem. With such men as they had with
+them, or could hastily get together, they ambushed themselves at the
+edge of a piece of woods, in the path of the retiring enemy, to the
+number, as the French say, of sixty or seventy, which it is safe to
+diminish by a half. The French and Indians, approaching rapidly, were
+met by a volley which stopped them for the moment; then, throwing down
+their packs, they rushed on, and after a sharp skirmish broke through
+the ambuscade and continued their retreat. Vaudreuil sets their total
+loss at eight killed and eighteen wounded,--the former including two
+officers, Verchères and Chambly. He further declares that in the
+skirmish all the English, except ten or twelve, were killed outright;
+while the English accounts say that the French and Indians took to the
+woods, leaving nine of their number dead on the spot, along with their
+medicine chest and all their packs.[79]
+
+Scarcely a hamlet of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire borders escaped
+a visit from the nimble enemy. Groton, Lancaster, Exeter, Dover,
+Kittery, Casco, Kingston, York, Berwick, Wells, Winter Harbor,
+Brookfield, Amesbury, Marlborough, were all more or less infested,
+usually by small scalping-parties, hiding in the outskirts, waylaying
+stragglers, or shooting men at work in the fields, and disappearing as
+soon as their blow was struck. These swift and intangible persecutors
+were found a far surer and more effectual means of annoyance than larger
+bodies. As all the warriors were converts of the Canadian missions, and
+as prisoners were an article of value, cases of torture were not very
+common; though now and then, as at Exeter, they would roast some poor
+wretch alive, or bite off his fingers and sear the stumps with red-hot
+tobacco pipes.
+
+This system of petty, secret, and transient attack put the impoverished
+colonies to an immense charge in maintaining a cordon of militia along
+their northern frontier,--a precaution often as vain as it was costly;
+for the wily savages, covered by the forest, found little difficulty in
+dodging the scouting-parties, pouncing on their victims, and escaping.
+Rewards were offered for scalps; but one writer calculates that, all
+things considered, it cost Massachusetts a thousand pounds of her
+currency to kill an Indian.[80]
+
+In 1703-1704 six hundred men were kept ranging the woods all winter
+without finding a single Indian, the enemy having deserted their usual
+haunts and sought refuge with the French, to emerge in February for the
+destruction of Deerfield. In the next summer nineteen hundred men were
+posted along two hundred miles of frontier.[81] This attitude of passive
+defence exasperated the young men of Massachusetts, and it is said that
+five hundred of them begged Dudley for leave to make a raid into Canada,
+on the characteristic condition of choosing their own officers. The
+governor consented; but on a message from Peter Schuyler that he had at
+last got a promise from the Caughnawagas and other mission Indians to
+attack the New England borders no more, the raid was countermanded, lest
+it should waken the tempest anew.[82]
+
+What was the object of these murderous attacks, which stung the enemy
+without disabling him, confirmed the Indians in their native savagery,
+and taught the French to emulate it? In the time of Frontenac there was
+a palliating motive for such barbarous warfare. Canada was then
+prostrate and stunned under the blows of the Iroquois war. Successful
+war-parties were needed as a tonic and a stimulant to rouse the dashed
+spirits of French and Indians alike; but the remedy was a dangerous one,
+and it drew upon the colony the attack under Sir William Phips, which
+was near proving its ruin. At present there was no such pressing call
+for butchering women, children, and peaceful farmers. The motive, such
+as it was, lay in the fear that the Indian allies of France might pass
+over to the English, or at least stand neutral. These allies were the
+Christian savages of the missions, who, all told, from the Caughnawagas
+to the Micmacs, could hardly have mustered a thousand warriors. The
+danger was that the Caughnawagas, always open to influence from Albany,
+might be induced to lay down the hatchet and persuade the rest to follow
+their example. Therefore, as there was for the time a virtual truce with
+New York, no pains were spared to commit them irrevocably to war against
+New England. With the Abenaki tribes of Maine and New Hampshire the need
+was still more urgent, for they were continually drawn to New England by
+the cheapness and excellence of English goods; and the only sure means
+to prevent their trading with the enemy was to incite them to kill him.
+Some of these savages had been settled in Canada, to keep them under
+influence and out of temptation; but the rest were still in their native
+haunts, where it was thought best to keep them well watched by their
+missionaries, as sentinels and outposts to the colony.
+
+There were those among the French to whom this barbarous warfare was
+repugnant. The minister, Ponchartrain, by no means a person of tender
+scruples, also condemned it for a time. After the attack on Wells and
+other places under Beaubassin in 1703, he wrote: "It would have been
+well if this expedition had not taken place. I have certain knowledge
+that the English want only peace, knowing that war is contrary to the
+interests of all the colonies. Hostilities in Canada have always been
+begun by the French."[83] Afterwards, when these bloody raids had
+produced their natural effect and spurred the sufferers to attempt the
+ending of their woes once for all by the conquest of Canada,
+Ponchartrain changed his mind and encouraged the sending out of
+war-parties, to keep the English busy at home.
+
+The schemes of a radical cure date from the attack on Deerfield and the
+murders of the following summer. In the autumn we find Governor Dudley
+urging the capture of Quebec. "In the last two years," he says, "the
+Assembly of Massachusetts has spent about £50,000 in defending the
+Province, whereas three or four of the Queen's ships and fifteen hundred
+New England men would rid us of the French and make further outlay
+needless,"--a view, it must be admitted, sufficiently sanguine.[84]
+
+But before seeking peace with the sword, Dudley tried less strenuous
+methods. It may be remembered that in 1705 Captain Vetch and Samuel
+Hill, together with the governor's young son William, went to Quebec to
+procure an exchange of prisoners. Their mission had also another object.
+Vetch carried a letter from Dudley to Vaudreuil, proposing a treaty of
+neutrality between their respective colonies, and Vaudreuil seems to
+have welcomed the proposal. Notwithstanding the pacific relations
+between Canada and New York, he was in constant fear that Dutch and
+English influence might turn the Five Nations into open enemies of the
+French; and he therefore declared himself ready to accept the proposals
+of Dudley, on condition that New York and the other English colonies
+should be included in the treaty, and that the English should be
+excluded from fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Acadian seas.
+The first condition was difficult, and the second impracticable; for
+nothing could have induced the people of New England to accept it.
+Vaudreuil, moreover, would not promise to give up prisoners in the hands
+of the Indians, but only to do what he could to persuade their owners to
+give them up. The negotiations dragged on for several years. For the
+first three or four months Vaudreuil stopped his war-parties; but he let
+them loose again in the spring, and the New England borders were
+tormented as before.
+
+The French governor thought that the New England country people, who had
+to bear the brunt of the war, were ready to accept his terms. The French
+court approved the plan, though not without distrust; for some enemy of
+the governor told Ponchartrain that under pretence of negotiations he
+and Dudley were carrying on trading speculations,--which is certainly a
+baseless slander.[85] Vaudreuil on his part had strongly suspected
+Dudley's emissary, Vetch, of illicit trade during his visit to Quebec;
+and perhaps there was ground for the suspicion. It is certain that
+Vetch, who had visited the St. Lawrence before, lost no opportunity of
+studying the river, and looked forward to a time when he could turn his
+knowledge to practical account.[86]
+
+Joseph Dudley, governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, was the son
+of a former governor of Massachusetts,--that upright, sturdy, narrow,
+bigoted old Puritan, Thomas Dudley, in whose pocket was found after his
+death the notable couplet,--
+
+    "Let men of God in courts and churches watch
+    O'er such as do a toleration hatch."
+
+Such a son of such a father was the marvel of New England. Those who
+clung to the old traditions and mourned for the old theocracy under the
+old charter, hated Joseph Dudley as a renegade; and the worshippers of
+the Puritans have not forgiven him to this day. He had been president of
+the council under the detested Andros, and when that representative of
+the Stuarts was overthrown by a popular revolution, both he and Dudley
+were sent prisoners to England. Here they found a reception different
+from the expectations and wishes of those who sent them. Dudley became a
+member of Parliament and lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Wight, and
+was at length, in the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne, sent back to
+govern those who had cast him out. Any governor imposed on them by
+England would have been an offence; but Joseph Dudley was more than they
+could bear.
+
+He found bitter opposition from the old Puritan party. The two Mathers,
+father and son, who through policy had at first favored him, soon
+denounced him with insolent malignity, and the honest and conscientious
+Samuel Sewall regarded him with as much asperity as his kindly nature
+would permit. To the party of religious and political independency he
+was an abomination, and great efforts were made to get him recalled. Two
+pamphlets of the time, one printed in 1707 and the other in the next
+year, reflect the bitter animosity he excited.[87] Both seem to be the
+work of several persons, one of whom, there can be little doubt, was
+Cotton Mather; for it is not easy to mistake the mingled flippancy and
+pedantry of his style. He bore the governor a grudge, for Dudley had
+chafed him in his inordinate vanity and love of power.
+
+If Dudley loved himself first, he loved his native New England next, and
+was glad to serve her if he could do so in his own way and without too
+much sacrifice of his own interests. He was possessed by a restless
+ambition, apparently of the cheap kind that prefers the first place in a
+small community to the second in a large one. He was skilled in the arts
+of the politician, and knew how, by attentions, dinners, or commissions
+in the militia, to influence his Council and Assembly to do his will.
+His abilities were beyond question, and his manners easy and graceful;
+but his instincts were arbitrary. He stood fast for prerogative, and
+even his hereditary Calvinism had strong Episcopal leanings. He was a
+man of the world in the better as well as the worse sense of the term;
+was loved and admired by some as much as he was hated by others; and in
+the words of one of his successors, "had as many virtues as can consist
+with so great a thirst for honor and power."[88]
+
+His enemies, however, set no bounds to their denunciation. "All the
+people here are bought and sold betwixt the governour and his son Paul,"
+says one. "It is my belief," says another, probably Cotton Mather, "that
+he means to help the French and Indians to destroy all they can." And
+again, "He is a criminal governour.... His God is Mammon, his aim is the
+ruin of his country." The meagreness and uncertainty of his salary,
+which was granted by yearly votes of the Assembly, gave color to the
+charge that he abused his official position to improve his income. The
+worst accusation against him was that of conniving in trade with the
+French and Indians under pretence of exchanging prisoners. Six prominent
+men of the colony--Borland, Vetch, Lawson, Rous, Phillips, and Coffin,
+only three of whom were of New England origin--were brought to trial
+before the Assembly for trading at Port Royal; and it was said that
+Dudley, though he had no direct share in the business, found means to
+make profit from it. All the accused were convicted and fined. The more
+strenuous of their judges were for sending them to jail, and Rous was
+to have been sentenced to "sit an hour upon the gallows with a rope
+about his neck;" but the governor and council objected to these
+severities, and the Assembly forbore to impose them. The popular
+indignation against the accused was extreme, and probably not without
+cause.[89] There was no doubt an illicit trade between Boston and the
+French of Acadia, who during the war often depended on their enemies for
+the necessaries of life, since supplies from France, precarious at the
+best, were made doubly so by New England cruisers. Thus the Acadians and
+their Indian allies were but too happy to exchange their furs for very
+modest supplies of tools, utensils, and perhaps, at times, of arms,
+powder, and lead.[90] What with privateering and illicit trade, it was
+clear that the war was a source of profit to some of the chief persons
+in Boston. That place, moreover, felt itself tolerably safe from attack,
+while the borders were stung from end to end as by a swarm of wasps;
+and thus the country conceived the idea that the town was fattening at
+its expense. Vaudreuil reports to the minister that the people of New
+England want to avenge themselves by an attack on Canada, but that their
+chief men are for a policy of defence. This was far from being wholly
+true; but the notion that the rural population bore a grudge against
+Boston had taken strong hold of the French, who even believed that if
+the town were attacked, the country would not move hand or foot to help
+it. Perhaps it was well for them that they did not act on the belief,
+which, as afterwards appeared, was one of their many mistakes touching
+the character and disposition of their English neighbors.
+
+The sentences on Borland and his five companions were annulled by the
+Queen and Council, on the ground that the Assembly was not competent to
+try the case.[91] The passionate charges against Dudley and a petition
+to the Queen for his removal were equally unavailing. The Assemblies of
+Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the chief merchants, the officers of
+militia, and many of the ministers sent addresses to the Queen in praise
+of the governor's administration;[92] and though his enemies declared
+that the votes and signatures were obtained by the arts familiar to him,
+his recall was prevented, and he held his office seven years longer.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[77] _Vaudreuil et Beauharnois au Ministre, 17 Novembre, 1704._
+
+[78] _Vaudreuil et Beauharnois au Ministre, 17 Novembre, 1704_;
+_Vaudreuil au Ministre, 16 Novembre, 1704_; _Ramesay au Ministre, 14
+Novembre, 1704_. Compare Penhallow.
+
+[79] _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Novembre, 1708_; _Vaudreuil et Raudot au
+Ministre, 14 Novembre, 1708_; Hutchinson, ii. 156; _Mass. Hist. Coll. 2d
+Series_, iv. 129; Sewall, _Diary_, ii. 234. Penhallow.
+
+[80] The rewards for scalps were confined to male Indians thought old
+enough to bear arms,--that is to say, above twelve years. _Act of
+General Court, 19 August, 1706._
+
+[81] _Dudley to Lord ----, 21 April, 1704._ _Address of Council and
+Assembly to the Queen, 12 July, 1704._ The burden on the people was so
+severe that one writer--not remarkable, however, for exactness of
+statement--declares that he "is credibly informed that some have been
+forced to cut open their beds and sell the feathers to pay their taxes."
+The general poverty did not prevent a contribution in New England for
+the suffering inhabitants of the Island of St. Christopher.
+
+[82] _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 12 Novembre, 1708._ Vaudreuil says that he
+got his information from prisoners.
+
+[83] _Resumé d'une Lettre de MM. de Vaudreuil et de Beauharnois du 15
+Novembre, 1703, avec les Observations du Ministre._ Subercase, governor
+of Acadia, writes on 25 December, 1708, that he hears that a party of
+Canadians and Indians have attacked a place on the _Maramet_ (Merrimac),
+"et qu'ils y ont égorgé 4 à 500 personnes sans faire quartier aux femmes
+ni aux enfans." This is an exaggerated report of the affair of
+Haverhill. M. de Chevry writes in the margin of the letter: "Ces actions
+de cruauté devroient être modérées:" to which Ponchartrain adds: "Bon;
+les défendre." His attitude, however, was uncertain; for as early as
+1707 we find him approving Vaudreuil for directing the missionaries to
+prompt the Abenakis to war. _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 805.
+
+[84] _Dudley to ----, 26 November, 1704._
+
+[85] _Abrégé d'une lettre de M. de Vaudreuil, avec les notes du
+Ministre, 19 Octobre, 1705._
+
+[86] On the negotiations for neutrality, see the correspondence and
+other papers in the _Paris Documents_ in the Boston State House; also
+_N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 770, 776, 779, 809; Hutchinson, ii. 141.
+
+[87] _A Memorial of the Present Deplorable State of New England, Boston,
+1707._ _The Deplorable State of New England, by Reason of a Covetous and
+Treacherous Governour and Pusillanimous Counsellors, London, 1708._ The
+first of the above is answered by a pamphlet called a _Modest Inquiry_.
+All three are reprinted in _Mass. Hist. Coll., 5th Series_, vi.
+
+[88] Hutchinson, ii. 194.
+
+[89] The agent of Massachusetts at London, speaking of the three chief
+offenders, says that they were neither "of English extraction, nor
+natives of the place, and two of them were very new comers." Jeremiah
+Dummer, _Letter to a Noble Lord concerning the late Expedition to
+Canada_.
+
+[90] The French naval captain Bonaventure says that the Acadians were
+forced to depend on Boston traders, who sometimes plundered them, and
+sometimes sold them supplies. (_Bonaventure au Ministre, 30 Novembre,
+1705._) Colonel Quary, Judge of Admiralty at New York, writes: "There
+hath been and still is, as I am informed, a Trade carried on with Port
+Royal by some of the topping men of that government [Boston], under
+colour of sending and receiving Flaggs of truce."--_Quary to the Lords
+of Trade, 10 January, 1708._
+
+[91] _Council Record_, in Hutchinson, ii. 144.
+
+[92] These addresses are appended to _A Modest Inquiry into the Grounds
+and Occasions of a late Pamphlet intituled a Memorial of the present
+Deplorable State of New England. London, 1707._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+1700-1710.
+
+THE OLD RÉGIME IN ACADIA.
+
+The Fishery Question.--Privateers and Pirates.--Port Royal.--Official
+Gossip.--Abuse of Brouillan.--Complaints of De Goutin.--Subercase and
+his Officers.--Church and State.--Paternal Government.
+
+
+The French province of Acadia, answering to the present Nova Scotia and
+New Brunswick, was a government separate from Canada and subordinate to
+it. Jacques François de Brouillan, appointed to command it, landed at
+Chibucto, the site of Halifax, in 1702, and crossed by hills and forests
+to the Basin of Mines, where he found a small but prosperous settlement.
+"It seems to me," he wrote to the minister, "that these people live like
+true republicans, acknowledging neither royal authority nor courts of
+law."[93] It was merely that their remoteness and isolation made them
+independent, of necessity, so far as concerned temporal government. When
+Brouillan reached Port Royal he found a different state of things. The
+fort and garrison were in bad condition; but the adjacent settlement,
+primitive as it was, appeared on the whole duly submissive.
+
+Possibly it would have been less so if it had been more prosperous; but
+the inhabitants had lately been deprived of fishing, their best
+resource, by a New England privateer which had driven their craft from
+the neighboring seas; and when the governor sent Lieutenant Neuvillette
+in an armed vessel to seize the interloping stranger, a fight ensued, in
+which the lieutenant was killed, and his vessel captured. New England is
+said to have had no less than three hundred vessels every year in these
+waters.[94] Before the war a French officer proposed that New England
+sailors should be hired to teach the Acadians how to fish, and the King
+seems to have approved the plan.[95] Whether it was adopted or not, New
+England in peace or war had a lion's share of the Acadian fisheries. "It
+grieves me to the heart," writes Subercase, Brouillan's successor, "to
+see Messieurs les Bastonnais enrich themselves in our domain; for the
+base of their commerce is the fish which they catch off our coasts, and
+send to all parts of the world."
+
+When the war broke out, Brouillan's fighting resources were so small
+that he was forced to depend largely for help on sea-rovers of more than
+doubtful character. They came chiefly from the West Indies,--the old
+haunt of buccaneers,--and were sometimes mere pirates, and sometimes
+semi-piratical privateers commissioned by French West Indian governors.
+Brouillan's successor writes that their opportunities are good, since at
+least a thousand vessels enter Boston every year.[96] Besides these
+irregular allies, the governor usually had at his disposal two French
+frigates of thirty and sixty guns, to which was opposed the
+Massachusetts navy, consisting of a ship of fifty-six guns, and the
+"province galley," of twenty-two. In 1710 one of these Massachusetts
+vessels appeared off the coast escorting a fishing-fleet of no less than
+two hundred and fifty sail, some of which were afterwards captured by
+French corsairs. A good number of these last, however, were taken from
+time to time by Boston sea-rovers, who, like their enemies, sometimes
+bore a close likeness to pirates. They seized French fishing and trading
+vessels, attacked French corsairs, sometimes traded with the Acadians,
+and sometimes plundered them. What with West India rum brought by the
+French freebooters, and New England rum brought by the English, it is
+reported that one could get drunk in Acadia for two sous.
+
+Port Royal, now Annapolis, was the seat of government, and the only
+place of any strength in the colony. The fort, a sodded earthwork,
+lately put into tolerable repair by the joint labor of the soldiers and
+inhabitants, stood on the point of land between the mouth of the river
+Annapolis and that of the small stream now called Allen's River, whence
+it looked down the long basin, or land-locked bay, which, framed in
+hills and forests, had so won the heart of the Baron de Poutrincourt a
+century before.[97] The garrison was small, counting in 1704 only a
+hundred and eighty-five soldiers and eight commissioned officers. At the
+right of the fort, between it and the mouth of the Annapolis, was the
+Acadian village, consisting of seventy or eighty small houses of one
+story and an attic, built of planks, boards, or logs, simple and rude,
+but tolerably comfortable. It had also a small, new wooden church, to
+the building of which the inhabitants had contributed eight hundred
+francs, while the King paid the rest. The inhabitants had no voice
+whatever in public affairs, though the colonial minister had granted
+them the privilege of travelling in time of peace without passports. The
+ruling class, civil and military, formed a group apart, living in or
+near the fort, in complete independence of public opinion, supposing
+such to have existed. They looked only to their masters at Versailles;
+and hence a state of things as curious as it was lamentable. The little
+settlement was a hot-bed of gossip, backbiting, and slander. Officials
+of every degree were continually trying to undermine and supplant one
+another, besieging the minister with mutual charges. Brouillan, the
+governor, was a frequent object of attack. He seems to have been of an
+irritable temper, aggravated perhaps by an old unhealed wound in the
+cheek, which gave him constant annoyance. One writer declares that
+Acadia languishes under selfish greed and petty tyranny; that everything
+was hoped from Brouillan when he first came, but that hope has changed
+to despair; that he abuses the King's authority to make money, sells
+wine and brandy at retail, quarrels with officers who are not
+punctilious enough in saluting him, forces the inhabitants to catch seal
+and cod for the King, and then cheats them of their pay, and
+countenances an obnoxious churchwarden whose daughter is his mistress.
+"The country groans, but dares not utter a word," concludes the accuser,
+as he closes his indictment.[98]
+
+Brouillan died in the autumn of 1705, on which M. de Goutin, a
+magistrate who acted as intendant, and was therefore at once the
+colleague of the late governor and a spy upon him, writes to the
+minister that "the divine justice has at last taken pity on the good
+people of this country," but that as it is base to accuse a dead man, he
+will not say that the public could not help showing their joy at the
+late governor's departure; and he adds that the deceased was charged
+with a scandalous connection with the Widow de Freneuse. Nor will he
+reply, he says, to the governor's complaint to the court about a
+pretended cabal, of which he, De Goutin, was the head, and which was in
+reality only three or four honest men, incapable of any kind of
+deviation, who used to meet in a friendly way, and had given offence by
+not bowing down before the beast.[99]
+
+Then he changes the subject, and goes on to say that on a certain festal
+occasion he was invited by Bonaventure, who acted as governor after the
+death of Brouillan, to share with him the honor of touching off a
+bonfire before the fort gate; and that this excited such envy, jealousy,
+and discord that he begs the minister, once for all, to settle the
+question whether a first magistrate has not the right to the honor of
+touching off a bonfire jointly with a governor.
+
+De Goutin sometimes discourses of more serious matters. He tells the
+minister that the inhabitants have plenty of cattle, and more hemp than
+they can use, but neither pots, scythes, sickles, knives, hatchets,
+kettles for the Indians, nor salt for themselves. "We should be
+fortunate if our enemies would continue to supply our necessities and
+take the beaver-skins with which the colony is gorged;" adding, however,
+that the Acadians hate the English, and will not trade with them if they
+can help it.[100]
+
+In the next year the "Bastonnais" were again bringing supplies, and the
+Acadians again receiving them. The new governor, Subercase, far from
+being pleased at this, was much annoyed, or professed to be so, and
+wrote to Ponchartrain, "Nobody could suffer more than I do at seeing the
+English so coolly carry on their trade under our very noses." Then he
+proceeds to the inevitable personalities. "You wish me to write without
+reserve of the officers here; I have little good to tell you;" and he
+names two who to the best of his belief have lost their wits, a third
+who is incorrigibly lazy, and a fourth who is eccentric; adding that he
+is tolerably well satisfied with the rest, except M. de la Ronde. "You
+see, Monseigneur, that I am as much in need of a madhouse as of
+barracks; and what is worse, I am afraid that the _mauvais esprit_ of
+this country will drive me crazy too."[101] "You write to me," he
+continues, "that you are informed that M. Labat has killed some cattle
+belonging to the inhabitants. If so, he has expiated his fault by
+blowing off his thumb by the bursting of his gun while he was firing at
+a sheep. I am sure that the moon has a good deal to do with his
+behavior; he always acts very strangely when she is on the wane."
+
+The charge brought against Brouillan in regard to Madame de Freneuse was
+brought also against Bonaventure in connection with the same lady. "The
+story," says Subercase, "was pushed as far as hell could desire;"[102]
+and he partially defends the accused, declaring that at least his
+fidelity to the King is beyond question.
+
+De Goutin had a quarrel with Subercase, and writes: "I do all that is
+possible to live on good terms with him, and to that end I walk as if in
+the chamber of a sick prince whose sleep is of the lightest." As
+Subercase defends Bonaventure, De Goutin attacks him, and gives
+particulars concerning him and Madame de Freneuse which need not be
+recounted here. Then comes a story about a quarrel caused by some cows
+belonging to Madame de Freneuse which got into the garden of Madame de
+Saint-Vincent, and were driven out by a soldier who presumed to strike
+one of them with a long stick. "The facts," gravely adds De Goutin,
+"have been certified to me as I have the honor to relate them to your
+Grandeur."[103] Then the minister is treated to a story of one Allein.
+"He insulted Madame de Belleisle at the church door after high mass, and
+when her son, a boy of fourteen, interposed, Allein gave him such a box
+on the ear that it drew blood; and I am assured that M. Petit, the
+priest, ran to the rescue in his sacerdotal robes." Subercase, on his
+side, after complaining that the price of a certain canoe had been
+unjustly deducted from his pay, though he never had the said canoe at
+all, protests to Ponchartrain, "there is no country on earth where I
+would not rather live than in this, by reason of the ill-disposed
+persons who inhabit it."[104]
+
+There was the usual friction between the temporal and the spiritual
+powers. "The Church," writes Subercase, "has long claimed the right of
+commanding here, or at least of sharing authority with the civil
+rulers."[105] The Church had formerly been represented by the Capuchin
+friars, and afterwards by the Récollets. Every complaint was of course
+carried to the minister. In 1700 we find M. de Villieu, who then held a
+provisional command in the colony, accusing the ecclesiastics of illicit
+trade with the English.[106] Bonaventure reports to Ponchartrain that
+Père Félix, chaplain of the fort, asked that the gate might be opened,
+in order that he might carry the sacraments to a sick man, his real
+object being to marry Captain Duvivier to a young woman named Marie Muis
+de Poubomcoup,--contrary, as the governor thought, to the good of the
+service. He therefore forbade the match; on which the priests told him
+that when they had made up their minds to do anything, nobody had power
+to turn them from it; and the chaplain presently added that he cared no
+more for the governor than for the mud on his shoes.[107] He carried his
+point, and married Duvivier in spite of the commander.
+
+Every king's ship from Acadia brought to Ponchartrain letters full of
+matters like these. In one year, 1703, he got at least fourteen such.
+If half of what Saint-Simon tells us of him is true, it is not to be
+supposed that he gave himself much trouble concerning them. This does
+not make it the less astonishing that in the midst of a great and
+disastrous war a minister of State should be expected to waste time on
+matters worthy of a knot of old gossips babbling round a tea-table. That
+pompous spectre which calls itself the Dignity of History would scorn to
+take note of them; yet they are highly instructive, for the morbid
+anatomy of this little colony has a scientific value as exhibiting, all
+the more vividly for the narrowness of the field, the workings of an
+unmitigated paternalism acting from across the Atlantic. The King's
+servants in Acadia pestered his minister at Versailles with their
+pettiest squabbles, while Marlborough and Eugene were threatening his
+throne with destruction.[108] The same system prevailed in Canada; but
+as there the field was broader and the men often larger, the effects are
+less whimsically vivid than they appear under the Acadian microscope.
+The two provinces, however, were ruled alike; and about this time the
+Canadian Intendant Raudot was writing to Ponchartrain in a strain worthy
+of De Goutin, Subercase, or Bonaventure.[109]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[93] _Brouillan au Ministre, 6 Octobre, 1702._
+
+[94] _Mémoire de Subercase._
+
+[95] _Mémoire du Roy au Sieur de Brouillan, 23 Mars, 1700_; _Le Ministre
+à Villebon, 9 Avril, 1700_.
+
+[96] _Subercase au Ministre, 3 Janvier, 1710._
+
+[97] Pioneers of France in the New World, 253.
+
+[98] La Touche, _Mémoire sur l'Acadie_, 1702 (adressé à Ponchartrain).
+
+[99] "Que trois ou quatre amis, honnêtes gens, incapables de gauchir en
+quoique ce soit, pour n'avoir pas fléché devant la bête, aient été
+qualifiés de cabalistes."--_De Goutin au Ministre, 4 Décembre, 1705._
+
+[100] _De Goutin au Ministre, 22 Décembre, 1707._ In 1705 Bonaventure,
+in a time of scarcity, sent a vessel to Boston to buy provisions, on
+pretence of exchanging prisoners. _Bonaventure au Ministre, 30 Novembre,
+1705._
+
+[101] "Ne me fasse à mon tour tourner la cervelle."--_Subercase au
+Ministre, 20 Décembre, 1708._
+
+[102] "On a poussé la chose aussi loin que l'enfer le pouvait
+désirer."--_Subercase au Ministre, 20 Décembre, 1708._
+
+[103] _De Goutin au Ministre, 29 Décembre, 1708._
+
+[104] _Subercase au Ministre, 20 Décembre, 1708._
+
+[105] _Ibid._
+
+[106] _Villieu au Ministre, 20 Octobre, 1700._
+
+[107] "Il répondit qu'il se soucioit de moi comme de la boue de ses
+souliers."--_Bonaventure au Ministre, 30 Novembre, 1705._
+
+[108] These letters of Acadian officials are in the Archives du
+Ministère de la Marine et des Colonies at Paris. Copies of some of them
+will be found in the 3d series of the _Correspondance Officielle_ at
+Ottawa.
+
+[109] _Raudot au Ministre, 20 Septembre, 1709._ The copy before me
+covers 108 folio pages, filled with gossiping personalities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+1704-1710.
+
+ACADIA CHANGES HANDS.
+
+Reprisal for Deerfield.--Major Benjamin Church: his Ravages at
+Grand-Pré.--Port Royal Expedition.--Futile Proceedings.--A Discreditable
+Affair.--French Successes in Newfoundland.--Schemes of Samuel Vetch.--A
+Grand Enterprise.--Nicholson's Advance.--An Infected Camp.--Ministerial
+Promises Broken.--A New Scheme.--Port Royal Attacked.--Acadia Conquered.
+
+
+When war-parties from Canada struck the English borders, reprisal was
+difficult against those who had provoked it. Canada was made almost
+inaccessible by a hundred leagues of pathless forest, prowled by her
+Indian allies, who were sure to give the alarm of an approaching foe;
+while, on the other hand, the New Englanders could easily reach Acadia
+by their familiar element, the sea; and hence that unfortunate colony
+often made vicarious atonement for the sins of her northern sister. It
+was from French privateers and fishing-vessels on the Acadian seas that
+Massachusetts drew most of the prisoners whom she exchanged for her own
+people held captive in Canada.
+
+Major Benjamin Church, the noted Indian fighter of King Philip's War,
+was at Tiverton in Rhode Island when he heard of Hertel de Rouville's
+attack on Deerfield. Boiling with rage, he mounted his horse and rode to
+Boston to propose a stroke of retaliation. Church was energetic,
+impetuous, and bull-headed, sixty-five years old, and grown so fat that
+when pushing through the woods on the trail of Indians, he kept a stout
+sergeant by him to hoist him over fallen trees. Governor Dudley approved
+his scheme, and appointed him to command the expedition, with the rank
+of colonel. Church repaired to his native Duxbury; and here, as well as
+in Plymouth and other neighboring settlements, the militia were called
+out, and the veteran readily persuaded a sufficient number to volunteer
+under him. With the Indians of Cape Cod he found more difficulty, they
+being, as his son observes, "a people that need much treating,
+especially with drink." At last, however, some of them were induced to
+join him. Church now returned to Boston, and begged that an attack on
+Port Royal might be included in his instructions,--which was refused, on
+the ground that a plan to that effect had been laid before the Queen,
+and that nothing could be done till her answer was received. The
+governor's enemies seized the occasion to say that he wished Port Royal
+to remain French, in order to make money by trading with it.
+
+The whole force, including Indians and sailors, amounted to about seven
+hundred men; they sailed to Matinicus in brigs and sloops, the province
+galley, and two British frigates. From Matinicus most of the
+sailing-vessels were sent to Mount Desert to wait orders, while the main
+body rowed eastward in whale-boats. Touching at Saint-Castin's fort,
+where the town of Castine now stands, they killed or captured everybody
+they found there. Receiving false information that there was a large
+war-party on the west side of Passamaquoddy Bay, they hastened to the
+place, reached it in the night, and pushed into the woods in hope of
+surprising the enemy. The movement was difficult; and Church's men,
+being little better than a mob, disregarded his commands, and fell into
+disorder. He raged and stormed; and presently, in the darkness and
+confusion, descrying a hut or cabin on the farther side of a small
+brook, with a crowd gathered about it, he demanded what was the matter,
+and was told that there were Frenchmen inside who would not come out.
+"Then knock them in the head," shouted the choleric old man; and he was
+obeyed. It was said that the victims belonged to a party of Canadians
+captured just before, under a promise of life. Afterwards, when Church
+returned to Boston, there was an outcry of indignation against him for
+this butchery. In any case, however, he could have known nothing of the
+alleged promise of quarter.
+
+To hunt Indians with an endless forest behind them was like chasing
+shadows. The Acadians were surer game. Church sailed with a part of his
+force up the Bay of Fundy, and landed at Grand Pré,--a place destined to
+a dismal notoriety half a century later. The inhabitants of this and the
+neighboring settlements made some slight resistance, and killed a
+lieutenant named Baker, and one soldier, after which they fled; when
+Church, first causing the houses to be examined, to make sure that
+nobody was left in them, ordered them to be set on fire. The dikes were
+then broken, and the tide let in upon the growing crops.[110] In spite
+of these harsh proceedings, he fell far short in his retaliation for the
+barbarities at Deerfield, since he restrained his Indians and permitted
+no woman or child to be hurt,--at the same time telling his prisoners
+that if any other New England village were treated as Deerfield had
+been, he would come back with a thousand Indians and leave them free to
+do what they pleased. With this bluster, he left the unfortunate
+peasants in the extremity of terror, after carrying off as many of them
+as were needed for purposes of exchange. A small detachment was sent to
+Beaubassin, where it committed similar havoc.
+
+Church now steered for Port Royal, which he had been forbidden to
+attack. The two frigates and the transports had by this time rejoined
+him, and in spite of Dudley's orders to make no attempt on the French
+fort, the British and provincial officers met in council to consider
+whether to do so. With one voice they decided in the negative, since
+they had only four hundred men available for landing, while the French
+garrison was no doubt much stronger, having had ample time to call the
+inhabitants to its aid. Church, therefore, after trying the virtue of a
+bombastic summons to surrender, and destroying a few houses, sailed back
+to Boston. It was a miserable retaliation for a barbarous outrage; as
+the guilty were out of reach, the invaders turned their ire on the
+innocent.[111]
+
+If Port Royal in French hands was a source of illicit gain to some
+persons in Boston, it was also an occasion of loss by the privateers and
+corsairs it sent out to prey on trading and fishing vessels, while at
+the same time it was a standing menace as the possible naval base for
+one of those armaments against the New England capital which were often
+threatened, though never carried into effect. Hence, in 1707 the New
+England colonists made, in their bungling way, a serious attempt to get
+possession of it.
+
+Dudley's enemies raised the old cry that at heart he wished Port Royal
+to remain French, and was only forced by popular clamor to countenance
+an attack upon it. The charge seems a malicious slander. Early in March
+he proposed the enterprise to the General Court; and the question being
+referred to a committee, they reported that a thousand soldiers should
+be raised, vessels impressed, and her Majesty's frigate "Deptford," with
+the province galley, employed to convoy them. An Act was passed
+accordingly.[112] Two regiments were soon afoot, one uniformed in red,
+and the other in blue; one commanded by Colonel Francis Wainwright, and
+the other by Colonel Winthrop Hilton. Rhode Island sent eighty more men,
+and New Hampshire sixty, while Connecticut would do nothing. The
+expedition sailed on the thirteenth of May, and included one thousand
+and seventy-six soldiers, with about four hundred and fifty sailors.
+
+The soldiers were nearly all volunteers from the rural militia, and
+their training and discipline were such as they had acquired in the
+uncouth frolics and plentiful New England rum of the periodical "muster
+days." There chanced to be one officer who knew more or less of the work
+in hand. This was the English engineer Rednap, sent out to look after
+the fortifications of New York and New England. The commander-in-chief
+was Colonel John March, of Newbury, who had popular qualities, had seen
+frontier service, and was personally brave, but totally unfit for his
+present position. Most of the officers were civilians from country
+towns,--Ipswich, Topsfield, Lynn, Salem, Dorchester, Taunton, or
+Weymouth.[113] In the province galley went, as secretary of the
+expedition, that intelligent youth, William Dudley, son of the governor.
+
+New England has been blamed for not employing trained officers to
+command her levies; but with the exception of Rednap, and possibly of
+Captain Samuel Vetch, there were none in the country, nor were they
+wanted. In their stubborn and jealous independence, the sons of the
+Puritans would have resented their presence. The provincial officers
+were, without exception, civilians. British regular officers, good, bad,
+or indifferent, were apt to put on airs of superiority which galled the
+democratic susceptibilities of the natives, who, rather than endure a
+standing military force imposed by the mother-country, preferred to
+suffer if they must, and fight their own battles in their own crude way.
+Even for irregular warfare they were at a disadvantage; Canadian
+feudalism developed good partisan leaders, which was rarely the case
+with New England democracy. Colonel John March was a tyro set over a
+crowd of ploughboys, fishermen, and mechanics, officered by tradesmen,
+farmers, blacksmiths, village magnates, and deacons of the church,--for
+the characters of deacon and militia officer were often joined in one.
+These improvised soldiers commonly did well in small numbers, and very
+ill in large ones.
+
+Early in June the expedition sailed into Port Royal Basin, and
+Lieutenant-Colonel Appleton, with three hundred and fifty men, landed on
+the north shore, four or five miles below the fort, marched up to the
+mouth of the Annapolis, and was there met by an ambushed body of French,
+who, being outnumbered, presently took to their boats and retreated to
+the fort. Meanwhile, March, with seven hundred and fifty men, landed on
+the south shore and pushed on to the meadows of Allen's River, which
+they were crossing in battle array when a fire blazed out upon them from
+a bushy hill on the farther bank, where about two hundred French lay in
+ambush under Subercase, the governor. March and his men crossed the
+stream, and after a skirmish that did little harm to either side, the
+French gave way. The English then advanced to a hill known as the Lion
+Rampant, within cannon-shot of the fort, and here began to intrench
+themselves, stretching their lines right and left towards the Annapolis
+on the one hand, and Allen's River on the other, so as to form a
+semicircle before the fort, where all the inhabitants had by this time
+taken refuge.
+
+Soon all was confusion in the New England camp,--the consequence of
+March's incapacity for a large command, and the greenness and ignorance
+of both himself and his subordinates. There were conflicting opinions,
+wranglings, and disputes. The men, losing all confidence in their
+officers, became unmanageable. "The devil was at work among us," writes
+one of those present. The engineer, Rednap, the only one of them who
+knew anything of the work in hand, began to mark out the batteries; but
+he soon lost temper, and declared that "it was not for him to venture
+his reputation with such ungovernable and undisciplined men and
+inconstant officers."[114] He refused to bring up the cannon, saying
+that it could not be done under the fire of the fort; and the naval
+captains were of the same opinion.
+
+One of the chaplains, Rev. John Barnard, being of a martial turn and
+full of zeal, took it upon himself to make a plan of the fort; and to
+that end, after providing himself with pen, ink, paper, and a
+horse-pistol, took his seat at a convenient spot; but his task was
+scarcely begun when it was ended by a cannon-ball that struck the ground
+beside him, peppered him with gravel, and caused his prompt
+retreat.[115]
+
+French deserters reported that there were five hundred men in the fort,
+with forty-two heavy cannon, and that four or five hundred more were
+expected every day. This increased the general bewilderment of the
+besiegers. There was a council of war. Rednap declared that it would be
+useless to persist; and after hot debate and contradiction, it was
+resolved to decamp. Three days after, there was another council, which
+voted to bring up the cannon and open fire, in spite of Rednap and the
+naval captains; but in the next evening a third council resolved again
+to raise the siege as hopeless. This disgusted the rank and file, who
+were a little soothed by an order to destroy the storehouse and other
+buildings outside the fort; and, ill led as they were, they did the work
+thoroughly. "Never did men act more boldly," says the witness before
+quoted; "they threatened the enemy to his nose, and would have taken the
+fort if the officers had shown any spirit. They found it hard to bring
+them off. At the end we broke up with the confusion of Babel, and went
+about our business like fools."[116]
+
+The baffled invaders sailed crestfallen to Casco Bay, and a vessel was
+sent to carry news of the miscarriage to Dudley, who, vexed and
+incensed, ordered another attempt. March was in a state of helpless
+indecision, increased by a bad cold; but the governor would not recall
+him, and chose instead the lamentable expedient of sending three members
+of the provincial council to advise and direct him. Two of them had
+commissions in the militia; the third, John Leverett, was a learned
+bachelor of divinity, formerly a tutor in Harvard College, and soon
+after its president,--capable, no doubt, of preaching Calvinistic
+sermons to the students, but totally unfit to command men or conduct a
+siege.
+
+Young William Dudley was writing meanwhile to his father how jealousies
+and quarrels were rife among the officers, how their conduct bred
+disorder and desertion among the soldiers, and how Colonel March and
+others behaved as if they had nothing to do but make themselves
+popular.[117] Many of the officers seem, in fact, to have been small
+politicians in search of notoriety, with an eye to votes or
+appointments. Captain Stuckley, of the British frigate, wrote to the
+governor in great discontent about the "nonsensical malice" of
+Lieutenant-Colonel Appleton, and adds, "I don't see what good I can do
+by lying here, where I am almost murdered by mosquitoes."[118]
+
+The three commissioners came at last, with a reinforcement of another
+frigate and a hundred recruits, which did not supply losses, as the
+soldiers had deserted by scores. In great ill-humor, the expedition
+sailed back to Port Royal, where it was found that reinforcements had
+also reached the French, including a strongly manned privateer from
+Martinique. The New England men landed, and there was some sharp
+skirmishing in an orchard. Chaplain Barnard took part in the fray. "A
+shot brushed my wig," he says, "but I was mercifully preserved. We soon
+drove them out of the orchard, killed a few of them, desperately wounded
+the privateer captain, and after that we all embarked and returned to
+Boston as fast as we could." This summary statement is imperfect, for
+there was a good deal of skirmishing from the thirteenth August to the
+twentieth, when the invaders sailed for home. March was hooted as he
+walked Boston streets, and children ran after him crying, "Wooden
+sword!" There was an attempt at a court-martial; but so many officers
+were accused, on one ground or another, that hardly enough were left to
+try them, and the matter was dropped. With one remarkable exception, the
+New England militia reaped scant laurels on their various expeditions
+eastward; but of all their shortcomings, this was the most
+discreditable.[119]
+
+Meanwhile events worthy of note were passing in Newfoundland. That
+island was divided between the two conflicting powers,--the chief
+station of the French being at Placentia, and that of the English at St.
+John. In January, 1705, Subercase, who soon after became governor of
+Acadia, marched with four hundred and fifty soldiers, Canadians, and
+buccaneers, aided by a band of Indians, against St. John,--a
+fishing-village defended by two forts, the smaller, known as the castle,
+held by twelve men, and the larger, called Fort William, by forty men
+under Captain Moody. The latter was attacked by the French, who were
+beaten off; on which they burned the unprotected houses and fishing-huts
+with a brutality equal to that of Church in Acadia, and followed up the
+exploit by destroying the hamlet at Ferryland and all the defenceless
+hovels and fish-stages along the shore towards Trinity Bay and
+Bonavista.[120]
+
+Four years later, the Sieur de Saint-Ovide, a nephew of Brouillan, late
+governor at Port Royal, struck a more creditable blow. He set out from
+Placentia on the thirteenth of December, 1708, with one hundred and
+sixty-four men, and on the first of January approached Fort William two
+hours before day, found the gate leading to the covered way open,
+entered with a band of volunteers, rapidly crossed the ditch, planted
+ladders against the wall, and leaped into the fort, then, as he
+declares, garrisoned by a hundred men. His main body followed close. The
+English were taken unawares; their commander, who showed great courage,
+was struck down by three shots, and after some sharp fighting the place
+was in the hands of the assailants. The small fort at the mouth of the
+harbor capitulated on the second day, and the palisaded village of the
+inhabitants, which, if we are to believe Saint-Ovide, contained nearly
+six hundred men, made little resistance. St. John became for the moment
+a French possession; but Costebelle, governor at Placentia, despaired of
+holding it, and it was abandoned in the following summer.[121]
+
+About this time a scheme was formed for the permanent riddance of New
+England from war-parties by the conquest of Canada.[122] The prime mover
+in it was Samuel Vetch, whom we have seen as an emissary to Quebec for
+the exchange of prisoners, and also as one of the notables fined for
+illicit trade with the French. He came of a respectable Scotch family.
+His grandfather, his father, three of his uncles, and one of his
+brothers were Covenanting ministers, who had suffered some persecution
+under Charles II. He himself was destined for the ministry; but his
+inclinations being in no way clerical, he and his brother William got
+commissions in the army, and took an active part in the war that ended
+with the Peace of Ryswick.
+
+In the next year the two brothers sailed for the Isthmus of Panama as
+captains in the band of adventurers embarked in the disastrous
+enterprise known as the Darien Scheme. William Vetch died at sea, and
+Samuel repaired to New York, where he married a daughter of Robert
+Livingston, one of the chief men of the colony, and engaged largely in
+the Canadian trade. From New York he went to Boston, where we find him
+when the War of the Spanish Succession began. During his several visits
+to Canada he had carefully studied the St. Lawrence and its shores, and
+boasted that he knew them better than the Canadians themselves.[123] He
+was impetuous, sanguine, energetic, and headstrong, astute withal, and
+full of ambition. A more vigorous agent for the execution of the
+proposed plan of conquest could not have been desired. The General Court
+of Massachusetts, contrary to its instinct and its past practice,
+resolved, in view of the greatness of the stake, to ask this time for
+help from the mother-country, and Vetch sailed for England, bearing an
+address to the Queen, begging for an armament to aid in the reduction of
+Canada and Acadia. The scheme waxed broader yet in the ardent brain of
+the agent; he proposed to add Newfoundland to the other conquests, and
+when all was done in the North, to sail to the Gulf of Mexico and wrest
+Pensacola from the Spaniards; by which means, he writes, "Her Majesty
+shall be sole empress of the vast North American continent." The idea
+was less visionary than it seems. Energy, helped by reasonable good
+luck, might easily have made it a reality, so far as concerned the
+possessions of France.
+
+The court granted all that Vetch asked. On the eleventh of March he
+sailed for America, fully empowered to carry his plans into execution,
+and with the assurance that when Canada was conquered, he should be its
+governor. A squadron bearing five regiments of regular troops was
+promised. The colonies were to muster their forces in all haste. New
+York was directed to furnish eight hundred men; New Jersey, two hundred;
+Pennsylvania, one hundred and fifty; and Connecticut, three hundred and
+fifty,--the whole to be at Albany by the middle of May, and to advance
+on Montreal by way of Wood Creek and Lake Champlain, as soon as they
+should hear that the squadron had reached Boston. Massachusetts, New
+Hampshire, and Rhode Island were to furnish twelve hundred men, to join
+the regulars in attacking Quebec by way of the St. Lawrence.[124]
+
+Vetch sailed from Portsmouth in the ship "Dragon," accompanied by
+Colonel Francis Nicholson, late lieutenant-governor of New York, who was
+to take an important part in the enterprise. The squadron with the five
+regiments was to follow without delay. The weather was bad, and the
+"Dragon," beating for five weeks against headwinds, did not enter Boston
+harbor till the evening of the twenty-eighth of April. Vetch, chafing
+with impatience, for every moment was precious, sent off expresses that
+same night to carry the Queen's letters to the governors of Rhode
+Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Dudley and his
+council met the next morning, and to them Vetch delivered the royal
+message, which was received, he says, "with the dutiful obedience
+becoming good subjects, and all the marks of joy and thankfulness."[125]
+Vetch, Nicholson, and the Massachusetts authorities quickly arranged
+their plans. An embargo was laid on the shipping; provision was made for
+raising men and supplies and providing transportation. When all was in
+train, the two emissaries hired a sloop for New York, and touching by
+the way at Rhode Island, found it in the throes of the annual election
+of governor. Yet every warlike preparation was already made, and Vetch
+and his companion sailed at once for New Haven to meet Saltonstall, the
+newly elected governor of Connecticut. Here too, all was ready, and the
+envoys, well pleased, continued their voyage to New York, which they
+reached on the eighteenth of May. The governor, Lord Lovelace, had
+lately died, and Colonel Ingoldsby, the lieutenant-governor, acted in
+his place. The Assembly was in session, and being summoned to the
+council-chamber, the members were addressed by Vetch and Nicholson with
+excellent effect.
+
+In accepting the plan of conquest, New York completely changed front.
+She had thus far stood neutral, leaving her neighbors to defend
+themselves, and carrying on an active trade with the French and their
+red allies. Still, it was her interest that Canada should become
+English, thus throwing open to her the trade of the Western tribes; and
+the promises of aid from England made the prospects of the campaign so
+flattering that she threw herself into the enterprise, though not
+without voices of protest,--for while the frontier farmers and some
+prominent citizens like Peter Schuyler thought that the time for action
+had come, the Albany traders and their allies, who fattened on Canadian
+beaver, were still for peace at any price.[126]
+
+With Pennsylvania and New Jersey the case was different. The one,
+controlled by non-combatant Quakers and safe from French war-parties,
+refused all aid; while the other, in less degree under the same military
+blight, would give no men, though granting a slow and reluctant
+contribution of £3,000, taking care to suppress on the record every
+indication that the money was meant for military uses. New York, on the
+other hand, raised her full contingent, and Massachusetts and New
+Hampshire something more, being warm in the faith that their borders
+would be plagued with war-parties no longer.
+
+It remained for New York to gain the help of the Five Nations of the
+Iroquois, to which end Abraham Schuyler went to Onondaga, well supplied
+with presents. The Iroquois capital was now, as it had been for years,
+divided between France and England. French interests were represented by
+the two Jesuits, Mareuil and Jacques Lamberville. The skilful management
+of Schuyler, joined to his gifts and his rum, presently won over so many
+to the English party, and raised such excitement in the town that
+Lamberville thought it best to set out for Montreal with news of what
+was going on. The intrepid Joncaire, agent of France among the Senecas,
+was scandalized at what he calls the Jesuit's flight, and wrote to the
+commandant of Fort Frontenac that its effect on the Indians was such
+that he, Joncaire, was in peril of his life.[127] Yet he stood his
+ground, and managed so well that he held the Senecas firm in their
+neutrality. Lamberville's colleague, Mareuil, whose position was still
+more critical, was persuaded by Schuyler that his only safety was in
+going with him to Albany, which he did; and on this the Onondagas,
+excited by rum, plundered and burned the Jesuit mission-house and
+chapel.[128] Clearly, the two priests at Onondaga were less hungry for
+martyrdom than their murdered brethren Jogues, Brébeuf, Lalemant, and
+Charles Garnier; but it is to be remembered that the Canadian Jesuit of
+the first half of the seventeenth century was before all things an
+apostle, and his successor of a century later was before all things a
+political agent.
+
+As for the Five Nations, that once haughty confederacy, in spite of
+divisions and waverings, had conceived the idea that its true policy
+lay, not in siding with either of the European rivals, but in making
+itself important to both, and courted and caressed by both. While some
+of the warriors sang the war-song at the prompting of Schuyler, they had
+been but half-hearted in doing so; and even the Mohawks, nearest
+neighbors and best friends of the English, sent word to their Canadian
+kindred, the Caughnawagas, that they took up the hatchet only because
+they could not help it.
+
+The attack on Canada by way of the Hudson and Lake Champlain was to have
+been commanded by Lord Lovelace or some officer of his choice; but as he
+was dead, Ingoldsby, his successor in the government of the province,
+jointly with the governors of several adjacent colonies who had met at
+New York, appointed Colonel Nicholson in his stead.[129] Nicholson went
+to Albany, whence, with about fifteen hundred men, he moved up the
+Hudson, built a stockade fort opposite Saratoga, and another at the spot
+known as the Great Carrying Place. This latter he called Fort
+Nicholson,--a name which it afterwards exchanged for that of Fort
+Lydius, and later still for that of Fort Edward, which the town that
+occupies the site owns to this day.[130] Thence he cut a rough roadway
+through the woods to where Wood Creek, choked with beaver dams, writhed
+through flat green meadows, walled in by rock and forest. Here he built
+another fort, which was afterwards rebuilt and named Fort Anne. Wood
+Creek led to Lake Champlain, and Lake Champlain to Chambly and
+Montreal,--the objective points of the expedition. All was astir at the
+camp. Flat-boats and canoes were made, and stores brought up from
+Albany, till everything was ready for an advance the moment word should
+come that the British fleet had reached Boston. Vetch, all impatience,
+went thither to meet it, as if his presence could hasten its arrival.
+
+Reports of Nicholson's march to Wood Creek had reached Canada, and
+Vaudreuil sent Ramesay, governor of Montreal, with fifteen hundred
+troops, Canadians, and Indians, to surprise his camp. Ramesay's fleet of
+canoes had reached Lake Champlain, and was halfway to the mouth of Wood
+Creek, when his advance party was discovered by English scouts, and the
+French commander began to fear that he should be surprised in his turn;
+in fact, some of his Indians were fired upon from an ambuscade. All was
+now doubt, perplexity, and confusion. Ramesay landed at the narrows of
+the lake, a little south of the place now called Crown Point. Here, in
+the dense woods, his Indians fired on some Canadians whom they took for
+English. This was near producing a panic. "Every tree seemed an enemy,"
+writes an officer present. Ramesay lost himself in the woods, and could
+not find his army. One Deruisseau, who had gone out as a scout, came
+back with the report that nine hundred Englishmen were close at hand.
+Seven English canoes did in fact appear, supported, as the French in
+their excitement imagined, by a numerous though invisible army in the
+forest; but being fired upon, and seeing that they were entering a
+hornet's nest, the English sheered off. Ramesay having at last found his
+army, and order being gradually restored, a council of war was held,
+after which the whole force fell back to Chambly, having accomplished
+nothing.[131]
+
+Great was the alarm in Canada when it became known that the enemy aimed
+at nothing less than the conquest of the colony. One La Plaine spread a
+panic at Quebec by reporting that, forty-five leagues below, he had seen
+eight or ten ships under sail and heard the sound of cannon. It was
+afterwards surmised that the supposed ships were points of rocks seen
+through the mist at low tide, and the cannon the floundering of whales
+at play.[132] Quebec, however, was all excitement, in expectation of
+attack. The people of the Lower Town took refuge on the rock above; the
+men of the neighboring parishes were ordered within the walls; and the
+women and children, with the cattle and horses, were sent to
+hiding-places in the forest. There had been no less consternation at
+Montreal, caused by exaggerated reports of Iroquois hostility and the
+movements of Nicholson. It was even proposed to abandon Chambly and Fort
+Frontenac, and concentrate all available force to defend the heart of
+the colony. "A most bloody war is imminent," wrote Vaudreuil to the
+minister, Ponchartrain.
+
+Meanwhile, for weeks and months Nicholson's little army lay in the
+sultry valley of Wood Creek, waiting those tidings of the arrival of
+the British squadron at Boston which were to be its signal of advance.
+At length a pestilence broke out. It is said to have been the work of
+the Iroquois allies, who thought that the French were menaced with ruin,
+and who, true to their policy of balancing one European power against
+the other, poisoned the waters of the creek by throwing into it, above
+the camp, the skins and offal of the animals they had killed in their
+hunting. The story may have some foundation, though it rests only on the
+authority of Charlevoix. No contemporary writer mentions it; and
+Vaudreuil says that the malady was caused by the long confinement of the
+English in their fort. Indeed, a crowd of men, penned up through the
+heats of midsummer in a palisaded camp, ill-ordered and unclean as the
+camps of the raw provincials usually were, and infested with pestiferous
+swarms of flies and mosquitoes, could hardly have remained in health.
+Whatever its cause, the disease, which seems to have been a malignant
+dysentery, made more havoc than the musket and the sword. A party of
+French who came to the spot late in the autumn, found it filled with
+innumerable graves.
+
+The British squadron, with the five regiments on board, was to have
+reached Boston at the middle of May. On the twentieth of that month the
+whole contingent of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island was
+encamped by Boston harbor, with transports and stores, ready to embark
+for Quebec at ten hours' notice.[133] When Vetch, after seeing
+everything in readiness at New York, returned to Boston on the third of
+July, he found the New England levies encamped there still, drilled
+diligently every day by officers whom he had brought from England for
+the purpose. "The bodies of the men," he writes to Lord Sunderland, "are
+in general better than in Europe, and I hope their courage will prove so
+too; so that nothing in human probability can prevent the success of
+this glorious enterprise but the too late arrival of the fleet."[134]
+But of the fleet there was no sign. "The government here is put to vast
+expense," pursues Vetch, "but they cheerfully pay it, in hopes of being
+freed from it forever hereafter. All that they can do now is to fast and
+pray for the safe and speedy arrival of the fleet, for which they have
+already had two public fast-days kept."
+
+If it should not come in time, he continues, "it would be the last
+disappointment to her Majesty's colonies, who have so heartily complied
+with her royal order, and would render them much more miserable than if
+such a thing had never been undertaken." Time passed, and no ships
+appeared. Vetch wrote again: "I shall only presume to acquaint your
+Lordship how vastly uneasy all her Majesty's loyall subjects here on
+this continent are. Pray God hasten the fleet."[135] Dudley, scarcely
+less impatient, wrote to the same effect. It was all in vain, and the
+soldiers remained in their camp, monotonously drilling day after day
+through all the summer and half the autumn. At length, on the eleventh
+of October, Dudley received a letter from Lord Sunderland, informing him
+that the promised forces had been sent to Portugal to meet an exigency
+of the European war. They were to have reached Boston, as we have seen,
+by the middle of May. Sunderland's notice of the change of destination
+was not written till the twenty-seventh of July, and was eleven weeks on
+its way, thus imposing on the colonists a heavy and needless tax in
+time, money, temper, and, in the case of the expedition against
+Montreal, health and life.[136] What was left of Nicholson's force had
+fallen back before Sunderland's letter came, making a scapegoat of the
+innocent Vetch, cursing him, and wishing him hanged.
+
+In New England the disappointment and vexation were extreme; but, not to
+lose all the fruits of their efforts, the governors of Massachusetts,
+Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island met and resolved to attack
+Port Royal if the captains of several British frigates then at New York
+and Boston would take part in the enterprise. To the disgust of the
+provincials, the captains, with one exception, refused, on the score of
+the late season and the want of orders.
+
+A tenacious energy has always been a characteristic of New England, and
+the hopes of the colonists had been raised too high to be readily
+abandoned. Port Royal was in their eyes a pestilent nest of privateers
+and pirates that preyed on the New England fisheries; and on the refusal
+of the naval commanders to join in an immediate attack, they offered to
+the court to besiege the place themselves next year, if they could count
+on the help of four frigates and five hundred soldiers, to be at Boston
+by the end of March.[137] The Assembly of Massachusetts requested
+Nicholson, who was on the point of sailing for Europe, to beg her
+Majesty to help them in an enterprise which would be so advantageous to
+the Crown, "and which, by the long and expensive war, we are so
+impoverished and enfeebled as not to be in a capacity to effect."[138]
+
+Nicholson sailed in December, and Peter Schuyler soon followed. New
+York, having once entered on the path of war, saw that she must
+continue in it; and to impress the Five Nations with the might and
+majesty of the Queen, and so dispose them to hold fast to the British
+cause, Schuyler took five Mohawk chiefs with him to England. One died on
+the voyage; the rest arrived safe, and their appearance was the
+sensation of the hour. They were clad, at the Queen's expense, in
+strange and gay attire, invented by the costumer of one of the theatres;
+were lodged and feasted as the guests of the nation, driven about London
+in coaches with liveried servants, conducted to dockyards, arsenals, and
+reviews, and saluted with cannon by ships of war. The Duke of Shrewsbury
+presented them to Queen Anne,--one as emperor of the Mohawks, and the
+other three as kings,--and the Archbishop of Canterbury solemnly gave
+each of them a Bible. Steele and Addison wrote essays about them, and
+the Dutch artist Verelst painted their portraits, which were engraved in
+mezzotint.[139] Their presence and the speech made in their name before
+the court seem to have had no small effect in drawing attention to the
+war in America and inclining the ministry towards the proposals of
+Nicholson. These were accepted, and he sailed for America commissioned
+to command the enterprise against Port Royal, with Vetch as
+adjutant-general.[140]
+
+Colonel Francis Nicholson had held some modest military positions, but
+never, it is said, seen active service. In colonial affairs he had
+played an important part, and in the course of his life governed, at
+different times, Virginia, New York, Maryland, and Carolina. He had a
+robust, practical brain, capable of broad views and large schemes. One
+of his plans was a confederacy of the provinces to resist the French,
+which, to his great indignation, Virginia rejected. He had Jacobite
+leanings, and had been an adherent of James II.; but being no idealist,
+and little apt to let his political principles block the path of his
+interests, he turned his back on the fallen cause and offered his
+services to the Revolution. Though no pattern of domestic morals, he
+seems to have been officially upright, and he wished well to the
+colonies, saving always the dominant interests of England. He was bold,
+ambitious, vehement, and sometimes headstrong and perverse.
+
+Though the English ministry had promised aid, it was long in coming. The
+Massachusetts Assembly had asked that the ships should be at Boston
+before the end of March; but it was past the middle of May before they
+sailed from Plymouth. Then, towards midsummer, a strange spasm of
+martial energy seems to have seized the ministry, for Viscount Shannon
+was ordered to Boston with an additional force, commissioned to take the
+chief command and attack, not Port Royal, but Quebec.[141] This
+ill-advised change of plan seems to have been reconsidered; at least, it
+came to nothing.[142]
+
+Meanwhile, the New England people waited impatiently for the retarded
+ships. No order had come from England for raising men, and the colonists
+resolved this time to risk nothing till assured that their labor and
+money would not be wasted. At last, not in March, but in July, the ships
+appeared. Then all was astir with preparation. First, the House of
+Representatives voted thanks to the Queen for her "royal aid." Next, it
+was proclaimed that no vessel should be permitted to leave the harbor
+"till the service is provided;" and a committee of the House proceeded
+to impress fourteen vessels to serve as transports. Then a vote was
+passed that nine hundred men be raised as the quota of Massachusetts,
+and a month's pay in advance, together with a coat worth thirty
+shillings, was promised to volunteers; a committee of three being at the
+same time appointed to provide the coats. On the next day appeared a
+proclamation from the governor announcing the aforesaid
+"encouragements," calling on last year's soldiers to enlist again,
+promising that all should return home as soon as Port Royal was taken,
+and that each might keep as his own forever the Queen's musket that
+would be furnished him. Now came an order to colonels of militia to
+muster their regiments on a day named, read the proclamation at the head
+of each company, and if volunteers did not come forward in sufficient
+number, to draft as many men as might be wanted, appointing, at the same
+time, officers to conduct them to the rendezvous at Dorchester or
+Cambridge; and, by a stringent and unusual enactment, the House ordered
+that they should be quartered in private houses, with or without the
+consent of the owners, "any law or usage to the contrary
+notwithstanding." Sailors were impressed without ceremony to man the
+transports; and, finally, it was voted that a pipe of wine, twenty
+sheep, five pigs, and one hundred fowls be presented to the Honorable
+General Nicholson for his table during the expedition.[143] The above,
+with slight variation, may serve as an example of the manner in which,
+for several generations, men were raised in Massachusetts to serve
+against the French.
+
+Autumn had begun before all was ready. Connecticut, New Hampshire, and
+Rhode Island sent their contingents; there was a dinner at the Green
+Dragon Tavern in honor of Nicholson, Vetch, and Sir Charles Hobby, the
+chief officers of the expedition; and on the eighteenth of September the
+whole put to sea.
+
+On the twenty-fourth the squadron sailed into the narrow entrance of
+Port Royal, where the tide runs like a mill-stream. One vessel was
+driven upon the rocks, and twenty-six men were drowned. The others got
+in safely, and anchored above Goat Island, in sight of the French fort.
+They consisted of three fourth-rates,--the "Dragon," the "Chester," and
+the "Falmouth;" two fifth-rates,--the "Lowestoffe" and the "Feversham;"
+the province galley, one bomb-ketch, twenty-four small transports, two
+or three hospital ships, a tender, and several sloops carrying timber to
+make beds for cannon and mortars. The landing force consisted of four
+hundred British marines, and about fifteen hundred provincials, divided
+into four battalions.[144] Its unnecessary numbers were due to the
+belief of Nicholson that the fort had been reinforced and strengthened.
+
+In the afternoon of the twenty-fifth they were all on shore,--Vetch with
+his two battalions on the north side, and Nicholson with the other two
+on the south. Vetch marched to his camping-ground, on which, in the
+words of Nicholson's journal, "the French began to fire pretty thick."
+On the next morning Nicholson's men moved towards the fort, hacking
+their way through the woods and crossing the marshes of Allen's River,
+while the French fired briskly with cannon from the ramparts, and
+small-arms from the woods, houses, and fences. They were driven back,
+and the English advance guard intrenched itself within four hundred
+yards of the works. Several days passed in landing artillery and stores,
+cannonading from the fort and shelling from the English bomb-ketch, when
+on the twenty-ninth, Ensign Perelle, with a drummer and a flag of truce,
+came to Nicholson's tent, bringing a letter from Subercase, who begged
+him to receive into his camp and under his protection certain ladies of
+the fort who were distressed by the bursting of the English shells. The
+conduct of Perelle was irregular, as he had not given notice of his
+approach by beat of drum and got himself and attendants blindfolded
+before entering the camp. Therefore Nicholson detained him, sending back
+an officer of his own with a letter to the effect that he would receive
+the ladies and lodge them in the same house with the French ensign, "for
+the queen, my royal mistress, hath not sent me hither to make war
+against women." Subercase on his part detained the English officer, and
+wrote to Nicholson,--
+
+     Sir,--You have one of my officers, and I have one of yours; so that
+     now we are equal. However, that hinders me not from believing that
+     once you have given me your word, you will keep it very exactly.
+     On that ground I now write to tell you, sir, that to prevent the
+     spilling of both English and French blood, I am ready to hold up
+     both hands for a capitulation that will be honorable to both of
+     us.[145]
+
+In view of which agreement, he adds that he defers sending the ladies to
+the English camp.
+
+Another day passed, during which the captive officers on both sides were
+treated with much courtesy. On the next morning, Sunday, October 1, the
+siege-guns, mortars, and coehorns were in position; and after some
+firing on both sides, Nicholson sent Colonel Tailor and Captain
+Abercrombie with a summons to surrender the fort. Subercase replied that
+he was ready to listen to proposals; the firing stopped, and within
+twenty-four hours the terms were settled. The garrison were to march out
+with the honors of war, and to be carried in English ships to Rochelle
+or Rochefort. The inhabitants within three miles of the fort were to be
+permitted to remain, if they chose to do so, unmolested, in their homes
+during two years, on taking an oath of allegiance and fidelity to the
+Queen.
+
+Two hundred provincials marched to the fort gate and formed in two lines
+on the right and left. Nicholson advanced between the ranks, with Vetch
+on one hand and Hobby on the other, followed by all the field-officers.
+Subercase came to meet them, and gave up the keys, with a few words of
+compliment. The French officers and men marched out with shouldered
+arms, drums beating, and colors flying, saluting the English commander
+as they passed; then the English troops marched in, raised the union
+flag, and drank the Queen's health amid a general firing of cannon from
+the fort and ships. Nicholson changed the name of Port Royal to
+Annapolis Royal; and Vetch, already commissioned as governor, took
+command of the new garrison, which consisted of two hundred British
+marines, and two hundred and fifty provincials who had offered
+themselves for the service.
+
+The English officers gave a breakfast to the French ladies in the fort.
+Sir Charles Hobby took in Madame de Bonaventure, and the rest followed
+in due order of precedence; but as few of the hosts could speak French,
+and few of the guests could speak English, the entertainment could
+hardly have been a lively one.
+
+The French officers and men in the fort when it was taken were but two
+hundred and fifty-eight. Some of the soldiers and many of the armed
+inhabitants deserted during the siege, which, no doubt, hastened the
+surrender; for Subercase, a veteran of more than thirty years' service,
+had borne fair repute as a soldier.
+
+Port Royal had twice before been taken by New England men,--once under
+Major Sedgwick in 1654, and again under Sir William Phips in the last
+war; and in each case it had been restored to France by treaty. This
+time England kept what she had got; and as there was no other place of
+strength in the province, the capture of Port Royal meant the conquest
+of Acadia.[146]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[110] Church, _Entertaining Passages_. "Un habitant des Mines a dit
+que les ennemis avaient été dans toutes les rivières, qu'il n'y
+restait plus que quatre habitations en entier, le restant ayant été
+brulé."--_Expéditions faites par les Anglois, 1704._ "Qu'ils avaient ...
+brulé toutes les maisons à la reserve du haut des rivières."--Labat,
+_Invasion des Anglois_, 1704.
+
+[111] On this affair, Thomas Church, _Entertaining Passages_ (1716). The
+writer was the son of Benjamin Church. Penhallow; Belknap, i. 266;
+_Dudley to ----, 21 April, 1704_; Hutchinson, ii. 132; _Deplorable State
+of New England_; _Entreprise des Anglais sur l'Acadie_, 1704;
+_Expéditions faites par les Anglais de la Nouvelle Angleterre_, 1704;
+Labat, _Invasion des Anglois de Baston_, 1704.
+
+[112] _Report of a Committee to consider his Excellency's Speech, 12
+March, 1707._ _Resolve for an Expedition against Port Royal_
+(Massachusetts Archives).
+
+[113] _Autobiography of Rev. John Barnard_, one of the five chaplains of
+the expedition.
+
+[114] _A Boston Gentleman to his Friend, 13 June, 1707_ (Mass.
+Archives).
+
+[115] _Autobiography of Rev. John Barnard._
+
+[116] _A Boston Gentleman to his Friend, 13 June _(old style)_, 1707._
+The final attack here alluded to took place on the night of the
+sixteenth of June (new style).
+
+[117] _William Dudley to Governor Dudley, 24 June, 1707._
+
+[118] _Stuckley to Dudley, 28 June, 1707._
+
+[119] A considerable number of letters and official papers on this
+expedition will be found in the 51st and 71st volumes of the
+Massachusetts Archives. See also Hutchinson, ii. 151, and Belknap, i.
+273. The curious narrative of the chaplain, Barnard, is in _Mass. Hist.
+Coll., 3d Series_, v. 189-196. The account in the _Deplorable State of
+New England_ is meant solely to injure Dudley. The chief French accounts
+are _Entreprise des Anglois contre l'Acadie, 26 Juin, 1707_; _Subercase
+au Ministre, même date_; _Labat au Ministre, 6 Juillet, 1707_;
+_Relation_ appended to Dièreville, _Voyage de l'Acadie_. The last is
+extremely loose and fanciful. Subercase puts the English force at three
+thousand men, whereas the official returns show it to have been,
+soldiers and sailors, about half this number.
+
+[120] Penhallow puts the French force at five hundred and fifty.
+Jeremiah Dummer, _Letter to a Noble Lord concerning the late Expedition
+to Canada_, says that the havoc committed occasioned a total loss of
+£80,000.
+
+[121] _Saint-Ovide au Ministre, 20 Janvier, 1709_; _Ibid., 6 Septembre,
+1709_; _Rapport de Costebelle, 26 Février, 1709_. Costebelle makes the
+French force one hundred and seventy-five.
+
+[122] Some of the French officials in Acadia foresaw aggressive action
+on the part of the English in consequence of the massacre at Haverhill.
+"Le coup que les Canadiens viennent de faire, où Mars, plus féroce qu'en
+Europe, a donné carrière à sa rage, me fait appréhender une
+représaille."--_De Goutin au Ministre, 29 Décembre, 1708._
+
+[123] Patterson, _Memoir of Hon. Samuel Vetch_, in _Collections of the
+Nova Scotia Historical Society_, iv. Compare a paper by General James
+Grant Wilson in _International Review_, November, 1881.
+
+[124] _Instructions to Colonel Vetch, 1 March, 1709_; _The Earl of
+Sunderland to Dudley, 28 April, 1709_; _The Queen to Lord Lovelace, 1
+March, 1709_; _The Earl of Sunderland to Lord Lovelace, 28 April, 1709._
+
+[125] _Journal of Vetch and Nicholson_ (Public Record Office). This is
+in the form of a letter, signed by both, and dated at New York, 29 June,
+1709.
+
+[126] _Thomas Cockerill to Mr. Popple, 2 July, 1709._
+
+[127] Joncaire in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 838.
+
+[128] Mareuil in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 836, text and note. _Vaudreuil
+au Ministre, 14 Novembre, 1709._
+
+[129] "If I had not accepted the command, there would have
+been insuperable difficulties" (arising from provincial
+jealousies).--_Nicholson to Sunderland, 8 July, 1709._
+
+[130] Forts Nicholson, Lydius, and Edward were not the same, but
+succeeded each other on the same ground.
+
+[131] _Mémoire sur le Canada, Année 1709._ This paper, which has been
+ascribed to the engineer De Léry, is printed in _Collection de
+Manuscrits relatifs à la Nouvelle France_, i. 615 (Quebec, 1883),
+printed from the MS. _Paris Documents_ in the Boston State House. The
+writer of the _Mémoire_ was with Ramesay's expedition. Also _Ramesay à
+Vaudreuil, 19 Octobre, 1709_, and _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 14 Novembre,
+1709_. Charlevoix says that Ramesay turned back because he believed that
+there were five thousand English at Wood Creek; but Ramesay himself
+makes their number only one thousand whites and two hundred Indians. He
+got his information from two Dutchmen caught just after the alarm near
+Pointe à la Chevelure (Crown Point). He turned back because he had
+failed to surprise the English, and also, it seems, because there were
+disagreements among his officers.
+
+[132] _Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier et l'Hôpital Général de Québec_,
+203.
+
+[133] _Dudley to Sunderland, 14 August, 1709._
+
+[134] _Vetch to Sunderland, 2 August, 1709._ The pay of the men was nine
+shillings a week, with eightpence a day for provisions; and most of them
+had received an enlistment bounty of £12.
+
+[135] _Vetch to Sunderland, 12 August, 1709._ Dudley writes with equal
+urgency two days later.
+
+[136] _Letters of Nicholson, Dudley, and Vetch, 20 June to 24 October,
+1709._
+
+[137] _Joint Letter of Nicholson, Dudley, Vetch, and Moody to
+Sunderland, 24 October, 1709_; also _Joint Letter of Dudley, Vetch, and
+Moody to Sunderland, 25 October, 1709_; _Abstracts of Letters and Papers
+relating to the Attack of Port Royal, 1709_ (Public Record Office);
+_Address of ye Inhabitants of Boston and Parts adjacent, 1709_. Moody,
+named above, was the British naval captain who had consented to attack
+Port Royal.
+
+[138] _Order of Assembly, 27 October, 1709._ Massachusetts had spent
+about £22,000 on her futile expedition of 1707, and, with New Hampshire
+and Rhode Island, a little more than £46,000 on that of 1709, besides
+continual outlay in guarding her two hundred miles of frontier,--a heavy
+expense for the place and time.
+
+[139] See J. R. Bartlett, in _Magazine of American History_, March,
+1878, and Schuyler, _Colonial New York_, ii. 34-39. The chiefs returned
+to America in May on board the "Dragon." An elaborate pamphlet appeared
+in London, giving an account of them and their people. A set of the
+mezzotint portraits, which are large and well executed, is in the John
+Carter Brown collection at Providence. For photographic reproductions,
+see Winsor, _Nar. and Crit. Hist._, v. 107. Compare Smith, _Hist. N.
+Y._, i. 204 (1830).
+
+[140] _Commission of Colonel Francis Nicholson, 18 May, 1710._
+_Instructions to Colonel Nicholson, same date._
+
+[141] _Instructions to Richard Viscount Shannon, July, 1710._ A report
+of the scheme reached Boston. Hutchinson, ii. 164.
+
+[142] The troops, however, were actually embarked. _True State of the
+Forces commanded by the Right Honble The Lord Viscount Shannon, as they
+were Embarkd the 14th of October, 1710._ The total was three thousand
+two hundred and sixty-five officers and men. Also, _Shannon to
+Sunderland, 16 October, 1710_. The absurdity of the attempt at so late a
+season is obvious. Yet the fleet lay some weeks more at Portsmouth,
+waiting for a fair wind.
+
+[143] _Archives of Massachusetts_, vol. lxxi., where the original papers
+are preserved.
+
+[144] _Nicholson and Vetch to the Secretary of State, 16 September,
+1710_; Hutchinson, ii. 164; Penhallow. Massachusetts sent two battalions
+of four hundred and fifty men each, and Connecticut one battalion of
+three hundred men, while New Hampshire and Rhode Island united their
+contingents to form a fourth battalion.
+
+[145] The contemporary English translation of this letter is printed
+among the papers appended to _Nicholson's Journal_ in _Collections of
+the Nova Scotia Historical Society_, i.
+
+[146] In a letter to Ponchartrain, _1 October, 1710_ (new style),
+Subercase declares that he has not a sou left, nor any credit. "I have
+managed to borrow enough to maintain the garrison for the last two
+years, and have paid what I could by selling all my furniture."
+Charlevoix's account of the siege has been followed by most writers,
+both French and English; but it is extremely incorrect. It was answered
+by one De Gannes, apparently an officer under Subercase, in a paper
+called _Observations sur les Erreurs de la Relation du Siège du Port
+Royal ... faittes sur de faux mémoires par le révérend Père Charlevoix_,
+whom De Gannes often contradicts flatly. Thus Charlevoix puts the
+besieging force at thirty-four hundred men, besides officers and
+sailors, while De Gannes puts it at fourteen hundred; and while
+Charlevoix says that the garrison were famishing, his critic says that
+they were provisioned for three months. See the valuable notes to Shea's
+_Charlevoix_, v. 227-232.
+
+The journal of Nicholson was published "by authority" in the _Boston
+News Letter, November, 1710_, and has been reprinted, with numerous
+accompanying documents, including the French and English correspondence
+during the siege, in the _Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical
+Society_, i.
+
+Vaudreuil, before the siege, sent a reinforcement to Subercase, who, by
+a strange infatuation, refused it. _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 853.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+1710, 1711.
+
+WALKER'S EXPEDITION.
+
+Scheme of La Ronde Denys.--Boston warned against British
+Designs.--Boston to be ruined.--Plans of the Ministry.--Canada
+doomed.--British Troops at Boston.--The Colonists denounced.--The
+Fleet sails for Quebec.--Forebodings of the Admiral.--Storm and
+Wreck.--Timid Commanders.--Retreat.--Joyful News for Canada.--Pious
+Exultation.--Fanciful Stories.--Walker Disgraced.
+
+
+Military aid from Old England to New, promised in one year and actually
+given in the next, was a fact too novel and surprising to escape the
+notice either of friends or of foes.
+
+The latter drew strange conclusions from it. Two Irish deserters from an
+English station in Newfoundland appeared at the French post of Placentia
+full of stories of British and provincial armaments against Canada. On
+this, an idea seized the French commandant, Costebelle, and he hastened
+to make it known to the colonial minister. It was to the effect that the
+aim of England was not so much to conquer the French colonies as to
+reduce her own to submission, especially Massachusetts,--a kind of
+republic which has never willingly accepted a governor from its
+king.[147] In sending ships and soldiers to the "Bastonnais" under
+pretence of helping them to conquer their French neighbors, Costebelle
+is sure that England only means to bring them to a dutiful subjection.
+"I do not think," he writes on another occasion, "that they are so blind
+as not to see that they will insensibly be brought under the yoke of the
+Parliament of Old England; but by the cruelties that the Canadians and
+Indians exercise in continual incursions upon their lands, I judge that
+they would rather be delivered from the inhumanity of such neighbors
+than preserve all the former powers of their little republic."[148] He
+thinks, however, that the design of England ought to be strongly
+represented to the Council at Boston, and that M. de la Ronde Denys will
+be a good man to do it, as he speaks English, has lived in Boston, and
+has many acquaintances there.[149]
+
+The minister, Ponchartrain, was struck by Costebelle's suggestion, and
+wrote both to him and to Vaudreuil in high approval of it. To Vaudreuil
+he says: "Monsieur de Costebelle has informed me that the chief object
+of the armament made by the English last year was to establish their
+sovereignty at Boston and New York, the people of these provinces having
+always maintained a sort of republic, governed by their council, and
+having been unwilling to receive absolute governors from the kings of
+England. This destination of the armament seems to me probable, and it
+is much to be wished that the Council at Boston could be informed of the
+designs of the English court, and shown how important it is for that
+province to remain in the state of a republic. The King would even
+approve our helping it to do so. If you see any prospect of success, no
+means should be spared to secure it. The matter is of the greatest
+importance, but care is essential to employ persons who have the talents
+necessary for conducting it, besides great secrecy and prudence, as well
+as tried probity and fidelity. This affair demands your best attention,
+and must be conducted with great care and precaution, in order that no
+false step may be taken."[150]
+
+Ponchartrain could not be supposed to know that while under her old
+charter Massachusetts, called by him and other Frenchmen the government
+of Boston, had chosen her own governor, New York had always received
+hers from the court. What is most curious in this affair is the attitude
+of Louis XIV., who abhorred republics, and yet was prepared to bolster
+up one or more of them beyond the Atlantic,--thinking, no doubt, that
+they would be too small and remote to be dangerous.
+
+Costebelle, who had suggested the plan of warning the Council at Boston,
+proceeded to unfold his scheme for executing it. This was to send La
+Ronde Denys to Boston in the spring, under the pretext of treating for
+an exchange of prisoners, which would give him an opportunity of
+insinuating to the colonists that the forces which the Queen of England
+sends to join their own for the conquest of Acadia and Canada have no
+object whatever but that of ravishing from them the liberties they have
+kept so firmly and so long, but which would be near ruin if the Queen
+should become mistress of New France by the fortune of war; and that
+either they must have sadly fallen from their ancient spirit, or their
+chiefs have been corrupted by the Court of London, if they do not see
+that they are using their own weapons for the destruction of their
+republic.[151]
+
+La Ronde Denys accordingly received his instructions, which authorized
+him to negotiate with the "Bastonnais" as with an independent people,
+and offer them complete exemption from French hostility if they would
+promise to give no more aid to Old England either in ships or men. He
+was told at the same time to approach the subject with great caution,
+and unless he found willing listeners, to pass off the whole as a
+pleasantry.[152] He went to Boston, where he was detained in consequence
+of preparations then on foot for attacking Canada. He tried to escape;
+but his vessel was seized and moored under the guns of the town, and it
+is needless to say that his mission was a failure.
+
+The idea of Costebelle, or rather of La Ronde,--for it probably
+originated with him,--was not without foundation; for though there is no
+reason to believe that in sending ships and soldiers against the French,
+England meant to use them against the liberties of her own colonies,
+there can be no doubt that she thought those liberties excessive and
+troublesome; and, on the other side, while the people of Massachusetts
+were still fondly attached to the land of their fathers, and still
+called it "Home," they were at the same time enamoured of their
+autonomy, and jealously watchful against any abridgment of it.
+
+While La Ronde Denys was warning Massachusetts of the danger of helping
+England to conquer Canada, another Frenchman, in a more prophetic
+spirit, declared that England would make a grave mistake if she helped
+her colonies to the same end. "There is an antipathy," this writer
+affirms, "between the English of Europe and those of America, who will
+not endure troops from England even to guard their forts;" and he goes
+on to say that if the French colonies should fall, those of England
+would control the continent from Newfoundland to Florida. "Old
+England"--such are his words--"will not imagine that these various
+provinces will then unite, shake off the yoke of the English monarchy,
+and erect themselves into a democracy."[153] Forty or fifty years later,
+several Frenchmen made the same prediction; but at this early day, when
+the British provinces were so feeble and divided, it is truly a
+remarkable one.
+
+The anonymous prophet regards the colonies of England, Massachusetts
+above all, as a standing menace to those of France; and he proposes a
+drastic remedy against the danger. This is a powerful attack on Boston
+by land and sea, for which he hopes that God will prepare the way. "When
+Boston is reduced, we would call together all the chief men of the other
+towns of New England, who would pay heavy sums to be spared from the
+flames. As for Boston, it should be pillaged, its workshops,
+manufactures, shipyards, all its fine establishments ruined, and its
+ships sunk." If these gentle means are used thoroughly, he thinks that
+New England will cease to be a dangerous rival for some time, especially
+if "Rhodelene" (Rhode Island) is treated like Boston.[154]
+
+While the correspondent of the French court was thus consigning New
+England to destruction, an attack was preparing against Canada less
+truculent but quite as formidable as that which he urged against Boston.
+The French colony was threatened by an armament stronger in proportion
+to her present means of defence than that which brought her under
+British rule half a century later. But here all comparison ceases; for
+there was no Pitt to direct and inspire, and no Wolfe to lead.
+
+The letters of Dudley, the proposals of Vetch, the representations of
+Nicholson, the promptings of Jeremiah Dummer, agent of Massachusetts in
+England, and the speech made to the Queen by the four Indians who had
+been the London sensation of the last year, had all helped to draw the
+attention of the ministry to the New World, and the expediency of
+driving the French out of it. Other influences conspired to the same
+end, or in all likelihood little or nothing would have been done.
+England was tiring of the Continental war, the costs of which threatened
+ruin. Marlborough was rancorously attacked, and his most stanch
+supporters the Whigs had given place to the Tories, led by the Lord
+Treasurer Harley, and the Secretary of State St. John, soon afterwards
+Lord Bolingbroke. Never was party spirit more bitter; and the new
+ministry found a congenial ally in the coarse and savage but powerful
+genius of Swift, who, incensed by real or imagined slights from the late
+minister, Godolphin, gave all his strength to the winning side.
+
+The prestige of Marlborough's victories was still immense. Harley and
+St. John dreaded it as their chief danger, and looked eagerly for some
+means of counteracting it. Such means would be supplied by the conquest
+of New France. To make America a British continent would be an
+achievement almost worth Blenheim or Ramillies, and one, too, in which
+Britain alone would be the gainer; whereas the enemies of Marlborough,
+with Swift at their head, contended that his greatest triumphs turned
+more to the profit of Holland or Germany than of England.[155] Moreover,
+to send a part of his army across the Atlantic would tend to cripple his
+movements and diminish his fame.
+
+St. John entered with ardor into the scheme. Seven veteran regiments,
+five of which were from the army in Flanders, were ordered to embark.
+But in the choice of commanders the judgment of the ministers was not
+left free; there were influences that they could not disregard. The
+famous Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, lately the favorite of the feeble
+but wilful queen, had lost her good graces and given place to Mrs.
+Masham, one of the women of her bedchamber. The new favorite had a
+brother, John Hill, known about the court as Jack Hill, whom Marlborough
+had pronounced good for nothing, but who had been advanced to the rank
+of colonel, and then of brigadier, through the influence of Mrs. Masham;
+and though his agreeable social qualities were his best recommendation,
+he was now appointed to command the troops on the Canada expedition. It
+is not so clear why the naval command was given to Admiral Sir Hovenden
+Walker, a man whose incompetence was soon to become notorious.
+
+Extreme care was taken to hide the destination of the fleet. Even the
+Lords of the Admiralty were kept ignorant of it. Some thought the ships
+bound for the West Indies; some for the South Sea. Nicholson was sent to
+America with orders to the several colonies to make ready men and
+supplies. He landed at Boston on the eighth of June. The people of the
+town, who were nearly all Whigs, were taken by surprise, expecting no
+such enterprise on the part of the Tory ministry; and their perplexity
+was not diminished when they were told that the fleet was at hand, and
+that they were to supply it forthwith with provisions for ten
+weeks.[156] There was no time to lose. The governors of New York,
+Connecticut, and Rhode Island were summoned to meet at New London, and
+Dudley and Nicholson went thither to join them. Here plans were made for
+the double attack; for while Walker and Hill were to sail up the St.
+Lawrence against Quebec, Nicholson, as in the former attempt, was to
+move against Montreal by way of Lake Champlain. In a few days the
+arrangements were made, and the governors hastened back to their
+respective posts.[157]
+
+When Dudley reached Boston, he saw Nantasket Roads crowded with
+transports and ships of war, and the pastures of Noddle's Island studded
+with tents. The fleet had come on the twenty-fourth, having had what the
+Admiral calls "by the blessing of God a favorable and extraordinary
+passage, being but seven weeks and two days between Plymouth and
+Nantasket."[158]
+
+The Admiral and the General had been welcomed with all honor. The
+provincial Secretary, with two members of the Council, conducted them to
+town amid salutes from the batteries of Copp's Hill and Fort Hill, and
+the Boston militia regiment received them under arms; after which they
+were feasted at the principal tavern, and accompanied in ceremony to the
+lodgings provided for them.[159] When the troops were disembarked and
+the tents pitched, curious townspeople and staring rustics crossed to
+Noddle's Island, now East Boston, to gaze with wonder on a military
+pageant the like of which New England had never seen before. Yet their
+joy at this unlooked-for succor was dashed with deep distrust and
+jealousy. They dreaded these new and formidable friends, with their
+imperious demeanor and exacting demands. The British officers, on their
+part, were no better pleased with the colonists, and one of them,
+Colonel King, of the artillery, thus gives vent to his feelings: "You'll
+find in my Journal what Difficultyes we mett with through the Misfortune
+that the Coloneys were not inform'd of our Coming two Months sooner, and
+through the Interestedness, ill Nature, and Sowerness of these People,
+whose Government, Doctrine, and Manners, whose Hypocracy and canting,
+are insupportable; and no man living but one of Gen'l Hill's good Sense
+and good Nature could have managed them. But if such a Man mett with
+nothing he could depend on, altho' vested with the Queen's Royal Power
+and Authority, and Supported by a Number of Troops sufficient to reduce
+by force all the Coloneys, 'tis easy to determine the Respect and
+Obedience her Majesty may reasonably expect from them." And he gives it
+as his conviction that till all the colonies are deprived of their
+charters and brought under one government, "they will grow more stiff
+and disobedient every Day."[160]
+
+It will be seen that some coolness on the part of the Bostonians was not
+unnatural. But whatever may have been the popular feeling, the
+provincial authorities did their full part towards supplying the needs
+of the new-comers; for Dudley, with his strong Tory leanings, did not
+share the prevailing jealousy, and the country members of the Assembly
+were anxious before all things to be delivered from war-parties. The
+problem was how to raise the men and furnish the supplies in the least
+possible time. The action of the Assembly, far from betraying any
+slackness, was worthy of a military dictatorship. All ordinary business
+was set aside. Bills of credit for £40,000 were issued to meet the needs
+of the expedition. It was ordered that the prices of provisions and
+other necessaries of the service should stand fixed at the point where
+they stood before the approach of the fleet was known. Sheriffs and
+constables, jointly with the Queen's officers, were ordered to search
+all the town for provisions and liquors, and if the owners refused to
+part with them at the prescribed prices, to break open doors and seize
+them. Stringent and much-needed Acts were passed against harboring
+deserters. Provincial troops, in greater number than the ministry had
+demanded, were ordered to be raised at once, and quartered upon the
+citizens, with or without their consent, at the rate of eightpence a day
+for each man.[161] Warrants were issued for impressing pilots, and also
+mechanics and laborers, who, in spite of Puritan scruples, were required
+to work on Sundays.
+
+Such measures, if imposed by England, would have roused the most bitter
+resentment. Even when ordered by their own representatives, they caused
+a sullen discontent among the colonists, and greatly increased the
+popular dislike of their military visitors. It was certain that when the
+expedition sailed and the operation of the new enactments ceased, prices
+would rise; and hence the compulsion to part with goods at low fixed
+rates was singularly trying to the commercial temper. It was a busy
+season, too, with the farmers, and they showed no haste to bring their
+produce to the camp. Though many of the principal inhabitants bound
+themselves by mutual agreement to live on their family stores of salt
+provisions, in order that the troops might be better supplied with
+fresh, this failed to soothe the irritation of the British officers,
+aggravated by frequent desertions, which the colonists favored, and by
+the impossibility of finding pilots familiar with the St. Lawrence. Some
+when forced into the service made their escape, to the great indignation
+of Walker, who wrote to the governor: "Her Majesty will resent such
+actions in a very signal manner; and when it shall be represented that
+the people live here as if there were no king in Israel, but every one
+does what seems right in his own eyes, measures will be taken to put
+things upon a better foot for the future."[162] At length, however,
+every preparation was made, the supplies were all on board, and after a
+grand review of the troops on the fields of Noddle's Island, the whole
+force set sail on the thirtieth of July, the provincials wishing them
+success, and heartily rejoicing that they were gone.
+
+The fleet consisted of nine ships of war and two bomb-ketches, with
+about sixty transports, store-ships, hospital-ships, and other vessels,
+British and provincial. They carried the seven British regiments,
+numbering, with the artillery train, about fifty-five hundred men,
+besides six hundred marines and fifteen hundred provincials; counting,
+with the sailors, nearly twelve thousand in all.[163]
+
+Vetch commanded the provincials, having been brought from Annapolis for
+that purpose. The great need was of pilots. Every sailor in New England
+who had seen the St. Lawrence had been pressed into the service, though
+each and all declared themselves incapable of conducting the fleet to
+Quebec. Several had no better knowledge of the river than they had
+picked up when serving as soldiers under Phips twenty-one years before.
+The best among them was the veteran Captain Bonner, who afterwards
+amused his old age by making a plan of Boston, greatly prized by
+connoisseurs in such matters. Vetch had studied the St. Lawrence in his
+several visits to Quebec, but, like Bonner, he had gone up the river
+only in sloops or other small craft, and was, moreover, no sailor. One
+of Walker's ships, the "Chester," sent in advance to cruise in the Gulf,
+had captured a French vessel commanded by one Paradis, an experienced
+old voyager, who knew the river well. He took a bribe of five hundred
+pistoles to act as pilot; but the fleet would perhaps have fared better
+if he had refused the money. He gave such dismal accounts of the
+Canadian winter that the Admiral could see nothing but ruin ahead, even
+if he should safely reach his destination. His tribulation is recorded
+in his Journal. "That which now chiefly took up my thoughts, was
+contriving how to secure the ships if we got up to Quebec; for _the ice
+in the river freezing to the bottom_ would have utterly destroyed and
+bilged them as much as if they had been squeezed between rocks."[164]
+These misgivings may serve to give the measure of his professional
+judgment. Afterwards, reflecting on the situation, he sees cause for
+gratitude in his own mishaps; "because, had we arrived safe at Quebec,
+our provisions would have been reduced to a very small proportion, not
+exceeding eight or nine weeks at short allowance, so that between ten
+and twelve thousand men must have been left to perish with the extremity
+of cold and hunger. I must confess the melancholy contemplation of this
+(had it happened) strikes me with horror; for how dismal must it have
+been to have beheld the seas and earth locked up by adamantine frosts,
+and swoln with high mountains of snow, in a barren and uncultivated
+region; great numbers of brave men famishing with hunger, and drawing
+lots who should die first to feed the rest."[165]
+
+All went well till the eighteenth of August, when there was a strong
+head-wind, and the ships ran into the Bay of Gaspé. Two days after, the
+wind shifted to the southeast, and they set sail again, Walker in his
+flagship, the "Edgar," being at or near the head of the fleet. On the
+evening of the twenty-second they were at some distance above the great
+Island of Anticosti. The river is here about seventy miles wide, and no
+land had been seen since noon of the day before. There was a strong east
+wind, with fog. Walker thought that he was not far from the south shore,
+when in fact he was at least fifty miles from it, and more than half
+that distance north of his true course. At eight in the evening the
+Admiral signalled the fleet to bring to, under mizzen and main-topsails,
+with heads turned southward. At half-past ten, Paddon, the captain of
+the "Edgar," came to tell him that he saw land which he supposed must be
+the south shore; on which Walker, in a fatal moment, signalled for the
+ships to wear and bring to, with heads northward. He then turned into
+his berth, and was falling asleep, when a military officer, Captain
+Goddard, of Seymour's regiment, hastily entered, and begged him to come
+on deck, saying that there were breakers on all sides. Walker, scornful
+of a landsman, and annoyed at being disturbed, answered impatiently and
+would not stir. Soon after, Goddard appeared again, and implored him for
+Heaven's sake to come up and see for himself, or all would be lost. At
+the same time the Admiral heard a great noise and trampling, on which he
+turned out of his berth, put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and
+going in this attire on deck, found a scene of fright and confusion. At
+first he could see nothing, and shouted to the men to reassure them; but
+just then the fog opened, the moon shone out, and the breaking surf was
+plainly visible to leeward. The French pilot, who at first could not be
+found, now appeared on deck, and declared, to the astonishment of both
+the Admiral and Captain Paddon, that they were off the north shore.
+Paddon, in his perplexity, had ordered an anchor to be let go; Walker
+directed the cable to be cut, and, making all sail, succeeded in beating
+to windward and gaining an offing.[166]
+
+The ship that carried Colonel King, of the artillery, had a narrow
+escape. King says that she anchored in a driving rain, "with a shoal of
+rocks on each quarter within a cable's length of us, which we plainly
+perceived by the waves breaking over them in a very violent manner."
+They were saved by a lull in the gale; for if it had continued with the
+same violence, he pursues, "our anchors could not have held, and the
+wind and the vast seas which ran, would have broke our ship into ten
+thousand pieces against the rocks. All night we heard nothing but ships
+firing and showing lights, as in the utmost distress."[167]
+
+Vetch, who was on board the little frigate "Despatch," says that he was
+extremely uneasy at the course taken by Walker on the night of the
+storm. "I told Colonel Dudley and Captain Perkins, commander of the
+'Despatch,' that I wondered what the Flag meant by that course, and why
+he did not steer west and west-by-south."[168] The "Despatch" kept well
+astern, and so escaped the danger. Vetch heard through the fog guns
+firing signals of distress; but three days passed before he knew how
+serious the disaster was. The ships of war had all escaped; but eight
+British transports, one store-ship, and one sutler's sloop were dashed
+to pieces.[169] "It was lamentable to hear the shrieks of the sinking,
+drowning, departing souls," writes the New England commissary, Sheaf,
+who was very near sharing their fate.
+
+The disaster took place at and near a rocky island, with adjacent reefs,
+lying off the north shore and called Isle aux Oeufs. On the second day
+after it happened, Walker was told by the master of one of the wrecked
+transports that eight hundred and eighty-four soldiers had been lost,
+and he gives this hasty estimate in his published Journal; though he
+says in his Introduction to it that the total loss of officers,
+soldiers, and sailors was scarcely nine hundred.[170] According to a
+later and more trustworthy statement, the loss of the troops was
+twenty-nine officers, six hundred and seventy-six sergeants, corporals,
+drummers, and private soldiers, and thirty-five women attached to the
+regiments; that is, a total of seven hundred and forty lives.[171] The
+loss of the sailors is not given; but it could scarcely have exceeded
+two hundred.
+
+The fleet spent the next two days in standing to and fro between the
+northern and southern shores, with the exception of some of the smaller
+vessels employed in bringing off the survivors from the rocks of Isle
+aux Oeufs. The number thus saved was, according to Walker, four
+hundred and ninety-nine. On the twenty-fifth he went on board the
+General's ship, the "Windsor," and Hill and he resolved to call a
+council of war. In fact, Hill had already got his colonels together.
+Signals were made for the captains of the men-of-war to join them, and
+the council began.
+
+"Jack Hill," the man about town, placed in high command by the influence
+of his sister, the Queen's tire-woman, had now an opportunity to justify
+his appointment and prove his mettle. Many a man of pleasure and
+fashion, when put to the proof, has revealed the latent hero within him;
+but Hill was not one of them. Both he and Walker seemed to look for
+nothing but a pretext for retreat; and when manhood is conspicuously
+wanting in the leaders, a council of war is rarely disposed to supply
+it. The pilots were called in and examined, and they all declared
+themselves imperfectly acquainted with the St. Lawrence, which, as some
+of the captains observed, they had done from the first. Sir William
+Phips, with pilots still more ignorant, had safely carried his fleet to
+Quebec in 1690, as Walker must have known, for he had with him Phips's
+Journal of the voyage. The expedition had lost about a twelfth part of
+its soldiers and sailors, besides the transports that carried them;
+with this exception there was no reason for retreat which might not as
+well have been put forward when the fleet left Boston. All the war-ships
+were safe, and the loss of men was not greater than might have happened
+in a single battle. Hill says that Vetch, when asked if he would pilot
+the fleet to Quebec, refused to undertake it;[172] but Vetch himself
+gives his answer as follows: "I told him [the Admiral] I never was bred
+to sea, nor was it any part of my province; but I would do my best by
+going ahead and showing them where the difficulty of the river was,
+which I knew pretty well."[173] The naval captains, however, resolved
+that by reason of the ignorance of the pilots and the dangerous currents
+it was impossible to go up to Quebec.[174] So discreditable a backing
+out from a great enterprise will hardly be found elsewhere in English
+annals. On the next day Vetch, disappointed and indignant, gave his mind
+freely to the Admiral. "The late disaster cannot, in my humble opinion,
+be anyways imputed to the difficulty of the navigation, but to the wrong
+course we steered, which most unavoidably carried us upon the north
+shore. Who directed that course you best know; and as our return without
+any further attempt would be a vast reflection upon the conduct of this
+affair, so it would be of very fatal consequence to the interest of the
+Crown and all the British colonies upon this continent."[175] His
+protest was fruitless. The fleet retraced its course to the gulf, and
+then steered for Spanish River,--now the harbor of Sydney,--in the
+Island of Cape Breton; the Admiral consoling himself with the reflection
+that the wreck was a blessing in disguise and a merciful intervention of
+Providence to save the expedition from the freezing, starvation, and
+cannibalism which his imagination had conjured up.[176]
+
+The frigate "Sapphire" was sent to Boston with news of the wreck and the
+retreat, which was at once despatched to Nicholson, who, if he continued
+his movement on Montreal, would now be left to conquer Canada alone. His
+force consisted of about twenty-three hundred men, white and red, and
+when the fatal news reached him he was encamped on Wood Creek, ready to
+pass Lake Champlain. Captain Butler, a New York officer at the camp,
+afterwards told Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, that when Nicholson heard
+what had happened, he was beside himself with rage, tore off his wig,
+threw it on the ground and stamped upon it, crying out, "Roguery!
+Treachery!"[177] When his fit was over, he did all that was now left for
+him to do,--burned the wooden forts he had built, marched back to
+Albany, and disbanded his army, after leaving one hundred and fifty men
+to protect the frontier against scalping-parties.[178]
+
+Canada had been warned of the storm gathering against her. Early in
+August, Vaudreuil received letters from Costebelle, at Placentia,
+telling him that English prisoners had reported mighty preparations at
+Boston against Quebec, and that Montreal was also to be attacked.[179]
+The colony was ill prepared for the emergency, but no effort was spared
+to give the enemy a warm reception. The militia were mustered, Indians
+called together, troops held in readiness, and defences strengthened.
+The saints were invoked, and the aid of Heaven was implored by masses,
+processions, and penances, as in New England by a dismal succession of
+fasts. Mother Juchereau de Saint-Denis tells us how devout Canadians
+prayed for help from God and the most holy Virgin; "since their glory
+was involved, seeing that the true religion would quickly perish if the
+English should prevail." The general alarm produced effects which,
+though transient, were thought highly commendable while they lasted. The
+ladies, according to Mother Juchereau, gave up their ornaments, and
+became more modest and more pious. "Those of Montreal," pursues the
+worthy nun, "even outdid those of Quebec; for they bound themselves by
+oath to wear neither ribbons nor lace, to keep their throats covered,
+and to observe various holy practices for the space of a year." The
+recluse of Montreal, Mademoiselle Le Ber, who, by reason of her morbid
+seclusion and ascetic life, was accounted almost a saint, made a flag
+embroidered with a prayer to the Virgin, to be borne against the
+heretical bands of Nicholson.
+
+When that commander withdrew, his retreat, though not the cause of it,
+was quickly known at Montreal, and the forces gathered there went down
+to Quebec to aid in repelling the more formidable attack by sea. Here
+all was suspense and expectancy till the middle of October, when the
+report came that two large ships had been seen in the river below. There
+was great excitement, for they were supposed to be the van of the
+British fleet; but alarm was soon turned to joy by the arrival of the
+ships, which proved to be French. On the nineteenth, the Sieur de la
+Valterie, who had come from Labrador in September, and had been sent
+down the river again by Vaudreuil to watch for the English fleet,
+appeared at Quebec with tidings of joy. He had descended the St.
+Lawrence in a canoe, with two Frenchmen and an Indian, till, landing at
+Isle aux Oeufs on the first of October, they met two French sailors or
+fishermen loaded with plunder, and presently discovered the wrecks of
+seven English ships, with, as they declared, fifteen or sixteen hundred
+dead bodies on the strand hard by, besides dead horses, sheep, dogs, and
+hens, three or four hundred large iron-hooped casks, a barrel of wine
+and a barrel and a keg of brandy, cables, anchors, chains, planks,
+boards, shovels, picks, mattocks, and piles of old iron three feet
+high.[180]
+
+"The least devout," writes Mother Juchereau, "were touched by the
+grandeur of the miracle wrought in our behalf,--a marvellous effect of
+God's love for Canada, which, of all these countries, is the only one
+that professes the true religion."
+
+Quebec was not ungrateful. A solemn mass was ordered every month during
+a year, to be followed by the song of Moses after the destruction of
+Pharaoh and his host.[181] Amazing reports were spread concerning the
+losses of the English. About three thousand of "these wretches"--so the
+story ran--died after reaching land, without counting the multitudes
+drowned in the attempt; and even this did not satisfy divine justice,
+for God blew up one of the ships by lightning during the storm. Vessels
+were sent to gather up the spoils of the wreck, and they came back, it
+was reported, laden with marvellous treasures, including rich clothing,
+magnificent saddles, plate, silver-hilted swords, and the like; bringing
+also the gratifying announcement that though the autumn tides had swept
+away many corpses, more than two thousand still lay on the rocks, naked
+and in attitudes of despair.[182] These stories, repeated by later
+writers, find believers to this day.[183]
+
+When Walker and his ships reached Spanish River, he called another
+council of war. The question was whether, having failed to take Quebec,
+they should try to take Placentia; and it was resolved that the short
+supply of provisions, the impossibility of getting more from Boston
+before the first of November, and the risks of the autumnal storms, made
+the attempt impracticable. Accordingly, the New England transports
+sailed homeward, and the British fleet steered for the Thames.
+
+Swift writes on the sixth of October in his Journal to Stella: "The news
+of Mr. Hill's miscarriage in his expedition came to-day, and I went to
+visit Mrs. Masham and Mrs. Hill, his two sisters, to condole with them."
+A week after, he mentions the arrival of the general himself; and again
+on the sixteenth writes thus: "I was to see Jack Hill this morning, who
+made that unfortunate expedition; and there is still more misfortune,
+for that ship which was admiral of his fleet [the "Edgar"] is blown up
+in the Thames by an accident and carelessness of some rogue, who was
+going, as they think, to steal some gunpowder: five hundred men are
+lost."
+
+A report of this crowning disaster reached Quebec, and Mother Juchereau
+does not fail to improve it. According to her, the Admiral, stricken
+with divine justice, and wrought to desperation, blew up the ship
+himself, and perished with all on board, except only two men.
+
+There was talk of an examination into the causes of the failure, but
+nothing was done. Hill, strong in the influence of Mrs. Masham, reaped
+new honors and offices. Walker, more answerable for the result, and less
+fortunate in court influence, was removed from command, and his name was
+stricken from the half-pay list. He did not, however, blow himself up,
+but left England and emigrated to South Carolina, whence, thinking
+himself ill-treated by the authorities, he removed to Barbadoes, and
+died some years later.[184]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[147] _Rapport de Costebelle, 14 Octobre, 1709._ _Ibid., 3 Décembre,
+1709._
+
+[148] "Je ne les crois pas assez aveugles pour ne point s'apercevoir
+qu'insensiblement ils vont subir le joug du parlement de la vieille
+Angleterre, mais par les cruautés que les Canadiens et sauvages exercent
+sur leurs terres par des courses continuelles je juge qu'ils
+aiment encore mieux se délivrer de l'inhumanité de semblables
+voisins que de conserver toute l'ancienne autorité de leur petite
+république."--_Costebelle au Ministre, 3 Décembre, 1710._ He clung
+tenaciously to this idea, and wrote again in 1712 that "les cruautés de
+nos sauvages, qui font horreur à rapporter," would always incline the
+New England people to peace. They had, however, an opposite effect.
+
+[149] It is more than probable that La Ronde Denys, who had studied the
+"Bastonnais" with care, first gave the idea to Costebelle.
+
+[150] _Ponchartrain à Vaudreuil, 10 Août, 1710._ _Ponchartrain à
+Costebelle, même date._ These letters are in answer to the reports of
+Costebelle, before cited.
+
+[151] _Costebelle à Ponchartrain, 3 Décembre, 1710._
+
+[152] _Instruction pour Monsieur de la Ronde, Capitaine d'Infanterie des
+Détachements de la Marine_, 1711. "Le dit sieur de la Ronde pourroit
+entrer en négociation et se promettre de faire cesser toutes sortes
+d'hostilités du côté du Canada, supposé que les Bastonnais promissent
+d'en faire de même de leur côté, et qu'ils ne donassent aucun secours à
+l'avenir, d'hommes ni de vaisseaux, aux puissances de la vieille
+Angleterre et d'Ecosse."
+
+[153] "La vieille Angleterre ne s'imaginera pas que ces diverses
+Provinces se réuniront, et, secouant le joug de la monarchie Anglaise,
+s'érigeront en démocratie."--_Mémoire sur la Nouvelle Angleterre_, 1710,
+1711. (Archives de la Marine.)
+
+[154] "Pour Baston, il faudrait la piller, ruiner ses ateliers, ses
+manufactures, tous ses beaux établissements, couler bas ses navires, ...
+ruiner les ateliers de construction de navires."--_Mémoire sur la
+Nouvelle Angleterre_, 1710, 1711. The writer was familiar with Boston
+and its neighborhood, and had certainly spent some time there. Possibly
+he was no other than La Ronde Denys himself, after the failure of his
+mission to excite the "Bastonnais" to refuse co-operation with British
+armaments. He enlarges with bitterness on the extent of the fisheries,
+foreign trade, and ship-building of New England.
+
+[155] See Swift, _Conduct of the Allies_.
+
+[156] Boston, devoted to fishing, shipbuilding, and foreign trade, drew
+most of its provisions from neighboring colonies. (Dummer, _Letter to a
+Noble Lord_.) The people only half believed that the Tory ministry were
+sincere in attacking Canada, and suspected that the sudden demand for
+provisions, so difficult to meet at once, was meant to furnish a pretext
+for throwing the blame of failure upon Massachusetts. Hutchinson, ii.
+173.
+
+[157] _Minutes of Proceedings of the Congress of Governors, June, 1711._
+
+[158] _Walker to Burchett, Secretary of the Admiralty, 14 August, 1711._
+
+[159] _Abstract of the Journal of the Governor, Council, and Assembly of
+the Province of the Massachusetts Bay._
+
+[160] _King to Secretary St. John, 25 July, 1711._
+
+[161] The number demanded from Massachusetts was one thousand, and that
+raised by her was eleven hundred and sixty. _Dudley to Walker, 27 July,
+1711._
+
+[162] Walker prints this letter in his Journal. Colonel King writes in
+his own Journal: "The conquest of Canada will naturally lead the Queen
+into changing their present disorderly government;" and he thinks that
+the conviction of this made the New Englanders indifferent to the
+success of the expedition.
+
+[163] The above is drawn from the various lists and tables in Walker,
+_Journal of the Canada Expedition_. The armed ships that entered Boston
+in June were fifteen in all; but several had been detached for cruising.
+The number of British transports, store-ships, etc., was forty, the rest
+being provincial.
+
+[164] Walker, _Journal; Introduction_.
+
+[165] _Ibid._, 25.
+
+[166] Walker, _Journal_, 124, 125.
+
+[167] King, _Journal_.
+
+[168] Vetch, _Journal_.
+
+[169] King, _Journal_.
+
+[170] Compare Walker, _Journal_, 45, and _Ibid._, 127, 128. He elsewhere
+intimates that his first statement needed correction.
+
+[171] _Report of ye Soldiers, etc., Lost._ (Public Record Office.) This
+is a tabular statement, giving the names of the commissioned officers
+and the positions of their subordinates, regiment by regiment. All the
+French accounts of the losses are exaggerations.
+
+[172] _Hill to Dudley, 25 August, 1711._
+
+[173] Vetch, _Journal_. His statement is confirmed by the report of the
+council.
+
+[174] _Report of a Consultation of Sea Officers belonging to the
+Squadron under Command of Sir Hovenden Walker, Kt., 25 August, 1711._
+Signed by Walker and eight others.
+
+[175] _Vetch to Walker, 26 August, 1711._
+
+[176] Walker, _Journal, Introduction_, 25.
+
+[177] Kalm, _Travels_, ii. 135.
+
+[178] Schuyler, _Colonial New York_, ii. 48.
+
+[179] _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 25 Octobre, 1711._
+
+[180] _Déposition de François de Marganne, Sieur de la Valterie; par
+devant Nous, Paul Dupuy, Ecuyer, Conseiller du Roy, etc., 19 Octobre,
+1711._
+
+[181] _Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier et l'Histoire de l'Hôpital Général
+de Quebec_, 209.
+
+[182] Juchereau, _Histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec_, 473-491. La Ronde
+Denys says that nearly one thousand men were drowned, and that about two
+thousand died of injuries received. _La Ronde au Ministre, 30 Décembre,
+1711._
+
+[183] Some exaggeration was natural enough. Colonel Lee, of the Rhode
+Island contingent, says that a day or two after the wreck he saw "the
+bodies of twelve or thirteen hundred brave men, with women and children,
+lying in heaps." _Lee to Governor Cranston, 12 September, 1711._
+
+[184] Walker's Journal was published in 1720, with an Introduction of
+forty-eight pages, written in bad temper and bad taste. The Journal
+contains many documents, printed in full. In the Public Record Office
+are preserved the Journals of Hill, Vetch, and King. Copies of these,
+with many other papers on the same subject, from the same source, are
+before me. Vetch's Journal and his letter to Walker after the wreck are
+printed in the _Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society_, vol.
+iv.
+
+It appears by the muster-rolls of Massachusetts that what with manning
+the coast-guard vessels, defending the frontier against Indians, and
+furnishing her contingent to the Canada expedition, more than one in
+five of her able-bodied men were in active service in the summer of
+1711. Years passed before she recovered from the effects of her
+financial exhaustion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+1712-1749.
+
+LOUISBOURG AND ACADIA.
+
+Peace of Utrecht.--Perilous Questions.--Louisbourg founded.--Annapolis
+attacked.--Position of the Acadians.--Weakness of the British
+Garrison.--Apathy of the Ministry.--French Intrigue.--Clerical
+Politicians.--The Oath of Allegiance.--Acadians refuse it: their
+Expulsion proposed; they take the Oath.
+
+
+The great European war was drawing to an end, and with it the American
+war, which was but its echo. An avalanche of defeat and disaster had
+fallen upon the old age of Louis XIV., and France was burdened with an
+insupportable load of debt. The political changes in England came to her
+relief. Fifty years later, when the elder Pitt went out of office and
+Bute came in, France had cause to be grateful; for the peace of 1763 was
+far more favorable to her than it would have been under the imperious
+war minister. It was the same in 1712. The Whigs who had fallen from
+power would have wrung every advantage from France; the triumphant
+Tories were eager to close with her on any terms not so easy as to
+excite popular indignation. The result was the Treaty of Utrecht, which
+satisfied none of the allies of England, and gave to France conditions
+more favorable than she had herself proposed two years before. The fall
+of Godolphin and the disgrace of Marlborough were a godsend to her.
+
+Yet in America Louis XIV. made important concessions. The Five Nations
+of the Iroquois were acknowledged to be British subjects; and this
+became in future the preposterous foundation for vast territorial claims
+of England. Hudson Bay, Newfoundland, and Acadia, "according to its
+ancient limits," were also given over by France to her successful rival;
+though the King parted from Acadia with a reluctance shown by the great
+offers he made for permission to retain it.[185]
+
+But while the Treaty of Utrecht seemed to yield so much, and yielded so
+much in fact, it staved off the settlement of questions absolutely
+necessary for future peace. The limits of Acadia, the boundary line
+between Canada and the British colonies, and the boundary between those
+colonies and the great western wilderness claimed by France, were all
+left unsettled, since the attempt to settle them would have rekindled
+the war. The peace left the embers of war still smouldering, sure, when
+the time should come, to burst into flame. The next thirty years were
+years of chronic, smothered war, disguised, but never quite at rest.
+The standing subjects of dispute were three, very different in
+importance. First, the question of Acadia: whether the treaty gave
+England a vast country, or only a strip of seacoast. Next, that of
+northern New England and the Abenaki Indians, many of whom French policy
+still left within the borders of Maine, and whom both powers claimed as
+subjects or allies. Last and greatest was the question whether France or
+England should hold the valleys of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes,
+and with them the virtual control of the continent. This was the triple
+problem that tormented the northern English colonies for more than a
+generation, till it found a solution at last in the Seven Years' War.
+
+Louis XIV. had deeply at heart the recovery of Acadia. Yet the old and
+infirm King, whose sun was setting in clouds after half a century of
+unrivalled splendor, felt that peace was a controlling necessity, and he
+wrote as follows to his plenipotentiaries at Utrecht: "It is so
+important to prevent the breaking off of the negotiations that the King
+will give up both Acadia and Cape Breton, if necessary for peace; but
+the plenipotentiaries will yield this point only in the last extremity,
+for by this double cession Canada will become useless, the access to it
+will be closed, the fisheries will come to an end, and the French marine
+be utterly destroyed."[186] And he adds that if the English will restore
+Acadia, he, the King, will give them, not only St. Christopher, but
+also the islands of St. Martin and St. Bartholomew.
+
+The plenipotentiaries replied that the offer was refused, and that the
+best they could do without endangering the peace was to bargain that
+Cape Breton should belong to France.[187] On this, the King bid higher
+still for the coveted province, and promised that if Acadia were
+returned to him, the fortifications of Placentia should be given up
+untouched, the cannon in the forts of Hudson Bay abandoned to the
+English, and the Newfoundland fisheries debarred to Frenchmen,[188]--a
+remarkable concession; for France had fished on the banks of
+Newfoundland for two centuries, and they were invaluable to her as a
+nursery of sailors. Even these offers were rejected, and England would
+not resign Acadia.
+
+Cape Breton was left to the French. This large island, henceforth called
+by its owners Isle Royale, lies east of Acadia, and is separated from it
+only by the narrow Strait of Canseau. From its position, it commands the
+chief entrance of the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. Some years before,
+the intendant Raudot had sent to the court an able paper, in which he
+urged its occupation and settlement, chiefly on commercial and
+industrial grounds. The war was then at its height; the plan was not
+carried into effect, and Isle Royale was still a wilderness. It was now
+proposed to occupy it for military and political reasons. One of its
+many harbors, well fortified and garrisoned, would guard the approaches
+of Canada, and in the next war furnish a base for attacking New England
+and recovering Acadia.
+
+After some hesitation the harbor called Port à l'Anglois was chosen for
+the proposed establishment, to which the name of Louisbourg was given,
+in honor of the King. It lies near the southeastern point of the island,
+where an opening in the ironbound coast, at once easily accessible and
+easily defended, gives entrance to a deep and sheltered basin, where a
+fleet of war-ships may find good anchorage. The proposed fortress was to
+be placed on the tongue of land that lies between this basin and the
+sea. The place, well chosen from the point of view of the soldier or the
+fisherman, was unfit for an agricultural colony, its surroundings being
+barren hills studded with spruce and fir, and broad marshes buried in
+moss.
+
+In spite of the losses and humiliations of the war, great expectations
+were formed from the new scheme. Several years earlier, when the
+proposals of Raudot were before the Marine Council, it was confidently
+declared that a strong fortress on Cape Breton would make the King
+master of North America. The details of the establishment were settled
+in advance. The King was to build the fortifications, supply them with
+cannon, send out eight companies of soldiers, besides all the usual
+officers of government, establish a well-endowed hospital, conducted by
+nuns, as at Quebec, provide Jesuits and Récollets as chaplains, besides
+Filles de la Congrégation to teach girls, send families to the spot,
+support them for two years, and furnish a good number of young women to
+marry the soldiers.[189]
+
+This plan, or something much like it, was carried into effect.
+Louisbourg was purely and solely the offspring of the Crown and its
+ally, the Church. In time it grew into a compact fishing town of about
+four thousand inhabitants, with a strong garrison and a circuit of
+formidable ramparts and batteries. It became by far the strongest
+fortress on the Atlantic coast, and so famous as a resort of privateers
+that it was known as the Dunquerque of America.
+
+What concerns us now is its weak and troubled infancy. It was to be
+peopled in good part from the two lost provinces of Acadia and
+Newfoundland, whose inhabitants were to be transported to Louisbourg or
+other parts of Isle Royale, which would thus be made at once and at the
+least possible cost a dangerous neighbor to the newly acquired
+possessions of England. The Micmacs of Acadia, and even some of the
+Abenakis, were to be included in this scheme of immigration.
+
+In the autumn, the commandant of Plaisance, or Placentia,--the French
+stronghold in Newfoundland,--received the following mandate from the
+King:--
+
+     Monsieur de Costebelle,--I have caused my orders to be given you to
+     evacuate the town and forts of Plaisance and the other places of
+     your government of Newfoundland, ceded to my dear sister the Queen
+     of Great Britain. I have given my orders for the equipment of the
+     vessels necessary to make the evacuation and transport you, with
+     the officers, garrison, and inhabitants of Plaisance and other
+     places of Newfoundland, to my Isle Royale, vulgarly called Cape
+     Breton; but as the season is so far advanced that this cannot be
+     done without exposing my troops and my subjects to perishing from
+     cold and misery, and placing my vessels in evident peril of wreck,
+     I have judged it proper to defer the transportation till the next
+     spring.[190]
+
+The inhabitants of Placentia consisted only of twenty-five or thirty
+poor fishermen, with their families,[191] and some of them would gladly
+have become English subjects and stayed where they were; but no choice
+was given them. "Nothing," writes Costebelle, "can cure them of the
+error, to which they obstinately cling, that they are free to stay or
+go, as best suits their interest."[192] They and their fishing-boats
+were in due time transported to Isle Royale, where for a while their
+sufferings were extreme.
+
+Attempts were made to induce the Indians of Acadia to move to the new
+colony; but they refused, and to compel them was out of the question.
+But by far the most desirable accession to the establishment of Isle
+Royale would be that of the Acadian French, who were too numerous to be
+transported in the summary manner practised in the case of the fishermen
+of Placentia. It was necessary to persuade rather than compel them to
+migrate, and to this end great reliance was placed on their priests,
+especially Fathers Pain and Dominique. Ponchartrain himself wrote to the
+former on the subject. The priest declares that he read the letter to
+his flock, who answered that they wished to stay in Acadia; and he adds
+that the other Acadians were of the same mind, being unwilling to leave
+their rich farms and risk starvation on a wild and barren island.[193]
+"Nevertheless," he concludes, "we shall fulfil the intentions of his
+Majesty by often holding before their eyes that religion for which they
+ought to make every sacrifice." He and his brother priests kept their
+word. Freedom of worship was pledged on certain conditions to the
+Acadians by the Treaty of Utrecht, and no attempt was ever made to
+deprive them of it; yet the continual declaration of their missionaries
+that their souls were in danger under English rule was the strongest
+spur to impel them to migrate.
+
+The condition of the English in Acadia since it fell into their hands
+had been a critical one. Port Royal, thenceforth called Annapolis Royal,
+or simply Annapolis, had been left, as before mentioned, in charge of
+Colonel Vetch, with a heterogeneous garrison of four hundred and fifty
+men.[194] The Acadians of the _banlieue_--a term defined as covering a
+space of three miles round the fort--had been included in the
+capitulation, and had taken an oath of allegiance to Queen Anne, binding
+so long as they remained in the province. Some of them worked, for the
+garrison and helped to repair the fort, which was in a ruinous
+condition. Meanwhile the Micmac Indians remained fiercely hostile to the
+English; and in June, 1711, aided by a band of Penobscots, they
+ambuscaded and killed or captured nearly seventy of them. This
+completely changed the attitude of the Acadians. They broke their oath,
+rose against their new masters, and with their Indian friends, invested
+the fort to the number of five or six hundred. Disease, desertion, and
+the ambuscade had reduced the garrison to about two hundred effective
+men, and the defences of the place were still in bad condition.[195] The
+assailants, on the other hand, had no better leader than the priest,
+Gaulin, missionary of the Micmacs and prime mover in the rising. He
+presently sailed for Placentia to beg for munitions and a commander; but
+his errand failed, the siege came to nought, and the besiegers
+dispersed. Vaudreuil, from whom the Acadians had begged help, was about
+to send it when news of the approach of Walker's fleet forced him to
+keep all his strength for his own defence.
+
+From this time to the end of the war, the chief difficulties of the
+governor of Acadia rose, not from the enemy, but from the British
+authorities at home. For more than two years he, with his starved and
+tattered garrison, were treated with absolute neglect. He received no
+orders, instructions, or money.[196] Acadia seemed forgotten by the
+ministry, till Vetch heard at last that Nicholson was appointed to
+succeed him.
+
+Now followed the Treaty of Utrecht, the cession of Acadia to England,
+and the attempt on the part of France to induce the Acadians to remove
+to Isle Royale. Some of the English officials had once been of opinion
+that this French Catholic population should be transported to Martinique
+or some other distant French colony, and its place supplied by
+Protestant families sent from England or Ireland.[197] Since the English
+Revolution, Protestantism was bound up with the new political order, and
+Catholicism with the old. No Catholic could favor the Protestant
+succession, and hence politics were inseparable from creed. Vetch, who
+came of a race of hot and stubborn Covenanters, had been one of the most
+earnest for replacing the Catholic Acadians by Protestants; but after
+the peace he and others changed their minds. No Protestant colonists
+appeared, nor was there the smallest sign that the government would give
+itself the trouble to attract any. It was certain that if the Acadians
+removed at all, they would go, not to Martinique or any other distant
+colony, but to the new military establishment of Isle Royale, which
+would thus become a strong and dangerous neighbor to the feeble British
+post of Annapolis. Moreover, the labor of the French inhabitants was
+useful and sometimes necessary to the English garrison, which depended
+mainly on them for provisions; and if they left the province, they would
+leave it a desert, with the prospect of long remaining so.
+
+Hence it happened that the English were for a time almost as anxious to
+keep the Acadians in Acadia as they were forty years later to get them
+out of it; nor had the Acadians themselves any inclination to leave
+their homes. But the French authorities needed them at Isle Royale, and
+made every effort to draw them thither. By the fourteenth article of the
+Treaty of Utrecht such of them as might choose to leave Acadia were free
+to do so within the space of a year, carrying with them their personal
+effects; while a letter of Queen Anne, addressed to Nicholson, then
+governor of Acadia, permitted the emigrants to sell their lands and
+houses.
+
+The missionary Félix Pain had reported, as we have seen, that they were,
+in general, disposed to remain where they were; on which Costebelle, who
+now commanded at Louisbourg, sent two officers, La Ronde Denys and
+Pensens, with instructions to set the priests at work to persuade their
+flocks to move.[198] La Ronde Denys and his colleague repaired to
+Annapolis, where they promised the inhabitants vessels for their
+removal, provisions for a year, and freedom from all taxation for ten
+years. Then, having been well prepared in advance, the heads of families
+were formed in a circle, and in presence of the English governor, the
+two French officers, and the priests Justinien, Bonaventure, and Gaulin,
+they all signed, chiefly with crosses, a paper to the effect that they
+would live and die subjects of the King of France.[199] A few embarked
+at once for Isle Royale in the vessel "Marie-Joseph," and the rest were
+to follow within the year.
+
+This result was due partly to the promises of La Ronde Denys, and still
+more to a pastoral letter from the Bishop of Quebec, supporting the
+assurances of the missionaries that the heretics would rob them of the
+ministrations of the Church. This was not all. The Acadians about
+Annapolis had been alienated by the conduct of the English authorities,
+which was not conciliating, and on the part of the governor was
+sometimes outrageous.[200] Yet those of the _banlieue_ had no right to
+complain, since they had made themselves liable to the penalties of
+treason by first taking an oath of allegiance to Queen Anne, and then
+breaking it by trying to seize her fort.[201]
+
+Governor Nicholson, like his predecessor, was resolved to keep the
+Acadians in the province if he could. This personage, able, energetic,
+perverse, headstrong, and unscrupulous, conducted himself, even towards
+the English officers and soldiers, in a manner that seems unaccountable,
+and that kindled their utmost indignation.[202] Towards the Acadians his
+behavior was still worse. As Costebelle did not keep his promise to send
+vessels to bring them to Isle Royale, they built small ones for
+themselves, and the French authorities at Louisbourg sent them the
+necessary rigging. Nicholson ordered it back, forbade the sale of their
+lands and houses,--a needless stretch of power, as there was nobody to
+buy,--and would not let them sell even their personal effects, coolly
+setting at nought both the Treaty of Utrecht and the letter of the
+Queen.[203]
+
+Nicholson was but a short time at Annapolis, leaving the government,
+during most of his term, to his deputies, Caulfield and afterwards
+Doucette, both of whom roundly denounce their principal for his general
+conduct; while both, in one degree or another, followed his example in
+preventing so far as they could the emigration of the Acadians. Some of
+them, however, got away, and twelve or fifteen families who settled at
+Port Toulouse, on Isle Royale, were near perishing from cold and
+hunger.[204]
+
+From Annapolis the French agents, La Ronde Denys and Pensens, proceeded
+to the settlements about Chignecto and the Basin of Mines,--the most
+populous and prosperous parts of Acadia. Here they were less successful
+than before. The people were doubtful and vacillating,--ready enough to
+promise, but slow to perform. While declaring with perfect sincerity
+their devotion to "our invincible monarch," as they called King Louis,
+who had just been compelled to surrender their country, they clung
+tenaciously to the abodes of their fathers. If they had wished to
+emigrate, the English governor had no power to stop them. From Baye
+Verte, on the isthmus, they had frequent and easy communication with
+the French at Louisbourg, which the English did not and could not
+interrupt. They were armed, and they far outnumbered the English
+garrison; while at a word they could bring to their aid the Micmac
+warriors, who had been taught to detest the English heretics as foes of
+God and man. To say that they wished to leave Acadia, but were prevented
+from doing so by a petty garrison at the other end of the province, so
+feeble that it could hardly hold Annapolis itself, is an unjust reproach
+upon a people who, though ignorant and weak of purpose, were not wanting
+in physical courage. The truth is that from this time to their forced
+expatriation in 1755, all the Acadians, except those of Annapolis and
+its immediate neighborhood, were free to go or stay at will. Those of
+the eastern parts of the province especially, who formed the greater
+part of the population, were completely their own masters. This was well
+known to the French authorities. The governor of Louisbourg complains of
+the apathy of the Acadians.[205] Saint-Ovide declares that they do not
+want to fulfil the intentions of the King and remove to Isle Royale.
+Costebelle makes the same complaint; and again, after three years of
+vain attempts to overcome their reluctance, he writes that every effort
+has failed to induce them to migrate.
+
+From this time forward the state of affairs in Acadia was a peculiar
+one. By the Treaty of Utrecht it was a British province, and the nominal
+sovereignty resided at Annapolis, in the keeping of the miserable
+little fort and the puny garrison, which as late as 1743 consisted of
+but five companies, counting, when the ranks were full, thirty-one men
+each.[206] More troops were often asked for, and once or twice were
+promised; but they were never sent. "This has been hitherto no more than
+a mock government, its authority never yet having extended beyond
+cannon-shot of the fort," wrote Governor Philipps in 1720. "It would be
+more for the honour of the Crown, and profit also, to give back the
+country to the French, than to be contented with the name only of
+government."[207] Philipps repaired the fort, which, as the engineer
+Mascarene says, "had lain tumbling down" before his arrival; but
+Annapolis and the whole province remained totally neglected and almost
+forgotten by England till the middle of the century. At one time the
+soldiers were in so ragged a plight that Lieutenant-Colonel Armstrong
+was forced to clothe them at his own expense.[208]
+
+While this seat of British sovereignty remained in unchanging feebleness
+for more than forty years, the French Acadians were multiplying apace.
+Before 1749 they were the only white inhabitants of the province,
+except ten or twelve English families who, about the year 1720, lived
+under the guns of Annapolis. At the time of the cession the French
+population seems not to have exceeded two thousand souls, about five
+hundred of whom lived within the _banlieue_ of Annapolis, and were
+therefore more or less under English control. They were all alike a
+simple and ignorant peasantry, prosperous in their humble way, and happy
+when rival masters ceased from troubling, though vexed with incessant
+quarrels among themselves, arising from the unsettled boundaries of
+their lands, which had never been properly surveyed. Their mental
+horizon was of the narrowest, their wants were few, no military service
+was asked of them by the English authorities, and they paid no taxes to
+the government. They could even indulge their strong appetite for
+litigation free of cost; for when, as often happened, they brought their
+land disputes before the Council at Annapolis, the cases were settled
+and the litigants paid no fees. Their communication with the English
+officials was carried on through deputies chosen by themselves, and
+often as ignorant as their constituents, for a remarkable equality
+prevailed through this primitive little society.
+
+Except the standing garrison at Annapolis, Acadia was as completely let
+alone by the British government as Rhode Island or Connecticut.
+Unfortunately, the traditional British policy of inaction towards her
+colonies was not applicable in the case of a newly conquered province
+with a disaffected population and active, enterprising, and martial
+neighbors bent on recovering what they had lost. Yet it might be
+supposed that a neglect so invigorating in other cases might have
+developed among the Acadians habits of self-reliance and faculties of
+self-care. The reverse took place; for if England neglected Acadia,
+France did not; and though she had renounced her title to it, she still
+did her best to master it and make it hers again. The chief instrument
+of her aggressive policy was the governor of Isle Royale, whose station
+was the fortress of Louisbourg, and who was charged with the management
+of Acadian affairs. At all the Acadian settlements he had zealous and
+efficient agents in the missionary priests, who were sent into the
+province by the Bishop of Quebec, or in a few cases by their immediate
+ecclesiastical superiors in Isle Royale.
+
+The Treaty of Utrecht secured freedom of worship to the Acadians under
+certain conditions. These were that they should accept the sovereignty
+of the British Crown, and that they and their pastors should keep within
+the limits of British law.[209] Even supposing that by swearing
+allegiance to Queen Anne the Acadians had acquired the freedom of
+worship which the treaty gave them on condition of their becoming
+British subjects, it would have been an abuse of this freedom to use it
+for subverting the power that had granted it. Yet this is what the
+missionaries did. They were not only priests of the Roman Church, they
+were also agents of the King of France; and from first to last they
+labored against the British government in the country that France had
+ceded to the British Crown. So confident were they, and with so much
+reason, of the weakness of their opponents that they openly avowed that
+their object was to keep the Acadians faithful to King Louis. When two
+of their number, Saint-Poncy and Chevereaux, were summoned before the
+Council at Annapolis, they answered, with great contempt, "We are here
+on the business of the King of France." They were ordered to leave
+Acadia. One of them stopped among the Indians at Cape Sable; the other,
+in defiance of the Council, was sent back to Annapolis by the Governor
+of Isle Royale.[210] Apparently he was again ordered away; for four
+years later the French governor, in expectation of speedy war, sent him
+to Chignecto with orders secretly to prepare the Acadians for an attack
+on Annapolis.[211]
+
+The political work of the missionaries began with the cession of the
+colony, and continued with increasing activity till 1755, kindling the
+impotent wrath of the British officials, and drawing forth the bitter
+complaints of every successive governor. For this world and the next,
+the priests were fathers of their flocks, generally commanding their
+attachment, and always their obedience. Except in questions of disputed
+boundaries, where the Council alone could settle the title, the
+ecclesiastics took the place of judges and courts of justice, enforcing
+their decisions by refusal of the sacraments.[212] They often treated
+the British officials with open scorn. Governor Armstrong writes to the
+Lords of Trade: "Without some particular directions as to the insolent
+behavior of those priests, the people will never be brought to
+obedience, being by them incited to daily acts of rebellion." Another
+governor complains that they tell the Acadians of the destitution of the
+soldiers and the ruinous state of the fort, and assure them that the
+Pretender will soon be King of England, and that Acadia will then return
+to France.[213] "The bearer, Captain Bennett," writes Armstrong, "can
+further tell your Grace of the disposition of the French inhabitants of
+this province, and of the conduct of their missionary priests, who
+instil hatred into both Indians and French against the English."[214] As
+to the Indians, Governor Philipps declares that their priests hear a
+general confession from them twice a year, and give them absolution on
+condition of always being enemies of the English.[215] The condition was
+easy, thanks to the neglect of the British government, which took no
+pains to conciliate the Micmacs, while the French governor of Isle
+Royale corresponded secretly with them and made them yearly presents.
+
+In 1720 Philipps advised the recall of the French priests, and the
+sending of others in their place, as the only means of making British
+subjects of the Acadians,[216] who at that time, having constantly
+refused the oath of allegiance, were not entitled, under the treaty, to
+the exercise of their religion. Governor Armstrong wrote sixteen years
+after: "By some of the above papers your Grace will be informed how high
+the French government carries its pretensions over its priests'
+obedience; and how to prevent the evil consequences I know not, unless
+we could have missionaries from places independent of that Crown."[217]
+He expresses a well-grounded doubt whether the home government will be
+at the trouble and expense of such a change, though he adds that there
+is not a missionary among either Acadians or Indians who is not in the
+pay of France.[218] Gaulin, missionary of the Micmacs, received a
+"gratification" of fifteen hundred livres, besides an annual allowance
+of five hundred, and is described in the order granting it as a "brave
+man, capable even of leading these savages on an expedition."[219] In
+1726 he was brought before the Council at Annapolis charged with
+incendiary conduct among both Indians and Acadians; but on asking pardon
+and promising nevermore to busy himself with affairs of government, he
+was allowed to remain in the province, and even to act as curé of the
+Mines.[220] No evidence appears that the British authorities ever
+molested a priest, except when detected in practices alien to his proper
+functions and injurious to the government. On one occasion when two
+cures were vacant, one through sedition and the other apparently through
+illness or death, Lieutenant-Governor Armstrong requested the governor
+of Isle Royale to send two priests "of known probity" to fill them.[221]
+
+Who were answerable for the anomalous state of affairs in the
+province,--the _imperium in imperio_ where the inner power waxed and
+strengthened every day, and the outer relatively pined and dwindled? It
+was not mainly the Crown of France nor its agents, secular or clerical.
+Their action under the circumstances, though sometimes inexcusable, was
+natural, and might have been foreseen. Nor was it the Council at
+Annapolis, who had little power either for good or evil. It was mainly
+the neglect and apathy of the British ministers, who seemed careless as
+to whether they kept Acadia or lost it, apparently thinking it not worth
+their notice.
+
+About the middle of the century they wakened from their lethargy, and
+warned by the signs of the times, sent troops and settlers into the
+province at the eleventh hour. France and her agents took alarm, and
+redoubled their efforts to keep their hold on a country which they had
+begun to regard as theirs already. The settlement of the English at
+Halifax startled the French into those courses of intrigue and violence
+which were the immediate cause of the removal of the Acadians in 1755.
+
+At the earlier period which we are now considering, the storm was still
+remote. The English made no attempt either to settle the province or to
+secure it by sufficient garrisons; they merely tried to bind the
+inhabitants by an oath of allegiance which the weakness of the
+government would constantly tempt them to break. When George I. came to
+the throne, Deputy-Governor Caulfield tried to induce the inhabitants to
+swear allegiance to the new monarch. The Acadians asked advice of
+Saint-Ovide, governor at Louisbourg, who sent them elaborate directions
+how to answer the English demand and remain at the same time faithful
+children of France. Neither Caulfield nor his successor could carry
+their point. The Treaty of Utrecht, as we have seen, gave the Acadians a
+year in which to choose between remaining in the province and becoming
+British subjects, or leaving it as subjects of the King of France. The
+year had long ago expired, and most of them were still in Acadia,
+unwilling to leave it, yet refusing to own King George. In 1720 General
+Richard Philipps, the governor of the province, set himself to the task
+of getting the oath taken, while the missionaries and the French
+officers at Isle Royale strenuously opposed his efforts. He issued a
+proclamation ordering the Acadians to swear allegiance to the King of
+England or leave the country, without their property, within four
+months. In great alarm, they appealed to their priests, and begged the
+Récollet, Père Justinien, curé of Mines, to ask advice and help from
+Saint-Ovide, successor of Costebelle at Louisbourg, protesting that they
+would abandon all rather than renounce their religion and their
+King.[222] At the same time they prepared for a general emigration by
+way of the isthmus and Baye Verte, where it would have been impossible
+to stop them.[223]
+
+Without the influence of their spiritual and temporal advisers, to whom
+they turned in all their troubles, it is clear that the Acadians would
+have taken the oath and remained in tranquil enjoyment of their homes;
+but it was then thought important to French interests that they should
+remove either to Isle Royale or to Isle St. Jean, now Prince Edward's
+Island. Hence no means were spared to prevent them from becoming British
+subjects, if only in name; even the Micmacs were enlisted in the good
+work, and induced to threaten them with their enmity if they should fail
+in allegiance to King Louis. Philipps feared that the Acadians would
+rise in arms if he insisted on the harsh requirements of his
+proclamation; in which case his position would have been difficult, as
+they now outnumbered his garrison about five to one. Therefore he
+extended indefinitely the term of four months, that he had fixed for
+their final choice, and continued to urge and persuade, without gaining
+a step towards the desired result. In vain he begged for aid from the
+British authorities. They would do nothing for him, but merely observed
+that while the French officers and priests had such influence over the
+Acadians, they would never be good subjects, and so had better be put
+out of the country.[224] This was easier said than done; for at this
+very time there were signs that the Acadians and the Micmacs would unite
+to put out the English garrison.[225]
+
+Philipps was succeeded by a deputy-governor, Lieutenant-Colonel
+Armstrong,--a person of ardent impulses and unstable disposition. He
+applied himself with great zeal and apparent confidence to accomplishing
+the task in which his principal had failed. In fact, he succeeded in
+1726 in persuading the inhabitants about Annapolis to take the oath,
+with a proviso that they should not be called upon for military service;
+but the main body of the Acadians stiffly refused. In the next year he
+sent Ensign Wroth to Mines, Chignecto, and neighboring settlements to
+renew the attempt on occasion of the accession of George II. The envoy's
+instructions left much to his discretion or his indiscretion, and he
+came back with the signatures, or crosses, of the inhabitants attached
+to an oath so clogged with conditions that it left them free to return
+to their French allegiance whenever they chose.
+
+Philipps now came back to Acadia to resume his difficult task. And here
+a surprise meets us. He reported a complete success. The Acadians, as he
+declared, swore allegiance without reserve to King George; but he does
+not tell us how they were brought to do so. Compulsion was out of the
+question. They could have cut to pieces any part of the paltry English
+garrison that might venture outside the ditches of Annapolis, or they
+might have left Acadia, with all their goods and chattels, with no
+possibility of stopping them. The taking of the oath was therefore a
+voluntary act.
+
+But what was the oath? The words reported by Philipps were as follows:
+"I promise and swear sincerely, on the faith of a Christian, that I will
+be entirely faithful, and will truly obey his Majesty King George the
+Second, whom I recognize as sovereign lord of Acadia or Nova Scotia. So
+help me God." To this the Acadians affixed their crosses, or, in
+exceptional cases, their names. Recently, however, evidence has appeared
+that, so far at least as regards the Acadians on and near Mines Basin,
+the effect of the oath was qualified by a promise on the part of
+Philipps that they should not be required to take up arms against either
+French or Indians,--they on their part promising never to take up arms
+against the English. This statement is made by Gaudalie, curé of the
+parish of Mines, and Noiville, priest at Pigiquid, or Pisiquid, now
+Windsor.[226] In fact, the English never had the folly to call on the
+Acadians to fight for them; and the greater part of this peace-loving
+people were true to their promise not to take arms against the English,
+though a considerable number of them did so, especially at the
+beginning of the Seven Years' War. It was to this promise, whether kept
+or broken, that they owed their name of Neutral French.
+
+From first to last, the Acadians remained in a child-like dependence on
+their spiritual and temporal guides. Not one of their number stands out
+prominently from among the rest. They seem to have been totally devoid
+of natural leaders, and, unhappily for themselves, left their fate in
+the hands of others. Yet they were fully aware of their numerical
+strength, and had repeatedly declared, in a manner that the English
+officers called insolent, that they would neither leave the country nor
+swear allegiance to King George. The truth probably is that those who
+governed them had become convinced that this simple population, which
+increased rapidly, and could always be kept French at heart, might be
+made more useful to France in Acadia than out of it, and that it was
+needless further to oppose the taking of an oath which would leave them
+in quiet possession of their farms without making any change in their
+feelings, and probably none in their actions. By force of natural
+increase Acadia would in time become the seat of a large population
+ardently French and ardently Catholic; and while officials in France
+sometimes complained of the reluctance of the Acadians to move to Isle
+Royale, those who directed them in their own country seem to have become
+willing that they should stay where they were, and place themselves in
+such relations with the English as should leave them free to increase
+and multiply undisturbed. Deceived by the long apathy of the British
+government, French officials did not foresee that a time would come when
+it would bestir itself to make Acadia English in fact as well as in
+name.[227]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[185] _Offres de la France; Demandes de l'Angleterre et Réponses de la
+France, in Memorials of the English and French Commissaries concerning
+the Limits of Acadia._
+
+[186] _Mémoire du Roy à ses Plénipotentiaires, 20 Mars, 1712._
+
+[187] _Précis de ce qui s'est passé pendant la Négotiation de la Paix
+d'Utrecht au Sujet de l'Acadie; Juillet, 1711-Mai, 1712._
+
+[188] _Mémoire du Roy, 20 Avril, 1712._
+
+[189] _Mémoire sur l'Isle du Cap Breton_, 1709.
+
+[190] _Le Roy à Costebelle, 29 Septembre, 1713._
+
+[191] _Recensement des Habitans de Plaisance et Iles de St. Pierre,
+rendus à Louisbourg avec leurs Femmes et Enfans, 5 Novembre, 1714._
+
+[192] _Costebelle au Ministre, 19 Juillet, 1713._
+
+[193] _Félix Pain à Costebelle, 23 Septembre, 1713._
+
+[194] Vetch was styled "General and Commander-in-chief of all his
+Majesty's troops in these parts, and Governor of the fort of Annapolis
+Royal, country of l'Accady and Nova Scotia." Hence he was the first
+English governor of Nova Scotia after its conquest in 1710. He was
+appointed a second time in 1715, Nicholson having served in the interim.
+
+[195] _Narrative of Paul Mascarene_, addressed to Nicholson. According
+to French accounts, a pestilence at Annapolis had carried off three
+fourths of the garrison. _Gaulin à ----, 5 Septembre, 1711_; _Cahouet au
+Ministre, 20 Juillet, 1711_. In reality a little more than one hundred
+had died.
+
+[196] Passages from Vetch's letters, in Patterson, _Memoir of Vetch_.
+
+[197] _Vetch to the Earl of Dartmouth, 22 January, 1711_; _Memorial of
+Council of War at Annapolis, 14 October, 1710_.
+
+[198] Costebelle, _Instruction au Capitaine de la Ronde_, 1714.
+
+[199] _Écrit des Habitants d'Annapolis Royale, 25 Aoust, 1714_; _Mémoire
+de La Ronde Denys, 30 Aoust, 1714_.
+
+[200] In 1711, however, the missionary Félix Pain says, "The English
+have treated the Acadians with much humanity."--_Père Félix à ----, 8
+Septembre, 1711._
+
+[201] This was the oath taken after the capitulation, which bound those
+who took it to allegiance so long as they remained in the province.
+
+[202] "As he used to curse and Damm Governor Vetch and all his friends,
+he is now served himself in the same manner."--_Adams to Steele, 24
+January, 1715._
+
+[203] For a great number of extracts from documents on this subject see
+a paper by Abbé Casgrain in _Canada Français_, i. 411-414; also the
+documentary supplement of the same publication.
+
+[204] _La Ronde Denys au Ministre, 3 Décembre, 1715._
+
+[205] _Costebelle au Ministre, 15 Janvier, 1715._
+
+[206] _Governor Mascarene to the Secretary of State, 1 December, 1743._
+At this time there was also a blockhouse at Canseau, where a few
+soldiers were stationed. These were then the only British posts in the
+province. In May, 1727, Philipps wrote to the Lords of Trade:
+"Everything there [at Annapolis] is wearing the face of ruin and decay,"
+and the ramparts are "lying level with the ground in breaches
+sufficiently wide for fifty men to enter abreast."
+
+[207] _Philipps to Secretary Craggs, 26 September, 1720._
+
+[208] _Selections from the Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 18, note._
+
+[209] "Those who are willing to remain there [in Acadia] and to be
+subject to the kingdom of Great Britain, are to enjoy the free exercise
+of their religion according to the usage of the Church of Home, as far
+as the laws of Great Britain do allow the same."--_Treaty of Utrecht,
+14th article._
+
+[210] _Minutes of Council, 18 May, 1736._ _Governor Armstrong to the
+Secretary of State, 22 November, 1736._
+
+[211] _Minutes of Council, 18 September, 1740_, in _Nova Scotia
+Archives_.
+
+[212] _Governor Mascarene to Père des Enclaves, 29 June, 1741._
+
+[213] _Deputy-Governor Doucette to the Secretary of State, 5 November,
+1717._
+
+[214] _Governor Armstrong to the Secretary of State, 30 April, 1727._
+
+[215] _Governor Philipps to Secretary Craggs, 26 September, 1720._
+
+[216] _Ibid., 26 May, 1720._
+
+[217] _Armstrong to the Secretary of State, 22 November, 1736._ The
+dismissal of French priests and the substitution of others was again
+recommended some time after.
+
+[218] The motives for paying priests for instructing the people of a
+province ceded to England are given in a report of the French Marine
+Council. The Acadians "ne pourront jamais conserver un véritable
+attachement à la religion et _à leur légitime souverain_ sans le secours
+d'un missionnaire" (_Délibérations du Conseil de Marine, 23 Mai, 1719_,
+in _Le Canada-Français_). The Intendant Bégon highly commends the
+efforts of the missionaries to keep the Acadians in the French interest
+(_Bégon au Ministre, 25 Septembre, 1715_), and Vaudreuil praises their
+zeal in the same cause (_Vaudreuil au Ministre, 31 Octobre, 1717_).
+
+[219] _Délibérations du Conseil de Marine, 3 Mai, 1718._
+
+[220] _Record of Council at Annapolis, 11 and 24 October, 1726._
+
+[221] _Armstrong to Saint-Ovide, 17 June, 1732._
+
+[222] _The Acadians to Saint-Ovide, 6 May, 1720_, in _Public Documents
+of Nova Scotia_, 25. This letter was evidently written for them,--no
+doubt by a missionary.
+
+[223] "They can march off at their leisure, by way of the Baye Verte,
+with their effects, without danger of being molested by this garrison,
+which scarce suffices to secure the Fort."--_Philipps to Secretary
+Craggs, 26 May, 1720._
+
+[224] _The Board of Trade to Philipps, 28 December, 1720._
+
+[225] _Délibérations du Conseil de Marine, Aoust, 1720._ The attempt
+against the garrison was probably opposed by the priests, who must have
+seen the danger that it would rouse the ministry into sending troops to
+the province, which would have been disastrous to their plans.
+
+[226] _Certificat de Charles de la Gaudalie, prêtre, curé missionnaire
+de la paroisse des Mines, et Noël-Alexandre Noiville, ... curé de
+l'Assomption et de la Sainte Famille de Pigiguit_; printed in Rameau,
+_Une Colonie Féodale en Amérique_ (ed. 1889), ii. 53.
+
+[227] The preceding chapter is based largely on two collections of
+documents relating to Acadia,--the _Nova Scotia Archives_, or
+_Selections from the Public Documents of Nova Scotia_, printed in 1869
+by the government of that province, and the mass of papers collected by
+Rev. H. R. Casgrain and printed in the documentary department of _Le
+Canada-Français_, a review published under direction of Laval University
+at Quebec. Abbé Casgrain, with passionate industry, has labored to
+gather everything in Europe or America that could tell in favor of the
+French and against the English. Mr. Akins, the editor of the _Nova
+Scotia Archives_, leans to the other side, so that the two collections
+supplement each other. Both are copious and valuable. Besides these, I
+have made use of various documents from the archives of Paris not to be
+found in either of the above-named collections.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+1713-1724.
+
+SEBASTIEN RALE.
+
+Boundary Disputes.--Outposts of Canada.--The Earlier and Later
+Jesuits.--Religion and Politics.--The Norridgewocks and their
+Missionary.--A Hollow Peace.--Disputed Land Claims.--Council at
+Georgetown.--Attitude of Rale.--Minister and Jesuit.--The Indians
+waver.--An Outbreak.--Covert War.--Indignation against Rale.--War
+declared.--Governor and Assembly.--Speech of Samuel Sewall.--Penobscots
+attack Fort St. George.--Reprisal.--Attack on Norridgewock.--Death of
+Rale.
+
+
+Before the Treaty of Utrecht, the present Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
+and a part of Maine were collectively called Acadia by the French; but
+after the treaty gave Acadia to England, they insisted that the name
+meant only Nova Scotia. The English on their part claimed that the
+cession of Acadia made them owners, not only of the Nova Scotian
+peninsula, but of all the country north of it to the St. Lawrence, or at
+least to the dividing ridge or height of land.
+
+This and other disputed questions of boundary were to be settled by
+commissioners of the two powers; but their meeting was put off for forty
+years, and then their discussions ended in the Seven Years' War. The
+claims of the rival nations were in fact so discordant that any attempt
+to reconcile them must needs produce a fresh quarrel. The treaty had
+left a choice of evils. To discuss the boundary question meant to renew
+the war; to leave it unsettled was a source of constant irritation; and
+while delay staved off a great war, it quickly produced a small one.
+
+The river Kennebec, which was generally admitted by the French to be the
+dividing line between their possessions and New England,[228] was
+regarded by them with the most watchful jealousy. Its headwaters
+approached those of the Canadian river Chaudière, the mouth of which is
+near Quebec; and by ascending the former stream and crossing to the
+headwaters of the latter, through an intricacy of forests, hills, ponds,
+and marshes, it was possible for a small band of hardy men, unencumbered
+by cannon, to reach the Canadian capital,--as was done long after by the
+followers of Benedict Arnold. Hence it was thought a matter of the last
+importance to close the Kennebec against such an attempt. The
+Norridgewock band of the Abenakis, who lived on the banks of that river,
+were used to serve this purpose and to form a sort of advance-guard to
+the French colony, while other kindred bands on the Penobscot, the St.
+Croix, and the St. John were expected to aid in opposing a living
+barrier to English intrusion. Missionaries were stationed among all
+these Indians to keep them true to Church and King. The most important
+station, that of the Norridgewocks, was in charge of Father Sebastien
+Rale, the most conspicuous and interesting figure among the later
+French-American Jesuits.
+
+Since the middle of the seventeenth century a change had come over the
+Jesuit missions of New France. Nothing is more striking or more
+admirable than the self-devoted apostleship of the earlier period.[229]
+The movement in Western Europe known as the Renaissance was far more
+than a revival of arts and letters,--it was an awakening of
+intellectual, moral, and religious life; the offspring of causes long in
+action, and the parent of other movements in action to this day. The
+Protestant Reformation was a part of it. That revolt against Rome
+produced a counter Renaissance in the bosom of the ancient Church
+herself. In presence of that peril she woke from sloth and corruption,
+and girded herself to beat back the invading heresies, by force or by
+craft, by inquisitorial fires, by the arms of princely and imperial
+allies, and by the self-sacrificing enthusiasm of her saints and
+martyrs. That time of danger produced the exalted zeal of Xavier and the
+intense, thoughtful, organizing zeal of Loyola. After a century had
+passed, the flame still burned, and it never shone with a purer or
+brighter radiance than in the early missions of New France.
+
+Such ardors cannot be permanent; they must subside, from the law of
+their nature. If the great Western mission had been a success, the
+enthusiasm of its founders might have maintained itself for some time
+longer; but that mission was extinguished in blood. Its martyrs died in
+vain, and the burning faith that had created it was rudely tried. Canada
+ceased to be a mission. The civil and military powers grew strong, and
+the Church no longer ruled with undivided sway. The times changed, and
+the men changed with them. It is a characteristic of the Jesuit Order,
+and one of the sources of its strength, that it chooses the workman for
+his work, studies the qualities of its members, and gives to each the
+task for which he is fitted best. When its aim was to convert savage
+hordes and build up another Paraguay in the Northern wilderness, it sent
+a Jogues, a Brébeuf, a Charles Garnier, and a Gabriel Lalemant, like a
+forlorn hope, to storm the stronghold of heathendom. In later times it
+sent other men to meet other needs and accomplish other purposes.
+
+Before the end of the seventeenth century the functions of the Canadian
+Jesuit had become as much political as religious; but if the fires of
+his apostolic zeal burned less high, his devotion to the Order in which
+he had merged his personality was as intense as before. While in
+constant friction with the civil and military powers, he tried to make
+himself necessary to them, and in good measure he succeeded. Nobody was
+so able to manage the Indian tribes and keep them in the interest of
+France. "Religion," says Charlevoix, "is the chief bond by which the
+savages are attached to us;" and it was the Jesuit above all others who
+was charged to keep this bond firm.
+
+The Christianity that was made to serve this useful end did not strike a
+deep root. While humanity is in the savage state, it can only be
+Christianized on the surface; and the convert of the Jesuits remained a
+savage still. They did not even try to civilize him. They taught him to
+repeat a catechism which he could not understand, and practise rites of
+which the spiritual significance was incomprehensible to him. He saw the
+symbols of his new faith in much the same light as the superstitions
+that had once enchained him. To his eyes the crucifix was a fetich of
+surpassing power, and the mass a beneficent "medicine," or occult
+influence, of supreme efficacy. Yet he would not forget his old rooted
+beliefs, and it needed the constant presence of the missionary to
+prevent him from returning to them.
+
+Since the Iroquois had ceased to be a danger to Canada, the active
+alliance of the Western Indians had become less important to the colony.
+Hence the missions among them had received less attention, and most of
+these tribes had relapsed into heathenism. The chief danger had shifted
+eastward, and was, or was supposed to be, in the direction of New
+England. Therefore the Eastern missions were cultivated with
+diligence,--whether those within or adjoining the settled limits of
+Canada, like the Iroquois mission of Caughnawaga, the Abenaki missions
+of St. Francis and Becancour, and the Huron mission of Lorette, or those
+that served as outposts and advance-guards of the colony, like the
+Norridgewock Abenakis of the Kennebec, or the Penobscot Abenakis of the
+Penobscot. The priests at all these stations were in close
+correspondence with the government, to which their influence over their
+converts was invaluable. In the wilderness dens of the Hurons or the
+Iroquois, the early Jesuit was a marvel of self-sacrificing zeal; his
+successor, half missionary and half agent of the King, had thought for
+this world as well as the next.
+
+Sebastien Rale,[230] born in Franche-Comté in 1657, was sent to the
+American missions in 1689 at the age of thirty-two. After spending two
+years among the Abenakis of Canada, then settled near the mouth of the
+Chaudière, he was sent for two years more to the Illinois, and thence to
+the Abenakis of the Kennebec, where he was to end his days.
+
+Near where the town of Norridgewock now stands, the Kennebec curved
+round a broad tongue of meadow land, in the midst of a picturesque
+wilderness of hills and forests. On this tongue of land, on ground a few
+feet above the general level, stood the village of the Norridgewocks,
+fenced with a stockade of round logs nine feet high. The enclosure was
+square; each of its four sides measured one hundred and sixty feet, and
+each had its gate. From the four gates ran two streets, or lanes, which
+crossed each other in the middle of the village. There were twenty-six
+Indian houses, or cabins, within the stockade, described as "built much
+after the English manner," though probably of logs. The church was
+outside the enclosure, about twenty paces from the east gate.[231]
+
+Such was the mission village of Norridgewock in 1716. It had risen from
+its ashes since Colonel Hilton destroyed it in 1705, and the church had
+been rebuilt by New England workmen hired for the purpose.[232] A small
+bell, which is still preserved at Brunswick, rang for mass at early
+morning, and for vespers at sunset. Rale's leisure hours were few. He
+preached, exhorted, catechised the young converts, counselled their
+seniors for this world and the next, nursed them in sickness, composed
+their quarrels, tilled his own garden, cut his own firewood, cooked his
+own food, which was of Indian corn, or, at a pinch, of roots and acorns,
+worked at his Abenaki vocabulary, and, being expert at handicraft, made
+ornaments for the church, or moulded candles from the fruit of the
+bayberry, or wax-myrtle.[233] Twice a year, summer and winter, he
+followed his flock to the sea-shore and the islands, where they lived at
+their ease on fish and seals, clams, oysters, and seafowl.
+
+This Kennebec mission had been begun more than half a century before;
+yet the conjurers, or "medicine men,"--natural enemies of the
+missionary,--still remained obdurate and looked on the father askance,
+though the body of the tribe were constant at mass and confession, and
+regarded him with loving reverence. He always attended their councils,
+and, as he tells us, his advice always prevailed; but he was less
+fortunate when he told them to practise no needless cruelty in their
+wars, on which point they were often disobedient children.[234]
+
+Rale was of a strong, enduring frame, and a keen, vehement, caustic
+spirit. He had the gift of tongues, and was as familiar with the Abenaki
+and several other Indian languages as he was with Latin.[235] Of the
+genuineness of his zeal there is no doubt, nor of his earnest and lively
+interest in the fortunes of the wilderness flock of which he was the
+shepherd for half his life. The situation was critical for them and for
+him. The English settlements were but a short distance below, while
+those of the French could be reached only by a hard journey of twelve or
+fourteen days.
+
+With two intervals of uneasy peace, the borders of Maine had been
+harried by war-parties for thirty-eight years; and since 1689 these
+raids had been prompted and aided by the French. Thus it happened that
+extensive tracts, which before Philip's War were dotted with farmhouses
+and fishing hamlets, had been abandoned, and cultivated fields were
+turning again to forests. The village of Wells had become the eastern
+frontier. But now the Treaty of Utrecht gave promise of lasting
+tranquillity. The Abenakis, hearing that they were to be backed no
+longer by the French, became alarmed, sent messengers to Casco, and
+asked for peace. In July there was a convention at Portsmouth, when
+delegates of the Norridgewocks, Penobscots, Malicites, and other Abenaki
+bands met Governor Dudley and the councillors of Massachusetts and New
+Hampshire. A paper was read to them by sworn interpreters, in which they
+confessed that they had broken former treaties, begged pardon for "past
+rebellions, hostilities, and violations of promises," declared
+themselves subjects of Queen Anne, pledged firm friendship with the
+English, and promised them that they might re-enter without molestation
+on all their former possessions. Eight of the principal Abenaki chiefs
+signed this document with their totemic marks, and the rest did so,
+after similar interpretation, at another convention in the next
+year.[236] Indians when in trouble can waive their pride, and lavish
+professions and promises; but when they called themselves subjects of
+Queen Anne, it is safe to say that they did not know what the words
+meant.
+
+Peace with the Indians was no sooner concluded than a stream of settlers
+began to move eastward to reoccupy the lands that they owned or claimed
+in the region of the lower Kennebec. Much of this country was held in
+extensive tracts, under old grants of the last century, and the
+proprietors offered great inducements to attract emigrants. The
+government of Massachusetts, though impoverished by three wars, of
+which it had borne the chief burden, added what encouragements it could.
+The hamlets of Saco, Scarborough, Falmouth, and Georgetown rose from
+their ashes; mills were built on the streams, old farms were retilled,
+and new ones cleared. A certain Dr. Noyes, who had established a
+sturgeon fishery on the Kennebec, built at his own charge a stone fort
+at Cushnoc, or Augusta; and it is said that as early as 1714 a
+blockhouse was built many miles above, near the mouth of the
+Sebasticook.[237] In the next year Fort George was built at the lower
+falls of the Androscoggin, and some years later Fort Richmond, on the
+Kennebec, at the site of the present town of Richmond.[238]
+
+Some of the claims to these Kennebec lands were based on old Crown
+patents, some on mere prescription, some on Indian titles, good or bad.
+Rale says that an Englishman would give an Indian a bottle of rum, and
+get from him in return a large tract of land.[239] Something like this
+may have happened; though in other cases the titles were as good as
+Indian titles usually are, the deeds being in regular form and signed by
+the principal chiefs for a consideration which they thought sufficient.
+The lands of Indians, however, are owned, so far as owned at all, by the
+whole community; and in the case of the Algonquin tribes the chiefs had
+no real authority to alienate them without the consent of the tribesmen.
+Even supposing this consent to have been given, the Norridgewocks would
+not have been satisfied; for Rale taught them that they could not part
+with their lands, because they held them in trust for their children, to
+whom their country belonged as much as to themselves.
+
+Long years of war and mutual wrong had embittered the Norridgewocks
+against their English neighbors, with whom, nevertheless, they wished to
+be at peace, because they feared them, and because their trade was
+necessary to them.
+
+The English borderers, on their part, regarded the Indians less as men
+than as vicious and dangerous wild animals. In fact, the benevolent and
+philanthropic view of the American savage is for those who are beyond
+his reach: it has never yet been held by any whose wives and children
+have lived in danger of his scalping-knife. In Boston and other of the
+older and safer settlements, the Indians had found devoted friends
+before Philip's War; and even now they had apologists and defenders,
+prominent among whom was that relic of antique Puritanism, old Samuel
+Sewall, who was as conscientious and humane as he was prosy, narrow, and
+sometimes absurd, and whose benevolence towards the former owners of the
+soil was trebly reinforced by his notion that they were descendants of
+the ten lost tribes of Israel.[240]
+
+The intrusion of settlers, and the building of forts and blockhouses on
+lands which they still called their own, irritated and alarmed the
+Norridgewocks, and their growing resentment was fomented by Rale, both
+because he shared it himself, and because he was prompted by Vaudreuil.
+Yet, dreading another war with the English, the Indians kept quiet for a
+year or two, till at length the more reckless among them began to
+threaten and pilfer the settlers.
+
+In 1716 Colonel Samuel Shute came out to succeed Dudley as governor; and
+in the next summer he called the Indians to a council at Georgetown, a
+settlement on Arrowsick Island, at the mouth of the Kennebec. Thither he
+went in the frigate "Squirrel," with the councillors of Massachusetts
+and New Hampshire; while the deputies of the Norridgewocks, Penobscots,
+Pequawkets, or Abenakis of the Saco, and Assagunticooks, or Abenakis of
+the Androscoggin, came in canoes to meet him, and set up their wigwams
+on a neighboring island. The council opened on the ninth of August,
+under a large tent, over which waved the British flag. The oath was
+administered to the interpreters by the aged Judge Sewall, and Shute
+then made the Indians a speech in which he told them that the English
+and they were subjects of the great, good, and wise King George; that
+as both peoples were under the same King, he would gladly see them also
+of the same religion, since it was the only true one; and to this end he
+gave them a Bible and a minister to teach them,--pointing to Rev. Joseph
+Baxter, who stood near by. And he further assured them that if any wrong
+should be done them, he would set it right. He then condescended to give
+his hand to the chiefs, telling them, through the interpreter, that it
+was to show his affection.
+
+The Indians, after their usual custom, deferred their answer to the next
+day, when the council again met, and the Norridgewock chief, Wiwurna,
+addressed the governor as spokesman for his people. In defiance of every
+Indian idea of propriety, Shute soon began to interrupt him with
+questions and remarks. Wiwurna remonstrated civilly; but Shute continued
+his interruptions, and the speech turned to a dialogue, which may be
+abridged thus, Shute always addressing himself, not to the Indian
+orator, but to the interpreter.
+
+The orator expressed satisfaction at the arrival of the governor, and
+hoped that peace and friendship would now prevail.
+
+GOVERNOR (_to the interpreter_). Tell them that if they behave
+themselves, I shall use them kindly.
+
+ORATOR (_as rendered by the interpreter_). Your Excellency was pleased
+to say that we must obey King George. We will if we like his way of
+treating us.
+
+GOVERNOR. They must obey him.
+
+ORATOR. We will if we are not disturbed on our lands.
+
+GOVERNOR. Nor must they disturb the English on theirs.
+
+ORATOR. We are pleased that your Excellency is ready to hear our
+complaints when wrong is done us.
+
+GOVERNOR. They must not pretend to lands that belong to the English.
+
+ORATOR. We beg leave to go on in order with our answer.
+
+GOVERNOR. Tell him to go on.
+
+ORATOR. If there should be any quarrel and bloodshed, we will not avenge
+ourselves, but apply to your Excellency. We will embrace in our bosoms
+the English that have come to settle on our land.
+
+GOVERNOR. They must not call it their land, for the English have bought
+it of them and their ancestors.
+
+ORATOR. We pray leave to proceed with our answer, and talk about the
+land afterwards.
+
+Wiwurna, then, with much civility, begged to be excused from receiving
+the Bible and the minister, and ended by wishing the governor good wind
+and weather for his homeward voyage.
+
+There was another meeting in the afternoon, in which the orator declared
+that his people were willing that the English should settle on the west
+side of the Kennebec as far up the river as a certain mill; on which the
+governor said to the interpreter: "Tell them we want nothing but our
+own, and that that we will have;" and he ordered an old deed of sale,
+signed by six of their chiefs, to be shown and explained to them.
+Wiwurna returned that though his tribe were uneasy about their lands,
+they were willing that the English should keep what they had got,
+excepting the forts. On this point there was a sharp dialogue, and Shute
+said bluntly that if he saw fit, he should build a fort at every new
+settlement. At this all the Indians rose abruptly and went back to their
+camp, leaving behind an English flag that had been given them.
+
+Rale was at the Indian camp, and some of them came back in the evening
+with a letter from him, in which he told Shute that the governor of
+Canada had asked the King of France whether he had ever given the
+Indians' land to the English, to which the King replied that he had not,
+and would help the Indians to repel any encroachment upon them. This
+cool assumption on the part of France of paramount right to the Abenaki
+country incensed Shute, who rejected the letter with contempt.
+
+As between the governor and the Indian orator, the savage had shown
+himself by far the more mannerly; yet so unwilling were the Indians to
+break with the English that on the next morning, seeing Shute about to
+re-embark, they sent messengers to him to apologize for what they called
+their rudeness, beg that the English flag might be returned to them, and
+ask for another interview, saying that they would appoint another
+spokesman instead of Wiwurna, who had given so much offence. Shute
+consented, and the meeting was held. The new orator presented a wampum
+belt, expressed a wish for peace, and said that his people wished the
+English to extend their settlements as far as they had formerly done.
+Shute, on his part, promised that trading-houses should be established
+for supplying their needs, and that they should have a smith to mend
+their guns, and an interpreter of their own choice. Twenty chiefs and
+elders then affixed their totemic marks to a paper, renewing the pledges
+made four years before at Portsmouth, and the meeting closed with a
+dance in honor of the governor.[241]
+
+The Indians, as we have seen, had shown no eagerness to accept the
+ministrations of Rev. Joseph Baxter. The Massachusetts Assembly had
+absurdly tried to counteract the influence of Rale by offering £150 a
+year in their depreciated currency to any one of their ministers who
+would teach Calvinism to the Indians. Baxter, whom Rale, with
+characteristic exaggeration, calls the ablest of the Boston ministers,
+but who was far from being so, as he was the pastor of the small country
+village of Medfield, took up the task, and, with no experience of Indian
+life or knowledge of any Indian language, entered the lists against an
+adversary who had spent half his days among savages, had gained the love
+and admiration of the Norridgewocks, and spoke their language fluently.
+Baxter, with the confidence of a novice, got an interpreter and began to
+preach, exhort, and launch sarcasms against the doctrines and practices
+of the Roman Church. Rale excommunicated such of his flock as listened
+to him;[242] yet some persisted in doing so, and three of these
+petitioned the English governor to order "a small praying-house" to be
+built for their use.[243]
+
+Rale, greatly exasperated, opened a correspondence with Baxter, and
+wrote a treatise for his benefit, in which, through a hundred pages of
+polemical Latin, he proved that the Church of Rome was founded on a
+rock. This he sent to Baxter, and challenged him to overthrow his
+reasons. Baxter sent an answer for which Rale expresses great scorn as
+to both manner and matter. He made a rejoinder, directed not only
+against his opponent's arguments, but against his Latin, in which he
+picked flaws with great apparent satisfaction. He says that he heard no
+more from Baxter for a long time, but at last got another letter, in
+which there was nothing to the purpose, the minister merely charging him
+with an irascible and censorious spirit. This letter is still preserved,
+and it does not answer to Rale's account of it. Baxter replies to his
+correspondent vigorously, defends his own Latin, attacks that of Rale,
+and charges him with losing temper.[244]
+
+Rale's correspondence with the New England ministers seems not to have
+been confined to Baxter. A paper is preserved, translated apparently
+from a Latin original, and entitled, "Remarks out of the Fryar Sebastian
+Rale's Letter from Norridgewock, February 7, 1720." This letter appears
+to have been addressed to some Boston minister, and is of a scornful and
+defiant character, using language ill fitted to conciliate, as thus:
+"You must know that a missionary is not a cipher, like a minister;" or
+thus: "A Jesuit is not a Baxter or a Boston minister." The tone is one
+of exasperation dashed with contempt, and the chief theme is English
+encroachment and the inalienability of Indian lands.[245] Rale says that
+Baxter gave up his mission after receiving the treatise on the
+infallible supremacy of the true Church; but this is a mistake, as the
+minister made three successive visits to the Eastern country before he
+tired of his hopeless mission.
+
+In the letter just quoted, Rale seems to have done his best to rasp the
+temper of his New England correspondent. He boasts of his power over the
+Indians, who, as he declares, always do as he advises them. "Any treaty
+with the governor," he goes on to say, "and especially that of
+Arrowsick, is null and void if I do not approve it, for I give them so
+many reasons against it that they absolutely condemn what they have
+done." He says further that if they do not drive the English from the
+Kennebec, he will leave them, and that they will then lose both their
+lands and their souls; and he adds that, if necessary, he will tell them
+that they may make war.[246] Rale wrote also to Shute; and though the
+letter is lost, the governor's answer shows that it was sufficiently
+aggressive.
+
+The wild Indian is unstable as water. At Arrowsick, the Norridgewocks
+were all for peace; but when they returned to their village their mood
+changed, and, on the representations of Rale, they began to kill the
+cattle of the English settlers on the river below, burn their haystacks,
+and otherwise annoy them.[247] The English suspected that the Jesuit
+was the source of their trouble; and as they had always regarded the
+lands in question as theirs, by virtue of the charter of the Plymouth
+Company in 1620, and the various grants under it, as well as by purchase
+from the Indians, their ire against him burned high. Yet afraid as the
+Indians were of another war, even Rale could scarcely have stirred them
+to violence but for the indignities put upon them by Indian-hating
+ruffians of the border, vicious rum-selling traders, and hungry
+land-thieves. They had still another cause of complaint. Shute had
+promised to build trading-houses where their wants should be supplied
+without fraud and extortion; but he had not kept his word, and could not
+keep it, for reasons that will soon appear.
+
+In spite of such provocations, Norridgewock was divided in opinion. Not
+only were the Indians in great dread of war, but they had received
+English presents to a considerable amount, chiefly from private persons
+interested in keeping them quiet. Hence, to Rale's great chagrin, there
+was an English party in the village so strong that when the English
+authorities demanded reparation for the mischief done to the settlers,
+the Norridgewocks promised two hundred beaver-skins as damages, and gave
+four hostages as security that they would pay for misdeeds in the past,
+and commit no more in the future.[248]
+
+Rale now feared that his Indians would all go over to the English and
+tamely do their bidding; for though most of them, when he was present,
+would denounce the heretics and boast of the brave deeds they would do
+against them, yet after a meeting with English officials, they would
+change their minds and accuse their spiritual father of lying. It was
+clear that something must be done to end these waverings, lest the lands
+in dispute should be lost to France forever.
+
+The Norridgewocks had been invited to another interview with the English
+at Georgetown; and Rale resolved, in modern American phrase, to "capture
+the meeting." Vaudreuil and the Jesuit La Chasse, superior of the
+mission, lent their aid. Messengers were sent to the converted Indians
+of Canada, whose attachment to France and the Church was past all doubt,
+and who had been taught to abhor the English as children of the Devil.
+The object of the message was to induce them to go to the meeting at
+Georgetown armed and equipped for any contingency.
+
+They went accordingly,--Abenakis from Becancour and St. Francis, Hurons
+from Lorette, and Iroquois from Caughnawaga, besides others, all stanch
+foes of heresy and England. Rale and La Chasse directed their movements
+and led them first to Norridgewock, where their arrival made a
+revolution. The peace party changed color like a chameleon, and was all
+for war. The united bands, two hundred and fifty warriors in all,
+paddled down the Kennebec along with the two Jesuits and two French
+officers, Saint-Castin and Croisil. In a few days the English at
+Georgetown saw them parading before the fort, well armed, displaying
+French flags,--feathers dangling from their scalp-locks, and faces
+fantastically patterned in vermilion, ochre, white clay, soot, and such
+other pigments as they could find or buy.
+
+They were met by Captain Penhallow and other militia officers of the
+fort, to whom they gave the promised two hundred beaver-skins, and
+demanded the four hostages in return; but the hostages had been given as
+security, not only for the beaver-skins, but also for the future good
+behavior of the Indians, and Penhallow replied that he had no authority
+to surrender them. On this they gave him a letter to the governor,
+written for them by Père de la Chasse, and signed by their totems. It
+summoned the English to leave the country at once, and threatened to rob
+and burn their houses in case of refusal.[249] The threat was not
+executed, and they presently disappeared, but returned in September in
+increased numbers, burned twenty-six houses and attacked the fort, in
+which the inhabitants had sought refuge. The garrison consisted of forty
+men, who, being reinforced by the timely arrival of several whale-boats
+bringing thirty more, made a sortie. A skirmish followed; but being
+outnumbered and outflanked, the English fell back behind their
+defences.[250]
+
+The French authorities were in a difficult position. They thought it
+necessary to stop the progress of English settlement along the Kennebec;
+and yet, as there was peace between the two Crowns, they could not use
+open force. There was nothing for it but to set on the Abenakis to fight
+for them. "I am well pleased," wrote Vaudreuil to Rale, "that you and
+Père de la Chasse have prompted the Indians to treat the English as they
+have done. My orders are to let them want for nothing, and I send them
+plenty of ammunition." Rale says that the King allowed him a pension of
+six thousand livres a year, and that he spent it all "in good works." As
+his statements are not remarkable for precision, this may mean that he
+was charged with distributing the six thousand livres which the King
+gave every year in equal shares to the three Abenaki missions of
+Medoctec, Norridgewock, and Panawamské, or Penobscot, and which
+generally took the form of presents of arms, gunpowder, bullets, and
+other munitions of war, or of food and clothing to support the squaws
+and children while the warriors were making raids on the English.[251]
+
+Vaudreuil had long felt the delicacy of his position, and even before
+the crisis seemed near he tried to provide against it, and wrote to the
+minister that he had never called the Abenakis subjects of France, but
+only allies, in order to avoid responsibility for anything they might
+do.[252] "The English," he says elsewhere, "must be prevented from
+settling on Abenaki lands; and to this end we must let the Indians act
+for us (_laisser agir les sauvages_)."[253]
+
+Yet while urging the need of precaution, he was too zealous to be always
+prudent; and once, at least, he went so far as to suggest that French
+soldiers should be sent to help the Abenakis,--which, he thought, would
+frighten the English into retreating from their settlements; whereas if
+such help were refused, the Indians would go over to the enemy.[254] The
+court was too anxious to avoid a rupture to permit the use of open
+force, and would only promise plenty of ammunition to Indians who would
+fight the English, directing at the same time that neither favors nor
+attentions should be given to those who would not.[255]
+
+The half-breed officer, Saint-Castin, son of Baron Vincent de
+Saint-Castin by his wife, a Penobscot squaw, bore the double character
+of a French lieutenant and an Abenaki chief, and had joined with the
+Indians in their hostile demonstration at Arrowsick Island. Therefore,
+as chief of a tribe styled subjects of King George, the English seized
+him, charged him with rebellion, and brought him to Boston, where he was
+examined by a legislative committee. He showed both tact and temper,
+parried the charges against him, and was at last set at liberty. His
+arrest, however, exasperated his tribesmen, who soon began to burn
+houses, kill settlers, and commit various acts of violence, for all of
+which Rale was believed to be mainly answerable. There was great
+indignation against him. He himself says that a reward of a thousand
+pounds sterling was offered for his head, but that the English should
+not get it for all their sterling money. It does not appear that such a
+reward was offered, though it is true that the Massachusetts House of
+Representatives once voted five hundred pounds in their currency--then
+equal to about a hundred and eighty pounds sterling--for the same
+purpose; but as the governor and Council refused their concurrence, the
+Act was of no effect.
+
+All the branches of the government, however, presently joined in sending
+three hundred men to Norridgewock, with a demand that the Indians should
+give up Rale "and the other heads and fomenters of their rebellion." In
+case of refusal they were to seize the Jesuit and the principal chiefs
+and bring them prisoners to Boston. Colonel Westbrook was put in command
+of the party. Rale, being warned of their approach by some of his
+Indians, swallowed the consecrated wafers, hid the sacred vessels, and
+made for the woods, where, as he thinks, he was saved from discovery by
+a special intervention of Providence. His papers fell into the hands of
+Westbrook, including letters that proved beyond all doubt that he had
+acted as agent of the Canadian authorities in exciting his flock against
+the English.[256]
+
+Incensed by Westbrook's invasion, the Indians came down the Kennebec in
+large numbers, burned the village of Brunswick, and captured nine
+families at Merry-meeting Bay; though they soon set them free, except
+five men whom they kept to exchange for the four hostages still detained
+at Boston.[257] At the same time they seized several small vessels in
+the harbors along the coast. On this the governor and Council declared
+war against the Eastern Indians, meaning the Abenakis and their allies,
+whom they styled traitors and robbers.
+
+In Massachusetts many persons thought that war could not be justified,
+and were little disposed to push it with vigor. The direction of it
+belonged to the governor in his capacity of Captain-General of the
+Province. Shute was an old soldier who had served with credit as
+lieutenant-colonel under Marlborough; but he was hampered by one of
+those disputes which in times of crisis were sure to occur in every
+British province whose governor was appointed by the Crown. The
+Assembly, jealous of the representative of royalty, and looking back
+mournfully to their virtual independence under the lamented old charter,
+had from the first let slip no opportunity to increase its own powers
+and abridge those of the governor, refused him the means of establishing
+the promised trading-houses in the Indian country, and would grant no
+money for presents to conciliate the Norridgewocks. The House now
+wanted, not only to control supplies for the war, but to direct the war
+itself and conduct operations by committees of its own. Shute made his
+plans of campaign, and proceeded to appoint officers from among the
+frontier inhabitants, who had at least the qualification of being
+accustomed to the woods. One of them, Colonel Walton, was obnoxious to
+some of the representatives, who brought charges against him, and the
+House demanded that he should be recalled from the field to answer to
+them for his conduct. The governor objected to this as an encroachment
+on his province as commander-in-chief. Walton was now accused of obeying
+orders of the governor in contravention of those of the representatives,
+who thereupon passed a vote requiring him to lay his journal before
+them. This was more than Shute could bear. He had the character of a
+good-natured man; but the difficulties and mortifications of his
+position had long galled him, and he had got leave to return to England
+and lay his case before the King and Council. The crisis had now come.
+The Assembly were for usurping all authority, civil and military.
+Accordingly, on the first of January, 1723, the governor sailed in a
+merchant ship, for London, without giving notice of his intention to
+anybody except two or three servants.[258]
+
+The burden of his difficult and vexatious office fell upon the
+lieutenant-governor, William Dummer. When he first met the Council in
+his new capacity, a whimsical scene took place. Here, among the rest,
+was the aged, matronly countenance of the worthy Samuel Sewall, deeply
+impressed with the dignity and importance of his position as senior
+member of the Board. At his best he never had the faintest sense of
+humor or perception of the ludicrous, and being now perhaps touched with
+dotage, he thought it incumbent upon him to address a few words of
+exhortation and encouragement to the incoming chief magistrate. He rose
+from his seat with long locks, limp and white, drooping from under his
+black skullcap,--for he abhorred a wig as a sign of backsliding,--and in
+a voice of quavering solemnity spoke thus:--
+
+     "If your Honour and this Honourable Board please to give me leave,
+     I would speak a Word or two upon this solemn Occasion. Altho the
+     unerring Providence of God has brought you to the Chair of
+     Government in a cloudy and tempestuous season, yet you have this
+     for your Encouragement, that the people you Have to do with are a
+     part of the Israel of God, and you may expect to have of the
+     Prudence and Patience of Moses communicated to you for your
+     Conduct. It is evident that our Almighty Saviour counselled the
+     first planters to remove hither and Settle here, and they dutifully
+     followed his Advice, and therefore He will never leave nor forsake
+     them nor Theirs; so that your Honour must needs be happy in
+     sincerely seeking their Interest and Welfare, which your Birth and
+     Education will incline you to do. _Difficilia quæ pulchra_. I
+     promise myself that they who sit at this Board will yield their
+     Faithful Advice to your Honour according to the Duty of their
+     Place."
+
+Having thus delivered himself to an audience not much more susceptible
+of the ludicrous than he was, the old man went home well pleased, and
+recorded in his diary that the lieutenant-governor and councillors rose
+and remained standing while he was speaking, "and they expressed a
+handsom Acceptance of what I had said; _Laus Deo_."[259]
+
+Dummer was born in New England, and might, therefore, expect to find
+more favor than had fallen to his predecessor; but he was the
+representative of royalty, and could not escape the consequences of
+being so. In earnest of what was in store for him, the Assembly would
+not pay his salary, because he had sided with the governor in the late
+quarrel. The House voted to dismiss Colonel Walton and Major Moody, the
+chief officers appointed by Shute; and when Dummer reminded it that this
+was a matter belonging to him as commander-in-chief, it withheld the pay
+of the obnoxious officers and refused all supplies for the war till they
+should be removed. Dummer was forced to yield.[260] The House would
+probably have pushed him still farther, if the members had not dreaded
+the effect of Shute's representations at court, and feared lest
+persistent encroachment on the functions of the governor might cost
+them their charter, to which, insufficient as they thought it, and far
+inferior to the one they had lost, they clung tenaciously as the
+palladium of their liberties. Yet Dummer needed the patience of Job; for
+his Assembly seemed more bent on victories over him than over the
+Indians.
+
+There was another election, which did not improve the situation. The new
+House was worse than the old, being made up largely of narrow-minded
+rustics, who tried to relieve the governor of all conduct of the war by
+assigning it to a committee chosen from among themselves; but the
+Council would not concur with them.
+
+Meanwhile the usual ravages went on. Farmhouses were burned, and the
+inmates waylaid and killed, while the Indians generally avoided
+encounters with armed bodies of whites. Near the village of Oxford four
+of them climbed upon the roof of a house, cut a hole in it with their
+hatchets, and tried to enter. A woman who was alone in the building, and
+who had two loaded guns and two pistols, seeing the first savage
+struggling to shove himself through the hole, ran to him in desperation
+and shot him; on which the others dragged the body back and
+disappeared.[261]
+
+There were several attempts of a more serious kind. The small wooden
+fort at the river St. George, the most easterly English outpost, was
+attacked, but the assailants were driven off. A few weeks later it was
+attacked again by the Penobscots under their missionary, Father
+Lauverjat. Other means failing, they tried to undermine the stockade;
+but their sap caved in from the effect of rains, and they retreated,
+with severe loss. The warlike contagion spread to the Indians of Nova
+Scotia. In July the Micmacs seized sixteen or seventeen fishing-smacks
+at Canseau; on which John Eliot, of Boston, and John Robinson, of Cape
+Ann, chased the marauders in two sloops, retook most of the vessels, and
+killed a good number of the Indians. In the autumn a war-party, under
+the noted chief Grey Lock, prowled about the village of Rutland, met the
+minister, Joseph Willard, and attacked him. He killed one savage and
+wounded another, but was at last shot and scalped.[262]
+
+The representatives had long been bent on destroying the mission village
+of the Penobscots on the river of that name; and one cause of their
+grudge against Colonel Walton was that, by order of the governor, he had
+deferred a projected attack upon it. His successor, Colonel Westbrook,
+now took the work in hand, went up the Penobscot in February with two
+hundred and thirty men in sloops and whale-boats, left these at the head
+of navigation, and pushed through the forest to the Indian town called
+Panawamské by the French. It stood apparently above Bangor, at or near
+Passadumkeag. Here the party found a stockade enclosure fourteen feet
+high, seventy yards long, and fifty yards wide, containing twenty-three
+houses, which Westbrook, a better woodsman than grammarian, reports to
+have been "built regular." Outside the stockade stood the chapel, "well
+and handsomely furnished within and without, and on the south side of
+that the Fryer's dwelling-house."[263] This "Fryer" was Father
+Lauverjat, who had led his flock to the attack of the fort at the St.
+George. Both Indians and missionary were gone. Westbrook's men burned
+the village and chapel, and sailed back to the St. George. In the next
+year, 1724, there was a more noteworthy stroke; for Dummer, more pliant
+than Shute, had so far soothed his Assembly that it no longer refused
+money for the war. It was resolved to strike at the root of the evil,
+seize Rale, and destroy Norridgewock. Two hundred and eight men in four
+companies, under Captains Harmon, Moulton, and Brown, and Lieutenant
+Bean, set out from Fort Richmond in seventeen whaleboats on the eighth
+of August. They left the boats at Taconic Falls in charge of a
+lieutenant and forty men, and on the morning of the tenth the main body,
+accompanied by three Mohawk Indians, marched through the forest for
+Norridgewock. Towards evening they saw two squaws, one of whom they
+brutally shot, and captured the other, who proved to be the wife of the
+noted chief Bomazeen. She gave them a full account of the state of the
+village, which they approached early in the afternoon of the twelfth.
+In the belief that some of the Indians would be in their cornfields on
+the river above, Harmon, who was in command, divided the force, and
+moved up the river with about eighty men, while Moulton, with as many
+more, made for the village, advancing through the forest with all
+possible silence. About three o'clock he and his men emerged from a
+tangle of trees and bushes, and saw the Norridgewock cabins before them,
+no longer enclosed with a stockade, but open and unprotected. Not an
+Indian was stirring, till at length a warrior came out from one of the
+huts, saw the English, gave a startled war-whoop, and ran back for his
+gun. Then all was dismay and confusion. Squaws and children ran
+screaming for the river, while the warriors, fifty or sixty in number,
+came to meet the enemy. Moulton ordered his men to reserve their fire
+till the Indians had emptied their guns. As he had foreseen, the excited
+savages fired wildly, and did little or no harm. The English, still
+keeping their ranks, returned a volley with deadly effect. The Indians
+gave one more fire, and then ran for the river. Some tried to wade to
+the farther side, the water being low; others swam across, while many
+jumped into their canoes, but could not use them, having left the
+paddles in their houses. Moulton's men followed close, shooting the
+fugitives in the water or as they climbed the farther bank.
+
+When they returned to the village they found Rale in one of the houses,
+firing upon some of their comrades who had not joined in the pursuit.
+He presently wounded one of them, on which a lieutenant named Benjamin
+Jaques burst open the door of the house, and, as he declared, found the
+priest loading his gun for another shot. The lieutenant said further
+that he called on him to surrender, and that Rale replied that he would
+neither give quarter nor take it; on which Jaques shot him through the
+head.[264] Moulton, who had given orders that Rale should not be killed,
+doubted this report of his subordinate so far as concerned the language
+used by Rale, though believing that he had exasperated the lieutenant by
+provoking expressions of some kind. The old chief Mogg had shut himself
+up in another house, from which he fired and killed one of Moulton's
+three Mohawks, whose brother then beat in the door and shot the chief
+dead. Several of the English followed, and brutally murdered Mogg's
+squaw and his two children. Such plunder as the village afforded,
+consisting of three barrels of gunpowder, with a few guns, blankets, and
+kettles, was then seized; and the Puritan militia thought it a
+meritorious act to break what they called the "idols" in the church, and
+carry off the sacred vessels.
+
+Harmon and his party returned towards night from their useless excursion
+to the cornfields, where they found nobody. In the morning a search was
+made for the dead, and twenty-six Indians were found and scalped,
+including the principal chiefs and warriors of the place. Then, being
+anxious for the safety of their boats, the party marched for Taconic
+Falls. They had scarcely left the village when one of the two surviving
+Mohawks, named Christian, secretly turned back, set fire to the church
+and the houses, and then rejoined the party. The boats were found safe,
+and embarking, they rowed down to Richmond with their trophies.[265]
+
+The news of the fate of the Jesuit and his mission spread joy among the
+border settlers, who saw in it the end of their troubles. In their eyes
+Rale was an incendiary, setting on a horde of bloody savages to pillage
+and murder. While they thought him a devil, he passed in Canada for a
+martyred saint. He was neither the one nor the other, but a man with the
+qualities and faults of a man,--fearless, resolute, enduring; boastful,
+sarcastic, often bitter and irritating; a vehement partisan; apt to see
+things, not as they were, but as he wished them to be; given to
+inaccuracy and exaggeration, yet no doubt sincere in opinions and
+genuine in zeal; hating the English more than he loved the Indians;
+calling himself their friend, yet using them as instruments of worldly
+policy, to their danger and final ruin. In considering the ascription of
+martyrdom, it is to be remembered that he did not die because he was an
+apostle of the faith, but because he was the active agent of the
+Canadian government.
+
+There is reason to believe that he sometimes exercised a humanizing
+influence over his flock. The war which he helped to kindle was marked
+by fewer barbarities--fewer tortures, mutilations of the dead, and
+butcheries of women and infants--than either of the preceding wars. It
+is fair to assume that this was due in part to him, though it was
+chiefly the result of an order given, at the outset, by Shute that
+non-combatants in exposed positions should be sent to places of safety
+in the older settlements.[266]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[228] In 1700, however, there was an agreement, under the treaty of
+Ryswick, which extended the English limits as far as the river St.
+George, a little west of the Penobscot.
+
+[229] See "Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century."
+
+[230] So written by himself in an autograph letter of 18 November, 1712.
+It is also spelled Rasle, Rasles, Ralle, and, very incorrectly, Rallé,
+or Rallee.
+
+[231] The above particulars are taken from an inscription on a
+manuscript map in the library of the Maine Historical Society, made in
+1716 by Joseph Heath, one of the principal English settlers on the
+Kennebec, and for a time commandant of the fort at Brunswick.
+
+[232] When Colonel Westbrook and his men came to Norridgewock in 1722,
+they found a paper pinned to the church door, containing, among others,
+the following words, in the handwriting of Rale, meant as a fling at the
+English invaders: "It [the church] is ill built, because the English
+don't work well. It is not finished, although five or six Englishmen
+have wrought here during four years, and the Undertaker [contractor],
+who is a great Cheat, hath been paid in advance for to finish it." The
+money came from the Canadian government.
+
+[233] _Myrica cerifera._
+
+[234] The site of the Indian village is still called Indian Old Point.
+Norridgewock is the Naurantsouak, or Narantsouak, of the French. For
+Rale's mission life, see two letters of his, 15 October, 1722, and 12
+October, 1722, and a letter of Père La Chasse, Superior of the Missions,
+29 October, 1724. These are printed in the _Lettres Édifiantes_, xvii.
+xxiii.
+
+[235] Père La Chasse, in his eulogy of Rale, says that there was not a
+language on the continent with which he had not some acquaintance. This
+is of course absurd. Besides a full knowledge of the Norridgewock
+Abenaki, he had more or less acquaintance with two other Algonquin
+languages,--the Ottawa and the Illinois,--and also with the Huron; which
+is enough for one man.
+
+[236] This treaty is given in full by Penhallow. It is also printed from
+the original draft by Mr. Frederic Kidder, in his _Abenaki Indians:
+their Treaties of 1713 and 1717_. The two impressions are substantially
+the same, but with verbal variations. The version of Kidder is the more
+complete, in giving not only the Indian totemic marks, but also the
+autographs in facsimile of all the English officials. Rale gives a
+dramatic account of the treaty, which he may have got from the Indians,
+and which omits their submission and their promises.
+
+[237] It was standing in 1852, and a sketch of it is given by Winsor,
+_Narrative and Critical History_, v. 185. I have some doubts as to the
+date of erection.
+
+[238] Williamson, _History of Maine_, ii. 88, 97. Compare Penhallow.
+
+[239] _Remarks out of the Fryar Sebastian Rale's Letter from
+Norridgewock, 7 February, 1720_, in the _Common Place Book_ of Rev.
+Henry Flynt.
+
+[240] Sewall's _Memorial relating to the Kennebec Indians_ is an
+argument against war with them.
+
+[241] A full report of this conference was printed at the time in
+Boston. It is reprinted in _N. H. Historical Collections_, ii. 242, and
+_N. H. Provincial Papers_, iii. 693. Penhallow was present at the
+meeting, but his account of it is short. The accounts of Williamson and
+Hutchinson are drawn from the above-mentioned report.
+
+[242] _Shute to Rale, 21 February, 1718._
+
+[243] This petition is still in the Massachusetts Archives, and is
+printed by Dr. Francis in _Sparks's American Biography_, New Series,
+xvii. 259.
+
+[244] This letter was given by Mr. Adams, of Medfield, a connection of
+the Baxter family, to the Massachusetts Historical Society, in whose
+possession it now is, in a worn condition. It was either captured with
+the rest of Rale's papers and returned to the writer, or else is a
+duplicate kept by Baxter.
+
+[245] This curious paper is in the _Common Place Book_ of Rev. Henry
+Flynt, of which the original is in the library of the Massachusetts
+Historical Society.
+
+[246] See Francis, _Life of Rale_, where the entire passage is given.
+
+[247] Rale wrote to the governor of Canada that it was "sur Les
+Représentations qu'Il Avoit fait aux Sauvages de Sa Mission" that they
+had killed "un grand nombre de Bestiaux apartenant aux Anglois," and
+threatened them with attack if they did not retire. (_Réponse fait par
+MM. Vaudreuil et Bégon au Mémoire du Roy du 8 Juin, 1721._) Rale told
+the governor of Massachusetts, on another occasion, that his character
+as a priest permitted him to give the Indians nothing but counsels of
+peace. Yet as early as 1703 he wrote to Vaudreuil that the Abenakis were
+ready, at a word from him, to lift the hatchet against the English.
+_Beauharnois et Vaudreuil au Ministre, 15 Novembre, 1703._
+
+[248] _Joseph Heath and John Minot to Shute, 1 May, 1719._ Rale says
+that these hostages were seized by surprise and violence; but Vaudreuil
+complains bitterly of the faintness of heart which caused the Indians to
+give them (_Vaudreuil à Rale, 15 Juin, 1721_), and both he and the
+intendant lay the blame on the English party at Norridgewock, who, "with
+the consent of all the Indians of that mission, had the weakness to give
+four hostages." _Réponse de Vaudreuil et Bégon au Mémoire du Roy du 8
+Juin, 1721._
+
+[249] _Eastern Indians' Letter to the Governour, 27 July, 1721_, in
+_Mass., Hist. Coll., Second Series_, viii. 259. This is the original
+French. It is signed with totems of all the Abenaki bands, and also of
+the Caughnawagas, Iroquois of the Mountain, Hurons, Micmacs, Montagnais,
+and several other tribes. On this interview, Penhallow; Belknap, ii. 51;
+_Shute to Vaudreuil_, 21 July, 1721 (O. S.); _Ibid., 23 April, 1722_;
+Rale in _Lettres Édifiantes_, xvii. 285. Rale blames Shute for not being
+present at the meeting, but a letter of the governor shows that he had
+never undertaken to be there. He could not have come in any case, from
+the effects of a fall, which disabled him for some months even from
+going to Portsmouth to meet the Legislature. _Provincial Papers of New
+Hampshire_, iii. 822.
+
+[250] Williamson, _Hist. of Maine_, ii. 119; Penhallow. Rale's account
+of the affair, found among his papers at Norridgewock, is curiously
+exaggerated. He says that he himself was with the Indians, and "to
+pleasure the English" showed himself to them several times,--a point
+which the English writers do not mention, though it is one which they
+would be most likely to seize upon. He says that fifty houses were
+burned, and that there were five forts, two of which were of stone, and
+that in one of these six hundred armed men, besides women and children,
+had sought refuge, though there was not such a number of men in the
+whole region of the Kennebec.
+
+[251] Vaudreuil, _Mémoire adressé au Roy, 5 Juin, 1723_.
+
+[252] _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 6 Septembre, 1716._
+
+[253] _Extrait d'une Liasse de Papiers concernant le Canada_, 1720.
+(Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères.)
+
+[254] _Réponse de Vaudreuil et Bégon au Mémoire du Roy, 8 Juin, 1721._
+
+[255] _Bégon à Rale, 14 Juin, 1721._
+
+[256] Some of the papers found in Rale's "strong box" are still
+preserved in the Archives of Massachusetts, including a letter to him
+from Vaudreuil, dated at Quebec, 25 September, 1721, in which the French
+governor expresses great satisfaction at the missionary's success in
+uniting the Indians against the English, and promises military aid, if
+necessary.
+
+[257] Wheeler, _History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell_, 54.
+
+[258] Hutchinson, ii. 261. On these dissensions compare Palfrey, _Hist.
+of New England_, iv. 406-428.
+
+[259] _Sewall Papers_, iii. 317, 318.
+
+[260] Palfrey, iv. 432, 433.
+
+[261] Penhallow. Hutchinson, ii. 279.
+
+[262] Penhallow. Temple and Sheldon, _History of Northfield_, 195.
+
+[263] _Westbrook to Dummer, 23 March, 1723_, in _Collections Mass. Hist.
+Soc., Second Series_, viii. 264.
+
+[264] Hutchinson, ii. 283 (ed. 1795). Hutchinson had the story from
+Moulton. Compare the tradition in the family of Jaques, as told by his
+great-grandson, in _Historical Magazine_, viii. 177.
+
+[265] The above rests on the account of Hutchinson, which was taken from
+the official Journal of Harmon, the commander of the expedition, and
+from the oral statements of Moulton, whom Hutchinson examined on the
+subject. Charlevoix, following a letter of La Chasse in the Jesuit
+_Lettres Édifiantes_, gives a widely different story. According to him,
+Norridgewock was surprised by eleven hundred men, who first announced
+their presence by a general volley, riddling all the houses with
+bullets. Rale, says La Chasse, Tan out to save his flock by drawing the
+rage of the enemy on himself; on which they raised a great shout and
+shot him dead at the foot of the cross in the middle of the village. La
+Chasse does not tell us where he got the story; but as there were no
+French witnesses, the story must have come from the Indians, who are
+notorious liars where their interest and self-love are concerned. Nobody
+competent to judge of evidence can doubt which of the two statements is
+the more trustworthy.
+
+[266] It is also said that Rale taught some of his Indians to read and
+write,--which was unusual in the Jesuit missions. On his character,
+compare the judicial and candid _Life of Rale_, by Dr. Convers Francis,
+in Sparks's _American Biography, New Series_, vii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+1724, 1725.
+
+LOVEWELL'S FIGHT.
+
+Vaudreuil and Dummer.--Embassy to Canada.--Indians intractable.--Treaty
+of Peace.--The Pequawkets.--John Lovewell.--A Hunting Party.--Another
+Expedition.--The Ambuscade.--The Fight.--Chaplain Frye: his Fate.--The
+Survivors.--Susanna Rogers.
+
+
+The death of Rale and the destruction of Norridgewock did not at once
+end the war. Vaudreuil turned all the savages of the Canadian missions
+against the borders, not only of Maine, but of western Massachusetts,
+whose peaceful settlers had given no offence. Soon after the
+Norridgewock expedition, Dummer wrote to the French governor, who had
+lately proclaimed the Abenakis his allies: "As they are subjects of his
+Britannic Majesty, they cannot be your allies, except through me, his
+representative. You have instigated them to fall on our people in the
+most outrageous manner. I have seen your commission to Sebastien Rale.
+But for your protection and incitements they would have made peace long
+ago."[267]
+
+In reply, Vaudreuil admitted that he had given a safe-conduct and a
+commission to Rale, which he could not deny, as the Jesuit's papers
+were in the hands of the English governor. "You will have to answer to
+your king for his murder," he tells Dummer. "It would have been strange
+if I had abandoned our Indians to please you. I cannot help taking the
+part of our allies. You have brought your troubles upon yourself. I
+advise you to pull down all the forts you have built on the Abenaki
+lands since the Peace of Utrecht. If you do so, I will be your mediator
+with the Norridgewocks. As to the murder of Rale, I leave that to be
+settled between the two Crowns."[268]
+
+Apparently the French court thought it wise to let the question rest,
+and make no complaint. Dummer, however, gave his views on the subject to
+Vaudreuil. "Instead of preaching peace, love, and friendship, agreeably
+to the Christian religion, Rale was an incendiary, as appears by many
+letters I have by me. He has once and again appeared at the head of a
+great many Indians, threatening and insulting us. If such a disturber of
+the peace has been killed in the heat of action, nobody is to blame but
+himself. I have much more cause to complain that Mr. Willard, minister
+of Rutland, who is innocent of all that is charged against Rale, and
+always confined himself to preaching the Gospel, was slain and scalped
+by your Indians, and his scalp carried in triumph to Quebec."
+
+Dummer then denies that France has any claim to the Abenakis, and
+declares that the war between them and the English is due to the
+instigations of Rale and the encouragements given them by Vaudreuil. But
+he adds that in his wish to promote peace he sends two prominent
+gentlemen, Colonel Samuel Thaxter and Colonel William Dudley, as bearers
+of his letter.[269]
+
+Mr. Atkinson, envoy on the part of New Hampshire, joined Thaxter and
+Dudley, and the three set out for Montreal, over the ice of Lake
+Champlain. Vaudreuil received them with courtesy. As required by their
+instructions, they demanded the release of the English prisoners in
+Canada, and protested against the action of the French governor in
+setting on the Indians to attack English settlements when there was
+peace between the two Crowns. Vaudreuil denied that he had done so, till
+they showed him his own letters to Rale, captured at Norridgewock. These
+were unanswerable; but Vaudreuil insisted that the supplies sent to the
+Indians were only the presents which they received every year from the
+King. As to the English prisoners, he said that those in the hands of
+the Indians were beyond his power; but that the envoys could have those
+whom the French had bought from their captors, on paying back the price
+they had cost. The demands were exorbitant, but sixteen prisoners were
+ransomed, and bargains were made for ten more. Vaudreuil proposed to
+Thaxter and his colleagues to have an interview with the Indians, which
+they at first declined, saying that they had no powers to treat with
+them, though, if the Indians wished to ask for peace, they were ready to
+hear them. At length a meeting was arranged. The French governor writes:
+"Being satisfied that nothing was more opposed to our interests than a
+peace between the Abenakis and the English, I thought that I would sound
+the chiefs before they spoke to the English envoys, and insinuate to
+them everything that I had to say."[270] This he did with such success
+that, instead of asking for peace, the Indians demanded the demolition
+of the English forts, and heavy damages for burning their church and
+killing their missionary. In short, to Vaudreuil's great satisfaction,
+they talked nothing but war. The French despatch reporting this
+interview has the following marginal note: "Nothing better can be done
+than to foment this war, which at least retards the settlements of the
+English;" and against this is written, in the hand of the colonial
+minister, the word "_Approved_."[271] This was, in fact, the policy
+pursued from the first, and Rale had been an instrument of it. The
+Jesuit La Chasse, who spoke both English and Abenaki, had acted as
+interpreter, and so had had the meeting in his power, as he could make
+both parties say what he pleased. The envoys thought him more
+anti-English than Vaudreuil himself, and ascribed the intractable mood
+of the Indians to his devices. Under the circumstances, they made a
+mistake in consenting to the interview at all. The governor, who had
+treated them with civility throughout, gave them an escort of soldiers
+for the homeward journey, and they and the redeemed prisoners returned
+safely to Albany.
+
+The war went on as before, but the Indians were fast growing tired of
+it. The Penobscots had made themselves obnoxious by their attacks on
+Fort St. George, and Captain Heath marched across country from the
+Kennebec to punish them. He found their village empty. It was built,
+since Westbrook's attack, at or near the site of Bangor, a little below
+Indian Old Town,--the present abode of the tribe,--and consisted of
+fifty wigwams, which Heath's men burned to the ground.
+
+One of the four hostages still detained at Boston, together with another
+Indian captured in the war, was allowed to visit his people, under a
+promise to return. Strange to say, the promise was kept. They came back
+bringing a request for peace from their tribesmen. On this,
+commissioners were sent to the St. George, where a conference was held
+with some of the Penobscot chiefs, and it was arranged that deputies of
+that people should be sent to Boston to conclude a solid peace. After
+long delay, four chiefs appeared, fully empowered, as they said, to make
+peace, not for the Penobscots only, but for the other Abenaki tribes,
+their allies. The speeches and ceremonies being at last ended, the four
+deputies affixed their marks to a paper in which, for themselves and
+those they represented, they made submission "unto his most excellent
+Majesty George, by the grace of God king of Great Britain, France, and
+Ireland, defender of the Faith," etc., promising to "cease and forbear
+all acts of hostility, injuries, and discord towards all his subjects,
+and never confederate or combine with any other nation to their
+prejudice." Here was a curious anomaly. The English claimed the Abenakis
+as subjects of the British Crown, and at the same time treated with them
+as a foreign power. Each of the four deputies signed the above-mentioned
+paper, one with the likeness of a turtle, the next with that of a bird,
+the third with the untutored portrait of a beaver, and the fourth with
+an extraordinary scrawl, meant, it seems, for a lobster,--such being
+their respective totems. To these the lieutenant-governor added the seal
+of the province of Massachusetts, coupled with his own autograph.
+
+In the next summer, and again a year later, other meetings were held at
+Casco Bay with the chiefs of the various Abenaki tribes, in which, after
+prodigious circumlocution, the Boston treaty was ratified, and the war
+ended.[272] This time the Massachusetts Assembly, taught wisdom by
+experience, furnished a guarantee of peace by providing for government
+trading-houses in the Indian country, where goods were supplied, through
+responsible hands, at honest prices.
+
+The Norridgewocks, with whom the quarrel began, were completely broken.
+Some of the survivors joined their kindred in Canada, and others were
+merged in the Abenaki bands of the Penobscot, Saco, or Androscoggin.
+Peace reigned at last along the borders of New England; but it had cost
+her dear. In the year after the death of Rale, there was an incident of
+the conflict too noted in its day, and too strongly rooted in popular
+tradition, to be passed unnoticed.
+
+Out of the heart of the White Mountains springs the river Saco, fed by
+the bright cascades that leap from the crags of Mount Webster, brawling
+among rocks and bowlders down the great defile of the Crawford Notch,
+winding through the forests and intervales of Conway, then circling
+northward by the village of Fryeburg in devious wanderings by meadows,
+woods, and mountains, and at last turning eastward and southward to join
+the sea.
+
+On the banks of this erratic stream lived an Abenaki tribe called the
+Sokokis. When the first white man visited the country, these Indians
+lived at the Falls, a few miles from the mouth of the river. They
+retired before the English settlers, and either joined their kindred in
+Maine, or migrated to St. Francis and other Abenaki settlements in
+Canada; but a Sokoki band called Pigwackets, or Pequawkets, still kept
+its place far in the interior, on the upper waters of the Saco, near
+Pine Hill, in the present town of Fryeburg. Except a small band of their
+near kindred on Lake Ossipee, they were the only human tenants of a
+wilderness many thousand square miles in extent. In their wild and
+remote abode they were difficult of access, and the forest and the river
+were well stocked with moose, deer, bear, beaver, otter, lynx, fisher,
+mink, and marten. In this, their happy hunting-ground, the Pequawkets
+thought themselves safe; and they would have been so for some time
+longer if they had not taken up the quarrel of the Norridgewocks and
+made bloody raids against the English border, under their war-chief,
+Paugus.
+
+Not far from where their wigwams stood clustered in a bend of the Saco
+was the small lake now called Lovewell's Pond, named for John Lovewell
+of Dunstable, a Massachusetts town on the New Hampshire line. Lovewell's
+father, a person of consideration in the village, where he owned a
+"garrison house," had served in Philip's War, and taken part in the
+famous Narragansett Swamp Fight. The younger Lovewell, now about
+thirty-three years of age, lived with his wife, Hannah, and two or three
+children on a farm of two hundred acres. The inventory of his effects,
+made after his death, includes five or six cattle, one mare, two steel
+traps with chains, a gun, two or three books, a feather-bed, and
+"under-bed," or mattress, along with sundry tools, pots, barrels,
+chests, tubs, and the like,--the equipment, in short, of a decent
+frontier yeoman of the time.[273] But being, like the tough veteran, his
+father, of a bold and adventurous disposition, he seems to have been
+less given to farming than to hunting and bush-fighting.
+
+Dunstable was attacked by Indians in the autumn of 1724, and two men
+were carried off. Ten others went in pursuit, but fell into an ambush,
+and nearly all were killed, Josiah Farwell, Lovewell's brother-in-law,
+being, by some accounts, the only one who escaped.[274] Soon after this,
+a petition, styled a "Humble Memorial," was laid before the House of
+Representatives at Boston. It declares that in order "to kill and
+destroy their enemy Indians," the petitioners and forty or fifty others
+are ready to spend one whole year in hunting them, "provided they can
+meet with Encouragement suitable." The petition is signed by John
+Lovewell, Josiah Farwell, and Jonathan Robbins, all of Dunstable,
+Lovewell's name being well written, and the others after a cramped and
+unaccustomed fashion. The representatives accepted the proposal and
+voted to give each adventurer two shillings and sixpence a day,--then
+equal in Massachusetts currency to about one English shilling,--out of
+which he was to maintain himself. The men were, in addition, promised
+large rewards for the scalps of male Indians old enough to fight.
+
+A company of thirty was soon raised. Lovewell was chosen captain,
+Farwell, lieutenant, and Robbins, ensign. They set out towards the end
+of November, and reappeared at Dunstable early in January, bringing one
+prisoner and one scalp. Towards the end of the month Lovewell set out
+again, this time with eighty-seven men, gathered from the villages of
+Dunstable, Groton, Lancaster, Haverhill, and Billerica. They ascended
+the frozen Merrimac, passed Lake Winnepesaukee, pushed nearly to the
+White Mountains, and encamped on a branch of the upper Saco. Here they
+killed a moose,--a timely piece of luck, for they were in danger of
+starvation, and Lovewell had been compelled by want of food to send back
+a good number of his men. The rest held their way, filing on snow-shoes
+through the deathlike solitude that gave no sign of life except the
+light track of some squirrel on the snow, and the brisk note of the
+hardy little chickadee, or black-capped titmouse, so familiar to the
+winter woods. Thus far the scouts had seen no human footprint; but on
+the twentieth of February they found a lately abandoned wigwam, and,
+following the snow-shoe tracks that led from it, at length saw smoke
+rising at a distance out of the gray forest. The party lay close till
+two o'clock in the morning; then cautiously approached, found one or
+more wigwams, surrounded them, and killed all the inmates, ten in
+number. They were warriors from Canada on a winter raid against the
+borders. Lovewell and his men, it will be seen, were much like hunters
+of wolves, catamounts, or other dangerous beasts, except that the chase
+of this fierce and wily human game demanded far more hardihood and
+skill.
+
+They brought home the scalps in triumph, together with the blankets and
+the new guns furnished to the slain warriors by their Canadian friends;
+and Lovewell began at once to gather men for another hunt. The busy
+season of the farmers was at hand, and volunteers came in less freely
+than before. At the middle of April, however, he had raised a band of
+forty-six, of whom he was the captain, with Farwell and Robbins as his
+lieutenants. Though they were all regularly commissioned by the
+governor, they were leaders rather than commanders, for they and their
+men were neighbors or acquaintances on terms of entire social equality.
+Two of the number require mention. One was Seth Wyman, of Woburn, an
+ensign; and the other was Jonathan Frye, of Andover, the chaplain, a
+youth of twenty-one, graduated at Harvard College in 1723, and now a
+student of theology. Chaplain though he was, he carried a gun, knife,
+and hatchet like the others, and not one of the party was more prompt to
+use them.
+
+They began their march on April 15. A few days afterwards, one William
+Cummings, of Dunstable, became so disabled by the effects of a wound
+received from Indians some time before, that he could not keep on with
+the rest, and Lovewell sent him back in charge of a kinsman, thus
+reducing their number to forty-four. When they reached the west shore of
+Lake Ossipee, Benjamin Kidder, of Nutfield, fell seriously ill. To leave
+him defenceless in a place so dangerous was not to be thought of; and
+his comrades built a small fort, or palisaded log-cabin, near the water,
+where they left the sick man in charge of the surgeon, together with
+Sergeant Woods and a guard of seven men. The rest, now reduced to
+thirty-four, continued their march through the forest northeastward
+towards Pequawket, while the savage heights of the White Mountains,
+still covered with snow, rose above the dismal, bare forests on their
+left. They seem to have crossed the Saco just below the site of
+Fryeburg, and in the night of May 7, as they lay in the woods near the
+northeast end of Lovewell's Pond, the men on guard heard sounds like
+Indians prowling about them. At daybreak the next morning, as they stood
+bareheaded, listening to a prayer from the young chaplain, they heard
+the report of a gun, and soon after discovered an Indian on the shore of
+the pond at a considerable distance. Apparently he was shooting ducks;
+but Lovewell, suspecting a device to lure them into an ambuscade, asked
+the men whether they were for pushing forward or falling back, and with
+one voice they called upon him to lead them on. They were then in a
+piece of open pine woods traversed by a small brook. He ordered them to
+lay down their packs and advance with extreme caution. They had moved
+forward for some time in this manner when they met an Indian coming
+towards them through the dense trees and bushes. He no sooner saw them
+than he fired at the leading men. His gun was charged with beaver-shot;
+but he was so near his mark that the effect was equal to that of a
+bullet, and he severely wounded Lovewell and one Whiting; on which Seth
+Wyman shot him dead, and the chaplain and another man scalped him.
+Lovewell, though believed to be mortally hurt, was still able to walk,
+and the party fell back to the place where they had left their packs.
+The packs had disappeared, and suddenly, with frightful yells, the whole
+body of the Pequawket warriors rushed from their hiding-places, firing
+as they came on. The survivors say that they were more than twice the
+number of the whites,--which is probably an exaggeration, though their
+conduct, so unusual with Indians, in rushing forward instead of firing
+from their ambush, shows a remarkable confidence in their numerical
+strength.[275] They no doubt expected to strike their enemies with a
+panic. Lovewell received another mortal wound; but he fired more than
+once on the Indians as he lay dying. His two lieutenants, Farwell and
+Robbins, were also badly hurt. Eight others fell; but the rest stood
+their ground, and pushed the Indians so hard that they drove them back
+to cover with heavy loss. One man played the coward, Benjamin Hassell,
+of Dunstable, who ran off, escaped in the confusion, and made with his
+best speed for the fort at Lake Ossipee.
+
+The situation of the party was desperate, and nothing saved them from
+destruction but the prompt action of their surviving officers, only one
+of whom, Ensign Wyman, had escaped unhurt. It was probably under his
+direction that the men fell back steadily to the shore of the pond,
+which was only a few rods distant. Here the water protected their rear,
+so that they could not be surrounded; and now followed one of the most
+obstinate and deadly bush-fights in the annals of New England. It was
+about ten o'clock when the fight began, and it lasted till night. The
+Indians had the greater agility and skill in hiding and sheltering
+themselves, and the whites the greater steadiness and coolness in using
+their guns. They fought in the shade; for the forest was dense, and all
+alike covered themselves as they best could behind trees, bushes, or
+fallen trunks, where each man crouched with eyes and mind intent, firing
+whenever he saw, or thought he saw, the head, limbs, or body of an enemy
+exposed to sight for an instant. The Indians howled like wolves, yelled
+like enraged cougars, and made the forest ring with their whoops; while
+the whites replied with shouts and cheers. At one time the Indians
+ceased firing and drew back among the trees and undergrowth, where, by
+the noise they made, they seemed to be holding a "pow-wow," or
+incantation to procure victory; but the keen and fearless Seth Wyman
+crept up among the bushes, shot the chief conjurer, and broke up the
+meeting. About the middle of the afternoon young Frye received a mortal
+wound. Unable to fight longer, he lay in his blood, praying from time to
+time for his comrades in a faint but audible voice.
+
+Solomon Keyes, of Billerica, received two wounds, but fought on till a
+third shot struck him. He then crawled up to Wyman in the heat of the
+fight, and told him that he, Keyes, was a dead man, but that the Indians
+should not get his scalp if he could help it. Creeping along the sandy
+edge of the pond, he chanced to find a stranded canoe, pushed it afloat,
+rolled himself into it, and drifted away before the wind.
+
+Soon after sunset the Indians drew off and left the field to their
+enemies, living and dead, not even stopping to scalp the fallen,--a
+remarkable proof of the completeness of their discomfiture. Exhausted
+with fatigue and hunger,--for, having lost their packs in the morning,
+they had no food,--the surviving white men explored the scene of the
+fight. Jacob Farrar lay gasping his last by the edge of the water.
+Robert Usher and Lieutenant Robbins were unable to move. Of the
+thirty-four men, nine had escaped without serious injury, eleven were
+badly wounded, and the rest were dead or dying, except the coward who
+had run off.
+
+About midnight, an hour or more before the setting of the moon, such as
+had strength to walk left the ground. Robbins, as he lay helpless, asked
+one of them to load his gun, saying, "The Indians will come in the
+morning to scalp me, and I'll kill another of 'em if I can." They loaded
+the gun and left him.
+
+To make one's way even by daylight through the snares and pitfalls of a
+New England forest is often a difficult task; to do so in the darkness
+of night and overshadowing boughs, among the fallen trees and the snarl
+of underbrush, was wellnigh impossible. Any but the most skilful
+woodsmen would have lost their way. The Indians, sick of fighting, did
+not molest the party. After struggling on for a mile or more, Farwell,
+Frye, and two other wounded men, Josiah Jones and Eleazer Davis, could
+go no farther, and, with their consent, the others left them, with a
+promise to send them help as soon as they should reach the fort. In the
+morning the men divided into several small bands, the better to elude
+pursuit. One of these parties was tracked for some time by the Indians,
+and Elias Barron, becoming separated from his companions, was never
+again heard of, though the case of his gun was afterwards found by the
+bank of the river Ossipee.
+
+Eleven of the number at length reached the fort, and to their amazement
+found nobody there. The runaway, Hassell, had arrived many hours before
+them, and to excuse his flight told so frightful a story of the fate of
+his comrades that his hearers were seized with a panic, shamefully
+abandoned their post, and set out for the settlements, leaving a
+writing on a piece of birch-bark to the effect that all the rest were
+killed. They had left a supply of bread and pork, and while the famished
+eleven rested and refreshed themselves they were joined by Solomon
+Keyes, the man who, after being thrice wounded, had floated away in a
+canoe from the place of the fight. After drifting for a considerable
+distance, the wind blew him ashore, when, spurred by necessity and
+feeling himself "wonderfully strengthened," he succeeded in gaining the
+fort.
+
+Meanwhile Frye, Farwell, and their two wounded companions, Davis and
+Jones, after waiting vainly for the expected help, found strength to
+struggle forward again, till the chaplain stopped and lay down, begging
+the others to keep on their way, and saying to Davis, "Tell my father
+that I expect in a few hours to be in eternity, and am not afraid to
+die." They left him, and, says the old narrative, "he has not been heard
+of since." He had kept the journal of the expedition, which was lost
+with him.
+
+Farwell died of exhaustion. The remaining two lost their way and became
+separated. After wandering eleven days, Davis reached the fort at Lake
+Ossipee, and, finding food there, came into Berwick on the
+twenty-seventh. Jones, after fourteen days in the woods, arrived, half
+dead, at the village of Biddeford.
+
+Some of the eleven who had first made their way to the fort, together
+with Keyes, who joined them there, came into Dunstable during the night
+of the thirteenth, and the rest followed one or two days later. Ensign
+Wyman, who was now the only commissioned officer left alive, and who had
+borne himself throughout with the utmost intrepidity, decision, and good
+sense, reached the same place along with three other men on the
+fifteenth.
+
+The runaway, Hassell, and the guard at the fort, whom he had infected
+with his terror, had lost no time in making their way back to Dunstable,
+which they seem to have reached on the evening of the eleventh. Horsemen
+were sent in haste to carry the doleful news to Boston, on which the
+governor gave orders to Colonel Tyng of the militia, who was then at
+Dunstable, to gather men in the border towns, march with all speed to
+the place of the fight, succor the wounded if any were still alive, and
+attack the Indians, if he could find them. Tyng called upon Hassell to
+go with him as a guide; but he was ill, or pretended to be so, on which
+one of the men who had been in the fight and had just returned offered
+to go in his place.
+
+When the party reached the scene of the battle, they saw the trees
+plentifully scarred with bullets, and presently found and buried the
+bodies of Lovewell, Robbins, and ten others. The Indians, after their
+usual custom, had carried off or hidden their own dead; but Tyng's men
+discovered three of them buried together, and one of these was
+recognized as the war-chief Paugus, killed by Wyman, or, according to a
+more than doubtful tradition, by John Chamberlain.[276] Not a living
+Indian was to be seen.
+
+The Pequawkets were cowed by the rough handling they had met when they
+plainly expected a victory. Some of them joined their Abenaki kinsmen in
+Canada and remained there, while others returned after the peace to
+their old haunts by the Saco; but they never again raised the hatchet
+against the English.
+
+Lovewell's Pond, with its sandy beach, its two green islands, and its
+environment of lonely forests, reverted for a while to its original
+owners,--the wolf, bear, lynx, and moose. In our day all is changed.
+Farms and dwellings possess those peaceful shores, and hard by, where,
+at the bend of the Saco, once stood, in picturesque squalor, the wigwams
+of the vanished Pequawkets, the village of Fryeburg preserves the name
+of the brave young chaplain, whose memory is still cherished, in spite
+of his uncanonical turn for scalping.[277] He had engaged himself to a
+young girl of a neighboring village, Susanna Rogers, daughter of John
+Rogers, minister of Boxford. It has been said that Frye's parents
+thought her beneath him in education and position; but this is not
+likely, for her father belonged to what has been called the "Brahmin
+caste" of New England, and, like others of his family, had had, at
+Harvard, the best education that the country could supply. The girl
+herself, though only fourteen years old, could make verses, such as they
+were; and she wrote an elegy on the death of her lover which, bating
+some grammatical lapses, deserves the modest praise of being no worse
+than many New England rhymes of that day.
+
+The courage of Frye and his sturdy comrades contributed greatly to the
+pacification which in the next year relieved the borders from the
+scourge of Indian war.[278]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[267] _Dummer to Vaudreuil, 15 September, 1724._
+
+[268] _Vaudreuil à Dummer, 29 Octobre, 1724._
+
+[269] _Dummer to Vaudreuil, 19 January, 1725._ This, with many other
+papers relating to these matters, is in the Massachusetts Archives.
+
+[270] _Dépêche de Vaudreuil, 7 Août, 1725._ "Comme j'ai toujours été
+persuadé que rien n'est plus opposé à nos intérêts que la paix des
+Abenakis avec les Anglais (la sureté de cette colonie du côté de l'est
+ayant été l'unique objet de cette guerre), je songeai à pressentir ces
+sauvages avant qu'ils parlassant aux Anglais et à leur insinuer tout ce
+que j'avais à leur dire."--_Vaudreuil au Ministre, 22 Mai, 1725._
+
+[271] _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 949.
+
+[272] Penhallow gives the Boston treaty. For the ratifications, see
+_Collections of the Maine Hist. Soc._, iii. 377, 407.
+
+[273] See the inventory, in Kidder, _The Expeditions of Captain John
+Lovewell_, 93, 94.
+
+[274] Other accounts say that eight of the ten were killed. The
+headstone of one of the number, Thomas Lund, has these words: "This man,
+with seven more that lies in this grave, was slew All in A day by the
+Indiens."
+
+[275] Penhallow puts their number at seventy, Hutchinson at eighty,
+Williamson at sixty-three, and Belknap at forty-one. In such cases the
+smallest number is generally nearest the truth.
+
+[276] The tradition is that Chamberlain and Paugus went down to the
+small brook, now called Fight Brook, to clean their guns, hot and foul
+with frequent firing; that they saw each other at the same instant, and
+that the Indian said to the white man, in his broken English, "Me kill
+you quick!" at the same time hastily loading his piece; to which
+Chamberlain coolly replied, "Maybe not." His firelock had a large
+touch-hole, so that the powder could be shaken out into the pan, and the
+gun made to prime itself. Thus he was ready for action an instant sooner
+than his enemy, whom he shot dead just as Paugus pulled trigger, and
+sent a bullet whistling over his head. The story has no good foundation,
+while the popular ballad, written at the time, and very faithful to the
+facts, says that, the other officers being killed, the English made
+Wyman their captain,--
+
+    "Who shot the old chief Paugus, which did the foe defeat,
+    Then set his men in order and brought off the retreat."
+
+[277] The town, however, was not named for the chaplain, but for his
+father's cousin, General Joseph Frye, the original grantee of the land.
+
+[278] Rev. Thomas Symmes, minister of Bradford, preached a sermon on the
+fate of Lovewell and his men immediately after the return of the
+survivors, and printed it, with a much more valuable introduction,
+giving a careful account of the affair, on the evidence of "the Valorous
+Captain Wyman and some others of good Credit that were in the
+Engagement." Wyman had just been made a captain, in recognition of his
+conduct. The narrative is followed by an attestation of its truth signed
+by him and two others of Lovewell's band.
+
+A considerable number of letters relating to the expedition are
+preserved in the Massachusetts Archives, from Benjamin Hassell, Colonel
+Tyng, Governor Dummer of Massachusetts, and Governor Wentworth of New
+Hampshire. They give the various reports received from those in the
+fight, and show the action taken in consequence. The Archives also
+contain petitions from the survivors and the families of the slain; and
+the legislative Journals show that the petitioners received large grants
+of land. Lovewell's debts contracted in raising men for his expeditions
+were also paid.
+
+The papers mentioned above, with other authentic records concerning the
+affair, have been printed by Kidder in his _Expeditions of Captain John
+Lovewell_, a monograph of thorough research. The names of all Lovewell's
+party, and biographical notices of some of them, are also given by Mr.
+Kidder. Compare Penhallow, Hutchinson, Fox, _History of Dunstable_, and
+Bouton, _Lovewell's Great Fight_. For various suggestions touching
+Lovewell's Expedition, I am indebted to Mr. C. W. Lewis, who has made it
+the subject of minute and careful study.
+
+A ballad which was written when the event was fresh, and was long
+popular in New England, deserves mention, if only for its general
+fidelity to the facts. The following is a sample of its eighteen
+stanzas:--
+
+    "'T was ten o'clock in the morning when first the fight begun,
+    And fiercely did continue till the setting of the sun,
+    Excepting that the Indians, some hours before 't was night,
+    Drew off into the bushes, and ceased awhile to fight;
+
+    "But soon again returnèd in fierce and furious mood,
+    Shouting as in the morning, but yet not half so loud;
+    For, as we are informèd, so thick and fast they fell,
+    Scarce twenty of their number at night did get home well.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Our worthy Captain Lovewell among them there did die;
+    They killed Lieutenant Robbins, and wounded good young Frye,
+    Who was our English chaplain; he many Indians slew,
+    And some of them he scalped when bullets round him flew."
+
+Frye, as mentioned in the text, had engaged himself to Susanna Rogers, a
+young girl of the village of Boxford, who, after his death, wrote some
+untutored verses to commemorate his fate. They are entitled, _A Mournful
+Elegy on Mr. Jonathan Frye_, and begin thus:
+
+    "Assist, ye muses, help my quill,
+    Whilst floods of tears does down distil;
+    Not from mine eyes alone, but all
+    That hears the sad and doleful fall
+    Of that young student, Mr. Frye,
+    Who in his blooming youth did die.
+    Fighting for his dear country's good,
+    He lost his life and precious blood.
+    His father's only son was he;
+    His mother loved him tenderly;
+    And all that knew him loved him well;
+    For in bright parts he did excel
+    Most of his age; for he was young,--
+    Just entering on twenty-one;
+    A comely youth, and pious too;
+    This I affirm, for him I knew."
+
+She then describes her lover's brave deeds, and sad but heroic death,
+alone in a howling wilderness; condoles with the bereaved parents,
+exhorts them to resignation, and touches modestly on her own sorrow.
+
+In more recent times the fate of Lovewell and his companions has
+inspired several poetical attempts, which need not be dwelt upon.
+Lovewell's Fight, as Dr. Palfrey observes, was long as famous in New
+England as Chevy Chase on the Scottish Border.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+1712.
+
+THE OUTAGAMIES AT DETROIT.
+
+The West and the Fur-trade.--New York and Canada.--Indian
+Population.--The Firebrands of the West.--Detroit in 1712.--Dangerous
+Visitors.--Suspense.--Timely Succors.--The Outagamies attacked: their
+Desperate Position.--Overtures.--Wavering Allies.--Conduct of
+Dubuisson.--Escape of the Outagamies.--Pursuit and Attack.--Victory and
+Carnage.
+
+
+We have seen that the Peace of Utrecht was followed by a threefold
+conflict for ascendency in America,--the conflict for Acadia, the
+conflict for northern New England, and the conflict for the Great West;
+which last could not be said to take at once an international character,
+being essentially a competition for the fur-trade. Only one of the
+English colonies took an active part in it,--the province of New York.
+Alone among her sister communities she had a natural thoroughfare to the
+West, not comparable, however, with that of Canada, to whose people the
+St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and their tributary waters were a
+continual invitation to the vast interior.
+
+Virginia and Pennsylvania were not yet serious rivals in the fur-trade;
+and New England, the most active of the British colonies, was barred out
+from it by the interposition of New York, which lay across her westward
+path, thus forcing her to turn her energies to the sea, where half a
+century later her achievements inspired the glowing panegyrics of Burke
+before the House of Commons.
+
+New York, then, was for many years the only rival of Canada for the
+control of the West. It was a fatal error in the rulers of New France
+that they did not, in the seventeenth century, use more strenuous
+efforts to possess themselves, by purchase, exchange, or conquest, of
+this troublesome and dangerous neighbor. There was a time, under the
+reign of Charles II., when negotiation for the purchase of New York
+might have been successful; and if this failed, the conquest of the
+province, if attempted by forces equal to the importance of the object,
+would have been far from hopeless. With New York in French hands, the
+fate of the continent would probably have been changed. The British
+possessions would have been cut in two. New England, isolated and placed
+in constant jeopardy, would have vainly poured her unmanageable herds of
+raw militia against the disciplined veterans of Old France intrenched at
+the mouth of the Hudson. Canada would have gained complete control of
+her old enemies, the Iroquois, who would have been wholly dependent on
+her for the arms and ammunition without which they could do nothing.
+
+The Iroquois, as the French had been accustomed to call them, were known
+to the English as the Five Nations,--a name which during the eighteenth
+century the French also adopted. Soon after the Peace of Utrecht, a
+kindred tribe, the Tuscaroras, was joined to the original five members
+of the confederacy, which thenceforward was sometimes called the Six
+Nations, though the Tuscaroras were never very prominent in its history;
+and, to avoid confusion, we will keep the more familiar name of the Five
+Nations, which the French used to the last.
+
+For more than two generations this league of tribes had held Canada in
+terror, and more than once threatened it with destruction. But now a
+change had come over the confederates. Count Frontenac had humbled their
+pride. They were crowded between the rival European nations, both of
+whom they distrusted. Their traditional hatred of the French would have
+given the English of New York a controlling influence over them if the
+advantage had been used with energy and tact. But a narrow and
+short-sighted conduct threw it away. A governor of New York, moreover,
+even were he as keen and far-seeing as Frontenac himself, would often
+have been helpless. When the Five Nations were attacked by the French,
+he had no troops to defend them, nor could he, like a Canadian governor,
+call out the forces of his province by a word, to meet the exigency. The
+small revenues of New York were not at his disposal. Without the votes
+of the frugal representatives of an impoverished people, his hands were
+tied. Hence the Five Nations, often left unaided when they most needed
+help, looked upon their Dutch and English neighbors as slothful and
+unwarlike.
+
+Yet their friendship was of the greatest importance to the province, in
+peace as well as in war, and was indispensable in the conflict that New
+York was waging single-handed for the control of the western fur-trade.
+The Five Nations, as we have seen,[279] acted as middlemen between the
+New York merchants and the tribes of the far interior, and through them
+English goods and English influence penetrated all the lake country, and
+reached even to the Mississippi.
+
+These vast western regions, now swarming with laborious millions, were
+then scantily peopled by savage hordes, whose increase was stopped by
+incessant mutual slaughter. This wild population had various centres or
+rallying-points, usually about the French forts, which protected them
+from enemies and supplied their wants. Thus the Pottawattamies, Ottawas,
+and Hurons were gathered about Detroit, and the Illinois about Fort St.
+Louis, on the river Illinois, where Henri de Tonty and his old comrade,
+La Forest, with fifteen or twenty Frenchmen, held a nominal monopoly of
+the neighboring fur-trade. Another focus of Indian population was near
+the Green Bay of Lake Michigan, and on Fox River, which enters it. Here
+were grouped the Sacs, Winnebagoes, and Menominies, with the Outagamies,
+or Foxes, a formidable tribe, the source of endless trouble to the
+French.
+
+The constant aim of the Canadian authorities was to keep these western
+savages at peace among themselves, while preventing their establishing
+relations of trade with the Five Nations, and carrying their furs to
+them in exchange for English goods. The position was delicate, for while
+a close understanding between the western tribes and the Five Nations
+would be injurious to French interests, a quarrel would be still more
+so, since the French would then be forced to side with their western
+allies, and so be drawn into hostilities with the Iroquois confederacy,
+which of all things they most wished to avoid. Peace and friendship
+among the western tribes; peace without friendship between these tribes
+and the Five Nations,--thus became maxims of French policy. The Canadian
+governor called the western Indians his "children," and a family quarrel
+among them would have been unfortunate, since the loving father must
+needs have become involved in it, to the detriment of his trading
+interests.
+
+Yet to prevent such quarrels was difficult, partly because they had
+existed time out of mind, and partly because it was the interest of the
+English to promote them. Dutch and English traders, it is true, took
+their lives in their hands if they ventured among the western Indians,
+who were encouraged by their French father to plunder and kill them, and
+who on occasion rarely hesitated to do so. Hence English communication
+with the West was largely carried on through the Five Nations. Iroquois
+messengers, hired for the purpose, carried wampum belts
+"underground"--that is, secretly--to such of the interior tribes as were
+disposed to listen with favor to the words of Corlaer, as they called
+the governor of New York.
+
+In spite of their shortcomings, the English had one powerful attraction
+for all the tribes alike. This was the abundance and excellence of their
+goods, which, with the exception of gunpowder, were better as well as
+cheaper than those offered by the French. The Indians, it is true, liked
+the taste of French brandy more than that of English rum; yet as their
+chief object in drinking was to get drunk, and as rum would supply as
+much intoxication as brandy at a lower price, it always found favor in
+their eyes. In the one case, to get thoroughly drunk often cost a
+beaver-skin; in the other, the same satisfaction could generally be had
+for a mink-skin.
+
+Thus the French found that some of their western children were disposed
+to listen to English seductions, look askance at their father Onontio,
+and turn their canoes, not towards Montreal, but towards Albany. Nor was
+this the worst; for there were some of Onontio's wild and unruly western
+family too ready to lift their hatchets against their brethren and fill
+the wilderness with discord. Consequences followed most embarrassing to
+the French, and among them an incident prominent in the early annals of
+Detroit, that new establishment so obnoxious to the English, because it
+barred their way to the northern lakes, so that they were extremely
+anxious to rid themselves of it.
+
+In the confused and tumultuous history of the savages of this continent
+one now and then sees some tribe or league of tribes possessed for a
+time with a spirit of conquest and havoc that made it the terror of its
+neighbors. Of this the foremost example is that of the Five Nations of
+the Iroquois, who, towards the middle of the seventeenth century, swept
+all before them and made vast regions a solitude. They were now
+comparatively quiet; but far in the Northwest, another people, inferior
+in number, organization, and mental capacity, but not in ferocity or
+courage, had begun on a smaller scale, and with less conspicuous
+success, to play a similar part. These were the Outagamies, or Foxes,
+with their allies, the Kickapoos and the Mascoutins, all living at the
+time within the limits of the present States of Wisconsin and
+Illinois,--the Outagamies near Fox River, and the others on Rock
+River.[280] The Outagamies, in particular, seem to have been seized with
+an access of homicidal fury. Their hand was against every man, and for
+twenty years and more they were the firebrands of the West, and a
+ceaseless peril to French interests in that region. They were, however,
+on good terms with the Five Nations, by means of whom, as French writers
+say, the Dutch and English of Albany sent them gifts and messages to
+incite them to kill French traders and destroy the French fort at
+Detroit. This is not unlikely, though the evidence on the point is far
+from conclusive.
+
+Fort Ponchartrain, better known as Fort Detroit, was an enclosure of
+palisades, flanked by blockhouses at the corners, with an open space
+within to serve as a parade-ground, around which stood small wooden
+houses thatched with straw or meadow-grass. La Mothe-Cadillac, founder
+of the post, had been made governor of the new colony of Louisiana, and
+the Sieur Dubuisson now commanded at Detroit. There were about thirty
+French traders, _voyageurs_, and _coureurs de bois_ in the place, but at
+this time no soldiers.
+
+The village of the Pottawattamies was close to the French fort; that of
+the Hurons was not far distant, by the edge of the river. Their houses
+were those structures of bark, "very high, very long, and arched like
+garden arbors," which were common to all the tribes of Iroquois stock,
+and both villages were enclosed by strong double or triple stockades,
+such as Cartier had found at Hochelaga, and Champlain in the Onondaga
+country. Their neighbors, the Ottawas, who were on the east side of the
+river, had imitated, with imperfect success, their way of housing and
+fortifying themselves. These tribes raised considerable crops of peas,
+beans, and Indian corn; and except when engaged in their endless dances
+and games of ball, dressed, like the converts of the mission villages,
+in red or blue cloth.[281] The Hurons were reputed the most intelligent
+as well as the bravest of all the western tribes, and, being incensed by
+various outrages, they bore against the Outagamies a deadly grudge,
+which was shared by the other tribes, their neighbors.
+
+All these friendly Indians were still absent on their winter hunt, when,
+at the opening of spring, Dubuisson and his Frenchmen were startled by a
+portentous visitation. Two bands of Outagamies and Mascoutins, men,
+women, and children, counting in all above a thousand, of whom about
+three hundred were warriors, appeared on the meadows behind the fort,
+approached to within pistol-shot of the palisades, and encamped there.
+It is by no means certain that they came with deliberate hostile intent.
+Had this been the case, they would not have brought their women and
+children. A paper ascribed to the engineer Léry says, moreover, that
+their visit was in consequence of an invitation from the late
+commandant, La Mothe-Cadillac, whose interest it was to attract to
+Detroit as many Indians as possible, in order to trade for their
+furs.[282] Dubuisson, however, was satisfied that they meant mischief,
+especially when, in spite of all his efforts to prevent them, they
+fortified themselves by cutting down young trees and surrounding their
+wigwams with a rough fence of palisades. They were rude and insolent,
+declared that all that country was theirs, and killed fowls and pigeons
+belonging to the French, who, in the absence of their friends, the
+Hurons and Ottawas, dared not even remonstrate. Dubuisson himself was
+forced to submit to their insults in silence, till a party of them came
+one day into the fort bent on killing two of the French, a man and a
+girl, against whom they had taken some offence. The commandant then
+ordered his men to drive them out; which was done, and henceforward he
+was convinced that the Outagamies and Mascoutins were only watching
+their opportunity to burn the fort and butcher its inmates. Soon after,
+their excitement redoubled. News came that a band of Mascoutins, who had
+wintered on the river St. Joseph, had been cut off by the Ottawas and
+Pottawattamies, led by an Ottawa chief named Saguina; on which the
+behavior of the dangerous visitors became so threatening that Dubuisson
+hastily sent a canoe to recall the Hurons and Ottawas from their
+hunting-grounds, and a second to invite the friendly Ojibwas and
+Mississagas to come to his aid. No doubt there was good cause for alarm;
+yet if the dangerous strangers had resolved to strike, they would have
+been apt to strike at once, instead of waiting week after week, when
+they knew that the friends and allies of the French might arrive at any
+time. Dubuisson, however, felt that the situation was extremely
+critical, and he was confirmed in his anxiety by a friendly Outagamie,
+who, after the news of the massacre on the St. Joseph, told him that his
+tribesmen meant to burn the fort.
+
+The church was outside the palisade, as were also several houses, one of
+which was stored with wheat. This the Outagamies tried to seize. The
+French fired on them, drove them back, and brought most of the wheat
+into the fort; then they demolished the church and several of the
+houses, which would have given cover to the assailants and enabled them
+to set fire to the palisade, close to which the buildings stood. The
+French worked at their task in the excitement of desperation, for they
+thought that all was lost.
+
+The irritation of their savage neighbors so increased that an outbreak
+seemed imminent, when, on the thirteenth of May, the Sieur de Vincennes
+arrived, with seven or eight Frenchmen, from the Miami country. The
+reinforcement was so small that instead of proving a help it might have
+provoked a crisis. Vincennes brought no news of the Indian allies, who
+were now Dubuisson's only hope. "I did not know on what saint to call,"
+he writes, almost in despair, when suddenly a Huron Indian came panting
+into the fort with the joyful news that both his people and the Ottawas
+were close at hand. Nor was this all. The Huron messenger announced that
+Makisabie, war-chief of the Pottawattamies, was then at the Huron fort,
+and that six hundred warriors of various tribes, deadly enemies of the
+Outagamies and Mascoutins, would soon arrive and destroy them all.
+
+Here was an unlooked-for deliverance. Yet the danger was not over; for
+there was fear lest the Outagamies and their allies, hearing of the
+approaching succor, might make a desperate onslaught, burn the French
+fort, and kill its inmates before their friends could reach them. An
+interval of suspense followed, relieved at last by a French sentinel,
+who called to Dubuisson that a crowd of Indians was in sight. The
+commandant mounted to the top of a blockhouse, and, looking across the
+meadows behind the fort, saw a throng of savages coming out of the
+woods,--Pottawattamies, Sacs, Menominies, Illinois, Missouris, and other
+tribes yet more remote, each band distinguished by a kind of ensign.
+These were the six hundred warriors promised by the Huron messenger, and
+with them, as it proved, came the Ottawa war-chief Saguina. Having heard
+during the winter that the Outagamies and Mascoutins would go to Detroit
+in the spring, these various tribes had combined to attack the common
+enemy; and they now marched with great ostentation and some show of
+order, not to the French fort, but to the fortified village of the
+Hurons, who with their neighbors, the Ottawas, had arrived just before
+them.
+
+The Hurons were reputed leaders among the western tribes, and they hated
+the Outagamies, not only by reason of bitter wrongs, but also through
+jealousy of the growing importance which these fierce upstarts had won
+by their sanguinary prowess. The Huron chiefs came to meet the motley
+crew of warriors, and urged them to instant action. "You must not stop
+to encamp," said the Huron spokesman; "we must all go this moment to the
+fort of our fathers, the French, and fight for them." Then, turning to
+the Ottawa war-chief: "Do you see that smoke, Saguina, rising from the
+camp of our enemies? They are burning three women of your village, and
+your wife is one of them." The Outagamies had, in fact, three Ottawa
+squaws in their clutches; but the burning was an invention of the crafty
+Huron. It answered its purpose, and wrought the hearers to fury. They
+ran with yells and whoops towards the French fort, the Hurons and
+Ottawas leading the way. A burst of answering yells rose from the camp
+of the enemy, and about forty of their warriors ran out in bravado,
+stripped naked and brandishing their weapons; but they soon fell back
+within their defences before the approaching multitude.
+
+Just before the arrival of the six hundred allies, Dubuisson, whose
+orders were to keep the peace, if he could, among the western tribes,
+had sent Vincennes to the Huron village with a proposal that they should
+spare the lives of the Outagamies and Mascoutins, and rest content with
+driving them away; to which the Hurons returned a fierce and haughty
+refusal. There was danger that, if vexed or thwarted, the rabble of
+excited savages now gathered before the fort might turn from friends
+into enemies, and in some burst of wild caprice lift parricidal
+tomahawks against their French fathers. Dubuisson saw no choice but to
+humor them, put himself at their head, aid them in their vengeance, and
+even set them on. Therefore, when they called out for admittance, he
+did not venture to refuse it, but threw open the gate.
+
+The savage crew poured in till the fort was full. The chiefs gathered
+for council on the parade, and the warriors crowded around, a living
+wall of dusky forms, befeathered heads, savage faces, lank snaky locks,
+and deep-set eyes that glittered with a devilish light. Their orator
+spoke briefly, but to the purpose. He declared that all present were
+ready to die for their French father, who had stood their friend against
+the bloody and perfidious Outagamies. Then he begged for food, tobacco,
+gunpowder, and bullets. Dubuisson replied with equal conciseness,
+thanked them for their willingness to die for him, said that he would do
+his best to supply their wants, and promised an immediate distribution
+of powder and bullets; to which the whole assembly answered with yells
+of joy.
+
+Then the council dissolved, and the elder warriors stalked about the
+fort, haranguing their followers, exhorting them to fight like men and
+obey the orders of their father. The powder and bullets were served out,
+after which the whole body, white men and red, yelled the war-whoop
+together,--"a horrible cry, that made the earth tremble," writes
+Dubuisson.[283] An answering howl, furious and defiant, rose close at
+hand from the palisaded camp of the enemy, the firing began on both
+sides, and bullets and arrows filled the air.
+
+The French and their allies outnumbered their enemies fourfold, while
+the Outagamie and Mascoutin warriors were encumbered with more than
+seven hundred women and children. Their frail defences might have been
+carried by assault; but the loss to the assailants must needs have been
+great against so brave and desperate a foe, and such a mode of attack is
+repugnant to the Indian genius. Instead, therefore, of storming the
+palisaded camp, the allies beleaguered it with vindictive patience, and
+wore out its defenders by a fire that ceased neither day nor night. The
+French raised two tall scaffolds, from which they overlooked the
+palisade, and sent their shot into the midst of those within, who were
+forced, for shelter, to dig holes in the ground four or five feet deep,
+and ensconce themselves there. The situation was almost hopeless, but
+their courage did not fail. They raised twelve red English blankets on
+poles as battle-flags, to show that they would fight to the death, and
+hung others over their palisades, calling out that they wished to see
+the whole earth red, like them, with blood; that they had no fathers but
+the English, and that the other tribes had better do as they did, and
+turn their backs to Onontio.
+
+The great war-chief of the Pottawattamies now mounted to the top of one
+of the French scaffolds, and harangued the enemy to this effect: "Do you
+think, you wretches, that you can frighten us by hanging out those red
+blankets? If the earth is red with blood, it will be your own. You talk
+about the English. Their bad advice will be your ruin. They are enemies
+of religion, and that is why the Master of Life punishes both them and
+you. They are cowards, and can only defend themselves by poisoning
+people with their firewater, which kills a man the instant he drinks it.
+We shall soon see what you will get for listening to them."
+
+This Homeric dialogue between the chief combatants was stopped by
+Dubuisson, who saw that it distracted the attention of the warriors, and
+so enabled the besieged to run to the adjacent river for water. The
+firing was resumed more fiercely than ever. Before night twelve of the
+Indian allies were killed in the French fort, though the enemy suffered
+a much greater loss. One house had been left standing outside the French
+palisades, and the Outagamies raised a scaffold behind its bullet-proof
+gable, under cover of which they fired with great effect. The French at
+length brought two swivels to bear upon the gable, pierced it, knocked
+down the scaffold, killed some of the marksmen, and scattered the rest
+in consternation.
+
+Famine and thirst were worse for the besieged than the bullets and
+arrows of the allies. Parched, starved, and fainting, they could no
+longer find heart for bravado, and they called out one evening from
+behind their defences to ask Dubuisson if they might come to speak with
+him. He called together the allied chiefs, and all agreed that here was
+an opportunity to get out of the hands of the Outagamies the three
+Ottawa women whom they held prisoners. The commandant, therefore, told
+them that if they had anything to say to their father before dying, they
+might come and say it in safety.
+
+In the morning all the red blankets had disappeared, and a white flag
+was waving over the hostile camp. The great Outagamie chief, Pemoussa,
+presently came out, carrying a smaller white flag and followed by two
+Indian slaves. Dubuisson sent his interpreter to protect him from insult
+and conduct him to the parade, where all the allied chiefs presently met
+to hear him.
+
+"My father," he began, "I am a dead man. The sky is bright for you, and
+dark as night for me." Then he held out a belt of wampum, and continued:
+"By this belt I ask you, my father, to take pity on your children, and
+grant us two days in which our old men may counsel together to find
+means of appeasing your wrath." Then, offering another belt to the
+assembled chiefs, "This belt is to pray you to remember that you are of
+our kin. If you spill our blood, do not forget that it is also your own.
+Try to soften the heart of our father, whom we have offended so often.
+These two slaves are to replace some of the blood you have lost. Grant
+us the two days we ask, for I cannot say more till our old men have held
+counsel."
+
+To which Dubuisson answered in the name of all: "If your hearts were
+really changed, and you honestly accepted Onontio as your father, you
+would have brought back the three women who are prisoners in your
+hands. As you have not done so, I think that your hearts are still bad.
+First bring them to me, if you expect me to hear you. I have no more to
+say."
+
+"I am but a child," replied the envoy. "I will go back to my village,
+and tell our old men what you have said."
+
+The council then broke up, and several Frenchmen conducted the chief
+back to his followers.
+
+Three other chiefs soon after appeared, bearing a flag and bringing the
+Ottawa squaws, one of whom was the wife of the war-chief, Saguina. Again
+the elders met in council on the parade, and the orator of the
+deputation spoke thus: "My father, here are the three pieces of flesh
+that you ask of us. We would not eat them, lest you should be angry. Do
+with them what you please, for you are the master. Now we ask that you
+will send away the nations that are with you, so that we may seek food
+for our women and children, who die of hunger every day. If you are as
+good a father as your other children say you are, you will not refuse us
+this favor."
+
+But Dubuisson, having gained his point and recovered the squaws, spoke
+to them sternly, and referred them to his Indian allies for their
+answer. Whereupon the head chief of the Illinois, being called upon by
+the rest to speak in their behalf, addressed the envoys to this effect:
+"Listen to me, you who have troubled all the earth. We see plainly that
+you mean only to deceive our father. If we should leave him, as you
+wish, you would fall upon him and kill him. You are dogs who have always
+bitten him. You thought that we did not know all the messages you have
+had from the English, telling you to cut our father's throat, and then
+bring them into this our country. We will not leave him alone with you.
+We shall see who will be the master. Go back to your fort. We are going
+to fire at you again."
+
+The envoys went back with a French escort to prevent their being
+murdered on the way, and then the firing began again. The Outagamies and
+Mascoutins gathered strength from desperation, and sent flights of
+fire-arrows into the fort to burn the straw-thatched houses. The flames
+caught in many places; but with the help of the Indians they were
+extinguished, though several Frenchmen were wounded, and there was great
+fright for a time. But the thatch was soon stripped off and the roofs
+covered with deer and bear skins, while mops fastened to long poles, and
+two large wooden canoes filled with water, were made ready for future
+need.
+
+A few days after, a greater peril threatened the French. If the wild
+Indian has the passions of a devil, he has also the instability of a
+child; and this is especially true when a number of incoherent tribes or
+bands are joined in a common enterprise. Dubuisson's Indians became
+discouraged, partly at the stubborn resistance of the enemy, and partly
+at the scarcity of food. Some of them declared openly that they could
+never conquer those people; that they knew them well, and that they were
+braver than anybody else. In short, the French saw themselves on the
+point of being abandoned by their allies to a fate the most ghastly and
+appalling; and they urged upon the commandant the necessity of escaping
+to Michilimackinac before it was too late. Dubuisson appears to have met
+the crisis with equal resolution and address. He braced the shaken
+nerves of his white followers by appeals to their sense of shame,
+threats of the governor's wrath, and assurances that all would yet be
+well; then set himself to the more difficult task of holding the Indian
+allies to their work. He says that he scarcely ate or slept for four
+days and nights, during which time he was busied without ceasing in
+private and separate interviews with all the young war-chiefs,
+persuading them, flattering them, and stripping himself of all he had to
+make them presents. When at last he had gained them over, he called the
+tribes to a general council.
+
+"What, children!" thus he addressed them, "when you are on the very
+point of destroying these wicked people, do you think of shamefully
+running away? How could you ever hold up your heads again? All the other
+nations would say: 'Are these the brave warriors who deserted the French
+and ran like cowards?'" And he reminded them that their enemies were
+already half dead with famine, and that they could easily make an end of
+them, thereby gaining great honor among the nations, besides the thanks
+and favors of Onontio, the father of all.
+
+At this the young war-chiefs whom he had gained over interrupted him and
+cried out, "My father, somebody has been lying to you. We are not
+cowards. We love you too much to abandon you, and we will stand by you
+till the last of your enemies is dead." The elder men caught the
+contagion, and cried, "Come on, let us show our father that those who
+have spoken ill of us are liars." Then they all raised the war-whoop,
+sang the war-song, danced the war-dance, and began to fire again.
+
+Among the enemy were some Sakis, or Sacs, fighting for the Outagamies,
+while others of their tribe were among the allies of the French. Seeing
+the desperate turn of affairs, they escaped from time to time and came
+over to the winning side, bringing reports of the state of the
+beleaguered camp. They declared that sixty or eighty women and children
+were already dead from hunger and thirst, besides those killed by
+bullets and arrows; that the fire of the besiegers was so hot that the
+bodies could not be buried, and that the camp of the Outagamies and
+Mascoutins was a den of infection.
+
+The end was near. The besieged savages called from their palisades to
+ask if they might send another deputation, and were told that they were
+free to do so. The chief, Pemoussa, soon appeared at the gate of the
+fort, naked, painted from head to foot with green earth, wearing belts
+of wampum about his waist, and others hanging from his shoulders,
+besides a kind of crown of wampum beads on his head. With him came seven
+women, meant as a peace-offering, all painted and adorned with wampum.
+Three other principal chiefs followed, each with a gourd rattle in his
+hand, to the cadence of which the whole party sang and shouted at the
+full stretch of their lungs an invocation to the spirits for help and
+pity. They were conducted to the parade, where the French and the allied
+chiefs were already assembled, and Pemoussa thus addressed them:--
+
+"My father, and all the nations here present, I come to ask for life. It
+is no longer ours, but yours. I bring you these seven women, who are my
+flesh, and whom I put at your feet, to be your slaves. But do not think
+that I am afraid to die; it is the life of our women and children that I
+ask of you." He then offered six wampum belts, in token that his
+followers owned themselves beaten, and begged for mercy. "Tell us, I
+pray you,"--these were his last words,--"something that will lighten the
+hearts of my people when I go back to them."
+
+Dubuisson left the answer to his allies. The appeal of the suppliant
+fell on hearts of stone. The whole concourse sat in fierce and sullen
+silence, and the envoys read their doom in the gloomy brows that
+surrounded them. Eight or ten of the allied savages presently came to
+Dubuisson, and one of them said in a low voice: "My father, we come to
+ask your leave to knock these four great chiefs in the head. It is they
+who prevent our enemies from surrendering without conditions. When they
+are dead, the rest will be at our mercy."
+
+Dubuisson told them that they must be drunk to propose such a thing.
+"Remember," he said, "that both you and I have given our word for their
+safety. If I consented to what you ask, your father at Montreal would
+never forgive me. Besides, you can see plainly that they and their
+people cannot escape you."
+
+The would-be murderers consented to bide their time, and the wretched
+envoys went back with their tidings of despair.
+
+"I confess," wrote Dubuisson to the governor, a few days later, "that I
+was touched with compassion; but as war and pity do not agree well
+together, and especially as I understood that they were hired by the
+English to destroy us, I abandoned them to their fate."
+
+The firing began once more, and the allied hordes howled round the camp
+of their victims like troops of ravenous wolves. But a surprise awaited
+them. Indians rarely set guards at night, and they felt sure now of
+their prey. It was the nineteenth day of the siege.[284] The night
+closed dark and rainy, and when morning came, the enemy were gone. All
+among them that had strength to move had glided away through the gloom
+with the silence of shadows, passed the camps of their sleeping enemies,
+and reached a point of land projecting into the river opposite the end
+of Isle au Cochon, and a few miles above the French fort. Here, knowing
+that they would be pursued, they barricaded themselves with trunks and
+branches of trees. When the astonished allies discovered their escape,
+they hastily followed their trail, accompanied by some of the French,
+led by Vincennes. In their eagerness they ran upon the barricade before
+seeing it, and were met by a fire that killed and wounded twenty of
+them. There was no alternative but to forego their revenge and abandon
+the field, or begin another siege. Encouraged by Dubuisson, they built
+their wigwams on the new scene of operations; and, being supplied by the
+French with axes, mattocks, and two swivels, they made a wall of logs
+opposite the barricade, from which they galled the defenders with a
+close and deadly fire. The Mississagas and Ojibwas, who had lately
+arrived, fished and hunted for the allies, while the French furnished
+them with powder, ball, tobacco, Indian corn, and kettles. The enemy
+fought desperately for four days, and then, in utter exhaustion,
+surrendered at discretion.[285]
+
+The women and children were divided among the victorious hordes, and
+adopted or enslaved. To the men no quarter was given. "Our Indians
+amused themselves," writes Dubuisson, "with shooting four or five of
+them every day." Here, however, another surprise awaited the conquerors
+and abridged their recreation, for about a hundred of these intrepid
+warriors contrived to make their escape, and among them was the great
+war-chief Pemoussa.
+
+The Outagamies were crippled, but not disabled, for but a part of the
+tribe was involved in this bloody affair. The rest were wrought to fury
+by the fate of their kinsmen, and for many years they remained thorns in
+the sides of the French.
+
+There is a disposition to assume that events like that just recounted
+were a consequence of the contact of white men with red; but the
+primitive Indian was quite able to enact such tragedies without the help
+of Europeans. Before French or English influence had been felt in the
+interior of the continent, a great part of North America was the
+frequent witness of scenes still more lurid in coloring, and on a larger
+scale of horror. In the first half of the seventeenth century the whole
+country, from Lake Superior to the Tennessee, and from the Alleghanies
+to the Mississippi, was ravaged by wars of extermination, in which
+tribes, large and powerful by Indian standards, perished, dwindled into
+feeble remnants, or were absorbed by other tribes and vanished from
+sight. French pioneers were sometimes involved in the carnage, but
+neither they nor other Europeans were answerable for it.[286]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[279] See Chapter I.
+
+[280] _Memoir on the Indians between Lake Erie and the Mississippi_, in
+_N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 885.
+
+[281] _Memoir on the Indians between Lake Erie and the Mississippi._
+
+[282] This paper is printed, not very accurately, in the _Collection de
+Documents relatifs à la Nouvelle France_, i. 623 (Québec, 1883).
+
+[283] "Cri horrible, dont la terre trembla."--_Dubuisson à Vaudreuil, 15
+Juin, 1712._ This is the official report of the affair.
+
+[284] According to the paper ascribed to Léry it was only the eighth.
+
+[285] The paper ascribed to Léry says that they surrendered on a promise
+from Vincennes that their lives should be spared, but that the promise
+availed nothing.
+
+[286] _Dubuisson à Vaudreuil, 15 Juin, 1712._ This is Dubuisson's report
+to the governor, which soon after the event he sent to Montreal by the
+hands of Vincennes. He says that the great fatigue through which he has
+just passed prevents him from giving every detail, and he refers
+Vaudreuil to the bearer for further information. The report is, however,
+long and circumstantial.
+
+_État de ce que M. Dubuisson a dépensé pour le service du Roy pour
+s'attirer les Nations et les mettre dans ses intérêts afin de résister
+aux Outagamis et aux Mascoutins qui étaient payés des Anglais pour
+détruire le poste du Fort de Ponchartrain du Détroit, 14 Octobre, 1712._
+Dubuisson reckons his outlay at 2,901 livres.
+
+These documents, with the narrative ascribed to the engineer Léry, are
+the contemporary authorities on which the foregoing account is based.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+1697-1750.
+
+LOUISIANA.
+
+The Mississippi to be occupied.--English
+Rivalry.--Iberville.--Bienville.--Huguenots.--Views of Louis
+XIV.--Wives for the Colony.--Slaves.--La Mothe-Cadillac.--Paternal
+Government.--Crozat's Monopoly.--Factions.--The Mississippi
+Company.--New Orleans.--The Bubble bursts.--Indian Wars.--The Colony
+firmly established.--The two Heads of New France.
+
+
+At the beginning of the eighteenth century an event took place that was
+to have a great influence on the future of French America. This was the
+occupation by France of the mouth of the Mississippi, and the
+vindication of her claim to the vast and undefined regions which La
+Salle had called Louisiana. La Salle's schemes had come to nought, but
+they were revived, seven years after his death, by his lieutenant, the
+gallant and faithful Henri de Tonty, who urged the seizure of Louisiana
+for three reasons,--first, as a base of attack upon Mexico; secondly, as
+a dépôt for the furs and lead ore of the interior; and thirdly, as the
+only means of preventing the English from becoming masters of the
+West.[287]
+
+Three years later, the Sieur de Rémonville, a friend of La Salle,
+proposed the formation of a company for the settlement of Louisiana, and
+called for immediate action as indispensable to anticipate the
+English.[288] The English were, in fact, on the point of taking
+possession of the mouth of the Mississippi, and were prevented only by
+the prompt intervention of the rival nation.
+
+If they had succeeded, colonies would have grown up on the Gulf of
+Mexico after the type of those already planted along the Atlantic:
+voluntary immigrants would have brought to a new home their old
+inheritance of English freedom; would have ruled themselves by laws of
+their own making, through magistrates of their own choice; would have
+depended on their own efforts, and not on government help, in the
+invigorating consciousness that their destinies were in their own hands,
+and that they themselves, and not others, were to gather the fruits of
+their toils. Out of conditions like these would have sprung communities,
+not brilliant, but healthy, orderly, well rooted in the soil, and of
+hardy and vigorous growth.
+
+But the principles of absolutism, and not those of a regulated liberty,
+were to rule in Louisiana. The new French colony was to be the child of
+the Crown. Cargoes of emigrants, willing or unwilling, were to be
+shipped by authority to the fever-stricken banks of the
+Mississippi,--cargoes made up in part of those whom fortune and their
+own defects had sunk to dependence; to whom labor was strange and
+odious, but who dreamed of gold mines and pearl fisheries, and wealth to
+be won in the New World and spent in the Old; who wore the shackles of a
+paternal despotism which they were told to regard as of divine
+institution; who were at the mercy of military rulers set over them by
+the King, and agreeing in nothing except in enforcing the mandates of
+arbitrary power and the withering maxim that the labor of the colonist
+was due, not to himself, but to his masters. It remains to trace briefly
+the results of such conditions.
+
+The before-mentioned scheme of Rémonville for settling the Mississippi
+country had no result. In the next year the gallant Le Moyne
+d'Iberville--who has been called the Cid, or, more fitly, the Jean Bart,
+of Canada--offered to carry out the schemes of La Salle and plant a
+colony in Louisiana.[289] One thing had become clear,--France must act
+at once, or lose the Mississippi. Already there was a movement in London
+to seize upon it, under a grant to two noblemen. Iberville's offer was
+accepted; he was ordered to build a fort at the mouth of the great
+river, and leave a garrison to hold it.[290] He sailed with two
+frigates, the "Badine" and the "Marin," and towards the end of January,
+1699, reached Pensacola. Here he found two Spanish ships, which would
+not let him enter the harbor. Spain, no less than England, was bent on
+making good her claim to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, and the
+two ships had come from Vera Cruz on this errand. Three hundred men had
+been landed, and a stockade fort was already built. Iberville left the
+Spaniards undisturbed and unchallenged, and felt his way westward along
+the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi, exploring and sounding as he
+went. At the beginning of March his boats were caught in a strong muddy
+current of fresh water, and he saw that he had reached the object of his
+search, the "fatal river" of the unfortunate La Salle. He entered it,
+encamped, on the night of the third, twelve leagues above its mouth,
+climbed a solitary tree, and could see nothing but broad flats of bushes
+and canebrakes.[291]
+
+Still pushing upward against the current, he reached in eleven days a
+village of the Bayagoula Indians, where he found the chief attired in a
+blue capote, which was probably put on in honor of the white strangers,
+and which, as the wearer declared, had been given him by Henri de Tonty,
+on his descent of the Mississippi in search of La Salle, thirteen years
+before. Young Le Moyne de Bienville, who accompanied his brother
+Iberville in a canoe, brought him, some time after, a letter from Tonty
+which the writer had left in the hands of another chief, to be
+delivered to La Salle in case of his arrival, and which Bienville had
+bought for a hatchet. Iberville welcomed it as convincing proof that the
+river he had entered was in truth the Mississippi.[292] After pushing up
+the stream till the twenty-fourth, he returned to the ships by way of
+lakes Maurepas and Ponchartrain.
+
+Iberville now repaired to the harbor of Biloxi, on the coast of the
+present State of Mississippi. Here he built a small stockade fort, where
+he left eighty men, under the Sieur de Sauvolle, to hold the country for
+Louis XIV.; and this done, he sailed for France. Thus the first
+foundations of Louisiana were laid in Mississippi.
+
+Bienville, whom his brother had left at Biloxi as second in command, was
+sent by Sauvolle on an exploring expedition up the Mississippi with five
+men in two canoes. At the bend of the river now called English
+Turn,--_Tour à l'Anglais_,--below the site of New Orleans, he found an
+English corvette of ten guns, having, as passengers, a number of French
+Protestant families taken on board from the Carolinas, with the
+intention of settling on the Mississippi. The commander, Captain Louis
+Bank, declared that his vessel was one of three sent from London by a
+company formed jointly of Englishmen and Huguenot refugees for the
+purpose of founding a colony.[293] Though not quite sure that they were
+upon the Mississippi, they were on their way up the stream to join a
+party of Englishmen said to be among the Chickasaws, with whom they were
+trading for Indian slaves. Bienville assured Bank that he was not upon
+the Mississippi, but on another river belonging to King Louis, who had a
+strong fort there and several settlements. "The too-credulous
+Englishman," says a French writer, "believed these inventions and turned
+back."[294] First, however, a French engineer in the service of Bank
+contrived to have an interview with Bienville, and gave him a petition
+to the King of France, signed by four hundred Huguenots who had taken
+refuge in the Carolinas after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The
+petitioners begged that they might have leave to settle in Louisiana,
+with liberty of conscience, under the French Crown. In due time they
+got their answer. The King replied, through the minister, Ponchartrain,
+that he had not expelled heretics from France in order that they should
+set up a republic in America.[295] Thus, by the bigotry that had been
+the bane of Canada and of France herself, Louis XIV. threw away the
+opportunity of establishing a firm and healthy colony at the mouth of
+the Mississippi.
+
+So threatening was the danger that England would seize the country, that
+Iberville had scarcely landed in France when he was sent back with a
+reinforcement. The colonial views of the King may be gathered from his
+instructions to his officer. Iberville was told to seek out diligently
+the best places for establishing pearl-fisheries, though it was admitted
+that the pearls of Louisiana were uncommonly bad. He was also to catch
+bison calves, make a fenced park to hold them, and tame them for the
+sake of their wool, which was reputed to be of value for various
+fabrics. Above all, he was to look for mines, the finding of which the
+document declares to be "la grande affaire."[296]
+
+On the eighth of January, Iberville reached Biloxi, and soon after went
+up the Mississippi to that remarkable tribe of sun-worshippers, the
+Natchez, whose villages were on and near the site of the city that now
+bears their name. Some thirty miles above he found a kindred tribe, the
+Taensas, whose temple took fire during his visit, when, to his horror,
+he saw five living infants thrown into the flames by their mothers to
+appease the angry spirits.[297]
+
+Retracing his course, he built a wooden redoubt near one of the mouths
+of the Mississippi to keep out the dreaded English.
+
+In the next year he made a third voyage, and ordered the feeble
+establishment at Biloxi to be moved to the bay of Mobile. This drew a
+protest from the Spaniards, who rested their claims to the country on
+the famous bull of Pope Alexander VI. The question was referred to the
+two Crowns. Louis XIV., a stanch champion of the papacy when his duties
+as a Catholic did not clash with his interests as a king, refused
+submission to the bull, insisted that the Louisiana country was his, and
+declared that he would hold fast to it because he was bound, as a son of
+Holy Church, to convert the Indians and keep out the English
+heretics.[298] Spain was then at peace with France, and her new King,
+the Duc d'Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV., needed the support of his
+powerful kinsman; hence his remonstrance against French encroachment was
+of the mildest.[299]
+
+Besides Biloxi and Mobile Bay, the French formed a third establishment
+at Dauphin Island. The Mississippi itself, which may be called the vital
+organ of the colony, was thus far neglected, being occupied by no
+settlement and guarded only by a redoubt near one of its mouths.
+
+Of the emigrants sent out by the court to the new land of promise, the
+most valuable by far were a number of Canadians who had served under
+Iberville at Hudson Bay. The rest were largely of the sort who are
+described by that officer as "beggars sent out to enrich themselves,"
+and who expected the government to feed them while they looked for
+pearls and gold mines. The paternal providence of Versailles, mindful of
+their needs, sent them, in 1704, a gift of twenty marriageable girls,
+described as "nurtured in virtue and piety, and accustomed to work."
+Twenty-three more came in the next year from the same benignant source,
+besides seventy-five soldiers, five priests, and two nuns. Food,
+however, was not sent in proportion to the consumers; and as no crops
+were raised in Louisiana, famine and pestilence followed, till the
+starving colonists were forced to live on shell-fish picked up along the
+shores.
+
+Disorder and discord filled the land of promise. Nicolas de la Salle,
+the _commissaire ordonnateur_, an official answering to the Canadian
+intendant, wrote to the minister Ponchartrain that Iberville and his
+brothers, Bienville and Chateauguay, were "thieves and knaves."[300] La
+Vente, curé of Mobile, joined in the cry against Bienville, and stirred
+soldiers and settlers to disaffection; but the bitterest accuser of that
+truly valuable officer was the worthy matron who held the unenviable
+post of directress of the "King's girls,"--that is, the young women sent
+out as wives for the colonists. It seems that she had matrimonial views
+for herself as well as for her charge; and she wrote to Ponchartrain
+that Major Boisbriant, commander of the garrison, would certainly have
+married her if Bienville had not interfered and dissuaded him. "It is
+clear," she adds, "that M. de Bienville has not the qualities necessary
+for governing the colony."[301]
+
+Bienville was now chief in authority. Charges of peculation and other
+offences poured in against him, and at last, though nothing was proved,
+one De Muys was sent to succeed him, with orders to send him home a
+prisoner if on examination the accusations should prove to be true. De
+Muys died on the voyage. D'Artaguette, the new intendant, proceeded to
+make the inquiry, but refused to tell Bienville the nature of the
+charges against him, saying that he had orders not to do so.
+Nevertheless, when he had finished his investigation he reported to the
+minister that the accused was innocent; on which Nicolas de la Salle,
+whom he had supplanted as intendant, wrote to Ponchartrain that
+D'Artaguette had deceived him, being no better than Bienville himself.
+La Salle further declared that Barrot, the surgeon of the colony, was an
+ignoramus, and that he made money by selling the medicines supplied by
+the King to cure his Louisianian subjects. Such were the transatlantic
+workings of the paternalism of Versailles.
+
+Bienville, who had been permitted to resume his authority, paints the
+state of the colony to his masters, and tells them that the inhabitants
+are dying of hunger,--not all, however, for he mentions a few
+exceptional cases of prosperity. These were certain thrifty colonists
+from Rochelle, who, says Bienville, have grown rich by keeping
+dram-shops, and now want to go back to France; but he has set a watch
+over them, thinking it just that they should be forced to stay in the
+colony.[302] This was to add the bars of a prison to the other
+attractions of the new home.
+
+As the colonists would not work, there was an attempt to make Indian
+slaves work for them; but as these continually ran off, Bienville
+proposed to open a barter with the French West Indies, giving three red
+slaves for two black ones,--an exchange which he thought would be
+mutually advantageous, since the Indians, being upon islands, could no
+longer escape. The court disapproved the plan, on the ground that the
+West Indians would give only their worst negroes in exchange, and that
+the only way to get good ones was to fetch them from Guinea.
+
+Complaints against Bienville were renewed till the court sent out La
+Mothe-Cadillac to succeed him, with orders to examine the charges
+against his predecessor, whom it was his interest to condemn, in order
+to keep the governorship. In his new post, Cadillac displayed all his
+old faults; began by denouncing the country in unmeasured terms, and
+wrote in his usual sarcastic vein to the colonial minister: "I have seen
+the garden on Dauphin Island, which had been described to me as a
+terrestrial paradise. I saw there three seedling pear-trees, three
+seedling apple-trees, a little plum-tree about three feet high, with
+seven bad plums on it, a vine some thirty feet long, with nine bunches
+of grapes, some of them withered or rotten and some partly ripe, about
+forty plants of French melons, and a few pumpkins. This is M.
+d'Artaguette's terrestrial paradise, M. de Rémonville's Pomona, and M.
+de Mandeville's Fortunate Islands. Their stories are mere fables." Then
+he slanders the soil, which, he declares, will produce neither grain nor
+vegetables.
+
+D'Artaguette, no longer fancying himself in Eden, draws a dismal picture
+of the state of the colony. There are, he writes, only ten or twelve
+families who cultivate the soil. The inhabitants, naturally lazy, are
+ruined by the extravagance of their wives. "It is necessary to send out
+girls and laboring-men. I am convinced that we shall easily discover
+mines when persons are sent us who understand that business."[303]
+
+The colonists felt no confidence in the future of Louisiana. The King
+was its sole support, and if, as was likely enough, he should tire of
+it, their case would be deplorable. When Bienville ruled over them, they
+had used him as their scapegoat; but that which made the colony languish
+was not he, but the vicious system it was his business to enforce. The
+royal edicts and arbitrary commands that took the place of law proceeded
+from masters thousands of miles away, who knew nothing of the country,
+could not understand its needs, and scarcely tried to do so.
+
+In 1711, though the mischievous phantom of gold and silver mines still
+haunted the colony, we find it reported that the people were beginning
+to work, and were planting tobacco. The King, however, was losing
+patience with a dependency that cost him endless expense and trouble,
+and brought little or nothing in return,--and this at a time when he had
+a costly and disastrous war on his hands, and was in no mood to bear
+supernumerary burdens. The plan of giving over a colony to a merchant,
+or a company of merchants, was not new. It had been tried in other
+French colonies with disastrous effect. Yet it was now tried again.
+Louisiana was farmed out for fifteen years to Antoine Crozat, a wealthy
+man of business. The countries made over to him extended from the
+British colonies on the east to New Mexico on the west, and the Rio del
+Norte on the south, including the entire region watered by the
+Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ohio, and their tributaries, as far north
+as the Illinois. In comparison with this immense domain, which was all
+included under the name of Louisiana, the present State so called is but
+a small patch on the American map.
+
+To Crozat was granted a monopoly of the trade, wholesale and retail,
+domestic and foreign, of all these countries, besides the product of all
+mines, after deducting one-fourth reserved for the King. He was
+empowered to send one vessel a year to Guinea for a cargo of slaves. The
+King was to pay the governor and other Crown officers, and during the
+first nine years the troops also; though after that time Crozat was to
+maintain them till the end of his term.
+
+In consideration of these and other privileges, the grantee was bound to
+send to Louisiana a specified number of settlers every year. His charter
+provided that the royal edicts and the _Coutume de Paris_ should be the
+law of the colony, to be administered by a council appointed by the
+King.
+
+When Louisiana was thus handed over to a speculator for a term of years,
+it needed no prophet to foretell that he would get all he could out of
+it, and put as little into it as possible. When Crozat took possession
+of the colony, the French court had been thirteen years at work in
+building it up. The result of its labors was a total population,
+including troops, government officials, and clergy, of 380 souls, of
+whom 170 were in the King's pay. Only a few of the colonists were within
+the limits of the present Louisiana. The rest lived in or around the
+feeble stockade forts at Mobile, Biloxi, Ship Island, and Dauphin
+Island. This last station had been partially abandoned; but some of the
+colonists proposed to return to it, in order to live by fishing, and
+only waited, we are told, for help from the King. This incessant
+dependence on government relaxed the fibres of the colony and sapped its
+life-blood.
+
+The King was now exchanged for Crozat and his grinding monopoly. The
+colonists had carried on a modest trade with the Spaniards at Pensacola
+in skins, fowls, Indian corn, and a few other articles, bringing back a
+little money in return. This, their only source of profit, was now cut
+off; they could sell nothing, even to one another. They were forbidden
+to hold meetings without permission; but some of them secretly drew up a
+petition to La Mothe-Cadillac, who was still the official chief of the
+colony, begging that the agents of Crozat should be restricted to
+wholesale dealings, and that the inhabitants might be allowed to trade
+at retail. Cadillac denounced the petition as seditious, threatened to
+hang the bearer of it, and deigned no other answer.
+
+He resumed his sarcasms against the colony. "In my opinion this country
+is not worth a straw (_ne vaut pas un fétu_). The inhabitants are eager
+to be taken out of it. The soldiers are always grumbling, and with
+reason." As to the council, which was to be the only court of justice,
+he says that no such thing is possible, because there are no proper
+persons to compose it; and though Duclos, the new intendant, has
+proposed two candidates, the first of these, the Sieur de Lafresnière,
+learned to sign his name only four months ago, and the other, being
+chief surgeon of the colony, is too busy to serve.[304]
+
+Between Bienville, the late governor, and La Mothe-Cadillac, who had
+supplanted him, there was a standing quarrel; and the colony was split
+into hostile factions, led by the two disputants. The minister at
+Versailles was beset by their mutual accusations, and Bienville wrote
+that his refusal to marry Cadillac's daughter was the cause of the spite
+the governor bore him.[305]
+
+The indefatigable curé De la Vente sent to Ponchartrain a memorial, in
+the preamble of which he says that since Monsieur le Ministre wishes to
+be informed exactly of the state of things in Louisiana, he, La Vente,
+has the honor, with malice to nobody, to make known the pure truth;
+after which he goes on to say that the inhabitants "are nearly all
+drunkards, gamblers, blasphemers, and enemies of everything good;" and
+he proceeds to illustrate the statement with many particulars.[306]
+
+As the inhabitants were expected to work for Crozat, and not for
+themselves, it naturally followed that they would not work at all; and
+idleness produced the usual results.
+
+The yearly shipment of girls continued; but there was difficulty in
+finding husbands for them. The reason was not far to seek. Duclos, the
+intendant, reports the arrival of an invoice of twelve of them, "so ugly
+that the inhabitants are in no hurry to take them."[307] The Canadians,
+who formed the most vigorous and valuable part of the population, much
+preferred Indian squaws. "It seems to me," pursues the intendant, "that
+in the choice of girls, good looks should be more considered than
+virtue." This latter requisite seems, at the time, to have found no more
+attention than the other, since the candidates for matrimony were drawn
+from the Parisian hospitals and houses of correction, from the former of
+which Crozat was authorized to take one hundred girls a year, "in order
+to increase the population." These hospitals were compulsory asylums for
+the poor and vagrant of both sexes, of whom the great Hôpital Général of
+Paris contained at one time more than six thousand.[308]
+
+Crozat had built his chief hopes of profit on a trade, contraband or
+otherwise, with the Mexican ports; but the Spanish officials, faithful
+instruments of the exclusive policy of their government, would not
+permit it, and were so vigilant that he could not elude them. At the
+same time, to his vexation, he found that the King's officers in
+Louisiana, with more address or better luck, and in contempt of his
+monopoly, which it was their business to protect, carried on, for their
+own profit, a small smuggling trade with Vera Cruz. He complained that
+they were always thwarting his agents and conspiring against his
+interests. At last, finding no resource left but an unprofitable trade
+with the Indians, he gave up his charter, which had been a bane to the
+colony and a loss to himself. Louisiana returned to the Crown, and was
+soon passed over to the new Mississippi Company, called also the Western
+Company.[309]
+
+That charlatan of genius, the Scotchman John Law, had undertaken, with
+the eager support of the Regent Duke of Orleans, to deliver France from
+financial ruin through a prodigious system of credit, of which
+Louisiana, with its imaginary gold mines, was made the basis. The
+government used every means to keep up the stock of the Mississippi
+Company. It was ordered that the notes of the royal bank and all
+certificates of public debt should be accepted at par in payment for its
+shares. Powers and privileges were lavished on it. It was given the
+monopoly of the French slave-trade, the monopoly of tobacco, the profits
+of the royal mint, and the farming of the revenues of the kingdom.
+Ingots of gold, pretending to have come from the new Eldorado of
+Louisiana, were displayed in the shop-windows of Paris. The fever of
+speculation rose to madness, and the shares of the company were inflated
+to monstrous and insane proportions.
+
+When Crozat resigned his charter, Louisiana, by the highest estimates,
+contained about seven hundred souls, including soldiers, but not blacks
+or Indians. Crozat's successors, however, say that the whole number of
+whites, men, women, and children, was not above four hundred.[310] When
+the Mississippi Company took the colony in charge, it was but a change
+of despots. Louisiana was a prison. But while no inhabitant could leave
+it without permission of the authorities, all Jews were expelled, and
+all Protestants excluded. The colonists could buy nothing except from
+the agents of the company, and sell nothing except to the same
+all-powerful masters, always at prices fixed by them. Foreign vessels
+were forbidden to enter any port of Louisiana, on pain of confiscation.
+
+The coin in circulation was nearly all Spanish, and in less than two
+years the Company, by a series of decrees, made changes of about eighty
+per cent in its value. Freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, of
+trade, and of action, were alike denied. Hence voluntary immigration was
+not to be expected; "but," says the Duc de Saint-Simon, "the government
+wished to establish effective settlements in these vast countries, after
+the example of the English; and therefore, in order to people them,
+vagabonds and beggars, male and female, including many women of the
+town, were seized for the purpose both in Paris and throughout
+France."[311] Saint-Simon approves these proceedings in themselves, as
+tending at once to purge France and people Louisiana, but thinks the
+business was managed in a way to cause needless exasperation among the
+lower classes.
+
+In 1720 it was ordered by royal edict that no more vagabonds or
+criminals should be sent to Louisiana. The edict, it seems, touched only
+one sex, for in the next year eighty girls were sent to the colony from
+the Parisian House of Correction called the Salpêtrière. There had been
+a more or less constant demand for wives, as appears by letters still
+preserved in the archives of Paris, the following extract from one of
+which is remarkable for the freedom with which the writer, a M. de
+Chassin, takes it upon him to address a minister of State in a court
+where punctilio reigned supreme. "You see, Monseigneur, that nothing is
+wanting now to make a solid settlement in Louisiana but a certain piece
+of furniture which one often repents having got, and with which I shall
+dispense, like the rest, till the Company sends us girls who have at
+least some show of virtue. If there happens to be any young woman of
+your acquaintance who wants to make the voyage for love of me, I should
+be much obliged to her, and would do my best to show her my
+gratitude."[312]
+
+The Company, which was invested with sovereign powers, began its work by
+sending to Louisiana three companies of soldiers and sixty-nine
+colonists. Its wisest act was the removal of the governor, L'Épinay, who
+had supplanted La Mothe-Cadillac, and the reappointment of Bienville in
+his place. Bienville immediately sought out a spot for establishing a
+permanent station on the Mississippi. Fifty men were sent to clear the
+ground, and in spite of an inundation which overflowed it for a time,
+the feeble foundations of New Orleans were laid. Louisiana, hitherto
+diffused through various petty cantonments, far and near, had at last a
+capital, or the germ of one.
+
+It was the sixth of September, 1717, when the charter of the Mississippi
+Company was entered in the registers of the Parliament of Paris; and
+from that time forward, before the offices of the Company in the Rue
+Quincampoix, crowds of crazed speculators jostled and fought from
+morning till night to get their names inscribed among the stockholders.
+Within five years after, the huge glittering bubble had burst. The
+shares, each one of which had seemed a fortune, found no more
+purchasers, and in its fall the Company dragged down with it its ally
+and chief creditor, the bank. All was dismay and despair, except in
+those who had sold out in time, and turned delusive paper into solid
+values. John Law, lately the idol and reputed savior of France, fled for
+his life, amid a howl of execration.
+
+Yet the interests of the kingdom required that Louisiana should be
+sustained. The illusions that had given to the Mississippi Company a
+morbid and intoxicated vitality were gone, but the Company lingered on,
+and the government still lent it a helping hand. A French writer remarks
+that the few Frenchmen who were famishing on the shores of the
+Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico had cost the King, since the colony
+began, more than 150,000 livres a year. The directors of the Company
+reported that they had shipped 7,020 persons to the colony, besides four
+hundred already there when they took possession, and that 5,420 still
+remained, the rest having died or escaped.[313] Besides this importation
+of whites, they had also brought six hundred slaves from Guinea. It is
+reckoned that the King, Crozat, and the Mississippi Company had spent
+among them about eight million livres on Louisiana, without any
+return.[314]
+
+The bursting of the Mississippi bubble did not change the principles of
+administration in Louisiana. The settlers, always looking to France to
+supply their needs and protect them against their own improvidence, were
+in the habit of butchering for food the livestock sent them for
+propagation. The remedy came in the shape of a royal edict forbidding
+any colonist to kill, without permission of the authorities, any cow,
+sheep, or lamb belonging to himself, on pain of a fine of three hundred
+livres; or to kill any horse, cow, or bull belonging to another, on pain
+of death.
+
+Authority and order were the watchwords, and disorder was the rule. The
+agents of power quarrelled among themselves, except when they leagued
+together to deceive their transatlantic masters and cover their own
+misdeeds. Each maligned the other, and it was scarcely possible for the
+King or the Company to learn the true state of affairs in their distant
+colony.
+
+Accusations were renewed against Bienville, till in 1724 he was ordered
+to France to give account of his conduct, and the Sieur Perier was sent
+out to take his place. Perier had no easy task. The Natchez Indians,
+among whom the French had made a settlement and built a fort called Fort
+Rosalie, suddenly rose on their white neighbors and massacred nearly
+all of them.[315] Then followed a long course of Indian wars. The French
+believed that there was a general conspiracy among the southern tribes
+for their destruction,--though this was evidently an exaggeration of the
+danger, which, however, was serious. The Chickasaws, a brave and warlike
+people, living chiefly in what is now western Tennessee and Kentucky,
+made common cause with the Natchez, while the more numerous Choctaws,
+most of whose villages were in the present State of Mississippi, took
+part with the French. More than a thousand soldiers had been sent to
+Louisiana; but Perier pronounced them "so bad that they seem to have
+been made on purpose for the colony."[316] There were also about eight
+hundred militia. Perier showed little vigor, and had little success. His
+chief resource was to set the tribes against one another. He reports
+that his Indian allies had brought him a number of Natchez prisoners,
+and that he had caused six of them, four men and two women, to be burned
+alive, and had sent the rest as slaves to St. Domingo. The Chickasaws,
+aided by English traders from the Carolinas, proved formidable
+adversaries, and when attacked, ensconced themselves in stockade forts
+so strong that, as the governor complains, there was no dislodging the
+defenders without cannon and heavy mortars.
+
+In this state of things the directors of the Mississippi Company, whose
+affairs had gone from bad to worse, declared that they could no longer
+bear the burden of Louisiana, and begged the King to take it off their
+hands. The colony was therefore transferred from the mercantile
+despotism of the Company to the paternal despotism of the Crown, and it
+profited by the change. Commercial monopoly was abolished. Trade between
+France and Louisiana was not only permitted, but encouraged by bounties
+and exemption from duties; and instead of paying to the Company two
+hundred per cent of profit on indispensable supplies, the colonists now
+got them at a reasonable price.
+
+Perier was removed, and again Bienville was made governor. Diron
+d'Artaguette, who came with him as intendant, reported that the
+colonists were flying the country to escape starvation, and Bienville
+adds that during the past year they had subsisted for three months on
+the seed of reeds and wild grasses.[317] The white population had rather
+diminished than increased during the last twelve years, while the
+blacks, who had lately conspired to massacre all the French along the
+Mississippi, had multiplied to two thousand.[318] A French writer says:
+"There must have been a worm gnawing the root of the tree that had been
+transplanted into so rich a soil, to make it wither instead of growing.
+What it needed was the air of liberty." But the air of liberty is
+malaria to those who have not learned to breathe it. The English
+colonists throve in it because they and their forefathers had been
+trained in a school of self-control and self-dependence; and what would
+have been intoxication for others, was vital force to them.
+
+Bienville found the colony again threatened with a general rising, or,
+as he calls it, a revolt, of the Indian tribes. The Carolina traders,
+having no advantage of water-ways, had journeyed by land with
+pack-horses through a thousand miles of wilderness, and with the aid of
+gifts had instigated the tribes to attack the French. The Chickasaws
+especially, friends of the English and arch-enemies of Louisiana, became
+so threatening that a crushing blow against them was thought
+indispensable. The forces of the colony were mustered to attempt it; the
+enterprise was mismanaged, and failed completely.[319] Bienville tried
+to explain the disaster, but his explanation was ill received at court;
+he was severely rebuked, reproved at the same time for permitting two
+families to emigrate to St. Domingo, and sharply ordered to suffer
+nobody to leave Louisiana without express license from Versailles.
+Deeply wounded, he offered his resignation, and it was accepted.
+Whatever his failings, he had faithfully served the colony, and gained
+from posterity the title of Father of Louisiana.
+
+With the help of industrious nursing,--or, one might almost say, in
+spite of it,--Louisiana began at last to strike roots into the soil and
+show signs of growth, though feebly as compared with its sturdy rivals
+along the Atlantic seaboard, which had cost their King nothing, and had
+been treated, for the most part, with the coolest neglect. Cavelier de
+la Salle's dream of planting a firm settlement at the mouth of the
+Mississippi, and utilizing, by means of it, the resources of the vast
+interior, was, after half a century, in some measure realized. New
+France (using that name in its broadest geographical sense) had now two
+heads,--Canada and Louisiana; one looking upon the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
+and the other upon the Gulf of Mexico. Canada was not without jealousy
+of her younger and weaker sister, lest she might draw away, as she had
+begun to do at the first, some of the most active and adventurous
+elements of the Canadian population; lest she might prove a competitor
+in the fur-trade; and lest she should encroach on the Illinois and other
+western domains, which the elder and stronger sister claimed as her own.
+These fears were not unfounded; yet the vital interests of the two
+French colonies were the same, and each needed the help of the other in
+the prime and all-essential task of keeping the British colonies in
+check. The chiefs of Louisiana looked forward to a time when the great
+southern tribes,--Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and even the dreaded
+Chickasaws,--won over by French missionaries to the Church, and
+therefore to France, should be turned against the encroaching English to
+stop their westward progress and force them back to the borders of the
+Atlantic. Meanwhile the chiefs of Canada were maturing the plan--pursued
+with varying assiduity, but always kept in view--of connecting the two
+vital extremities of New France by a chain of forts to control the
+passes of the West, keep communications open, and set English invasion
+at defiance.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[287] _Henri de Tonty à Cabart de Villermont, 11 Septembre, 1694_
+(Margry, iv. 3).
+
+[288] _Mémoire sur le Projet d'establir une nouvelle Colonie au
+Mississippi, 1697_ (Margry, iv. 21).
+
+[289] _Iberville au Ministre, 18 Juin, 1698_ (Margry, iv. 51).
+
+[290] _Mémoire pour servir d'Instruction au Sieur d'Iberville_ (Margry,
+iv. 72).
+
+[291] _Journal d'Iberville_ (Margry, iv. 131).
+
+[292] This letter, which D'Iberville gives in his Journal, is dated "Du
+Village des Quinipissas, le 20 Avril, 1685." Iberville identifies the
+Quinipissas with the Bayagoulas. The date of the letter was evidently
+misread, as Tonty's journey was in 1686. See "La Salle and the Discovery
+of the Great West," 455, _note_. Iberville's lieutenant, Sugères,
+commanding the "Marin," gives the date correctly. _Journal de la Frégate
+le Marin_, 1698, 1699 (Margry, iv.).
+
+[293] _Journal du Voyage du Chevalier d'Iberville sur le Vaisseau du Roy
+la Renommée en 1699_ (Margry, iv. 395).
+
+[294] Gayarré, _Histoire de la Louisiane_ (1846), i. 69. Bénard de la
+Harpe, _Journal historique_ (1831), 20. Coxe says, in the preface to his
+_Description of Carolana_ (1722), that "the present proprietor of
+Carolana, my honour'd Father, ... was the author of this English voyage
+to the Mississippi, having in the year 1698 equipp'd and fitted out Two
+Ships for Discovery by Sea, and also for building a Fortification and
+settling a Colony by land; there being in both vessels, besides Sailors
+and Common Men, above Thirty English and French Volunteers." Coxe adds
+that the expedition would have succeeded if one of the commanders had
+not failed to do his duty.
+
+[295] Gayarré, _Histoire de la Louisiane_ (1846), i. 69.
+
+[296] _Mémoire pour servir d'Instruction au Sieur d'Iberville_ (Margry,
+iv. 348).
+
+[297] _Journal du Voyage du Chevalier d'Iberville sur le Vaisseau du Roy
+la Renommée_, 1699, 1700.
+
+[298] _Mémoire de la Junte de Guerre des Indes. Le Ministre de la Marine
+au Duc d'Harcourt_ (Margry, iv. 553, 568).
+
+[299] Iberville wrote in 1701 a long memorial, in which he tried to
+convince the Spanish court that it was for the interest of Spain that
+the French should form a barrier between her colonies and those of
+England, which, he says, were about to seize the country as far as the
+Mississippi and beyond it.
+
+[300] _Nicolas de la Salle au Ministre, 7 Septembre, 1706._
+
+[301] "Il est clair que M. de Bienville n'a pas les qualités nécessaires
+pour bien gouverner la colonie." Gayarré found this curious letter in
+the Archives de la Marine.
+
+[302] _Dépêche de Bienville, 12 Octobre, 1708._
+
+[303] D'Artaguette in Gayarré, _Histoire de la Louisiane_. This valuable
+work consists of a series of documents, connected by a thread of
+narrative.
+
+[304] _La Mothe-Cadillac au Ministre_, in Gayarré, i. 104, 105.
+
+[305] "Que si M. de Lamothe-Cadillac lui portoit tant d'animositié,
+c'étoit à cause du refus qu'il avoit fait d'épouser sa
+fille."--_Bienville in Gayarré_, i. 116.
+
+[306] _Mémoire du Curé de la Vente, 1714._
+
+[307] The earlier cargoes of girls seem to have been better chosen, and
+there was no difficulty in mating them. Serious disputes sometimes rose
+from the competition of rival suitors.--Dumont, _Mémoires historiques de
+la Louisiane_, chap. v.
+
+[308] Prominent officials of the colony are said to have got wives from
+these sources. Nicolas de la Salle is reported to have had two in
+succession, both from the hospitals. Bénard de la Harpe, 107 (ed. 1831).
+
+[309] _Lettres patentes en forme d'Édit portant établissement de la
+Compagnie d'Occident_, in Le Page du Pratz, _Histoire de la Louisiane_,
+i. 47.
+
+[310] _Règlement de Régie, 1721._
+
+[311] Saint-Simon, _Mémoires_ (ed. Chéruel), xvii. 461.
+
+[312] _De Chassin au Ministre, 1 Juillet, 1722_, in Gayarré, i. 190.
+
+[313] A considerable number of the whites brought to Louisiana in the
+name of the Company had been sent at the charge of persons to whom it
+had granted lands in various parts of the colony. Among these was John
+Law himself, who had the grant of large tracts on the Arkansas.
+
+[314] Bénard de la Harpe, 371 (ed. 1831).
+
+[315] _Lettre du Père le Petit_, in _Lettres Édifiantes_; Dumont,
+_Mémoires historiques_, chap. xxvii.
+
+[316] "Nos soldats, qui semblent être faits exprès pour la colonie,
+tants ils sont mauvais."--_Dépêche de Perier, 18 Mars, 1730._
+
+[317] _Mémoire de Bienville, 1730._
+
+[318] For a curious account of the discovery of this negro plot, see Le
+Page du Pratz, iii. 304.
+
+[319] _Dépêche de Bienville, 6 Mai, 1740._ Compare Le Page du Pratz,
+iii. chap. xxiv.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+1700-1732.
+
+THE OUTAGAMIE WAR.
+
+The Western Posts.--Detroit.--The Illinois.--Perils of the West.--The
+Outagamies.--Their Turbulence.--English Instigation.--Louvigny's
+Expedition.--Defeat of Outagamies.--Hostilities renewed.--Lignery's
+Expedition.--Outagamies attacked by Villiers; by Hurons and
+Iroquois.--La Butte des Morts.--The Sacs and Foxes.
+
+
+The rulers of Canada labored without ceasing in their perplexing task of
+engrossing the fur-trade of the West and controlling the western tribes
+to the exclusion of the English. Every day made it clearer that to these
+ends the western wilderness must be held by forts and trading-posts; and
+this policy of extension prevailed more and more, in spite of the league
+of merchants, who wished to draw the fur-trade to Montreal,--in spite of
+the Jesuits, who felt that their influence over the remoter tribes would
+be compromised by the presence among them of officers, soldiers, and
+traders; and in spite of the King himself, who feared that the diffusion
+of the colony would breed disorder and insubordination.
+
+Detroit, the most important of the western posts, struggled through a
+critical infancy in the charge of its founder, La Mothe-Cadillac, till,
+by a choice not very judicious, he was made governor of Louisiana.
+During his rule the population had slowly increased to about two hundred
+souls; but after he left the place it diminished to a point that seemed
+to threaten the feeble post with extinction. About 1722 it revived
+again; _voyageurs_ and discharged soldiers settled about the fort, and
+the parish register shows six or eight births in the course of the
+year.[320]
+
+Meanwhile, on the banks of the Mississippi another settlement was
+growing up which did not owe its birth to official patronage, and yet
+was destined to become the most noteworthy offspring of Canada in the
+West. It was known to the French as "the Illinois," from the name of the
+group of tribes belonging to that region. La Salle had occupied the
+banks of the river Illinois in 1682; but the curious Indian colony which
+he gathered about his fort on the rock of St. Louis[321] dispersed after
+his death, till few or none were left except the Kaskaskias, a sub-tribe
+of the Illinois. These still lived in the meadow below Fort St. Louis,
+where the Jesuits Marquette, Allouez, Rale, Gravier, and Marest labored
+in turn for their conversion, till, in 1700, they or some of them
+followed Marest to the Mississippi and set up their wigwams where the
+town of Kaskaskia now stands, near the mouth of the little river which
+bears the same name. Charlevoix, who was here in 1721, calls this the
+oldest settlement of the Illinois,[322]--though there is some reason to
+believe that the village of Cahokia, established as a mission by the
+Jesuit Pinet, sixty miles or more above Kaskaskia, and nearly opposite
+the present city of St. Louis, is, by a few weeks, the elder of the two.
+The _voyageurs_, _coureurs de bois_, and other roving Canadians made
+these young settlements their resort, took to wife converted
+squaws,[323] and ended with making the Illinois their home. The missions
+turned to parishes, the missionaries to curés, and the wigwams to those
+compact little Canadian houses that cause one to marvel at the ingenuity
+which can store so multitudinous a progeny within such narrow limits.
+
+White women from Canada or Louisiana began to find their way to these
+wilderness settlements, which with every generation grew more French and
+less Indian. The river Mississippi was at once their friend and their
+enemy. It carried their produce to New Orleans, but undermined their
+rich alluvial shores, cut away fields and meadows, and swept them in its
+turbid eddies thirteen hundred miles southward, as a contribution to the
+mud-banks of the delta.
+
+When the Mississippi Company came into power, the Illinois, hitherto a
+dependency of Canada, was annexed to Louisiana. Pierre Dugué de
+Boisbriant was sent to take command of it, and under his direction a
+fort was built on the bank of the Mississippi sixteen miles above
+Kaskaskia. It was named Fort Chartres, in honor of the Duc de Chartres,
+son of the Regent, who had himself once borne the same title. This work,
+built at first of wood and earth, was afterwards rebuilt of stone, and
+became one of the chief links in the chain of military communication
+between Canada and Louisiana.
+
+Here, with the commandant at its head, sat the council of three which
+ruled over the little settlement.[324] Here too was a garrison to
+enforce the decrees of the council, keep order among the settlers, and
+give them a protection which they greatly needed, since they were within
+striking distance of the formidable Chickasaws, the effects of whose
+hostility appear year after year on the parish register of deaths at
+Kaskaskia. Worse things were in store; for the gallant young Pierre
+d'Artaguette, who was appointed to the command in 1734, and who marched
+against the Chickasaws with a band of Frenchmen and Indians, was
+defeated, captured, and burned alive, astonishing his torturers by the
+fortitude with which he met his fate. The settlement had other foes not
+less dangerous. These were the Outagamies, or Foxes, between whom and
+the tribes of the Illinois there was a deadly feud. We have seen how, in
+1712, a band of Outagamies, with their allies, the Mascoutins, appeared
+at Detroit and excited an alarm, which, after a savage conflict, was
+ended with their ruin. In 1714 the Outagamies made a furious attack upon
+the Illinois, and killed or carried off seventy-seven of them.[325] A
+few years later they made another murderous onslaught in the same
+quarter. They were the scourge of the West, and no white man could
+travel between Canada and Louisiana except at the risk of his life.
+
+In vain the French parleyed with them; threats and blandishments were
+useless alike. Their chiefs would promise, sometimes in good faith, to
+keep the peace and no more offend their father Onontio; but nearly all
+the tribes of the Lake country were their hereditary enemies, and some
+bloody revenge for ancient wrongs would excite their young warriors to a
+fury which the elders could not restrain. Thus, in 1722 the Saginaws, a
+fierce Algonquin band on the eastern borders of Michigan, killed
+twenty-three Outagamies; the tribesmen of the slain returned the blow,
+other tribes joined the fray, and the wilderness was again on fire.[326]
+
+The Canadian authorities were sorely perplexed, for this fierce
+inter-tribal war threatened their whole system of western trade.
+Meanwhile the English and Dutch of New York were sending wampum belts
+to the Indians of the upper lakes, inviting them to bring their furs to
+Albany; and Ramesay, governor of Montreal, complains that they were all
+disposed to do so. "Twelve of the upper tribes," says Lord Cornbury,
+"have come down this year to trade at Albany;" but he adds that as the
+Indians have had no presents for above six years, he is afraid "we shall
+lose them before next summer."[327] The governor of Canada himself is
+said to have been in collusion with the English traders for his own
+profit.[328] The Jesuits denied the charge, and Father Marest wrote to
+the governor, after the disaster to Walker's fleet on its way to attack
+Quebec, "The protection you have given to the missions has drawn on you
+and the colony the miraculous protection of God."[329]
+
+Whether his accusers did him wrong or not, Vaudreuil felt the necessity
+of keeping the peace among the western Indians and suppressing the
+Outagamie incendiaries. In fact, nothing would satisfy him but their
+destruction. "They are the common enemies of all the western tribes," he
+writes. "They have lately murdered three Frenchmen and five Hurons at
+Detroit. The Hurons ask for our help against them, and we must give it,
+or all the tribes will despise us."[330]
+
+He put his chief trust in Louvigny, formerly commandant at
+Michilimackinac. That officer proposed to muster the friendly tribes and
+march on the Outagamies just as their corn was ripening, fight them if
+they stood their ground, or if not, destroy their crops, burn their
+wigwams, and encamp on the spot till winter; then send out parties to
+harass them as they roamed the woods seeking a meagre subsistence by
+hunting. In this way he hoped to cripple, if not destroy them.[331]
+
+The Outagamies lived at this time on the Fox River of Green Bay,--a
+stream which owes its name to them.[332] Their chief village seems to
+have been between thirty and forty miles from the mouth of the river,
+where it creeps through broad tracts of rushes, willows, and wild rice.
+In spite of their losses at Detroit in 1712, their strength was far from
+being broken.
+
+During two successive summers preparations were made to attack them; but
+the march was delayed, once by the tardiness of the Indian allies, and
+again by the illness of Louvigny. At length, on the first of May, 1716,
+he left Montreal with two hundred and twenty-five Frenchmen, while two
+hundred more waited to join him at Detroit and Michilimackinac, where
+the Indian allies were also to meet him. To save expense in pay and
+outfit, the Canadians recruited for the war were allowed to take with
+them goods for trading with the Indians. Hence great disorder and
+insubordination, especially as more than forty barrels of brandy were
+carried in the canoes, as a part of these commercial ventures, in
+consequence of which we hear that when French and Indians were encamped
+together, "hell was thrown open."[333]
+
+The Outagamies stood their ground. Louvigny says, with probable
+exaggeration, that when he made his attack their village held five
+hundred warriors, and no less than three thousand women,--a disparity of
+sexes no doubt due to the inveterate fighting habits of the tribe. The
+wigwams were enclosed by a strong fence, consisting of three rows of
+heavy oaken palisades. This method of fortification was used also by
+tribes farther southward. When Bienville attacked the Chickasaws, he was
+foiled by the solid wooden wall that resisted his cannon, being formed
+of trunks of trees as large as a man's body, set upright, close
+together, and made shot-proof by smaller trunks, planted within so as to
+close the interstices of the outer row.[334]
+
+The fortified village of the Outagamies was of a somewhat different
+construction. The defences consisted of three rows of palisades, those
+of the middle row being probably planted upright, and the other two set
+aslant against them. Below, along the inside of the triple row, ran a
+sort of shallow trench or rifle-pit, where the defenders lay ensconced,
+firing through interstices left for the purpose between the
+palisades.[335]
+
+Louvigny had brought with him two cannon and a mortar; but being light,
+they had little effect on the wooden wall, and as he was provided with
+mining tools, he resolved to attack the Outagamie stronghold by regular
+approaches, as if he were besieging a fortress of Vauban. Covered by the
+fire of three pieces of artillery and eight hundred French and Indian
+small-arms, he opened trenches during the night within seventy yards of
+the palisades, pushed a sap sixty feet nearer before morning, and on the
+third night burrowed to within about twenty-three yards of the wall. His
+plan was to undermine and blow up the palisades.
+
+The Outagamies had made a furious resistance, in which their women took
+part with desperation; but dreading the threatened explosion, and unable
+to resist the underground approaches of their enemy, they asked for a
+parley, and owned themselves beaten. Louvigny demanded that they should
+make peace with all tribes friendly to the French, give up all
+prisoners, and make war on distant tribes, such as the Pawnees, in order
+to take captives who should supply the place of those they had killed
+among the allies of the French; that they should pay, in furs, the costs
+of the war, and give six chiefs, or sons of chiefs, as hostages for the
+fulfilment of these conditions.[336]
+
+On the twelfth of October Louvigny reached Quebec in triumph, bringing
+with him the six hostages.
+
+The Outagamie question was settled for a time. The tribe remained quiet
+for some years, and in 1718 sent a deputation to Montreal and renewed
+their submission, which the governor accepted, though they had evaded
+the complete fulfilment of the conditions imposed on them. Yet peace was
+not secure for a moment. The Kickapoos and Mascoutins would not leave
+their neighbors, the Illinois, at rest; the Saginaws made raids on the
+Miamis; and a general war seemed imminent. "The difficulty is
+inconceivable of keeping these western tribes quiet," writes the
+governor, almost in despair.[337]
+
+At length the crisis came. The Illinois captured the nephew of Oushala,
+the principal Outagamie war-chief, and burned him alive; on which the
+Outagamies attacked them, drove them for refuge to the top of the rock
+on which La Salle's fort of St. Louis had been built, and held them
+there at mercy. They would have starved to death, had not the victors,
+dreading the anger of the French, suffered them to escape.[338] For this
+they took to themselves great credit, not without reason, in view of the
+provocation. At Versailles, however, their attack on the Illinois seemed
+an unpardonable offence, and the next ship from France brought a letter
+from the colonial minister declaring that the Outagamies must be
+effectually put down, and that "his Majesty will reward the officer who
+will reduce, or rather destroy, them."[339]
+
+The authorities of Canada were less truculent than their masters at the
+court, or were better able to count the costs of another war. Longueuil,
+the provisional governor, persisted in measures of peace, and the Sieur
+de Lignery called a council of the Outagamies and their neighbors, the
+Sacs and Winnebagoes, at Green Bay. He told them that the Great Onontio,
+the King, ordered them, at their peril, to make no more attacks on the
+Illinois; and they dutifully promised to obey, while their great chief,
+Oushala, begged that a French officer might be sent to his village to
+help him keep his young warriors from the war-path.[340] The pacific
+policy of Longueuil was not approved by Desliettes, then commanding in
+the Illinois country; and he proposed to settle accounts with the
+Outagamies by exterminating them. "This is very well," observes a
+writer of the time; "but to try to exterminate them and fail would be
+disastrous."[341]
+
+The Marquis de Beauharnois, who came out as governor of Canada in 1726,
+was averse to violent measures, since if an attempt to exterminate the
+offending tribe should be made without success, the life of every
+Frenchman in the West would be in jeopardy.[342] Lignery thought that if
+the Outagamies broke the promises they had made him at Green Bay, the
+forces of Canada and Louisiana should unite to crush them. The
+missionary, Chardon, advised that they should be cut off from all
+supplies of arms, ammunition, and merchandise of any kind, and that all
+the well-disposed western tribes should then be set upon them,--which,
+he thought, would infallibly bring them to reason.[343]
+
+The new governor, perplexed by the multitude of counsellors, presently
+received a missive from the King, directing him not to fight the
+Outagamies if he could help it, "since the consequences of failure would
+be frightful."[344] On the other hand, Beauharnois was told that the
+English had sent messages to the Lake tribes urging them to kill the
+French in their country, and that the Outagamies had promised to do so.
+"This," writes the governor, "compels us to make war in earnest. It will
+cost sixty thousand livres."[345]
+
+Dupuy, the intendant, had joined with Beauharnois in this letter to the
+minister; but being at the time in a hot quarrel with the governor, he
+soon after sent a communication of his own to Versailles, in which he
+declares that the war against the Outagamies was only a pretext of
+Beauharnois for spending the King's money, and enriching himself by
+buying up all the furs of the countries traversed by the army.[346]
+
+Whatever the motives of the expedition, it left Montreal in June, under
+the Sieur de Lignery, followed the rugged old route of the Ottawa, and
+did not reach Michilimackinac till after midsummer. Thence, in a
+flotilla of birch canoes carrying about a thousand Indians and five
+hundred French, the party set out for the fort at the head of Green
+Bay.[347] Here they caught one Outagamie warrior and three Winnebagoes,
+whom the Indian allies tortured to death. Then they paddled their canoes
+up Fox River, reached a Winnebago village on the twenty-fourth of
+August, followed the channel of the stream, a ribbon of lazy water
+twisting in a vague, perplexing way through the broad marsh of wild rice
+and flags, till they saw the chief village of the Outagamies on a tract
+of rising ground a little above the level of the bog.[348] It consisted
+of bark wigwams, without palisades or defences of any kind. Its only
+inmates were three squaws and one old man. These were all seized, and,
+to the horror of Père Crespel, the chaplain, were given to the Indian
+allies, who kept the women as slaves, and burned the old man at a slow
+fire.[349] Then, after burning the village and destroying the crop of
+maize, peas, beans, and squashes that surrounded it, the whole party
+returned to Michilimackinac.[350]
+
+The expedition was not a success. Lignery had hoped to surprise the
+enemy; but the alert and nimble savages had escaped him. Beauharnois
+makes the best of the miscarriage, and writes that "the army did good
+work;" but says a few weeks later that something must be done to cure
+the contempt which the western allies of the French have conceived for
+them "since the last affair."[351]
+
+Two years after Lignery's expedition, there was another attempt to
+humble the Outagamies. Late in the autumn of 1730 young Coulon de
+Villiers, who twenty-four years later defeated Washington at Fort
+Necessity, appeared at Quebec with news that the Sieur de Villiers, his
+father, who commanded the post on the St. Joseph, had struck the
+Outagamies a deadly blow and killed two hundred of their warriors,
+besides six hundred of their women and children. The force under
+Villiers consisted of a body of Frenchmen gathered from various western
+posts, another body from the Illinois, led by the Sieurs de Saint-Ange,
+father and son, and twelve or thirteen hundred Indian allies from many
+friendly tribes.[352]
+
+The accounts of this affair are obscure and not very trustworthy. It
+seems that the Outagamies began the fray by an attack on the Illinois at
+La Salle's old station of Le Rocher, on the river Illinois. On hearing
+of this, the French commanders mustered their Indian allies, hastened to
+the spot, and found the Outagamies intrenched in a grove which they had
+surrounded with a stockade. They defended themselves with their usual
+courage, but, being hard pressed by hunger and thirst, as well as by the
+greatly superior numbers of their assailants, they tried to escape
+during a dark night, as their tribesmen had done at Detroit in 1712. The
+French and their allies pursued, and there was a great slaughter, in
+which many warriors and many more women and children were the
+victims.[353]
+
+The offending tribe must now, one would think, have ceased to be
+dangerous; but nothing less than its destruction would content the
+French officials. To this end, their best resource was in their Indian
+allies, among whom the Outagamies had no more deadly enemy than the
+Hurons of Detroit, who, far from relenting in view of their disasters,
+were more eager than ever to wreak their ire on their unfortunate foe.
+Accordingly, they sent messengers to the converted Iroquois at the
+Mission of Two Mountains, and invited them to join in making an end of
+the Outagamies. The invitation was accepted, and in the autumn of 1731
+forty-seven warriors from the Two Mountains appeared at Detroit. The
+party was soon made up. It consisted of seventy-four Hurons, forty-six
+Iroquois, and four Ottawas. They took the trail to the mouth of the
+river St. Joseph, thence around the head of Lake Michigan to the Chicago
+portage, and thence westward to Rock River. Here were the villages of
+the Kickapoos and Mascoutins, who had been allies of the Outagamies, but
+having lately quarrelled with them, received the strangers as friends
+and gave them guides. The party now filed northward, by forests and
+prairies, towards the Wisconsin, to the banks of which stream the
+Outagamies had lately removed their villages. The warriors were all on
+snow-shoes, for the weather was cold and the snow deep. Some of the
+elders, overcome by the hardships of the way, called a council and
+proposed to turn back; but the juniors were for pushing on at all risks,
+and a young warrior declared that he would rather die than go home
+without killing somebody. The result was a division of the party; the
+elders returned to Chicago, and the younger men, forty Hurons and thirty
+Iroquois, kept on their way.
+
+At last, as they neared the Wisconsin, they saw on an open prairie three
+Outagamies, who ran for their lives. The Hurons and Iroquois gave chase,
+till from the ridge of a hill they discovered the principal Outagamie
+village, consisting, if we may believe their own story, of forty-six
+wigwams, near the bank of the river. The Outagamie warriors came out to
+meet them, in number, as they pretended, much greater than theirs; but
+the Huron and Iroquois chiefs reminded their followers that they had to
+do with dogs who did not believe in God, on which they fired two volleys
+against the enemy, then dropped their guns and charged with the knife in
+one hand and the war-club in the other. According to their own story,
+which shows every sign of mendacity, they drove back the Outagamies into
+their village, killed seventy warriors, and captured fourteen more,
+without counting eighty women and children killed, and a hundred and
+forty taken prisoners. In short, they would have us believe that they
+destroyed the whole village, except ten men, who escaped entirely naked,
+and soon froze to death. They declared further that they sent one of
+their prisoners to the remaining Outagamie villages, ordering him to
+tell the inhabitants that they had just devoured the better part of the
+tribe, and meant to stay on the spot two days; that the tribesmen of the
+slain were free to attack them if they chose, but in that case, they
+would split the heads of all the women and children prisoners in their
+hands, make a breastwork of the dead bodies, and then finish it by
+piling upon it those of the assailants.[354]
+
+Nothing is more misleading than Indian tradition, which is of the least
+possible value as evidence. It may be well, however, to mention another
+story, often repeated, touching these dark days of the Outagamies. It is
+to the effect that a French trader named Marin, whom they had incensed
+by levying blackmail from him, raised a party of Indians, with whose aid
+he surprised and defeated the unhappy tribe at the Little Butte des
+Morts, that they retired to the Great Butte des Morts, higher up Fox
+River, and that Marin here attacked them again, killing or capturing the
+whole. Extravagant as the story seems, it may have some foundation,
+though various dates, from 1725 to 1746, are assigned to the alleged
+exploit, and contemporary documents are silent concerning it. It is
+certain that the Outagamies were not destroyed, as the tribe exists to
+this day.[355]
+
+In 1736 it was reported that sixty or eighty Outagamie warriors were
+still alive.[356] Their women, who when hard pushed would fight like
+furies, were relatively numerous and tolerably prolific, and their
+villages were full of sturdy boys, likely to be dangerous in a few
+years. Feeling their losses and their weakness, the survivors of the
+tribe incorporated themselves with their kindred and neighbors, the
+Sacs, Sakis, or Saukies, the two forming henceforth one tribe,
+afterwards known to the Americans as the Sacs and Foxes. Early in the
+nineteenth century they were settled on both banks of the upper
+Mississippi. Brave and restless like their forefathers, they were a
+continual menace to the American frontiersmen, and in 1832 they rose in
+open war, under their famous chief, Blackhawk, displaying their
+hereditary prowess both on foot and on horseback, and more than once
+defeating superior numbers of American mounted militia. In the next year
+that excellent artist, Charles Bodmer, painted a group of them from
+life,--grim-visaged savages, armed with war-club, spear, or rifle, and
+wrapped in red, green, or brown blankets, their heads close shaven
+except the erect and bristling scalp-lock, adorned with long
+eagle-plumes, while both heads and faces are painted with fantastic
+figures in blue, white, yellow, black, and vermilion.[357]
+
+Three or four years after, a party of their chiefs and warriors was
+conducted through the country by order of the Washington government, in
+order to impress them with the number and power of the whites. At Boston
+they danced a war-dance on the Common in full costume, to the delight of
+the boy spectators, of whom I was one.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[320] Rameau, _Notes historiques sur la Colonie Canadienne du Detroit_.
+
+[321] See "La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West," 315.
+
+[322] "Ce poste, le premier de tous par droit d'antiquité."--_Journal
+historique_, 403 (ed. 1744).
+
+[323] The old parish registers of Kaskaskia are full of records of these
+mixed marriages. See Edward G. Mason, _Illinois in the Eighteenth
+Century_.
+
+[324] The two other members were La Loire des Ursins, director of the
+Mississippi Company, and Michel Chassin, its commissary,--he who wrote
+the curious letter to Ponchartrain, asking for a wife, quoted in the
+last chapter, pp. 317-318.
+
+[325] _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 16 Septembre, 1714._
+
+[326] _Idem, 2 Octobre, 1723._
+
+[327] _N. Y. Col. Docs._, v. 65.
+
+[328] _Mémoire présenté au Comte de Ponchartrain par M. d'Auteuil,
+procureur-général du Roy, 1708._
+
+[329] _Marest à Vaudreuil, 21 Janvier, 1712._
+
+[330] _Vaudreuil et Bégon au Ministre, 15 Novembre, 1713._
+
+[331] _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 16 Septembre, 1714._
+
+[332] "Les Renards [Outagamies] sont placez sur une rivière qui tombe
+dans la Baye des Puants [Green Bay]."--_Registre du Conseil de la
+Marine, 28 Mars, 1716._
+
+[333] "Où il y a des François et des sauvages, c'est un enfer
+ouvert."--_Registre du Conseil de Marine, 28 Mars, 1716._
+
+[334] Le Page du Pratz.
+
+[335] _Louvigny au Ministre, 14 Octobre, 1716._ Louvigny's account of
+the Outagamie defences is short, and not very clear. La Mothe-Cadillac,
+describing similar works at Michilimackinac, says that the palisades of
+the innermost row alone were set close together, those of the two other
+rows being separated by spaces of six inches or more, through which the
+defenders fired from their loopholes. The plan seems borrowed from the
+Iroquois.
+
+[336] _Dépêche de Vaudreuil, 14 Octobre, 1716._
+
+[337] _Vaudreuil au Conseil de Marine, 28 Octobre, 1719._
+
+[338] _Paroles des Renards _[Outagamies]_ dans un Conseil tenu le 6
+Septembre, 1722._
+
+[339] _Réponse du Ministre à la lettre du Marquis de Vaudreuil du 11
+Octobre, 1723._
+
+[340] _Mémoire sur les Renards, 27 Avril, 1727._
+
+[341] _Mémoire concernant la Paix que M. de Lignery a faite avec les
+Chefs des Renards, Sakis _[Sacs]_, et Puants _[Winnebagoes]_, 7 Juin,
+1726._
+
+[342] _Mémoire sur les Renards, 27 Avril, 1727._
+
+[343] _Ibid._
+
+[344] _Mémoire du Roy, 29 Avril, 1727._
+
+[345] _Beauharnois et Dupuy au Ministre, 25 Octobre, 1727._
+
+[346] _Mémoire de Dupuy, 1728._
+
+[347] Desliettes came to meet them, by way of Chicago, with five hundred
+Illinois warriors and twenty Frenchmen. _La Perrière et La Fresnière à
+Beauharnois, 10 Septembre, 1728._
+
+[348] _Guignas à Beauharnois, 29 Mai, 1728._
+
+[349] _Dépêche de Beauharnois, 1 Septembre, 1728._
+
+[350] The best account of this expedition is that of Père Emanuel
+Crespel. Lignery made a report which seems to be lost, as it does not
+appear in the Archives.
+
+[351] _Beauharnois au Ministre, 15 Mai, 1729_; _Ibid., 21 Juillet,
+1729_.
+
+[352] _Beauharnois et Hocquart au Ministre, 2 Novembre, 1730._ An Indian
+tradition says that about this time there was a great battle between the
+Outagamies and the French, aided by their Indian allies, at the place
+called Little Butte des Morts, on the Fox River. According to the story,
+the Outagamies were nearly destroyed. Perhaps this is a perverted
+version of the Villiers affair. (See _Wisconsin Historical Collections_,
+viii, 207.) Beauharnois also reports, under date of 6 May, 1730, that a
+party of Outagamies, returning from a buffalo hunt, were surprised by
+two hundred Ottawas, Ojibwas, Menominies, and Winnebagoes, who killed
+eighty warriors and three hundred women and children.
+
+[353] Some particulars of this affair are given by Ferland, _Cours
+d'Histoire du Canada_, ii. 437; but he does not give his authority. I
+have found no report of it by those engaged.
+
+[354] _Relation de la Défaite des Renards par les Sauvages Hurons et
+Iroquois, le 28 Février, 1732._ (Archives de la Marine.)
+
+[355] The story is told in Snelling, _Tales of the Northwest_ (1830),
+under the title of _La Butte des Morts_, and afterwards, with
+variations, by the aged Augustus Grignon, in his _Recollections_,
+printed in the _Collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society_, iii.;
+also by Judge M. L. Martin and others. Grignon, like all the rest, was
+not born till after the time of the alleged event. The nearest approach
+to substantial evidence touching it is in a letter of Beauharnois, who
+writes in 1730 that the Sieur Dubuisson was to attack the Outagamies
+with fifty Frenchmen and five hundred and fifty Indians, and that Marin,
+commander at Green Bay, was to join him. _Beauharnois au Ministre, 25
+Juin, 1730._
+
+[356] _Mémoire sur le Canada, 1736._
+
+[357] Charles Bodmer was the artist who accompanied Prince Maximilian of
+Wied in his travels in the interior of North America.
+
+The name Outagamie is Algonquin for a fox. Hence the French called the
+tribe Renards, and the Americans, Foxes. They called themselves
+Musquawkies, which is said to mean "red earth," and to be derived from
+the color of the soil near one of their villages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+1697-1741.
+
+FRANCE IN THE FAR WEST.
+
+French Explorers.--Le Sueur on the St. Peter.--Canadians on the
+Missouri.--Juchereau de Saint-Denis.--Bénard de la Harpe on Red
+River.--Adventures of Du Tisné.--Bourgmont visits the Comanches.--The
+Brothers Mallet in Colorado and New Mexico.--Fabry de la Bruyère.
+
+
+The occupation by France of the lower Mississippi gave a strong impulse
+to the exploration of the West, by supplying a base for discovery,
+stimulating enterprise by the longing to find gold mines, open trade
+with New Mexico, and get a fast hold on the countries beyond the
+Mississippi in anticipation of Spain; and to these motives was soon
+added the hope of finding an overland way to the Pacific. It was the
+Canadians, with their indomitable spirit of adventure, who led the way
+in the path of discovery.
+
+As a bold and hardy pioneer of the wilderness, the Frenchman in America
+has rarely found his match. His civic virtues withered under the
+despotism of Versailles, and his mind and conscience were kept in
+leading-strings by an absolute Church; but the forest and the prairie
+offered him an unbridled liberty, which, lawless as it was, gave scope
+to his energies, till these savage wastes became the field of his most
+noteworthy achievements.
+
+Canada was divided between two opposing influences. On the one side were
+the monarchy and the hierarchy, with their principles of order,
+subordination, and obedience; substantially at one in purpose, since
+both wished to keep the colony within manageable bounds, domesticate it,
+and tame it to soberness, regularity, and obedience. On the other side
+was the spirit of liberty, or license, which was in the very air of this
+wilderness continent, reinforced in the chiefs of the colony by a spirit
+of adventure inherited from the Middle Ages, and by a spirit of trade
+born of present opportunities; for every official in Canada hoped to
+make a profit, if not a fortune, out of beaver-skins. Kindred impulses,
+in ruder forms, possessed the humbler colonists, drove them into the
+forest, and made them hardy woodsmen and skilful bush-fighters, though
+turbulent and lawless members of civilized society.
+
+Time, the decline of the fur-trade, and the influence of the Canadian
+Church gradually diminished this erratic spirit, and at the same time
+impaired the qualities that were associated with it. The Canadian became
+a more stable colonist and a steadier farmer; but for forest journeyings
+and forest warfare he was scarcely his former self. At the middle of the
+eighteenth century we find complaints that the race of _voyageurs_ is
+growing scarce. The taming process was most apparent in the central and
+lower parts of the colony, such as the Côte de Beaupré and the opposite
+shore of the St. Lawrence, where the hands of the government and of the
+Church were strong; while at the head of the colony,--that is, about
+Montreal and its neighborhood,--which touched the primeval wilderness,
+an uncontrollable spirit of adventure still held its own. Here, at the
+beginning of the century, this spirit was as strong as it had ever been,
+and achieved a series of explorations and discoveries which revealed the
+plains of the Far West long before an Anglo-Saxon foot had pressed their
+soil.
+
+The expedition of one Le Sueur to what is now the State of Minnesota may
+be taken as the starting-point of these enterprises. Le Sueur had
+visited the country of the Sioux as early as 1683. He returned thither
+in 1689 with the famous _voyageur_ Nicolas Perrot.[358] Four years
+later, Count Frontenac sent him to the Sioux country again. The declared
+purpose of the mission was to keep those fierce tribes at peace with
+their neighbors; but the governor's enemies declared that a contraband
+trade in beaver was the true object, and that Frontenac's secretary was
+to have half the profits.[359] Le Sueur returned after two years,
+bringing to Montreal a Sioux chief and his squaw,--the first of the
+tribe ever seen there. He then went to France, and represented to the
+court that he had built a fort at Lake Pepin, on the upper Mississippi;
+that he was the only white man who knew the languages of that region;
+and that if the French did not speedily seize upon it, the English, who
+were already trading upon the Ohio, would be sure to do so. Thereupon he
+asked for the command of the upper Mississippi, with all its tributary
+waters, together with a monopoly of its fur-trade for ten years, and
+permission to work its mines, promising that if his petition were
+granted, he would secure the country to France without expense to the
+King. The commission was given him. He bought an outfit and sailed for
+Canada, but was captured by the English on the way. After the peace he
+returned to France and begged for a renewal of his commission. Leave was
+given him to work the copper and lead mines, but not to trade in
+beaver-skins. He now formed a company to aid him in his enterprise, on
+which a cry rose in Canada that under pretence of working mines he meant
+to trade in beaver,--which is very likely, since to bring lead and
+copper in bark canoes to Montreal from the Mississippi and Lake Superior
+would cost far more than the metal was worth. In consequence of this
+clamor his commission was revoked.
+
+Perhaps it was to compensate him for the outlays into which he had been
+drawn that the colonial minister presently authorized him to embark for
+Louisiana and pursue his enterprise with that infant colony, instead of
+Canada, as his base of operations. Thither, therefore, he went; and in
+April, 1700, set out for the Sioux country with twenty-five men, in a
+small vessel of the kind called a "felucca," still used in the
+Mediterranean. Among the party was an adventurous youth named Penecaut,
+a ship-carpenter by trade, who had come to Louisiana with Iberville two
+years before, and who has left us an account of his voyage with Le
+Sueur.[360]
+
+The party slowly made their way, with sail and oar, against the muddy
+current of the Mississippi, till they reached the Arkansas, where they
+found an English trader from Carolina. On the tenth of June, spent with
+rowing, and half starved, they stopped to rest at a point fifteen
+leagues above the mouth of the Ohio. They had staved off famine with the
+buds and leaves of trees; but now, by good luck, one of them killed a
+bear, and, soon after, the Jesuit Limoges arrived from the neighboring
+mission of the Illinois, in a canoe well stored with provisions. Thus
+refreshed, they passed the mouth of the Missouri on the thirteenth of
+July, and soon after were met by three Canadians, who brought them a
+letter from the Jesuit Marest, warning them that the river was infested
+by war-parties. In fact, they presently saw seven canoes of Sioux
+warriors, bound against the Illinois; and not long after, five Canadians
+appeared, one of whom had been badly wounded in a recent encounter with
+a band of Outagamies, Sacs, and Winnebagoes bound against the Sioux. To
+take one another's scalps had been for ages the absorbing business and
+favorite recreation of all these Western tribes. At or near the
+expansion of the Mississippi called Lake Pepin, the voyagers found a
+fort called Fort Perrot, after its builder;[361] and on an island near
+the upper end of the lake, another similar structure, built by Le Sueur
+himself on his last visit to the place. These forts were mere stockades,
+occupied from time to time by the roving fur-traders as their occasions
+required.
+
+Towards the end of September, Le Sueur and his followers reached the
+mouth of the St. Peter, which they ascended to Blue Earth River. Pushing
+a league up this stream, they found a spot well suited to their purpose,
+and here they built a fort, of which there was great need, for they were
+soon after joined by seven Canadian traders, plundered and stripped to
+the skin by the neighboring Sioux. Le Sueur named the new post Fort
+l'Huillier. It was a fence of pickets, enclosing cabins for the men. The
+neighboring plains were black with buffalo, of which the party killed
+four hundred, and cut them into quarters, which they placed to freeze
+on scaffolds within the enclosure. Here they spent the winter,
+subsisting on the frozen meat, without bread, vegetables, or salt, and,
+according to Penecaut, thriving marvellously, though the surrounding
+wilderness was buried five feet deep in snow.
+
+Band after band of Sioux appeared, with their wolfish dogs and their
+sturdy and all-enduring squaws burdened with the heavy hide coverings of
+their teepees, or buffalo-skin tents. They professed friendship and
+begged for arms. Those of one band had blackened their faces in mourning
+for a dead chief, and calling on Le Sueur to share their sorrow, they
+wept over him, and wiped their tears on his hair. Another party of
+warriors arrived with yet deeper cause of grief, being the remnant of a
+village half exterminated by their enemies. They, too, wept profusely
+over the French commander, and then sang a dismal song, with heads
+muffled in their buffalo-robes.[362] Le Sueur took the needful
+precautions against his dangerous visitors, but got from them a large
+supply of beaver-skins in exchange for his goods.
+
+When spring opened, he set out in search of mines, and found, not far
+above the fort, those beds of blue and green earth to which the stream
+owes its name. Of this his men dug out a large quantity, and selecting
+what seemed the best, stored it in their vessel as a precious commodity.
+With this and good store of beaver-skins, Le Sueur now began his return
+voyage for Louisiana, leaving a Canadian named D'Éraque and twelve men
+to keep the fort till he should come back to reclaim it, promising to
+send him a canoe-load of ammunition from the Illinois. But the canoe was
+wrecked, and D'Éraque, discouraged, abandoned Fort l'Huillier, and
+followed his commander down the Mississippi.[363]
+
+Le Sueur, with no authority from government, had opened relations of
+trade with the wild Sioux of the Plains, whose westward range stretched
+to the Black Hills, and perhaps to the Rocky Mountains. He reached the
+settlements of Louisiana in safety, and sailed for France with four
+thousand pounds of his worthless blue earth.[364] Repairing at once to
+Versailles, he begged for help to continue his enterprise. His petition
+seems to have been granted. After long delay, he sailed again for
+Louisiana, fell ill on the voyage, and died soon after landing.[365]
+
+Before 1700, the year when Le Sueur visited the St. Peter, little or
+nothing was known of the country west of the Mississippi, except from
+the report of Indians. The romances of La Hontan and Mathieu Sâgean
+were justly set down as impostures by all but the most credulous. In
+this same year we find Le Moyne d'Iberville projecting journeys to the
+upper Missouri, in hopes of finding a river flowing to the Western Sea.
+In 1703, twenty Canadians tried to find their way from the Illinois to
+New Mexico, in hope of opening trade with the Spaniards and discovering
+mines.[366] In 1704 we find it reported that more than a hundred
+Canadians are scattered in small parties along the Mississippi and the
+Missouri;[367] and in 1705 one Laurain appeared at the Illinois,
+declaring that he had been high up the Missouri and had visited many
+tribes on its borders.[368] A few months later, two Canadians told
+Bienville a similar story. In 1708 Nicolas de la Salle proposed an
+expedition of a hundred men to explore the same mysterious river; and in
+1717 one Hubert laid before the Council of Marine a scheme for following
+the Missouri to its source, since, he says, "not only may we find the
+mines worked by the Spaniards, but also discover the great river that is
+said to rise in the mountains where the Missouri has its source, and is
+believed to flow to the Western Sea." And he advises that a hundred and
+fifty men be sent up the river in wooden canoes, since bark canoes
+would be dangerous, by reason of the multitude of snags.[369]
+
+In 1714 Juchereau de Saint-Denis was sent by La Mothe-Cadillac to
+explore western Louisiana, and pushed up Red River to a point
+sixty-eight leagues, as he reckons, above Natchitoches. In the next
+year, journeying across country towards the Spanish settlements, with a
+view to trade, he was seized near the Rio Grande and carried to the city
+of Mexico. The Spaniards, jealous of French designs, now sent priests
+and soldiers to occupy several points in Texas. Juchereau, however, was
+well treated, and permitted to marry a Spanish girl with whom he had
+fallen in love on the way; but when, in the autumn of 1716, he ventured
+another journey to the Mexican borders, still hoping to be allowed to
+trade, he and his goods were seized by order of the Mexican viceroy,
+and, lest worse should befall him, he fled empty-handed, under cover of
+night.[370]
+
+In March, 1719, Bénard de la Harpe left the feeble little French post at
+Natchitoches with six soldiers and a sergeant.[371] His errand was to
+explore the country, open trade if possible with the Spaniards, and
+establish another post high up Red River. He and his party soon came
+upon that vast entanglement of driftwood, or rather of uprooted
+forests, afterwards known as the Red River raft, which choked the stream
+and forced them to make their way through the inundated jungle that
+bordered it. As they pushed or dragged their canoes through the swamp,
+they saw with disgust and alarm a good number of snakes, coiled about
+twigs and boughs on the right and left, or sometimes over their heads.
+These were probably the deadly water-moccason, which in warm weather is
+accustomed to crawl out of its favorite element and bask itself in the
+sun, precisely as described by La Harpe. Their nerves were further
+discomposed by the splashing and plunging of alligators lately wakened
+from their wintry torpor. Still, they pushed painfully on, till they
+reached navigable water again, and at the end of the month were, as they
+thought, a hundred and eight leagues above Natchitoches. In four days
+more they reached the Nassonites.
+
+These savages belonged to a group of stationary tribes, only one of
+which, the Caddoes, survives to our day as a separate community. Their
+enemies, the Chickasaws, Osages, Arkansas, and even the distant
+Illinois, waged such deadly war against them that, according to La
+Harpe, the unfortunate Nassonites were in the way of extinction, their
+numbers having fallen, within ten years, from twenty-five hundred souls
+to four hundred.[372]
+
+La Harpe stopped among them to refresh his men, and build a house of
+cypress-wood as a beginning of the post he was ordered to establish;
+then, having heard that a war with Spain had ruined his hopes of trade
+with New Mexico, he resolved to pursue his explorations.
+
+With him went ten men, white, red, and black, with twenty-two horses
+bought from the Indians, for his journeyings were henceforth to be by
+land. The party moved in a northerly and westerly course, by hills,
+forests, and prairies, passed two branches of the Wichita, and on the
+third of September came to a river which La Harpe calls the southwest
+branch of the Arkansas, but which, if his observation of latitude is
+correct, must have been the main stream, not far from the site of Fort
+Mann. Here he was met by seven Indian chiefs, mounted on excellent
+horses saddled and bridled after the Spanish manner. They led him to
+where, along the plateau of the low, treeless hills that bordered the
+valley, he saw a string of Indian villages, extending for a league and
+belonging to nine several bands, the names of which can no longer be
+recognized, and most of which are no doubt extinct. He says that they
+numbered in all six thousand souls; and their dwellings were high,
+dome-shaped structures, built of clay mixed with reeds and straw,
+resting, doubtless, on a frame of bent poles.[373] With them were also
+some of the roving Indians of the plains, with their conical teepees of
+dressed buffalo-skin.
+
+The arrival of the strangers was a great and amazing event for these
+savages, few of whom had ever seen a white man. On the day after their
+arrival the whole multitude gathered to receive them and offer them the
+calumet, with a profusion of songs and speeches. Then warrior after
+warrior recounted his exploits and boasted of the scalps he had taken.
+From eight in the morning till two hours after midnight the din of
+drums, songs, harangues, and dances continued without relenting, with a
+prospect of twelve hours more; and La Harpe, in desperation, withdrew to
+rest himself on a buffalo-robe, begging another Frenchman to take his
+place. His hosts left him in peace for a while; then the chiefs came to
+find him, painted his face blue, as a tribute of respect, put a cap of
+eagle-feathers on his head, and laid numerous gifts at his feet. When at
+last the ceremony ended, some of the performers were so hoarse from
+incessant singing that they could hardly speak.[374]
+
+La Harpe was told by his hosts that the Spanish settlements could be
+reached by ascending their river; but to do this was at present
+impossible. He began his backward journey, fell desperately ill of a
+fever, and nearly died before reaching Natchitoches.
+
+Having recovered, he made an attempt, two years later, to explore the
+Arkansas in canoes, from its mouth, but accomplished little besides
+killing a good number of buffalo, bears, deer, and wild turkeys. He was
+confirmed, however, in the belief that the Comanches and the Spaniards
+of New Mexico might be reached by this route.
+
+In the year of La Harpe's first exploration, one Du Tisné went up the
+Missouri to a point six leagues above Grand River, where stood the
+village of the Missouris. He wished to go farther, but they would not
+let him. He then returned to the Illinois, whence he set out on
+horseback with a few followers across what is now the State of Missouri,
+till he reached the village of the Osages, which stood on a hill high up
+the river Osage. At first he was well received; but when they found him
+disposed to push on to a town of their enemies, the Pawnees, forty
+leagues distant, they angrily refused to let him go. His firmness and
+hardihood prevailed, and at last they gave him leave. A ride of a few
+days over rich prairies brought him to the Pawnees, who, coming as he
+did from the hated Osages, took him for an enemy and threatened to kill
+him. Twice they raised the tomahawk over his head; but when the intrepid
+traveller dared them to strike, they began to treat him as a friend.
+When, however, he told them that he meant to go fifteen days' journey
+farther, to the Padoucas, or Comanches, their deadly enemies, they
+fiercely forbade him; and after planting a French flag in their
+village, he returned as he had come, guiding his way by compass, and
+reaching the Illinois in November, after extreme hardships.[375]
+
+Early in 1721 two hundred mounted Spaniards, followed by a large body of
+Comanche warriors, came from New Mexico to attack the French at the
+Illinois, but were met and routed on the Missouri by tribes of that
+region.[376] In the next year, Bienville was told that they meant to
+return, punish those who had defeated them, and establish a post on the
+river Kansas; whereupon he ordered Boisbriant, commandant at the
+Illinois, to anticipate them by sending troops to build a French fort at
+or near the same place. But the West India Company had already sent one
+Bourgmont on a similar errand, the object being to trade with the
+Spaniards in time of peace, and stop their incursions in time of
+war.[377] It was hoped also that, in the interest of trade, peace might
+be made between the Comanches and the tribes of the Missouri.[378]
+
+Bourgmont was a man of some education, and well acquainted with these
+tribes, among whom he had traded for years. In pursuance of his orders
+he built a fort, which he named Fort Orléans, and which stood on the
+Missouri not far above the mouth of Grand River. Having thus
+accomplished one part of his mission, he addressed himself to the other,
+and prepared to march for the Comanche villages.
+
+Leaving a sufficient garrison at the fort, he sent his ensign,
+Saint-Ange, with a party of soldiers and Canadians, in wooden canoes, to
+the villages of the Kansas higher up the stream, and on the third of
+July set out by land to join him, with a hundred and nine Missouri
+Indians and sixty-eight Osages in his train. A ride of five days brought
+him again to the banks of the Missouri, opposite a Kansas town.
+Saint-Ange had not yet arrived, the angry and turbid current, joined to
+fevers among his men, having retarded his progress. Meanwhile Bourgmont
+drew from the Kansas a promise that their warriors should go with him to
+the Comanches. Saint-Ange at last appeared, and at daybreak of the
+twenty-fourth the tents were struck and the pack-horses loaded. At six
+o'clock the party drew up in battle array on a hill above the Indian
+town, and then, with drum beating and flag flying, began their march. "A
+fine prairie country," writes Bourgmont, "with hills and dales and
+clumps of trees to right and left." Sometimes the landscape quivered
+under the sultry sun, and sometimes thunder bellowed over their heads,
+and rain fell in floods on the steaming plains.
+
+Renaudière, engineer of the party, one day stood by the side of the path
+and watched the whole procession as it passed him. The white men were
+about twenty in all. He counted about three hundred Indian warriors,
+with as many squaws, some five hundred children, and a prodigious number
+of dogs, the largest and strongest of which dragged heavy loads. The
+squaws also served as beasts of burden; and, says the journal, "they
+will carry as much as a dog will drag." Horses were less abundant among
+these tribes than they afterwards became, so that their work fell
+largely upon the women.
+
+On the sixth day the party was within three leagues of the river Kansas,
+at a considerable distance above its mouth. Bourgmont had suffered from
+dysentery on the march, and an access of the malady made it impossible
+for him to go farther. It is easy to conceive the regret with which he
+saw himself compelled to return to Fort Orléans. The party retraced
+their steps, carrying their helpless commander on a litter.
+
+First, however, he sent one Gaillard on a perilous errand. Taking with
+him two Comanche slaves bought for the purpose from the Kansas, Gaillard
+was ordered to go to the Comanche villages with the message that
+Bourgmont had been on his way to make them a friendly visit, and, though
+stopped by illness, hoped soon to try again, with better success.
+
+Early in September, Bourgmont, who had arrived safely at Fort Orléans,
+received news that the mission of Gaillard had completely succeeded; on
+which, though not wholly recovered from his illness, he set out again on
+his errand of peace, accompanied by his young son, besides Renaudière, a
+surgeon, and nine soldiers. On reaching the great village of the Kansas
+he found there five Comanche chiefs and warriors, whom Gaillard had
+induced to come thither with him. Seven chiefs of the Otoes presently
+appeared, in accordance with an invitation of Bourgmont; then six chiefs
+of the Iowas and the head chief of the Missouris. With these and the
+Kansas chiefs a solemn council was held around a fire before Bourgmont's
+tent; speeches were made, the pipe of peace was smoked, and presents
+were distributed.
+
+On the eighth of October the march began, the five Comanches and the
+chiefs of several other tribes, including the Omahas, joining the
+cavalcade. Gaillard and another Frenchman named Quesnel were sent in
+advance to announce their approach to the Comanches, while Bourgmont and
+his followers moved up the north side of the river Kansas till the
+eleventh, when they forded it at a point twenty leagues from its mouth,
+and took a westward and southwestward course, sometimes threading the
+grassy valleys of little streams, sometimes crossing the dry upland
+prairie, covered with the short, tufted dull-green herbage since known
+as "buffalo grass." Wild turkeys clamored along every watercourse; deer
+were seen on all sides, buffalo were without number, sometimes in
+grazing droves, and sometimes dotting the endless plain as far as the
+eye could reach. Ruffian wolves, white and gray, eyed the travellers
+askance, keeping a safe distance by day, and howling about the camp all
+night. Of the antelope and the elk the journal makes no mention.
+Bourgmont chased a buffalo on horseback and shot him with a
+pistol,--which is probably the first recorded example of that way of
+hunting.
+
+The stretches of high, rolling, treeless prairie grew more vast as the
+travellers advanced. On the seventeenth, they found an abandoned
+Comanche camp. On the next day as they stopped to dine, and had just
+unsaddled their horses, they saw a distant smoke towards the west, on
+which they set the dry grass on fire as an answering signal. Half an
+hour later a body of wild horsemen came towards them at full speed, and
+among them were their two couriers, Gaillard and Quesnel, waving a
+French flag. The strangers were eighty Comanche warriors, with the grand
+chief of the tribe at their head. They dashed up to Bourgmont's bivouac
+and leaped from their horses, when a general shaking of hands ensued,
+after which white men and red seated themselves on the ground and smoked
+the pipe of peace. Then all rode together to the Comanche camp, three
+leagues distant.[379]
+
+Bourgmont pitched his tents at a pistol-shot from the Comanche lodges,
+whence a crowd of warriors presently came to visit him. They spread
+buffalo-robes on the ground, placed upon them the French commander, his
+officers, and his young son; then lifted each, with its honored load,
+and carried them all, with yells of joy and gratulation, to the lodge of
+the Great Chief, where there was a feast of ceremony lasting till
+nightfall.
+
+On the next day Bourgmont displayed to his hosts the marvellous store of
+gifts he had brought for them,--guns, swords, hatchets, kettles,
+gunpowder, bullets, red cloth, blue cloth, hand-mirrors, knives, shirts,
+awls, scissors, needles, hawks' bells, vermilion, beads, and other
+enviable commodities, of the like of which they had never dreamed. Two
+hundred savages gathered before the French tents, where Bourgmont, with
+the gifts spread on the ground before him, stood with a French flag in
+his hand, surrounded by his officers and the Indian chiefs of his party,
+and harangued the admiring auditors.
+
+He told them that he had come to bring them a message from the King, his
+master, who was the Great Chief of all the nations of the earth, and
+whose will it was that the Comanches should live in peace with his other
+children,--the Missouris, Osages, Kansas, Otoes, Omahas, and
+Pawnees,--with whom they had long been at war; that the chiefs of these
+tribes were now present, ready to renounce their old enmities; that the
+Comanches should henceforth regard them as friends, share with them the
+blessing of alliance and trade with the French, and give to these last
+free passage through their country to trade with the Spaniards of New
+Mexico. Bourgmont then gave the French flag to the Great Chief, to be
+kept forever as a pledge of that day's compact. The chief took the flag,
+and promised in behalf of his people to keep peace inviolate with the
+Indian children of the King. Then, with unspeakable delight, he and his
+tribesmen took and divided the gifts.
+
+The next two days were spent in feasts and rejoicings. "Is it true that
+you are men?" asked the Great Chief. "I have heard wonders of the
+French, but I never could have believed what I see this day." Then,
+taking up a handful of earth, "The Spaniards are like this; but you are
+like the sun." And he offered Bourgmont, in case of need, the aid of his
+two thousand Comanche warriors. The pleasing manners of his visitors,
+and their unparalleled generosity, had completely won his heart.
+
+As the object of the expedition was accomplished, or seemed to be so,
+the party set out on their return. A ride of ten days brought them again
+to the Missouri; they descended in canoes to Fort Orléans, and sang Te
+Deum in honor of the peace.[380]
+
+No farther discovery in this direction was made for the next fifteen
+years. Though the French had explored the Missouri as far as the site of
+Fort Clark and the Mandan villages, they were possessed by the
+idea--due, perhaps, to Indian reports concerning the great tributary
+river, the Yellowstone--that in its upper course the main stream bent so
+far southward as to form a waterway to New Mexico, with which it was the
+constant desire of the authorities of Louisiana to open trade. A way
+thither was at last made known by two brothers named Mallet, who with
+six companions went up the Platte to its South Fork, which they called
+River of the Padoucas,--a name given it on some maps down to the middle
+of this century. They followed the South Fork for some distance, and
+then, turning southward and southwestward, crossed the plains of
+Colorado. Here the dried dung of the buffalo was their only fuel; and it
+has continued to feed the camp-fire of the traveller in this treeless
+region within the memory of many now living. They crossed the upper
+Arkansas, and apparently the Cimarron, passed Taos, and on the
+twenty-second of July reached Santa Fé, where they spent the winter. On
+the first of May, 1740, they began their return journey, three of them
+crossing the plains to the Pawnee villages, and the rest descending the
+Arkansas to the Mississippi.[381]
+
+The bold exploit of the brothers Mallet attracted great attention at New
+Orleans, and Bienville resolved to renew it, find if possible a nearer
+and better way to Santa Fé, determine the nature and extent of these
+mysterious western regions, and satisfy a lingering doubt whether they
+were not contiguous to China and Tartary.[382] A naval officer, Fabry de
+la Bruyère, was sent on this errand, with the brothers Mallet and a few
+soldiers and Canadians. He ascended the Canadian Fork of the Arkansas,
+named by him the St. André, became entangled in the shallows and
+quicksands of that difficult river, fell into disputes with his men,
+and, after protracted efforts, returned unsuccessful.[383]
+
+While French enterprise was unveiling the remote Southwest, two
+indomitable Canadians were pushing still more noteworthy explorations
+into more northern regions of the continent.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[358] _Journal historique de l'Établissement des Français à la
+Louisiane_, 43.
+
+[359] _Champigny au Ministre, 4 Novembre, 1693._
+
+[360] _Relation de Penecaut._ In my possession is a contemporary
+manuscript of this narrative, for which I am indebted to the kindness of
+General J. Meredith Reade.
+
+[361] Penecaut, _Journal_. _Procès-verbal de la Prise de Possession du
+Pays des Nadouessioux, etc., par Nicolas Perrot, 1689._ Fort Perrot
+seems to have been built in 1685, and to have stood near the outlet of
+the lake, probably on the west side. Perrot afterwards built another
+fort, called Fort St. Antoine, a little above, on the east bank. The
+position of these forts has been the subject of much discussion, and
+cannot be ascertained with precision. It appears by the _Prise de
+Possession_, cited above, that there was also, in 1689, a temporary
+French post near the mouth of the Wisconsin.
+
+[362] This weeping over strangers was a custom with the Sioux of that
+time mentioned by many early writers. La Mothe-Cadillac marvels that a
+people so brave and warlike should have such a fountain of tears always
+at command.
+
+[363] In 1702 the geographer De l'Isle made a remarkable MS. map
+entitled _Carte de la Rivière du Mississippi, dressée sur les Mémoires
+de M. Le Sueur_.
+
+[364] According to the geologist Featherstonhaugh, who examined the
+locality, this earth owes its color to a bluish-green silicate of iron.
+
+[365] Besides the long and circumstantial _Relation de Penecaut_, an
+account of the earlier part of La Sueur's voyage up the Mississippi is
+contained in the _Mémoire du Chevalier de Beaurain_, which, with other
+papers relating to this explorer, including portions of his Journal,
+will be found in Margry, vi. See also _Journal historique de
+l'Établissement des Français à la Louisiane_, 38-71.
+
+[366] _Iberville à ----, 15 Février, 1703_ (Margry, vi. 180).
+
+[367] _Bienville au Ministre, 6 Septembre, 1704._
+
+[368] Beaurain, _Journal historique_.
+
+[369] Hubert, _Mémoire envoyé au Conseil de la Marine_.
+
+[370] Penecaut, _Relation_, chaps. xvii., xviii. Le Page du Pratz,
+_Histoire de la Louisiane_, i. 13-22. Various documents in Margry, vi.
+193-202.
+
+[371] For an interesting contemporary map of the French establishment at
+Natchitoches, see Thomassy, _Géologie pratique de la Louisiane_.
+
+[372] Bénard de la Harpe, in Margry, vi. 264.
+
+[373] Beaurain says that each of these bands spoke a language of its
+own. They had horses in abundance, descended from Spanish stock. Among
+them appear to have been the Ouacos, or Huecos, and the Wichitas,--two
+tribes better known as the Pawnee Picts. See Marcy, _Exploration of Red
+River_.
+
+[374] Compare the account of La Harpe with that of the Chevalier de
+Beaurain; both are in Margry, vi. There is an abstract in _Journal
+historique_.
+
+[375] _Relation de Bénard de la Harpe._ _Autre Relation du même._ _Du
+Tisné à Bienville._ Margry, vi. 309, 310, 313.
+
+[376] _Bienville au Conseil de Régence, 20 Juillet, 1721._
+
+[377] _Instructions au Sieur de Bourgmont, 17 Janvier, 1722._ Margry,
+vi. 389.
+
+[378] The French had at this time gained a knowledge of the tribes of
+the Missouri as far up as the Arickaras, who were not, it seems, many
+days' journey below the Yellowstone, and who told them of "prodigiously
+high mountains,"--evidently the Rocky Mountains. _Mémoire de la
+Renaudière_, 1723.
+
+[379] This meeting took place a little north of the Arkansas, apparently
+where that river makes a northward bend, near the twenty-second degree
+of west longitude. The Comanche villages were several days' journey to
+the southwest. This tribe is always mentioned in the early French
+narratives as the Padoucas,--a name by which the Comanches are
+occasionally known to this day. See Whipple and Turner, _Reports upon
+Indian Tribes_, in _Explorations and Surveys for the Pacific Railroad_
+(Senate Doc., 1853, 1854).
+
+[380] _Relation du Voyage du Sieur de Bourgmont, Juin-Novembre, 1724_,
+in Margry, vi. 398. Le Page du Pratz, iii. 141.
+
+[381] _Journal du Voyage des Frères Mallet, présenté à MM. de Bienville
+et Salmon._ This narrative is meagre and confused, but serves to
+establish the main points. _Copie du Certificat donné à Santa Fé aux
+sept _[huit]_ Français par le Général Hurtado, 24 Juillet, 1739._ _Père
+Rébald au Père de Beaubois, sans date._ _Bienville et Salmon au
+Ministre, 30 Avril, 1741_, in Margry, vi. 455-468.
+
+[382] _Instructions données par Jean-Baptiste de Bienville à Fabry de la
+Bruyère, 1 Juin, 1741._ Bienville was behind his time in geographical
+knowledge. As early as 1724 Bénard de la Harpe knew that in ascending
+the Missouri or the Arkansas one was moving towards the "Western
+Sea,"--that is, the Pacific,--and might, perhaps, find some river
+flowing into it. See _Routes qu'on peut tenir pour se rendre à la Mer de
+l'Ouest_, in _Journal historique_, 387.
+
+[383] _Extrait des Lettres du Sieur Fabry._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of France and England in North America, Part VII: A Half-Century of Conflict, Vol 1 by Francis Parkman
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