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-Project Gutenberg Pioneers Of France In The New World, by Parkman
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-Title: Pioneers Of France In The New World
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-Author:  Francis Parkman, Jr.
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-
-
-PIONEERS OF FRANCE IN THE NEW WORLD
-
-By Francis Parkman
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTION.
-
-
-The springs of American civilization, unlike those of the elder world,
-lie revealed in the clear light of History. In appearance they are
-feeble; in reality, copious and full of force. Acting at the sources of
-life, instruments otherwise weak become mighty for good and evil, and
-men, lost elsewhere in the crowd, stand forth as agents of Destiny. In
-their toils, their sufferings, their conflicts, momentous questions were
-at stake, and issues vital to the future world,--the prevalence of
-races, the triumph of principles, health or disease, a blessing or a
-curse. On the obscure strife where men died by tens or by scores hung
-questions of as deep import for posterity as on those mighty contests of
-national adolescence where carnage is reckoned by thousands.
-
-The subject to which the proposed series will be devoted is that of
-"France in the New World,"--the attempt of Feudalism, Monarchy, and
-Rome to master a continent where, at this hour, half a million of
-bayonets are vindicating the ascendency of a regulated freedom;--
-Feudalism still strong in life, though enveloped and overborne by
-new-born Centralization; Monarchy in the flush of triumphant power;
-Rome, nerved by disaster, springing with renewed vitality from ashes and
-corruption, and ranging the earth to reconquer abroad what she had lost
-at home. These banded powers, pushing into the wilderness their
-indomitable soldiers and devoted priests, unveiled the secrets of the
-barbarous continent, pierced the forests, traced and mapped out the
-streams, planted their emblems, built their forts, and claimed all as
-their own. New France was all head. Under king, noble, and Jesuit, the
-lank, lean body would not thrive. Even commerce wore the sword, decked
-itself with badges of nobility, aspired to forest seigniories and hordes
-of savage retainers.
-
-Along the borders of the sea an adverse power was strengthening and
-widening, with slow but steadfast growth, full of blood and muscle,--a
-body without a head. Each had its strength, each its weakness, each its
-own modes of vigorous life: but the one was fruitful, the other barren;
-the one instinct with hope, the other darkening with shadows of despair.
-
-By name, local position, and character, one of these communities of
-freemen stands forth as the most conspicuous representative of this
-antagonism,--Liberty and Absolutism, New England and New France. The
-one was the offspring of a triumphant government; the other, of an
-oppressed and fugitive people: the one, an unflinching champion of the
-Roman Catholic reaction; the other, a vanguard of the Reform. Each
-followed its natural laws of growth, and each came to its natural
-result. Vitalized by the principles of its foundation, the Puritan
-commonwealth grew apace. New England was preeminently the land of
-material progress. Here the prize was within every man's reach: patient
-industry need never doubt its reward; nay, in defiance of the four
-Gospels, assiduity in pursuit of gain was promoted to the rank of a
-duty, and thrift and godliness were linked in equivocal wedlock.
-Politically she was free; socially she suffered from that subtle and
-searching oppression which the dominant opinion of a free community may
-exercise over the members who compose it. As a whole, she grew upon the
-gaze of the world, a signal example of expansive energy; but she has not
-been fruitful in those salient and striking forms of character which
-often give a dramatic life to the annals of nations far less prosperous.
-
-We turn to New France, and all is reversed. Here was a bold attempt to
-crush under the exactions of a grasping hierarchy, to stifle under the
-curbs and trappings of a feudal monarchy, a people compassed by
-influences of the wildest freedom,--whose schools were the forest and
-the sea, whose trade was an armed barter with savages, and whose daily
-life a lesson of lawless independence. But this fierce spirit had its
-vent. The story of New France is from the first a story of war: of war
---for so her founders believed--with the adversary of mankind
-himself; war with savage tribes and potent forest commonwealths; war
-with the encroaching powers of Heresy and of England. Her brave,
-unthinking people were stamped with the soldier's virtues and the
-soldier's faults; and in their leaders were displayed, on a grand and
-novel stage, the energies, aspirations, and passions which belong to
-hopes vast and vague, ill-restricted powers, and stations of command.
-
-The growth of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a
-busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather
-competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achievement of
-a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain
-attempt. Long and valiantly her chiefs upheld their cause, leading to
-battle a vassal population, warlike as themselves. Borne down by numbers
-from without, wasted by corruption from within, New France fell at last;
-and out of her fall grew revolutions whose influence to this hour is
-felt through every nation of the civilized world.
-
-The French dominion is a memory of the past; and when we evoke its
-departed shades, they rise upon us from their graves in strange,
-romantic guise. Again their ghostly camp-fires seem to burn, and the
-fitful light is cast around on lord and vassal and black-robed priest,
-mingled with wild forms of savage warriors, knit in close fellowship on
-the same stern errand. A boundless vision grows upon us; an untamed
-continent; vast wastes of forest verdure; mountains silent in primeval
-sleep; river, lake, and glimmering pool; wilderness oceans mingling with
-the sky. Such was the domain which France conquered for Civilization.
-Plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its forests, priestly vestments
-in its dens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism. Men steeped in antique
-learning, pale with the close breath of the cloister, here spent the
-noon and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild,
-parental sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes of death. Men
-of courtly nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry,
-here, with their dauntless hardihood, put to shame the boldest sons of
-toil.
-
-This memorable but half-forgotten chapter in the book of human life can
-be rightly read only by lights numerous and widely scattered. The
-earlier period of New France was prolific in a class of publications
-which are often of much historic value, but of which many are
-exceedingly rare. The writer, however, has at length gained access to
-them all. Of the unpublished records of the colonies, the archives of
-France are of course the grand deposit; but many documents of important
-bearing on the subject are to be found scattered in public and private
-libraries, chiefly in France and Canada. The task of collection has
-proved abundantly irksome and laborious. It has, however, been greatly
-lightened by the action of the governments of New York, Massachusetts,
-and Canada, in collecting from Europe copies of documents having more or
-less relation to their own history. It has been greatly lightened, too,
-by a most kind co-operation, for which the writer owes obligations too
-many for recognition at present, but of which he trusts to make fitting
-acknowledgment hereafter. Yet he cannot forbear to mention the name of
-Mr. John Gilmary Shea of New York, to whose labors this department of
-American history has been so deeply indebted, and that of the Hon. Henry
-Black of Quebec. Nor can he refrain from expressing his obligation to
-the skilful and friendly criticism of Mr. Charles Folsom.
-
-In this, and still more must it be the case in succeeding volumes, the
-amount of reading applied to their composition is far greater than the
-citations represent, much of it being of a collateral and illustrative
-nature. This was essential to a plan whose aim it was, while
-scrupulously and rigorously adhering to the truth of facts, to animate
-them with the life of the past, and, so far as might be, clothe the
-skeleton with flesh. If, at times, it may seem that range has been
-allowed to fancy, it is so in appearance only; since the minutest
-details of narrative or description rest on authentic documents or on
-personal observation.
-
-Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research,
-however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be
-detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as
-a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue
-himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in
-their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of
-those who took part in them, he must himself be, as it were, a sharer or
-a spectator of the action he describes.
-
-With respect to that special research which, if inadequate, is still in
-the most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been the writer's aim to
-exhaust the existing material of every subject treated. While it would
-be folly to claim success in such an attempt, he has reason to hope
-that, so far at least as relates to the present volume, nothing of much
-importance has escaped him. With respect to the general preparation just
-alluded to, he has long been too fond of his theme to neglect any means
-within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true.
-
-To those who have aided him with information and documents, the extreme
-slowness in the progress of the work will naturally have caused
-surprise. This slowness was unavoidable. During the past eighteen years,
-the state of his health has exacted throughout an extreme caution in
-regard to mental application, reducing it at best within narrow and
-precarious limits, and often precluding it. Indeed, for two periods,
-each of several years, any attempt at bookish occupation would have been
-merely suicidal. A condition of sight arising from kindred sources has
-also retarded the work, since it has never permitted reading or writing
-continuously for much more than five minutes, and often has not
-permitted them at all. A previous work, "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," was
-written in similar circumstances.
-
-The writer means, if possible, to carry the present design to its
-completion. Such a completion, however, will by no means be essential as
-regards the individual volumes of the series, since each will form a
-separate and independent work. The present work, it will be seen,
-contains two distinct and completed narratives. Some progress has been
-made in others.
-
-Boston. January 1,1865.
-
-
-
-
-Part One
-
-
-HUGOENOTS IN FLORIDA
-
-
-
-
-PREFATORY NOTE TO THE
-
-HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA.
-
-The story of New France opens with a tragedy. The political and
-religious enmities which were soon to bathe Europe in blood broke out
-with an intense and concentrated fury in the distant wilds of Florida.
-It was under equivocal auspices that Coligny and his partisans essayed
-to build up a Calvinist France in America, and the attempt was met by
-all the forces of national rivalry, personal interest, and religious
-hate.
-
-This striking passage of our early history is remarkable for the
-fullness and precision of the authorities that illustrate it. The
-incidents of the Huguenot occupation of Florida are recorded by eight
-eye-witnesses. Their evidence is marked by an unusual accord in respect
-to essential facts, as well as by a minuteness of statement which
-vividly pictures the events described. The following are the principal
-authorities consulted for the main body of the narrative.
-
-Ribauld, 'The Whole and True Discovery of Terra Florida,' This is
-Captain Jean Ribaut's account of his voyage to Florida in 1562. It was
-"prynted at London," "newly set forthe in Englishe," in 1563, and
-reprinted by Hakluyt in 1582 in his black-letter tract entitled 'Divers
-Voyages.' It is not known to exist in the original French.
-
-'L'Histoire Notable de la Floride, mise en lumiere par M. Basanier'
-(Paris, 1586). The most valuable portion of this work consists of the
-letters of Rene de Laudonniere, the French commandant in Florida in
-1564-65. They are interesting, and, with necessary allowance for the
-position and prejudices of the writer, trustworthy.
-
-Challeux, Discours de l'Histoire de la Floride (Dieppe, 1566). Challeux
-was a carpenter, who went to Florida in 1565. He was above sixty years
-of age, a zealous Huguenot, and a philosopher in his way. His story is
-affecting from its simplicity. Various editions of it appeared under
-various titles.
-
-Le Moyne, Brevis Narratio eorum qucs in Florida Americce Provincia
-Gallis acciderunt. Le Moyne was Laudonniere's artist. His narrative
-forms the Second Part of the Grands Voyages of De Bry (Frankfort, 1591).
-It is illustrated by numerous drawings made by the writer from memory,
-and accompanied with descriptive letter-press.
-
-Coppie d'une Lettre venant de la Floride (Paris, 1565). This is a letter
-from one of the adventurers under Laudonniere. It is reprinted in the
-Recueil de Pieces sur la Floride of Ternaux.-Compans. Ternaux also
-prints in the same volume a narrative called Histoire memorable du
-dernier Voyage faict par le Capitaine Jean Ribaut. It is of no original
-value, being compiled from Laudonniere and Challeux.
-
-Une Bequete au Roy, faite en forme de Complainte (1566). This is a
-petition for redress to Charles the Ninth from the relatives of the
-French massacred in Florida by the Spaniards. It recounts many incidents
-of that tragedy.
-
-La Reprinse de la Floride par le Cappitaine Gourgue. This is a
-manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale, printed in the Recueil of
-Ternaux-Compans. It contains a detailed account of the remarkable
-expedition of Dominique de Gourgues against the Spaniards in Florida in
-1567-68.
-
-Charlevoix, in his Histoire de la Nouvelle France, speaks of another
-narrative of this expedition in manuscript, preserved in the Gourgues
-family. A copy of it, made in 1831 by the Vicomte de Gourgues, has been
-placed at the writer's disposal.
-
-Popeliniere, De Thou, Wytfleit, D'Aubigne De Laet, Brantome, Lescarbot,
-Champlain, and other writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
-have told or touched upon the story of the Huguenots in Florida; but
-they all draw their information from one or more of the sources named
-above.
-
-Lettres et Papiers d' Estat du Sieur de Forguevaulx (Bibliotheque
-Nationale). These include the correspondence of the French and Spanish
-courts concerning the massacre of the Huguenots. They are printed by
-Gaffarel in his Histoire de le Floride Francaise.
-
-The Spanish authorities are the following--Barcia (Cardenas y Cano),
-Ensayo Cronologico para la Historia General de la Florida (Madrid,
-1723). This annalist had access to original documents of great interest.
-Some of them are used as material for his narrative, others are copied
-entire. Of these, the most remarkable is that of Solis de las Meras,
-Memorial de todas las Jornadas de la Conquista de la Florida.
-
-Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, Relacion de la Jornada de Pedro
-Menendez de Aviles en la Florida (Documentos Ineditos del Archivo de
-Indias, III. 441). A French translation of this journal will be found in
-the Recueil de Pieces sur let Floride of Ternaux-Compans. Mendoza was
-chaplain of the expedition commanded by Menendez de Aviles, and, like
-Solfs, he was an eye-witness of the events which he relates.
-
-Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Siete Cartas escritas al Rey, Anos de 1565 y
-1566, MSS. These are the despatches of the Adelantado Menendez to Philip
-the Second. They were procured for the writer, together with other
-documents, from the archives of Seville, and their contents are now for
-the first time made public. They consist of seventy-two closely written
-foolscap pages, and are of the highest interest and value as regards the
-present subject, confirming and amplifying the statements of Solis and
-Mendoza, and giving new and curious information with respect to the
-designs of Spain upon the continent of North America.
-
-It is unnecessary to specify the authorities for the introductory and
-subordinate portions of the narrative.
-
-The writer is indebted to Mr. Buckingham Smith, for procuring copies of
-documents from the archives of Spain; to Mr. Bancroft, the historian of
-the United States, for the use of the Vicomte de Gourgues's copy of the
-journal describing the expedition of his ancestor against the Spaniards;
-and to Mr. Charles Russell Lowell, of the Boston Athenaeum, and Mr. John
-Langdon Sibley, Librarian of Harvard College, for obliging aid in
-consulting books and papers.
-
-
-
-
-
-HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA.
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-1512-1561.
-
-EARLY SPANISH ADVENTURE.
-
-Towards the close of the fifteenth century, Spain achieved her final
-triumph over the infidels of Granada, and made her name glorious through
-all generations by the discovery of America. The religious zeal and
-romantic daring which a long course of Moorish wars had called forth
-were now exalted to redoubled fervor. Every ship from the New World came
-freighted with marvels which put the fictions of chivalry to shame; and
-to the Spaniard of that day America was a region of wonder and mystery,
-of vague and magnificent promise. Thither adventurers hastened,
-thirsting for glory and for gold, and often mingling the enthusiasm of
-the crusader and the valor of the knight-errant with the bigotry of
-inquisitors and the rapacity of pirates. They roamed over land and sea;
-they climbed unknown mountains, surveyed unknown oceans, pierced the
-sultry intricacies of tropical forests; while from year to year and from
-day to day new wonders were unfolded, new islands and archipelagoes, new
-regions of gold and pearl, and barbaric empires of more than Oriental
-wealth. The extravagance of hope and the fever of adventure knew no
-bounds. Nor is it surprising that amid such waking marvels the
-imagination should run wild in romantic dreams; that between the
-possible and the impossible the line of distinction should be but
-faintly drawn, and that men should be found ready to stake life and
-honor in pursuit of the most insane fantasies.
-
-Such a man was the veteran cavalier Juan Ponce de Leon. Greedy of honors
-and of riches, he embarked at Porto Rico with three brigantines, bent on
-schemes of discovery. But that which gave the chief stimulus to his
-enterprise was a story, current among the Indians of Cuba and
-Hispaniola, that on the island of Bimini, said to be one of the Bahamas,
-there was a fountain of such virtue, that, bathing in its waters, old
-men resumed their youth.[FN#1] It was said, moreover, that on a
-neighboring shore might be found a river gifted with the same beneficent
-property, and believed by some to be no other than the Jordan.[FN#2]
-Ponce de Leon found the island of Bimini, but not the fountain. Farther
-westward, in the latitude of thirty degrees and eight minutes, he
-approached an unknown land, which he named Florida, and, steering
-southward, explored its coast as far as the extreme point of the
-peninsula, when, after some farther explorations, he retraced his course
-to Porto Rico.
-
-Ponce de Leon had not regained his youth, but his active spirit was
-unsubdued.
-
-Nine years later he attempted to plant a colony in Florida; the Indians
-attacked him fiercely; he was mortally wounded, and died soon afterwards
-in Cuba. [FN#3]
-
-The voyages of Garay and Vasquez de Ayllon threw new light on the
-discoveries of Ponce, and the general outline of the coasts of Florida
-became known to the Spaniards.[FN#4] Meanwhile, Cortes had conquered
-Mexico, and the fame of that iniquitous but magnificent exploit rang
-through all Spain. Many an impatient cavalier burned to achieve a
-kindred fortune. To the excited fancy of the Spaniards the unknown land
-of Florida seemed the seat of surpassing wealth, and Pamphilo de Narvaez
-essayed to possess himself of its fancied treasures. Landing on its
-shores, and proclaiming destruction to the Indians unless they
-acknowledged the sovereignty of the Pope and the Emperor, he advanced
-into the forests with three hundred men. Nothing could exceed their
-sufferings. Nowhere could they find the gold they came to seek. The
-village of Appalache, where they hoped to gain a rich booty, offered
-nothing but a few mean wigwams. The horses gave out, and the famished
-soldiers fed upon their flesh. The men sickened, and the Indians
-unceasingly harassed their march. At length, after two hundred and
-eighty leagues [FN#5] of wandering, they found themselves on the
-northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico, and desperately put to sea in such
-crazy boats as their skill and means could construct. Cold, disease,
-famine, thirst, and the fury of the waves, melted them away. Narvaez
-himself perished, and of his wretched followers no more than four
-escaped, reaching by land, after years of vicissitude, the Christian
-settlements of New Spain. [FN#6]
-
-The interior of the vast country then comprehended under the name of
-Florida still remained unexplored. The Spanish voyager, as his caravel
-ploughed the adjacent seas, might give full scope to his imagination,
-and dream that beyond the long, low margin of forest which bounded his
-horizon lay hid a rich harvest for some future conqueror; perhaps a
-second Mexico with its royal palace and sacred pyramids, or another
-Cuzco with its temple of the Sun, encircled with a frieze of gold.
-Haunted by such visions, the ocean chivalry of Spain could not long
-stand idle.
-
-Hernando de Soto was the companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru.
-He had come to America a needy adventurer, with no other fortune than
-his sword and target. But his exploits had given him fame and fortune,
-and he appeared at court with the retinue of a nobleman.[FN#7] Still,
-his active energies could not endure repose, and his avarice and
-ambition goaded him to fresh enterprises. He asked and obtained
-permission to conquer Florida. While this design was in agitation,
-Cabeca de Vaca, one of those who had survived the expedition of Narvaez,
-appeared in Spain, and for purposes of his own spread abroad the
-mischievous falsehood, that Florida was the richest country yet
-discovered. De Soto's plans were embraced with enthusiasm. Nobles and
-gentlemen contended for the privilege of joining his standard; and,
-setting sail with an ample armament, he landed at the bay of Espiritu
-Santo, now Tampa Bay, in Florida, with six hundred and twenty chosen
-men, a band as gallant and well appointed, as eager in purpose and
-audacious in hope, as ever trod the shores of the New World. The clangor
-of trumpets, the neighing of horses, the fluttering of pennons, the
-glittering of helmet and lance, startled the ancient forest with
-unwonted greeting. Amid this pomp of chivalry, religion was not
-forgotten. The sacred vessels and vestments with bread and wine for the
-Eucharist were carefully provided; and De Soto himself declared that the
-enterprise was undertaken for God alone, and seemed to be the object of
-His especial care. These devout marauders could not neglect the
-spiritual welfare of the Indians whom they had come to plunder; and
-besides fetters to bind, and bloodhounds to hunt them, they brought
-priests and monks for the saving of their souls.
-
-The adventurers began their march. Their story has been often told. For
-month after month and year after year, the procession of priests and
-cavaliers, crossbowmen, arquebusiers, and Indian captives laden with the
-baggage, still wandered on through wild and boundless wastes, lured
-hither and thither by the ignis fatuus of their hopes. They traversed
-great portions of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, everywhere
-inflicting and enduring misery, but never approaching their phantom El
-Dorado. At length, in the third year of their journeying, they reached
-the banks of the Mississippi, a hundred and thirty-two years before its
-second discovery by Marquette. One of their number describes the great
-river as almost half a league wide, deep, rapid, and constantly rolling
-down trees and drift-wood on its turbid current.
-
-The Spaniards crossed over at a point above the mouth of the Arkansas.
-They advanced westward, but found no treasures,--nothing indeed but
-hardships, and an Indian enemy, furious, writes one of their officers,
-"as mad dogs." They heard of a country towards the north where maize
-could not be cultivated because the vast herds of wild cattle devoured
-it. They penetrated so far that they entered the range of the roving
-prairie tribes; for, one day, as they pushed their way with difficulty
-across great plains covered with tall, rank grass, they met a band of
-savages who dwelt in lodges of skins sewed together, subsisting on game
-alone, and wandering perpetually from place to place. Finding neither
-gold nor the South Sea, for both of which they had hoped, they returned
-to the banks of the Mississippi.
-
-De Soto, says one of those who accompanied him, was a "stern man, and of
-few words." Even in the midst of reverses, his will had been law to his
-followers, and he had sustained himself through the depths of
-disappointment with the energy of a stubborn pride. But his hour was
-come. He fell into deep dejection, followed by an attack of fever, and
-soon after died miserably. To preserve his body from the Indians, his
-followers sank it at midnight in the river, and the sullen waters of the
-Mississippi buried his ambition and his hopes.
-
-The adventurers were now, with few exceptions, disgusted with the
-enterprise, and longed only to escape from the scene of their miseries.
-After a vain attempt to reach Mexico by land, they again turned back to
-the Mississippi, and labored, with all the resources which their
-desperate necessity could suggest, to construct vessels in which they
-might make their way to some Christian settlement. Their condition was
-most forlorn. Few of their horses remained alive; their baggage had been
-destroyed at the burning of the Indian town of Mavila, and many of the
-soldiers were without armor and without weapons. In place of the gallant
-array which, more than three years before, had left the harbor of
-Espiritu Santo, a company of sickly and starving men were laboring among
-the swampy forests of the Mississippi, some clad in skins, and some in
-mats woven from a kind of wild vine.
-
-Seven brigantines were finished and launched; and, trusting their lives
-on board these frail vessels, they descended the Mississippi, running
-the gantlet between hostile tribes, who fiercely attacked them. Reaching
-the Gulf, though not without the loss of eleven of their number, they
-made sail for the Spanish settlement on the river Panuco, where they
-arrived safely, and where the inhabitants met them with a cordial
-welcome. Three hundred and eleven men thus escaped with life, leaving
-behind them the bones of their comrades strewn broadcast through the
-wilderness. [FN#7]
-
-De Soto's fate proved an insufficient warning, for those were still
-found who begged a fresh commission for the conquest of Florida; but the
-Emperor would not hear them. A more pacific enterprise was undertaken by
-Cancello, a Dominican monk, who with several brother ecclesiastics
-undertook to convert the natives to the true faith, but was murdered in
-the attempt. Nine years later, a plan was formed for the colonization of
-Florida, and Guido de las Bazares sailed to explore the coasts, and find
-a spot suitable for the establishment.[FN#8] After his return, a
-squadron, commanded by Angel de Villafane, and freighted with supplies
-and men, put to sea from San Juan d'Ulloa; but the elements were
-adverse, and the result was a total failure. Not a Spaniard had yet
-gained foothold in Florida.
-
-That name, as the Spaniards of that day understood it, comprehended the
-whole country extending from the Atlantic on the east to the longitude
-of New Mexico on the west, and from the Gulf of Mexico and the River of
-Palms indefinitely northward towards the polar sea. This vast territory
-was claimed by Spain in right of the discoveries of Columbus, the grant
-of the Pope, and the various expeditions mentioned above. England
-claimed it in right of the discoveries of Cabot; while France could
-advance no better title than might be derived from the voyage of
-Verazzano and vague traditions of earlier visits of Breton adventurers.
-
-With restless jealousy Spain watched the domain which she could not
-occupy, and on France especially she kept an eye of deep distrust. When,
-in 1541, Cartier and Roberval essayed to plant a colony in the part of
-ancient Spanish Florida now called Canada, she sent spies and fitted out
-caravels to watch that abortive enterprise. Her fears proved just.
-Canada, indeed, was long to remain a solitude; but, despite the Papal
-bounty gifting Spain with exclusive ownership of a hemisphere, France
-and Heresy at length took root in the sultry forests of modern Florida.
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-1550-1558.
-
-VILLEGAGNON.
-
-In the middle of the sixteenth century, Spain was the incubus of Europe.
-Gloomy and portentous, she chilled the world with her baneful shadow.
-Her old feudal liberties were gone, absorbed in the despotism of Madrid.
-A tyranny of monks and inquisitors, with their swarms of spies and
-informers, their racks, their dungeons, and their fagots, crushed all
-freedom of thought or speech; and, while the Dominican held his reign of
-terror and force, the deeper Jesuit guided the mind from infancy into
-those narrow depths of bigotry from which it was never to escape.
-Commercial despotism was joined to political and religious despotism.
-The hands of the government were on every branch of industry. Perverse
-regulations, uncertain and ruinous taxes, monopolies, encouragements,
-prohibitions, restrictions, cramped the national energy. Mistress of the
-Indies, Spain swarmed with beggars. Yet, verging to decay, she had an
-ominous and appalling strength. Her condition was that of an athletic
-man penetrated with disease, which had not yet unstrung the thews and
-sinews formed in his days of vigor. Philip the Second could command the
-service of warriors and statesmen developed in the years that were past.
-The gathered energies of ruined feudalism were wielded by a single hand.
-The mysterious King, in his den in the Escorial, dreary and silent, and
-bent like a scribe over his papers, was the type and the champion of
-arbitrary power. More than the Pope himself, he was the head of
-Catholicity. In doctrine and in deed, the inexorable bigotry of Madrid
-was ever in advance of Rome.
-
-Not so with France. She was full of life,--a discordant and struggling
-vitality. Her monks and priests, unlike those of Spain, were rarely
-either fanatics or bigots; yet not the less did they ply the rack and
-the fagot, and howl for heretic blood. Their all was at stake: their
-vast power, their bloated wealth, were wrapped up in the ancient faith.
-Men were burned, and women buried alive. All was in vain. To the utmost
-bounds of France, the leaven of the Reform was working. The Huguenots,
-fugitives from torture and death, found an asylum at Geneva, their city
-of refuge, gathering around Calvin, their great high-priest. Thence
-intrepid colporteurs, their lives in their hands, bore the Bible and the
-psalm-book to city, hamlet, and castle, to feed the rising flame. The
-scattered churches, pressed by a common danger, began to organize. An
-ecclesiastical republic spread its ramifications through France, and
-grew underground to a vigorous life,--pacific at the outset, for the
-great body of its members were the quiet bourgeoisie, by habit, as by
-faith, averse to violence. Yet a potent fraction of the warlike noblesse
-were also of the new faith; and above them all, preeminent in character
-as in station, stood Gaspar de Coligny, Admiral of France.
-
-The old palace of the Louvre, reared by the "Roi Chevalier" on the site
-of those dreary feudal towers which of old had guarded the banks of the
-Seine, held within its sculptured masonry the worthless brood of Valois.
-Corruption and intrigue ran riot at the court. Factious nobles, bishops,
-and cardinals, with no God but pleasure and ambition, contended around
-the throne or the sick-bed of the futile King. Catherine de Medicis,
-with her stately form, her mean spirit, her bad heart, and her
-fathomless depths of duplicity, strove by every subtle art to hold the
-balance of power among them. The bold, pitiless, insatiable Guise, and
-his brother the Cardinal of Lorraine, the incarnation of falsehood,
-rested their ambition on the Catholic party. Their army was a legion of
-priests, and the black swarms of countless monasteries, who by the
-distribution of alms held in pay the rabble of cities and starving
-peasants on the lands of impoverished nobles. Montmorency, Conde, and
-Navarre leaned towards the Reform,--doubtful and inconstant chiefs,
-whose faith weighed light against their interests. Yet, amid
-vacillation, selfishness, weakness, treachery, one great man was like a
-tower of trust, and this was Gaspar de Coligny.
-
-Firm in his convictions, steeled by perils and endurance, calm,
-sagacious, resolute, grave even to severity, a valiant and redoubted
-soldier, Coligny looked abroad on the gathering storm and read its
-danger in advance. He saw a strange depravity of manners; bribery and
-violence overriding justice; discontented nobles, and peasants ground
-down with taxes. In the midst of this rottenness, the Calvinistic
-churches, patient and stern, were fast gathering to themselves the
-better life of the nation. Among and around them tossed the surges of
-clerical hate. Luxurious priests and libertine monks saw their disorders
-rebuked by the grave virtues of the Protestant zealots. Their broad
-lands, their rich endowments, their vessels of silver and of gold, their
-dominion over souls,--in itself a revenue,--were all imperiled by
-the growing heresy. Nor was the Reform less exacting, less intolerant,
-or, when its hour came, less aggressive than the ancient faith. The
-storm was thickening, and it must burst soon.
-
-When the Emperor Charles the Fifth beleaguered Algiers, his camps were
-deluged by a blinding tempest, and at its height the infidels made a
-furious sally. A hundred Knights of Malta, on foot, wearing over their
-armor surcoats of crimson blazoned with the white cross, bore the brunt
-of the assault. Conspicuous among them was Nicolas Durand de
-Villegagnon. A Moorish cavalier, rushing upon him, pierced his arm with
-a lance, and wheeled to repeat the blow; but the knight leaped on the
-infidel, stabbed him with his dagger, flung him from his horse, and
-mounted in his place. Again, a Moslem host landed in Malta and beset the
-Cite Notable. The garrison was weak, disheartened, and without a leader.
-Villegagnon with six followers, all friends of his own, passed under
-cover of night through the infidel leaguer, climbed the walls by ropes
-lowered from above, took command, repaired the shattered towers, aiding
-with his own hands in the work, and animated the garrison to a
-resistance so stubborn that the besiegers lost heart and betook
-themselves to their galleys. No less was he an able and accomplished
-mariner, prominent among that chivalry of the sea who held the perilous
-verge of Christendom against the Mussuhuan. He claimed other laurels
-than those of the sword. He was a scholar, a linguist, a
-controversialist, potent with the tongue and with the pen, commanding in
-presence, eloquent and persuasive in discourse. Yet this Crichton of
-France had proved himself an associate nowise desirable. His sleepless
-intellect was matched with a spirit as restless, vain, unstable, and
-ambitious, as it was enterprising and bold. Addicted to dissent, and
-enamoured of polemics, he entered those forbidden fields of inquiry and
-controversy to which the Reform invited him. Undaunted by his monastic
-vows, he battled for heresy with tongue and pen, and in the ear of
-Protestants professed himself a Protestant. As a Commander of his Order,
-he quarreled with the Grand Master, a domineering Spaniard; and, as
-Vice-Admiral of Brittany, he was deep in a feud with the Governor of
-Brest. Disgusted at home, his fancy crossed the seas. He aspired to
-build for France and himself an empire amid the tropical splendors of
-Brazil. Few could match him in the gift of persuasion; and the intrepid
-seamen whose skill and valor had run the gantlet of the English fleet,
-and borne Mary Stuart of Scotland in safety to her espousals with the
-Dauphin, might well be intrusted with a charge of moment so far
-inferior. Henry the Second was still on the throne. The lance of
-Montgomery had not yet rid France of that infliction. To win a share in
-the rich domain of the New World, of which Portuguese and Spanish
-arrogance claimed the monopoly, was the end held by Villegagnon before
-the eyes of the King. Of the Huguenots, he said not a word. For Coligny
-he had another language. He spoke of an asylum for persecuted religion,
-a Geneva in the wilderness, far from priests and monks and Francis of
-Guise. The Admiral gave him a ready ear; if, indeed, he himself had not
-first conceived the plan. Yet to the King, an active burner of
-Huguenots, Coligny too urged it as an enterprise, not for the Faith, but
-for France. In secret, Geneva was made privy to it, and Calvin himself
-embraced it with zeal. The enterprise, in fact, had a double character,
-political as well as religious. It was the reply of France, the most
-emphatic she had yet made, to the Papal bull which gave all the western
-hemisphere to Portugal and Spain; and, as if to point her answer, she
-sent, not Frenchmen only, but Protestant Frenchmen, to plant the
-fleur-de-lis on the shores of the New World.
-
-Two vessels were made ready, in the name of the King. The body of the
-emigration was Huguenot, mingled with young nobles, restless, idle, and
-poor, with reckless artisans, and piratical sailors from the Norman and
-Breton seaports. They put to sea from Havre on the twelfth of July,
-1555, and early in November saw the shores of Brazil. Entering the
-harbor of Rio Janeiro, then called Ganabara, Villegagnon landed men and
-stores on an island, built huts, and threw up earthworks. In
-anticipation of future triumphs, the whole continent, by a strange
-perversion of language, was called Antarctic France, while the fort
-received the name of Coligny.
-
-Villegagnon signalized his new-born Protestantism by an intolerable
-solicitude for the manners and morals of his followers. The whip and the
-pillory requited the least offence. The wild and discordant crew,
-starved and flogged for a season into submission, conspired at length to
-rid themselves of him; but while they debated whether to poison him,
-blow him up, or murder him and his officers in their sleep, three Scotch
-soldiers, probably Calvinists, revealed the plot, and the vigorous hand
-of the commandant crushed it in the bud.
-
-But how was the colony to subsist? Their island was too small for
-culture, while the mainland was infested with hostile tribes, and
-threatened by the Portuguese, who regarded the French occupancy as a
-violation of their domain.
-
-Meanwhile, in France, Huguenot influence, aided by ardent letters sent
-home by Villegagnon in the returning ships, was urging on the work. Nor
-were the Catholic chiefs averse to an enterprise which, by colonizing
-heresy, might tend to relieve France of its presence. Another
-embarkation was prepared, in the name of Henry the Second, under
-Bois-Lecomte, a nephew of Villegagnon. Most of the emigrants were
-Huguenots. Geneva sent a large deputation, and among them several
-ministers, full of zeal for their land of promise and their new church
-in the wilderness. There were five young women, also, with a matron to
-watch over them. Soldiers, emigrants, and sailors, two hundred and
-ninety in all, were embarked in three vessels; and, to the sound of
-cannon, drums, fifes, and trumpets, they unfurled their sails at
-Honfleur. They were no sooner on the high seas than the piratical
-character of the Norman sailors, in no way exceptional at that day,
-began to declare itself. They hailed every vessel weaker than
-themselves, pretended to be short of provisions, and demanded leave to
-buy them; then, boarding the stranger, plundered her from stem to stern.
-After a passage of four months, on the ninth of March, 1557, they
-entered the port of Ganabara, and saw the fleur-de-lis floating above
-the walls of Fort Coligny. Amid salutes of cannon, the boats, crowded
-with sea-worn emigrants, moved towards the landing. It was an edifying
-scene when Villegagnon, in the picturesque attire which marked the
-warlike nobles of the period, came down to the shore to greet the sombre
-ministers of Calvin. With hands uplifted and eyes raised to heaven, he
-bade them welcome to the new asylum of the faithful; then launched into
-a long harangue full of zeal and unction. His discourse finished, he led
-the way to the dining-hall. If the redundancy of spiritual aliment had
-surpassed their expectations, the ministers were little prepared for the
-meagre provision which awaited their temporal cravings; for, with
-appetites whetted by the sea, they found themselves seated at a board
-whereof, as one of them complains the choicest dish was a dried fish,
-and the only beverage rain-water. They found their consolation in the
-inward graces of the commandant, whom they likened to the Apostle Paul.
-
-For a time all was ardor and hope. Men of birth and station, and the
-ministers themselves, labored with pick and shovel to finish the fort.
-Every day exhortations, sermons, prayers, followed in close succession,
-and Villegagnon was always present, kneeling on a velvet cushion brought
-after him by a page. Soon, however, he fell into sharp controversy with
-the ministers upon points of faith. Among the emigrants was a student of
-the Sorbonne, one Cointac, between whom and the ministers arose a fierce
-and unintermitted war of words. Is it lawful to mix water with the wine
-of the Eucharist? May the sacramental bread be made of meal of Indian
-corn? These and similar points of dispute filled the fort with
-wranglings, begetting cliques, factions, and feuds without number.
-Villegagnon took part with the student, and between them they devised a
-new doctrine, abhorrent alike to Geneva and to Rome. The advent of this
-nondescript heresy was the signal of redoubled strife. The dogmatic
-stiffness of the Geneva ministers chafed Villegagnon to fury. He felt
-himself, too, in a false position. On one side he depended on the
-Protestant, Coligny; on the other, he feared the Court. There were
-Catholics in the colony who might report him as an open heretic. On this
-point his doubts were set at rest; for a ship from France brought him a
-letter from the Cardinal of Lorraine, couched, it is said, in terms
-which restored him forthwith to the bosom of the Church. Villegagnon now
-affirmed that he had been deceived in Calvin, and pronounced him a
-"frightful heretic." He became despotic beyond measure, and would bear
-no opposition. The ministers, reduced nearly to starvation, found
-themselves under a tyranny worse than that from which they had fled.
-
-At length he drove them from the fort, and forced them to bivouac on the
-mainland, at the risk of being butchered by Indians, until a vessel
-loading with Brazil-wood in the harbor should be ready to carry them
-back to France. Having rid himself of the ministers, he caused three of
-the more zealous Calvinists to be seized, dragged to the edge of a rock,
-and thrown into the sea. A fourth, equally obnoxious, but who, being a
-tailor, could ill be spared, was permitted to live on condition of
-recantation. Then, mustering the colonists, he warned them to shun the
-heresies of Luther and Calvin; threatened that all who openly professed
-those detestable doctrines should share the fate of their three
-comrades; and, his harangue over, feasted the whole assembly, in token,
-says the narrator, of joy and triumph.
-
-Meanwhile, in their crazy vessel, the banished ministers drifted slowly
-on their way. Storms fell upon them, their provisions failed, their
-water-casks were empty, and, tossing in the wilderness of waves, or
-rocking on the long swells of subsiding gales, they sank almost to
-despair. In their famine they chewed the Brazil-wood with which the
-vessel was laden, devoured every scrap of leather, singed and ate the
-horn of lanterns, hunted rats through the hold, and sold them to each
-other at enormous prices. At length, stretched on the deck, sick,
-listless, attenuated, and scarcely able to move a limb, they descried
-across the waste of sea the faint, cloud-like line that marked the coast
-of Brittany. Their perils were not past; for, if we may believe one of
-them, Jean de Lery, they bore a sealed letter from Villegagnon to the
-magistrates of the first French port at which they might arrive. It
-denounced them as heretics, worthy to be burned. Happily, the
-magistrates leaned to the Reform, and the malice of the commandant
-failed of its victims.
-
-Villegagnon himself soon sailed for France, leaving the wretched colony
-to its fate. He presently entered the lists against Calvin, and engaged
-him in a hot controversial war, in which, according to some of his
-contemporaries, the knight often worsted the theologian at his own
-weapons. Before the year 1558 was closed, Ganabara fell a prey to the
-Portuguese. They set upon it in force, battered down the fort, and slew
-the feeble garrison, or drove them to a miserable refuge among the
-Indians. Spain and Portugal made good their claim to the vast domain,
-the mighty vegetation, and undeveloped riches of "Antarctic France."
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-1562, 1563.
-
-JEAN RIBAUT.
-
-In the year 1562 a cloud of black and deadly portent was thickening over
-France. Surely and swiftly she glided towards the abyss of the religious
-wars. None could pierce the future, perhaps none dared to contemplate
-it: the wild rage of fanaticism and hate, friend grappling with friend,
-brother with brother, father with son; altars profaned, hearth-stones
-made desolate, the robes of Justice herself bedrenched with murder. In
-the gloom without lay Spain, imminent and terrible. As on the hill by
-the field of Dreux, her veteran bands of pikemen, dark masses of
-organized ferocity, stood biding their time while the battle surged
-below, and then swept downward to the slaughter,--so did Spain watch
-and wait to trample and crush the hope of humanity.
-
-In these days of fear, a second Huguenot colony sailed for the New
-World. The calm, stern man who represented and led the Protestantism of
-France felt to his inmost heart the peril of the time. He would fain
-build up a city of refuge for the persecuted sect. Yet Gaspar de
-Coligny, too high in power and rank to be openly assailed, was forced to
-act with caution. He must act, too, in the name of the Crown, and in
-virtue of his office of Admiral of France. A nobleman and a soldier,--
-for the Admiral of France was no seaman,--he shared the ideas and
-habits of his class; nor is there reason to believe him to have been in
-advance of his time in a knowledge of the principles of successful
-colonization. His scheme promised a military colony, not a free
-commonwealth. The Huguenot party was already a political as well as a
-religious party. At its foundation lay the religious element,
-represented by Geneva, the martyrs, and the devoted fugitives who sang
-the psalms of Marot among rocks and caverns. Joined to these were
-numbers on whom the faith sat lightly, whose hope was in commotion and
-change. Of the latter, in great part, was the Huguenot noblesse, from
-Conde, who aspired to the crown,
-
-"Ce petit homme tant joli,
-Qui toujours chante, toujours rit,"
-
-to the younger son of the impoverished seigneur whose patrimony was his
-sword. More than this, the restless, the factious, and the discontented,
-began to link their fortunes to a party whose triumph would involve
-confiscation of the wealth of the only rich class in France. An element
-of the great revolution was already mingling in the strife of religions.
-
-America was still a land of wonder. The ancient spell still hung
-unbroken over the wild, vast world of mystery beyond the sea,--a land
-of romance, adventure, and gold.
-
-Fifty-eight years later the Puritans landed on the sands of
-Massachusetts Bay. The illusion was gone,--the ignis fatuus of
-adventure, the dream of wealth. The rugged wilderness offered only a
-stern and hard won independence. In their own hearts, and not in the
-promptings of a great leader or the patronage of an equivocal
-government, their enterprise found its birth and its achievement. They
-were of the boldest and most earnest of their sect. There were such
-among the French disciples of Calvin; but no Mayflower ever sailed from
-a port of France. Coligny's colonists were of a different stamp, and
-widely different was their fate.
-
-An excellent seaman and stanch Protestant, Jean Ribaut of Dieppe,
-commanded the expedition. Under him, besides sailors, were a band of
-veteran soldiers, and a few young nobles. Embarked in two of those
-antiquated craft whose high poops and tub-like porportions are preserved
-in the old engravings of De Bry, they sailed from Havre on the
-eighteenth of February, 1562. They crossed the Atlantic, and on the
-thirtieth of April, in the latitude of twenty-nine and a half degrees,
-saw the long, low line where the wilderness of waves met the wilderness
-of woods. It was the coast of Florida. They soon descried a jutting
-point, which they called French Cape, perhaps one of the headlands of
-Matanzas Inlet. They turned their prows northward, coasting the fringes
-of that waste of verdure which rolled in shadowy undulation far to the
-unknown West.
-
-On the next morning, the first of May, they found themselves off the
-mouth of a great river. Riding at anchor on a sunny sea, they lowered
-their boats, crossed the bar that obstructed the entrance, and floated
-on a basin of deep and sheltered water, "boyling and roaring," says
-Ribaut, "through the multitude of all kind of fish." Indians were
-running along the beach, and out upon the sand-bars, beckoning them to
-land. They pushed their boats ashore and disembarked,--sailors,
-soldiers, and eager young nobles. Corselet and morion, arquebuse and
-halberd, flashed in the sun that flickered through innumerable leaves,
-as, kneeling on the ground, they gave thanks to God, who had guided
-their voyage to an issue full of promise. The Indians, seated gravely
-under the neighboring trees, looked on in silent respect, thinking that
-they worshipped the sun. "They be all naked and of a goodly stature,
-mightie, and as well shapen and proportioned of body as any people in ye
-world; and the fore part of their body and armes be painted with pretie
-deuised workes, of Azure, red, and blacke, so well and so properly as
-the best Painter of Europe could not amende it." With their squaws and
-children, they presently drew near, and, strewing the earth with laurel
-boughs, sat down among the Frenchmen. Their visitors were much pleased
-with them, and Ribaut gave the chief, whom he calls the king, a robe of
-blue cloth, worked in yellow with the regal fleur-de-lis.
-
-But Ribaut and his followers, just escaped from the dull prison of their
-ships, were intent on admiring the wild scenes around them. Never had
-they known a fairer May-day. The quaint old narrative is exuberant with
-delight. The tranquil air, the warm sun, woods fresh with young verdure,
-meadows bright with flowers; the palm, the cypress, the pine, the
-magnolia; the grazing deer; herons, curlews, bitterns, woodcock, and
-unknown water-fowl that waded in the ripple of the beach; cedars bearded
-from crown to root with long, gray moss; huge oaks smothering in the
-folds of enormous grapevines;--such were the objects that greeted them
-in their roamings, till their new-discovered land seemed "the fairest,
-fruitfullest, and pleasantest of al the world."
-
-They found a tree covered with caterpillars, and hereupon the ancient
-black-letter says: "Also there be Silke wormes in meruielous number, a
-great deale fairer and better then be our silk wormes. To bee short, it
-is a thing vnspeakable to consider the thinges that bee seene there, and
-shalbe founde more and more in this incomperable lande." [FN#9]
-
-Above all, it was plain to their excited fancy that the country was rich
-in gold and silver, turquoises and pearls. One of these last, "as great
-as an Acorne at ye least," hung from the neck of an Indian who stood
-near their boats as they re-embarked. They gathered, too, from the signs
-of their savage visitors, that the wonderful land of Cibola, with its
-seven cities and its untold riches, was distant but twenty days' journey
-by water. In truth, it was two thousand miles westward, and its wealth a
-fable.
-
-They named the river the River of May. It is now the St. John's. "And on
-the next morning," says Ribault, "we returned to land againe,
-accompanied with the Captaines, Gentlemen, and Souldiers, and others of
-our small troope, carrying with us a Pillour or columne of harde stone,
-our king's armes graved therein, to plant and set the same in the
-enterie of the Porte; and being come thither we espied on the south syde
-of the River a place very fitte for that purpose upon a little hill
-compassed with Cypres, Bayes, Paulmes, and other trees, with sweete
-smelling and pleasant shrubbes." Here they set the column, and then,
-again embarking, held their course northward, happy in that benign
-decree which locks from mortal eyes the secrets of the future.
-
-Next they anchored near Fernandina, and to a neighboring river, probably
-the St. Mary's, gave the name of the Seine. Here, as morning broke on
-the fresh, moist meadows hung with mists, and on broad reaches of inland
-waters which seemed like lakes, they were tempted to land again, and
-soon "espied an innumerable number of footesteps of great Hartes and
-Hindes of a wonderfull greatnesse, the steppes being all fresh and new,
-and it seemeth that the people doe nourish them like tame Cattell." By
-two or three weeks of exploration they seem to have gained a clear idea
-of this rich semi-aquatic region. Ribaut describes it as "a countrie
-full of hauens, riuers, and Ilands, of such fruitfulnes as cannot with
-tongue be expressed." Slowly moving northward, they named each river, or
-inlet supposed to be a river, after some stream of France,--the Loire,
-the Charente, the Garonne, the Gironde. At length, opening betwixt flat
-and sandy shores, they saw a commodious haven, and named it Port Royal.
-
-On the twenty-seventh of May they crossed the bar where the war-ships of
-Dupont crossed three hundred years later, passed Hilton Head, and held
-their course along the peaceful bosom of Broad River.[FN#10] On the left
-they saw a stream which they named Libourne, probably Skull Creek; on
-the right, a wide river, probably the Beaufort. When they landed, all
-was solitude. The frightened Indians had fled, but they lured them back
-with knives, beads, and looking-glasses, and enticed two of them on
-board their ships. Here, by feeding, clothing, and caressing them, they
-tried to wean them from their fears, thinking to carry them to France,
-in obedience to a command of Catherine de Medicis; but the captive
-warriors moaned and lamented day and night, and at length made their
-escape.
-
-Ranging the woods, they found them full of game, wild turkeys and
-partridges, bears and lynxes. Two deer, of unusual size, leaped from the
-underbrush. Cross-bow and arquebuse were brought to the level; but the
-Huguenot captain, "moved with the singular fairness and bigness of
-them," forbade his men to shoot.
-
-Preliminary exploration, not immediate settlement, had been the object
-of the voyage; but all was still rose-color in the eyes of the voyagers,
-and many of their number would gladly linger in the New Canaan. Ribaut
-was more than willing to humor them. He mustered his company on deck,
-and made them a harangue. He appealed to their courage and their
-patriotism, told them how, from a mean origin, men rise by enterprise
-and daring to fame and fortune, and demanded who among them would stay
-behind and hold Port Royal for the King. The greater part came forward,
-and "with such a good will and joly corage," writes the commander, "as
-we had much to do to stay their importunitie." Thirty were chosen, and
-Albert de Pierria was named to command them.
-
-A fort was begun on a small stream called the Chenonceau, probably
-Archer's Creek, about six miles from the site of Beaufort.[FN#11] They
-named it Charlesfort, in honor of the unhappy son of Catherine de
-Medicis, Charles the Ninth, the future hero of St. Bartholomew.
-Ammunition and stores were sent on shore, and on the eleventh of June,
-with his diminished company, Ribaut again embarked and spread his sails
-for France.
-
-From the beach at Hilton Head, Albert and his companions might watch the
-receding ships, growing less and less on the vast expanse of blue,
-dwindling to faint specks, then vanishing on the pale verge of the
-waters. They were alone in those fearful solitudes. From the north pole
-to Mexico there was no Christian denizen but they.
-
-The pressing question was how they were to subsist. Their thought was
-not of subsistence, but of gold. Of the thirty, the greater number were
-soldiers and sailors, with a few gentlemen; that is to say, men of the
-sword, born within the pale of nobility, who at home could neither labor
-nor trade without derogation from their rank. For a time they busied
-themselves with finishing their fort, and, this done, set forth in quest
-of adventures.
-
-The Indians had lost fear of them. Ribaut had enjoined upon them to use
-all kindness and gentleness in their dealing with the men of the woods;
-and they more than obeyed him. They were soon hand and glove with
-chiefs, warriors, and squaws; and as with Indians the adage that
-familiarity breeds contempt holds with peculiar force, they quickly
-divested themselves of the prestige which had attached at the outset to
-their supposed character of children of the Sun. Good-will, however,
-remained, and this the colonists abused to the utmost.
-
-Roaming by river, swamp, and forest, they visited in turn the villages
-of five petty chiefs, whom they called kings, feasting everywhere on
-hominy, beans, and game, and loaded with gifts. One of these chiefs,
-named Audusta, invited them to the grand religious festival of his
-tribe. When they arrived, they found the village alive with preparation,
-and troops of women busied in sweeping the great circular area where the
-ceremonies were to take place. But as the noisy and impertinent guests
-showed a disposition to undue merriment, the chief shut them all in his
-wigwam, lest their Gentile eyes should profane the mysteries. Here,
-immured in darkness, they listened to the howls, yelpings, and
-lugubrious songs that resounded from without. One of them, however, by
-some artifice, contrived to escape, hid behind a bush, and saw the whole
-solemnity,--the procession of the medicinemen and the bedaubed and
-befeathered warriors; the drumming, dancing, and stamping; the wild
-lamentation of the women as they gashed the arms of the young girls with
-sharp mussel-shells, and flung the blood into the air with dismal
-outcries. A scene of ravenous feasting followed, in which the French,
-released from durance, were summoned to share.
-
-After the carousal they returned to Charlesfort, where they were soon
-pinched with hunger. The Indians, never niggardly of food, brought them
-supplies as long as their own lasted; but the harvest was not yet ripe,
-and their means did not match their good-will. They told the French of
-two other kings, Ouade and Couexis, who dwelt towards the south, and
-were rich beyond belief in maize, beans, and squashes. The mendicant
-colonists embarked without delay, and, with an Indian guide, steered for
-the wigwams of these potentates, not by the open sea, but by a
-perplexing inland navigation, including, as it seems, Calibogue Sound
-and neighboring waters. Reaching the friendly villages, on or near the
-Savannah, they were feasted to repletion, and their boat was laden with
-vegetables and corn. They returned rejoicing; but their joy was short.
-Their store-house at Charlesfort, taking fire in the night, burned to
-the ground, and with it their newly acquired stock.
-
-Once more they set out for the realms of King Ouade, and once more
-returned laden with supplies. Nay, the generous savage assured them
-that, so long as his cornfields yielded their harvests, his friends
-should not want.
-
-How long this friendship would have lasted may well be doubted. With the
-perception that the dependants on their bounty were no demigods, but a
-crew of idle and helpless beggars, respect would soon have changed to
-contempt, and contempt to ill-will. But it was not to Indian war-clubs
-that the infant colony was to owe its ruin. It carried within itself its
-own destruction. The ill-assorted band of lands-men and sailors,
-surrounded by that influence of the wilderness which wakens the dormant
-savage in the breasts of men, soon fell into quarrels. Albert, a rude
-soldier, with a thousand leagues of ocean betwixt him and
-responsibility, grew harsh, domineering, and violent beyond endurance.
-None could question or oppose him without peril of death. He hanged with
-his own hands a drummer who had fallen under his displeasure, and
-banished a soldier, named La Chore, to a solitary island, three leagues
-from the fort, where he left him to starve. For a time his comrades
-chafed in smothered fury. The crisis came at length. A few of the
-fiercer spirits leagued together, assailed their tyrant, murdered him,
-delivered the famished soldier, and called to the command one Nicolas
-Barre, a man of merit. Barre took the command, and thenceforth there was
-peace.
-
-Peace, such as it was, with famine, homesickness, and disgust. The rough
-ramparts and rude buildings of Charlesfort, hatefully familiar to their
-weary eyes, the sweltering forest, the glassy river, the eternal silence
-of the lifeless wilds around them, oppressed the senses and the spirits.
-They dreamed of ease, of home, of pleasures across the sea, of the
-evening cup on the bench before the cabaret, and dances with kind
-wenches of Dieppe. But how to escape? A continent was their solitary
-prison, and the pitiless Atlantic shut them in. Not one of them knew how
-to build a ship; but Ribaut had left them a forge, with tools and iron,
-and strong desire supplied the place of skill. Trees were hewn down and
-the work begun. Had they put forth to maintain themselves at Port Royal
-the energy and resource which they exerted to escape from it, they might
-have laid the cornerstone of a solid colony.
-
-All, gentle and simple, labored with equal zeal. They calked the seams
-with the long moss which hung in profusion from the neighboring trees;
-the pines supplied them with pitch; the Indians made for them a kind of
-cordage; and for sails they sewed together their shirts and bedding. At
-length a brigantine worthy of Robinson Crusoe floated on the waters of
-the Chenonceau. They laid in what provision they could, gave all that
-remained of their goods to the Indians, embarked, descended the river,
-and put to sea. A fair wind filled their patchwork sails and bore them
-from the hated coast. Day after day they held their course, till at
-length the breeze died away and a breathless calm fell on the waters.
-Florida was far behind; France farther yet before.
-
-Floating idly on the glassy waste, the craft lay motionless. Their
-supplies gave out. Twelve kernels of maize a day were each man's
-portion; then the maize failed, and they ate their shoes and leather
-jerkins. The water-barrels were drained, and they tried to slake their
-thirst with brine. Several died, and the rest, giddy with exhaustion and
-crazed with thirst, were forced to ceaseless labor, bailing out the
-water that gushed through every seam. Head-winds set in, increasing to a
-gale, and the wretched brigantine, with sails close-reefed, tossed among
-the savage billows at the mercy of the storm. A heavy sea rolled down
-upon her, and burst the bulwarks on the windward side. The surges broke
-over her, and, clinging with desperate grip to spars and cordage, the
-drenched voyagers gave up all for lost. At length she righted. The gale
-subsided, the wind changed, and the crazy, water-logged vessel again
-bore slowly towards France.
-
-Gnawed with famine, they counted the leagues of barren ocean that still
-stretched before, and gazed on each other with haggard wolfish eyes,
-till a whisper passed from man to man that one, by his death, might
-ransom all the rest. The lot was cast, and it fell on La Chore, the same
-wretched man whom Albert had doomed to starvation on a lonely island.
-They killed him, and with ravenous avidity portioned out his flesh. The
-hideous repast sustained them till the land rose in sight, when, it is
-said, in a delirium of joy, they could no longer steer their vessel, but
-let her drift at the will of the tide. A small English bark bore down
-upon them, took them all on board, and, after landing the feeblest,
-carried the rest prisoners to Queen Elizabeth.[FN#12]
-
-Thus closed another of those scenes of woe whose lurid clouds are
-thickly piled around the stormy dawn of American history. It was the
-opening act of a wild and tragic drama.
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-1564.
-
-LAUDONNIERE.
-
-
-
-ON the twenty-fifth of June, 1564, a French squadron anchored a second
-time off the mouth of the River of May. There were three vessels, the
-smallest of sixty tons, the largest of one hundred and twenty, all
-crowded with men. Rene de Laudonniere held command. He was of a noble
-race of Poiton, attached to the house of Chatillon, of which Coligny was
-the head; pious, we are told, and an excellent marine officer. An
-engraving, purporting to be his likeness, shows us a slender figure,
-leaning against the mast, booted to the thigh, with slouched hat and
-plume, slashed doublet, and short cloak. His thin oval face, with curled
-moustache and close-trimmed beard. wears a somewhat pensive look, as if
-already shadowed by the destiny that awaited him.
-
-The intervening year since Ribaut's voyage had been a dark year for
-France. From the peaceful solitude of the River of May, that voyager
-returned to a land reeking with slaughter. But the carnival of bigotry
-and hate had found a pause. The Peace of Amboise had been signed. The
-fierce monk choked down his venom; the soldier sheathed his sword, the
-assassin his dagger; rival chiefs grasped hands, and masked their rancor
-under hollow smiles. The king and the queen-mother, helpless amid the
-storm of factions which threatened their destruction, smiled now on
-Conde, now on Guise,--gave ear to the Cardinal of Lorraine, or listened
-in secret to the emissaries of Theodore Beza. Coligny was again strong
-at Court. He used his opportunity, and solicited with success the means
-of renewing his enterprise of colonization.
-
-Men were mustered for the work. In name, at least, they were all
-Huguenots yet now, as before, the staple of the projected colony was
-unsound,--soldiers, paid out of the royal treasury, hired artisans and
-tradesmen, with a swarm of volunteers from the young Huguenot nobles,
-whose restless swords had rusted in their scabbards since the peace. The
-foundation-stone was forgotten. There were no tillers of the soil. Such,
-indeed, were rare among the Huegonots; for the dull peasants who guided
-the plough clung with blind tenacity to the ancient faith. Adventurous
-gentlemen, reckless soldiers, discontented tradesmen, all keen for
-novelty and heated with dreams of wealth,--these were they who would
-build for their country and their religion an empire beyond the sea.
-
-On Thursday, the twenty-second of June, Laudonniere saw the low
-coast-line of Florida, and entered the harbor of St. Augustine, which he
-named the River of Dolphins, "because that at mine arrival I saw there a
-great number of Dolphins which were playing in the mouth thereof." Then
-he bore northward, following the coast till, on the twenty-fifth, he
-reached the mouth of the St. John's or River of May. The vessels
-anchored, the boats were lowered, and he landed with his principal
-followers on the south shore, near the present village of Mayport. It
-was the very spot where he had landed with Ribaut two years before. They
-were scarcely on shore when they saw an Indian chief, "which having
-espied us cryed very far off, Antipola! Antipola! and being so joyful
-that he could not containe himselfe, he came to meet us accompanied with
-two of his sonnes, as faire and mightie persons as might be found in al
-the world. There was in their trayne a great number of men and women
-which stil made very much of us, and by signes made us understand how
-glad they were of our arrival. This good entertainment past, the
-Paracoussy [chief] prayed me to goe see the pillar which we had erected
-in the voyage of John Ribault." The Indians, regarding it with
-mysterious awe, had crowned it with evergreens, and placed baskets full
-of maize before it as an offering.
-
-The chief then took Laudonniere by the hand, telling him that he was
-named Satouriona, and pointed out the extent of his dominions, far up
-the river and along the adjacent coasts. One of his sons, a man "perfect
-in beautie, wisedome, and honest sobrietie," then gave the French
-commander a wedge of silver, and received some trifles in return, after
-which the voyagers went back to their ships. "I prayse God continually,"
-says Laudonniere, "for the great love I have found in these savages."
-
-In the morning the French landed again, and found their new friends on
-the same spot, to the number of eighty or more, seated under a shelter
-of boughs, in festal attire of smoke-tanned deer-skins, painted in many
-colors. The party then rowed up the river, the Indians following them
-along the shore. As they advanced, coasting the borders of a great marsh
-that lay upon their left, the St. John's spread before them in vast
-sheets of glistening water, almost level with its flat, sedgy shores,
-the haunt of alligators, and the resort of innumerable birds. Beyond the
-marsh, some five miles from the mouth of the river, they saw a ridge of
-high ground abutting on the water, which, flowing beneath in a deep,
-strong current, had undermined it, and left a steep front of yellowish
-sand. This was the hill now called St. John's Bluff. Here they landed
-and entered the woods, where Laudonniere stopped to rest while his
-lieutenant, Ottigny, with a sergeant and a few soldiers, went to explore
-the country.
-
-They pushed their way through the thickets till they were stopped by a
-marsh choked with reeds, at the edge of which, under a great
-laurel-tree, they had seated themselves to rest, overcome with the
-summer heat, when five Indians suddenly appeared, peering timidly at
-them from among the bushes. Some of the men went towards them with signs
-of friendship, on which, taking heart, they drew near, and one of them,
-who was evidently a chief, made a long speech, inviting the strangers to
-their dwellings. The way was across the marsh, through which they
-carried the lieutenant and two or three of the soldiers on their backs,
-while the rest circled by a narrow path through the woods. When they
-reached the lodges, a crowd of Indians came out "to receive our men
-gallantly, and feast them after their manner." One of them brought a
-large earthen vessel full of spring water, which was served out to each
-in turn in a wooden cup. But what most astonished the French was a
-venerable chief, who assured them that he was the father of five
-successive generations, and that he had lived two hundred and fifty
-years. Opposite sat a still more ancient veteran, the father of the
-first, shrunken to a mere anatomy, and "seeming to be rather a dead
-carkeis than a living body." "Also," pursues the history, "his age was
-so great that the good man had lost his sight, and could not speak one
-onely word but with exceeding great paine." In spite of his dismal
-condition, the visitors were told that he might expect to live, in the
-course of nature, thirty or forty years more. As the two patriarchs sat
-face to face, half hidden with their streaming white hair, Ottigny and
-his credulous soldiers looked from one to the other, lost in speechless
-admiration.
-
-One of these veterans made a parting present to his guests of two young
-eagles, and Ottigny and his followers returned to report what they had
-seen. Laudonniere was waiting for them on the side of the hill; and now,
-he says, "I went right to the toppe thereof, where we found nothing else
-but Cedars, Palme, and Baytrees of so sovereigne odour that Baulme
-smelleth nothing like in comparison." From this high standpoint they
-surveyed their Canaan. The unruffled river lay before them, with its
-marshy islands overgrown with sedge and bulrushes; while on the farther
-side the flat, green meadows spread mile on mile, veined with countless
-creeks and belts of torpid water, and bounded leagues away by the verge
-of the dim pine forest. On the right, the sea glistened along the
-horizon; and on the left, the St. John's stretched westward between
-verdant shores, a highway to their fancied Eldorado. "Briefly," writes
-Laudonniere, "the place is so pleasant that those which are
-melancholicke would be inforced to change their humour."
-
-On their way back to the ships they stopped for another parley with the
-chief Satouriona, and Laudonniere eagerly asked where he had got the
-wedge of silver that he gave him in the morning. The chief told him by
-signs, that he had taken it in war from a people called Thimagoas, who
-lived higher up the River, and who were his mortal enemies; on which the
-French captain had the folly to promise that he would join in an
-expedition against them. Satouriona was delighted, and declared that, if
-he kept his word, he should have gold and silver to his heart's content.
-
-Man and nature alike seemed to mark the borders of the River of May as
-the site of the new colony; for here, around the Indian towns, the
-harvests of maize, beans, and pumpkins promised abundant food, while the
-river opened a ready way to the mines of gold and silver and the stores
-of barbaric wealth which glittered before the dreaming vision of the
-colonists. Yet, the better to satisfy himself and his men, Laudonniere
-weighed anchor, and sailed for a time along the neighboring coasts.
-Returning, confirmed in his first impression, he set out with a party of
-officers and soldiers to explore the borders of the chosen stream. The
-day was hot. The sun beat fiercely on the woollen caps and heavy
-doublets of the men, till at length they gained the shade of one of
-those deep forests of pine where the dead, hot air is thick with
-resinous odors, and the earth, carpeted with fallen leaves, gives no
-sound beneath the foot. Yet, in the stillness, deer leaped up on all
-sides as they moved along. Then they emerged into sunlight. A meadow was
-before them, a running brook, and a wall of encircling forests. The men
-called it the Vale of Laudonniere. The afternoon was spent, and the sun
-was near its setting, when they reached the bank of the river. They
-strewed the ground with boughs and leaves, and, stretched on that sylvan
-couch, slept the sleep of travel-worn and weary men.
-
-They were roused at daybreak by sound of trumpet, and after singing a
-psalm they set themselves to their task. It was the building of a fort,
-and the spot they chose was a furlong or more above St. John's Bluff,
-where close to the water was a wide, flat knoll, raised a few feet above
-the marsh and the river.[FN#13] Boats came up the stream with laborers,
-tents, provisions, cannon, and tools. The engineers marked out the work
-in the form of a triangle; and, from the noble volunteer to the meanest
-artisan, all lent a hand to complete it. On the river side the defences
-were a palisade of timber. On the two other sides were a ditch, and a
-rampart of fascines, earth, and sods. At each angle was a bastion, in
-one of which was the magazine. Within was a spacious parade, around it
-were various buildings for lodging and storage, and a large house with
-covered galleries was built on the side towards the river for
-Laudonniere and his officers. In honor of Charles the Ninth the fort was
-named Fort Caroline.
-
-Meanwhile Satouriona, "lord of all that country," as the narratives
-style him, was seized with misgivings on learning these proceedings. The
-work was scarcely begun, and all was din and confusion around the
-incipient fort, when the startled Frenchmen saw the neighboring height
-of St. John's swarming with naked warriors. Laudonniere set his men in
-array, and for a season, pick and spade were dropped for arquebuse and
-pike. The savage chief descended to the camp. The artist Le Moyne, who
-saw him, drew his likeness from memory, a tall, athletic figure,
-tattooed in token of his rank, plumed, bedecked with strings of beads,
-and girdled with tinkling pieces of metal which hung from the belt which
-formed his only garment. He came in regal state, a crowd of warriors
-around him, and, in advance, a troop of young Indians armed with spears.
-Twenty musicians followed, blowing hideous discord through pipes of
-reeds, while he seated himself on the ground "like a monkey," as Le
-Moyne has it in the grave Latin of his Brevis Narratio. A council
-followed, in which broken words were aided by signs and pantomime; and a
-treaty of alliance was made, Laudonniere renewing his rash promise to
-aid the chief against his enemies. Satouriona, well pleased, ordered his
-Indians to help the French in their work. They obeyed with alacrity, and
-in two days the buildings of the fort were all thatched, after the
-native fashion, with leaves of the palmetto.
-
-These savages belonged to one of the confederacies into which the native
-tribes of Florida were divided, and with three of which the French came
-into contact. The first was that of Satouriona; and the second was that
-of the people called Thimagoas, who, under a chief named Outina, dwelt
-in forty villages high up the St. John's. The third was that of the
-chief, cacique, or paracoussy whom the French called King Potanou, and
-whose dominions lay among the pine barrens, cypress swamps, and fertile
-hummocks westward and northwestward of this remarkable river. These
-three confederacies hated each other, and were constantly at war. Their
-social state was more advanced than that of the wandering hunter tribes.
-They were an agricultural people, and around all their villages were
-fields of maize, beans, and pumpkins. The harvest was gathered into a
-public granary, and they lived on it during three fourths of the year,
-dispersing in winter to hunt among the forests.
-
-They were exceedingly well formed; the men, or the principal among them,
-were tattooed on the limbs and body, and in summer were nearly naked.
-Some wore their straight black hair flowing loose to the waist; others
-gathered it in a knot at the crown of the head. They danced and sang
-about the scalps of their enemies, like the tribes of the North; and
-like them they had their "medicine-men," who combined the functions of
-physicians, sorcerers, and priests. The most prominent feature of their
-religion was sun-worship.
-
-Their villages were clusters of large dome-shaped huts, framed with
-poles and thatched with palmetto leaves. In the midst was the dwelling
-of the chief, much larger than the rest, and sometimes raised on an
-artificial mound. They were enclosed with palisades, and, strange to
-say, some of them were approached by wide avenues, artificially graded,
-and several hundred yards in length. Traces of these may still be seen,
-as may also the mounds in which the Floridians, like the Hurons and
-various other tribes, collected at stated intervals the bones of their
-dead.
-
-Social distinctions were sharply defined among them. Their chiefs, whose
-office was hereditary, sometimes exercised a power almost absolute. Each
-village had its chief, subordinate to the grand chief of the
-confederacy. In the language of the French narratives, they were all
-kings or lords, vassals of the great monarch Satouriona, Outina, or
-Potanou. All these tribes are now extinct, and it is difficult to
-ascertain with precision their tribal affinities. There can be no doubt
-that they were the authors of the aboriginal remains at present found in
-various parts of Florida.
-
-Having nearly finished the fort, Laudonniere declares that he "would not
-lose the minute of an houre without employing of the same in some
-vertuous exercise;" and he therefore sent his lieutenant, Ottigny, to
-spy out the secrets of the interior, and to learn, above all, "what this
-Thimagoa might be, whereof the Paracoussy Satouriona had spoken to us so
-often." As Laudonniere stood pledged to attack the Thimagoas, the chief
-gave Ottigny two Indian guides, who, says the record, were so eager for
-the fray that they seemed as if bound to a wedding feast.
-
-The lazy waters of the St. John's, tinged to coffee color by the
-exudations of the swamps, curled before the prow of Ottigny's sail-boat
-as he advanced into the prolific wilderness which no European eye had
-ever yet beheld. By his own reckoning, he sailed thirty leagues up the
-river, which would have brought him to a point not far below Palatka.
-Here, more than two centuries later, the Bartrams, father and son,
-guided their skiff and kindled their nightly bivouac-fire; and here,
-too, roamed Audubon, with his sketch-book and his gun. It was a paradise
-for the hunter and the naturalist. Earth, air, and water teemed with
-life, in endless varieties of beauty and ugliness. A half-tropical
-forest shadowed the low shores, where the palmetto and the cabbage palm
-mingled with the oak, the maple, the cypress, the liquid-ambar, the
-laurel, the myrtle, and the broad glistening leaves of the evergreen
-magnolia. Here was the haunt of bears, wild-cats, lynxes, cougars, and
-the numberless deer of which they made their prey. In the sedges and the
-mud the alligator stretched his brutish length; turtles with
-outstretched necks basked on half-sunken logs; the rattlesnake sunned
-himself on the sandy bank, and the yet more dangerous moccason lurked
-under the water-lilies in inlets and sheltered coves. The air and the
-water were populous as the earth. The river swarmed with fish, from the
-fierce and restless gar, cased in his horny armor, to the lazy cat-fish
-in the muddy depths. There were the golden eagle and the white-headed
-eagle, the gray pelican and the white pelican, the blue heron and the
-white heron, the egret, the ibis, ducks of various sorts, the whooping
-crane, the black vulture, and the cormorant; and when at sunset the
-voyagers drew their boat upon the strand and built their camp-fire under
-the arches of the woods, the owls whooped around them all night long,
-and when morning came the sultry mists that wrapped the river were vocal
-with the clamor of wild turkeys.
-
-When Ottigny was about twenty leagues from Fort Caroline, his two Indian
-guides, who were always on the watch, descried three canoes, and in
-great excitement cried, "Thimagoa! Thimagoa!" As they drew near, one of
-them snatched up a halberd and the other a sword, and in their fury they
-seemed ready to jump into the water to get at the enemy. To their great
-disgust, Ottigny permitted the Thimagoas to run their canoes ashore and
-escape to the woods. Far from keeping Laudonniere's senseless promise to
-light them, he wished to make them friends; to which end he now landed
-with some of his men, placed a few trinkets in their canoes, and
-withdrew to a distance to watch the result. The fugitives presently
-returned, step by step, and allowed the French to approach them; on
-which Ottigny asked, by signs, if they had gold or silver. They replied
-that they had none, but that if he would give them one of his men they
-would show him where it was to be found. One of the soldiers boldly
-offered himself for the venture, and embarked with them. As, however, he
-failed to return according to agreement, Ottigny, on the next day,
-followed ten leagues farther up the stream, and at length had the good
-luck to see him approaching in a canoe. He brought little or no gold,
-but reported that he had heard of a certain chief, named Mayrra,
-marvellously rich, who lived three days' journey up the river; and with
-these welcome tidings Ottigny went back to Fort Caroline.
-
-A fortnight later, an officer named Vasseur went up the river to pursue
-the adventure. The fever for gold had seized upon the French. As the
-villages of the Thimagoas lay between them and the imagined treasures,
-they shrank from a quarrel, and Laudonniere repented already of his
-promised alliance with Satouriona.
-
-Vasseur was two days' sail from the fort when two Indians hailed him
-from the shore, inviting him to their dwellings. He accepted their
-guidance, and presently saw before him the cornfields and palisades of
-an Indian town. He and his followers were led through the wondering
-crowd to the lodge of Mollua, the chief, seated in the place of honor,
-and plentifully regaled with fish and bread. The repast over, Mollua
-made a speech. He told them that he was one of the forty vassal chiefs
-of the great Outina, lord of all the Thimagoas, whose warriors wore
-armor of gold and silver plate. He told them, too, of Potanou, his
-enemy, "a man cruell in warre;" and of the two kings of the distant
-Appalachian Mountains,--Onatheaqua and Houstaqua, "great lords and
-abounding in riches." While thus, with earnest pantomime and broken
-words, the chief discoursed with his guests, Vasseur, intent and eager,
-strove to follow his meaning; and no sooner did he hear of these
-Appalachian treasures than he promised to join Outina in war against the
-two potentates of the mountains. Mollua, well pleased, promised that
-each of Outina's vassal chiefs should requite their French allies with a
-heap of gold and silver two feet high. Thus, while Laudonniere stood
-pledged to Satouriona, Vasseur made alliance with his mortal enemy.
-
-On his return, he passed a night in the lodge of one of Satouriona's
-chiefs, who questioned him touching his dealings with the Thimagoas.
-Vasseur replied that he had set upon them and put them to utter rout.
-But as the chief, seeming as yet unsatisfied, continued his inquiries,
-the sergeant Francois de la Caille drew his sword, and, like Falstaff,
-reenacted his deeds of valor, pursuing and thrusting at the imaginary
-Thimagoas, as they fled before his fury. The chief, at length convinced,
-led the party to his lodge, and entertained them with a decoction of the
-herb called Cassina.
-
-Satouriona, elated by Laudonniere's delusive promises of aid, had
-summoned his so-called vassals to war. Ten chiefs and some five hundred
-warriors had mustered at his call, and the forest was alive with their
-bivouacs. When all was ready, Satouriona reminded the French commander
-of his pledge, and claimed its fulfilment, but got nothing but evasions
-in return, He stifled his rage, and prepared to go without his fickle
-ally.
-
-A fire was kindled near the bank of the river, and two large vessels of
-water were placed beside it. Here Satouriona took his stand, while his
-chiefs crouched on the grass around him, and the savage visages of his
-five hundred warriors filled the outer circle, their long hair garnished
-with feathers, or covered with the heads and skins of wolves, cougars,
-bears, or eagles. Satouriona, looking towards the country of his enemy,
-distorted his features into a wild expression of rage and hate; then
-muttered to himself; then howled an invocation to his god, the Sun; then
-besprinkled the assembly with water from one of the vessels, and,
-turning the other upon the fire, suddenly quenched it. "So," he cried,
-"may the blood of our enemies be poured out, and their lives
-extinguished!" and the concourse gave forth an explosion of responsive
-yells, till the shores resounded with the wolfish din.
-
-The rites over, they set out, and in a few days returned exulting, with
-thirteen prisoners and a number of scalps. These last were hung on a
-pole before the royal lodge; and when night came, it brought with it a
-pandemonium of dancing and whooping, drumming and feasting.
-
-A notable scheme entered the brain of Laudonniere. Resolved, cost what
-it might, to make a friend of Outina, he conceived it to be a stroke of
-policy to send back to him two of the prisoners. In the morning he sent
-a soldier to Satouriona to demand them. The astonished chief gave a fiat
-refusal, adding that he owed the French no favors, for they had
-shamefully broken faith with him. On this, Laudonniere, at the head of
-twenty soldiers, proceeded to the Indian town, placed a guard at the
-opening of the great lodge, entered with his arquebusiers, and seated
-himself without ceremony in the highest place. Here, to show his
-displeasure, he remained in silence for half an hour. At length he
-spoke, renewing his demand. For some moments Satouriona made no reply;
-then he coldly observed that the sight of so many armed men had
-frightened the prisoners away. Laudonniere grew peremptory, when the
-chief's son, Athore, went out, and presently returned with the two
-Indians, whom the French led back to Fort Caroline.
-
-Satouriona, says Laudonniere, "was wonderfully offended with his
-bravado, and bethought himselfe by all meanes how he might be revenged
-of us." He dissembled for the time, and presently sent three of his
-followers to the fort with a gift of pumpkins; though under this show of
-good-will the outrage rankled in his breast, and he never forgave it.
-The French had been unfortunate in their dealings with the Indians. They
-had alienated old friends in vain attempts to make new ones.
-
-Vasseur, with the Swiss ensign Arlac, a sergeant, and ten soldiers, went
-up the river early in September to carry back the two prisoners to
-Outina. Laudonniere declares that they sailed eighty leagues, which
-would have carried them far above Lake Monroe; but it is certain that
-his reckoning is grossly exaggerated. Their boat crawled up the hazy St.
-John's, no longer a broad lake like expanse, but a narrow and tortuous
-stream, winding between swampy forests, or through the vast savanna, a
-verdant sea of brushes and grass. At length they came to a village
-called Mayarqua, and thence, with the help of their oars, made their way
-to another cluster of wigwams, apparently on a branch of the main river.
-Here they found Outina himself, whom, prepossessed with ideas of
-feudality, they regarded as the suzerain of a host of subordinate lords
-and princes, ruling over the surrounding swamps and pine barrens. Outina
-gratefully received the two prisoners whom Laudonniere had sent to
-propitiate him, feasted the wonderful strangers, and invited them to
-join him on a raid against his rival, Potanou. Laudonniere had promised
-to join Satouriona against Outina, and Vasseur now promised to join
-Outina against Potanon, the hope of finding gold being in both cases the
-source of this impolitic compliance. Vasseur went back to Fort Caroline
-with five of the men, and left Arlac with the remaining five to fight
-the battles of Ontina.
-
-The warriors mustered to the number of some two hundred, and the
-combined force of white men and red took up their march. The wilderness
-through which they passed has not yet quite lost its characteristic
-features,--the bewildering monotony of the pine barrens, with their
-myriads of bare gray trunks and their canopy of perennial green, through
-which a scorching sun throws spots and streaks of yellow light, here on
-an undergrowth of dwarf palmetto, and there on dry sands half hidden by
-tufted wire-grass, and dotted with the little mounds that mark the
-burrows of the gopher; or those oases in the desert, the "hummocks,"
-with their wild, redundant vegetation, their entanglement of trees,
-bushes, and vines, their scent of flowers and song of birds; or the
-broad sunshine of the savanna, where they waded to the neck in grass; or
-the deep swamp, where, out of the black and root-encumbered slough, rise
-the huge buttressed trunks of the Southern cypress, the gray Spanish
-moss drooping from every bough and twig, wrapping its victims like a
-drapery of tattered cobwebs, and slowly draining away their life, for
-even plants devour each other, and play their silent parts in the
-universal tragedy of nature.
-
-The allies held their way through forest, savanna, and swamp, with
-Outina's Indians in the front, till they neared the hostile villages,
-when the modest warriors fell to the rear, and yielded the post of honor
-to the Frenchmen.
-
-An open country lay before them, with rough fields of maize, beans, and
-pumpkins, and the palisades of an Indian town. Their approach was seen,
-and the warriors of Potanon swarmed out to meet them; but the sight of
-the bearded strangers, the flash and report of the fire-arms, and the
-fall of their foremost chief, shot through the brain by Arlac, filled
-them with consternation, and they fled within their defences. Pursuers
-and pursued entered pell-mell together. The place was pillaged and
-burned, its inmates captured or killed, and the victors returned
-triumphant.
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-1564, 1565.
-
-CONSPIRACY.
-
-In the little world of Fort Caroline, a miniature France, cliques and
-parties, conspiracy and sedition, were fast stirring into life. Hopes
-had been dashed, and wild expectations had come to naught. The
-adventurers had found, not conquest and gold, but a dull exile in a
-petty fort by a hot and sickly river, with hard labor, bad fare,
-prospective famine, and nothing to break the weary sameness but some
-passing canoe or floating alligator. Gathered in knots, they nursed each
-other's wrath, and inveighed against the commandant. Why are we put on
-half-rations, when he told us that provision should be made for a full
-year? Where are the reinforcements and supplies that he said should
-follow us from France? And why is he always closeted with Ottigny,
-Arlac, and this and that favorite, when we, men of blood as good as
-theirs, cannot gain his ear for a moment?
-
-The young nobles, of whom there were many, were volunteers, who had paid
-their own expenses in expectation of a golden harvest, and they chafed
-in impatience and disgust. The religious element in the colony--unlike
-the former Huguenot emigration to Brazil--was evidently subordinate.
-The adventurers thought more of their fortunes than of their faith; yet
-there were not a few earnest enough in the doctrine of Geneva to
-complain loudly and bitterly that no ministers had been sent with them.
-The burden of all grievances was thrown upon Laudonniere, whose greatest
-errors seem to have arisen from weakness and a lack of judgment,--fatal
-defects in his position.
-
-The growing discontent was brought to a partial head by one La Roquette,
-who gave out that, high up the river, he had discovered by magic a mine
-of gold and silver, which would give each of them a share of ten
-thousand crowns, besides fifteen hundred thousand for the King. But for
-Laudonniere, he said, their fortunes would all be made. He found an ally
-in a gentleman named Genre, one of Laudonniere's confidants, who, while
-still professing fast adherence to his interests, is charged by him with
-plotting against his life. "This Genre," he says, "secretly enfourmed
-the Souldiers that were already suborned by La Roquette, that I would
-deprive them of this great game, in that I did set them dayly on worke,
-not sending them on every side to discover the Countreys; therefore that
-it were a good deede to dispatch mee out of the way, and to choose
-another Captaine in my place." The soldiers listened too well. They made
-a flag of an old shirt, which they carried with them to the rampart when
-they went to their work, at the same time wearing their arms; and,
-pursues Laudonniere, "these gentle Souldiers did the same for none other
-ende but to have killed mee and my Lieutenant also, if by chance I had
-given them any hard speeches." About this time, overheating himself, he
-fell ill, and was confined to his quarters. On this, Genre made advances
-to the apothecary, urging him to put arsenic into his medicine; but the
-apothecary shrugged his shoulders. They next devised a scheme to blow
-him up by hiding a keg of gunpowder under his bed; but here, too, they
-failed. Hints of Genre's machinations reaching the ears of Laudonniere,
-the culprit fled to the woods, whence he wrote repentant letters, with
-full confession, to his commander.
-
-Two of the ships meanwhile returned to France, the third, the "Breton,"
-remaining at anchor opposite the fort. The malcontents took the
-opportunity to send home charges against Laudonniere of peculation,
-favoritism, and tyranny.
-
-On the fourth of September, Captain Bourdet, apparently a private
-adventurer, had arrived from France with a small vessel. When he
-returned, about the tenth of November, Laudonniere persuaded him to
-carry home seven or eight of the malcontent soldiers. Bourdet left some
-of his sailors in their place. The exchange proved most disastrous.
-These pirates joined with others whom they had won over, stole
-Laudonniere's two pinnaces, and set forth on a plundering excursion to
-the West Indies. They took a small Spanish vessel off the coast of Cuba,
-but were soon compelled by famine to put into Havana and give themselves
-up. Here, to make their peace with the authorities, they told all they
-knew of the position and purposes of their countrymen at Fort Caroline,
-and thus was forged the thunderbolt soon to be hurled against the
-wretched little colony.
-
-On a Sunday morning, Francois de la Caille[FN#13] came to Laudonniere's
-quarters, and, in the name of the whole company, requested him to come
-to the parade ground. He complied, and issuing forth, his inseparable
-Ottigny at his side, he saw some thirty of his officers, soldiers, and
-gentlemen volunteers waiting before the building with fixed and sombre
-countenances. La Caille, advancing, begged leave to read, in behalf of
-the rest, a paper which he held in his hand. It opened with
-protestations of duty and obedience; next came complaints of hard work,
-starvation, and broken promises, and a request that the petitioners
-should be allowed to embark in the vessel lying in the river, and cruise
-along the Spanish Main, in order to procure provisions by purchase "or
-otherwise." In short, the flower of the company wished to turn
-buccaneers.
-
-Laudonniere refused, but assured them that, as soon as the defences of
-the fort should be completed, a search should be begun in earnest for
-the Appalachian gold mine, and that meanwhile two small vessels then
-building on the river should be sent along the coast to barter for
-provisions with the Indians. With this answer they were forced to
-content themselves; but the fermentation continued, and the plot
-thickened. Their spokesman, La Caille, however, seeing whither the
-affair tended, broke with them, and, except Ottigny, Yasseur, and the
-brave Swiss Arlac, was the only officer who held to his duty.
-
-A severe illness again seized Laudonniere, and confined him to his bed.
-Improving their advantage, the malcontents gained over nearly all the
-best soldiers in the fort. The ringleader was one Fourneaux, a man of
-good birth, but whom Le Moyne calls an avaricious hypocrite. He drew up
-a paper, to which sixty-six names were signed. La Caille boldly opposed
-the conspirators, and they resolved to kill him. His room-mate, Le
-Moyne, who had also refused to sign, received a hint of the design from
-a friend; upon which he warned La Caille, who escaped to the woods. It
-was late in the night. Fourneaux, with twenty men armed to the teeth,
-knocked fiercely at the commandant's door. Forcing an entrance, they
-wounded a gentleman who opposed them, and crowded around the sick man's
-bed. Fourneaux, armed with steel cap and cuirass, held his arquebuse to
-Laudonniere's throat, and demanded leave to go on a cruise among the
-Spanish islands. The latter kept his presence of mind, and remonstrated
-with some firmness; on which, with oaths and menaces, they dragged him
-from his bed, put him in fetters, carried him out to the gate of the
-fort, placed him in a boat, and rowed him to the ship anchored in the
-river.
-
-Two other gangs at the same time visited Ottigny and Arlac, whom they
-disarmed, and ordered to keep their rooms till the night following, on
-pain of death. Smaller parties were busied, meanwhile, in disarming all
-the loyal soldiers. The fort was completely in the hands of the
-conspirators. Fourneaux drew up a commission for his meditated West
-India cruise, which he required Laudonniere to sign. The sick
-commandant, imprisoned in the ship with one attendant, at first refused;
-but receiving a message from the mutineers, that, if he did not comply,
-they would come on board and cut his throat, he at length yielded.
-
-The buccaneers now bestirred themselves to finish the two small vessels
-on which the carpenters had been for some time at work. In a fortnight
-they were ready for sea, armed and provided with the King's cannon,
-munitions, and stores. Trenchant, an excellent pilot, was forced to join
-the party. Their favorite object was the plunder of a certain church on
-one of the Spanish islands, which they proposed to assail during the
-midnight mass of Christmas. whereby a triple end would be achieved:
-first, a rich booty; secondly, the punishment of idolatry; thirdly,
-vengeance on the arch-enemies of their party and their faith. They set
-sail on the eighth of December, taunting those who remained, calling
-them greenhorns, and threatening condign punishment if, on their
-triumphant return, they should be refused free entrance to the fort.
-
-They were no sooner gone than the unfortunate Laudonniere was gladdened
-in his solitude by the approach of his fast friends Ottigny and Arlac,
-who conveyed him to the fort and reinstated him. The entire command was
-reorganized, and new officers appointed. The colony was wofully
-depleted; but the bad blood had been drawn off, and thenceforth all
-internal danger was at an end. In finishing the fort, in building two
-new vessels to replace those of which they had been robbed, and in
-various intercourse with the tribes far and near, the weeks passed until
-the twenty-fifth of March, when an Indian came in with the tidings that
-a vessel was hovering off the coast. Laudonniere sent to reconnoitre.
-The stranger lay anchored at the mouth of the river. She was a Spanish
-brigantine, manned by the returning mutineers, starving, downcast, and
-anxious to make terms. Yet, as their posture seemed not wholly pacific,
-Landonniere sent down La Caille, with thirty soldiers concealed at the
-bottom of his little vessel. Seeing only two or three on deck, the
-pirates allowed her to come alongside; when, to their amazement, they
-were boarded and taken before they could snatch their arms. Discomfited,
-woebegone, and drunk, they were landed under a guard. Their story was
-soon told. Fortune had flattered them at the outset, and on the coast of
-Cuba they took a brigantine laden with wine and stores. Embarking in
-her, they next fell in with a caravel, which also they captured. Landing
-at a village in Jamaica, they plundered and caroused for a week, and had
-hardly re-embarked when they met a small vessel having on board the
-governor of the island. She made a desperate fight, but was taken at
-last, and with her a rich booty. They thought to put the governor to
-ransom but the astute official deceived them, and, on pretence of
-negotiating for the sum demanded,--together with "four or six parrots,
-and as many monkeys of the sort called sanguins, which are very
-beautiful," and for which his captors had also bargained,--contrived to
-send instructions to his wife. Hence it happened that at daybreak three
-armed vessels fell upon them, retook the prize, and captured or killed
-all the pirates but twenty-six, who, cutting the moorings of their
-brigantine, fled out to sea. Among these was the ringleader Fourneaux,
-and also the pilot Trenchant, who, eager to return to Fort Caroline,
-whence he had been forcibly taken, succeeded during the night in
-bringing the vessel to the coast of Florida. Great were the wrath and
-consternation of the pirates when they saw their dilemma; for, having no
-provisions, they must either starve or seek succor at the fort. They
-chose the latter course, and bore away for the St. John's. A few casks
-of Spanish wine yet remained, and nobles and soldiers, fraternizing in
-the common peril of a halter, joined in a last carouse. As the wine
-mounted to their heads, in the mirth of drink and desperation, they
-enacted their own trial. One personated the judge, another the
-commandant; witnesses were called, with arguments and speeches on either
-side.
-
-"Say what you like," said one of them, after hearing the counsel for the
-defence; "but if Laudonniere does not hang us all, I will never call him
-an honest man."
-
-They had some hope of getting provisions from the Indians at the month
-of the river, and then putting to sea again; but this was frustrated by
-La Caille's sudden attack. A court-martial was called near Fort
-Caroline, and all were found guilty. Fourneaux and three others were
-sentenced to be hanged.
-
-"Comrades," said one of the condemned, appealing to the soldiers, "will
-you stand by and see us butchered?"
-
-"These," retorted Laudonniere, "are no comrades of mutineers and
-rebels."
-
-At the request of his followers, however, he commuted the sentence to
-shooting.
-
-A file of men, a rattling volley, and the debt of justice was paid. The
-bodies were hanged on gibbets, at the river's mouth, and order reigned
-at Fort Caroline.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-1564, 1565.
-
-FAMINE.   WAR.   SUCCOR.
-
-
-While the mutiny was brewing, one La Roche Ferriere had been sent out as
-an agent or emissary among the more distant tribes. Sagacious, bold, and
-restless, he pushed his way from town to town, and pretended to have
-reached the mysterious mountains of Appalache. He sent to the fort
-mantles woven with feathers, quivers covered with choice furs, arrows
-tipped with gold, wedges of a green stone like beryl or emerald, and
-other trophies of his wanderings. A gentleman named Grotaut took up the
-quest, and penetrated to the dominions of Hostaqua, who, it was
-pretended, could muster three or four thousand warriors, and who
-promised, with the aid of a hundred arquebusiers, to conquer all the
-kings of the adjacent mountains, and subject them and their gold mines
-to the rule of the French. A humbler adventurer was Pierre Gambie, a
-robust and daring youth, who had been brought up in the household of
-Coligny, and was now a soldier under Laudonniere. The latter gave him
-leave to trade with the Indians,--a privilege which he used so well that
-he grew rich with his traffic, became prime favorite with the chief of
-the island of Edelano, married his daughter, and, in his absence,
-reigned in his stead. But, as his sway verged towards despotism, his
-subjects took offence, and split his head with a hatchet.
-
-During the winter, Indians from the neighborhood of Cape Canaveral
-brought to the fort two Spaniards, wrecked fifteen years before on the
-southwestern extremity of the peninsula. They were clothed like the
-Indians,--in other words, were not clothed at all,--and their uncut
-hair streamed loose down their backs. They brought strange tales of
-those among whom they had dwelt. They told of the King of Cabs, on whose
-domains they had been wrecked, a chief mighty in stature and in power.
-In one of his villages was a pit, six feet deep and as wide as a
-hogshead, filled with treasure gathered from Spanish wrecks on adjacent
-reefs and keys. The monarch was a priest too, and a magician, with power
-over the elements. Each year he withdrew from the public gaze to hold
-converse in secret with supernal or infernal powers; and each year he
-sacrificed to his gods one of the Spaniards whom the fortune of the sea
-had cast upon his shores. The name of the tribe is preserved in that of
-the river Caboosa. In close league with him was the mighty Oathcaqua,
-dwelling near Cape Canaveral, who gave his daughter, a maiden of
-wondrous beauty, in marriage to his great ally. But as the bride with
-her bridesmaids was journeying towards Calos, escorted by a chosen band,
-they were assailed by a wild and warlike race, inhabitants of an island
-called Sarrope, in the midst of a lake, who put the warriors to flight,
-bore the maidens captive to their watery fastness, espoused them all,
-and, we are assured, "loved them above all measure."[FN#15]
-
-Outina, taught by Arlac the efficacy of the French fire-arms, begged for
-ten arquebusiers to aid him on a new raid among the villages of Potanou,
---again alluring his greedy allies by the assurance, that, thus
-reinforced, he would conquer for them a free access to the phantom gold
-mines of Appalache. Ottigny set forth on this fool's errand with thrice
-the force demanded. Three hundred Thirnagoas and thirty Frenchmen took
-up their march through the pine barrens. Outina's conjurer was of the
-number, and had wellnigh ruined the enterprise. Kneeling on Ottigny's
-shield, that he might not touch the earth, with hideous grimaces,
-howlings, and contortions, he wrought himself into a prophetic frenzy,
-and proclaimed to the astounded warriors that to advance farther would
-be destruction.[FN#16] Outina was for instant retreat, but Ottigny's
-sarcasms shamed him into a show of courage. Again they moved forward,
-and soon encountered Potanou with all his host.[FN#17] The arquebuse did
-its work,--panic, slaughter, and a plentiful harvest of scalps. But no
-persuasion could induce Outina to follow up his victory. He went home to
-dance round his trophies, and the French returned disgusted to Fort
-Caroline.
-
-And now, in ample measure, the French began to reap the harvest of their
-folly. Conquest, gold, and military occupation had alone been their
-aims. Not a rod of ground had been stirred with the spade. Their stores
-were consumed, and the expected supplies had not come. The Indians, too,
-were hostile. Satouriona hated them as allies of his enemies; and his
-tribesmen, robbed and maltreated by the lawless soldiers, exulted in
-their miseries. Yet in these, their dark and subtle neighbors, was their
-only hope.
-
-May-day came, the third anniversary of the day when Ribaut and his
-companions, full of delighted anticipation, had first explored the
-flowery borders of the St. John's. The contrast was deplorable; for
-within the precinct of Fort Caroline a homesick, squalid band, dejected
-and worn, dragged their shrunken limbs about the sun-scorched area, or
-lay stretched in listless wretchedness under the shade of the barracks.
-Some were digging roots in the forest, or gathering a kind of sorrel
-upon the meadows. If they had had any skill in hunting and fishing, the
-river and the woods would have supplied their needs; but in this point,
-as in others, they were lamentably unfit for the work they had taken in
-hand. "Our miserie," says Laudonniere, "was so great that one was found
-that gathered up all the fish-bones that he could finde, which he dried
-and beate into powder to make bread thereof. The effects of this hideous
-famine appeared incontinently among us, for our bones eftsoones beganne
-to cleave so neere unto the skinne, that the most part of the souldiers
-had their skinnes pierced thorow with them in many partes of their
-bodies." Yet, giddy with weakness, they dragged themselves in turn to
-the top of St. John's Bluff, straining their eyes across the sea to
-descry the anxiously expected sail.
-
-Had Coligny left them to perish? Or had some new tempest of calamity,
-let loose upon France, drowned the memory of their exile? In vain the
-watchman on the hill surveyed the solitude of waters. A deep dejection
-fell upon them,--a dejection that would have sunk to despair could
-their eyes have pierced the future.
-
-The Indians had left the neighborhood, but from time to time brought in
-meagre supplies of fish, which they sold to the famished soldiers at
-exorbitant prices. Lest they should pay the penalty of their extortion,
-they would not enter the fort, but lay in their canoes in the river,
-beyond gunshot, waiting for their customers to come out to them.
-"Oftentimes," says Laudonniere, "our poor soldiers were constrained to
-give away the very shirts from their backs to get one fish. If at any
-time they shewed unto the savages the excessive price which they tooke,
-these villaines would answere them roughly and churlishly: If thou make
-so great account of thy marchandise, eat it, and we will eat our fish:
-then fell they out a laughing, and mocked us with open throat."
-
-The spring wore away, and no relief appeared. One thought now engrossed
-the colonists, that of return to France. Vasseur's ship, the "Breton,"
-still remained in the river, and they had also the Spanish brigantine
-brought by the mutineers. But these vessels were insufficient, and they
-prepared to build a new one. The energy of reviving hope lent new life
-to their exhausted frames. Some gathered pitch in the pine forests; some
-made charcoal; some cut and sawed timber. The maize began to ripen, and
-this brought some relief; but the Indians, exasperated and greedy, sold
-it with reluctance, and murdered two half-famished Frenchmen who
-gathered a handful in the fields.
-
-The colonists applied to Outina, who owed them two victories. The result
-was a churlish message and a niggardly supply of corn, coupled with an
-invitation to aid him against an insurgent chief, one Astina, the
-plunder of whose villages would yield an ample supply. The offer was
-accepted. Ottigny and Vasseur set out, but were grossly deceived, led
-against a different enemy, and sent back empty-handed and half-starved.
-
-They returned to the fort, in the words of Laudonniere, "angry and
-pricked deepely to the quicke for being so mocked," and, joined by all
-their comrades, fiercely demanded to be led against Outina, to seize
-him, punish his insolence, and extort from his fears the supplies which
-could not be looked for from his gratitude. The commandant was forced to
-comply. Those who could bear the weight of their armor put it on,
-embarked, to the number of fifty, in two barges, and sailed up the river
-under Laudonniere himself. Having reached Outina's landing, they marched
-inland, entered his village, surrounded his mud-plastered palace, seized
-him amid the yells and howlings of his subjects, and led him prisoner to
-their boats. Here, anchored in mid-stream, they demanded a supply of
-corn and beans as the price of his ransom.
-
-The alarm spread. Excited warriors, bedaubed with red, came thronging
-from all his villages. The forest along the shore was full of them; and
-the wife of the chief, followed by all the women of the place, uttered
-moans and outcries from the strand. Yet no ransom was offered, since,
-reasoning from their own instincts, they never doubted that, after the
-price was paid, the captive would be put to death.
-
-Laudonniere waited two days, and then descended the river with his
-prisoner. In a rude chamber of Fort Caroline the sentinel stood his
-guard, pike in hand, while before him crouched the captive chief, mute,
-impassive, and brooding on his woes. His old enemy, Satouriona, keen as
-a hound on the scent of prey, tried, by great offers, to bribe
-Laudonniere to give Outina into his hands; but the French captain
-refused, treated his prisoner kindly, and assured him of immediate
-freedom on payment of the ransom.
-
-Meanwhile his captivity was bringing grievous affliction on his
-tribesmen; for, despairing of his return, they mustered for the election
-of a new chief. Party strife ran high. Some were for a boy, his son, and
-some for an ambitious kinsman. Outina chafed in his prison on learning
-these dissentions; and, eager to convince his over-hasty subjects that
-their chief still lived, he was so profuse of promises that he was again
-embarked and carried up the river.
-
-At no great distance from Lake George, a small affluent of the St.
-John's gave access by water to a point within six French leagues of
-Outina's principal town. The two barges, crowded with soldiers, and
-bearing also the captive Outina, rowed up this little stream. Indians
-awaited them at the landing, with gifts of bread, beans, and fish, and
-piteous prayers for their chief, upon whose liberation they promised an
-ample supply of corn. As they were deaf to all other terms, Laudonniere
-yielded, released his prisoner, and received in his place two hostages,
-who were fast bound in the boats. Ottigny and Arlac, with a strong
-detachment of arquebusiers, went to receive the promised supplies, for
-which, from the first, full payment in merchandise had been offered. On
-their arrival at the village, they filed into the great central lodge,
-within whose dusky precincts were gathered the magnates of the tribe.
-Council-chamber, forum, banquet-hall, and dancing-hall all in one, the
-spacious structure could hold half the population. Here the French made
-their abode. With armor buckled, and arquebuse matches lighted, they
-watched with anxious eyes the strange, dim scene, half revealed by the
-daylight that streamed down through the hole at the apex of the roof.
-Tall, dark forms stalked to and fro, with quivers at their backs, and
-bows and arrows in their hands, while groups, crouched in the shadow
-beyond, eyed the hated guests with inscrutable visages, and malignant,
-sidelong eyes. Corn came in slowly, but warriors mustered fast. The
-village without was full of them. The French officers grew anxious, and
-urged the chiefs to greater alacrity in collecting the promised ransom.
-The answer boded no good: "Our women are afraid when they see the
-matches of your guns burning. Put them out, and they will bring the corn
-faster."
-
-Outina was nowhere to be seen. At length they learned that he was in one
-of the small huts adjacent. Several of the officers went to him,
-complaining of the slow payment of his ransom. The kindness of his
-captors at Fort Caroline seemed to have won his heart. He replied, that
-such was the rage of his subjects that he could no longer control them;
-that the French were in danger; and that he had seen arrows stuck in the
-ground by the side of the path, in token that war was declared. The
-peril was thickening hourly, and Ottigny resolved to regain the boats
-while there was yet time.
-
-On the twenty-seventh of July, at nine in the morning, he set his men in
-order. Each shouldering a sack of corn, they marched through the rows of
-huts that surrounded the great lodge, and out betwixt the overlapping
-extremities of the palisade that encircled the town. Before them
-stretched a wide avenue, three or four hundred paces long, flanked by a
-natural growth of trees,--one of those curious monuments of native
-industry to which allusion has already been made. Here Ottigny halted
-and formed his line of march. Arlac, with eight matchlock men, was sent
-in advance, and flanking parties were thrown into the woods on either
-side. Ottigny told his soldiers that, if the Indians meant to attack
-them, they were probably in ambush at the other end of the avenue. He
-was right. As Arlac's party reached the spot, the whole pack gave tongue
-at once. The war-whoop rose, and a tempest of stone-headed arrows
-clattered against the breast-plates of the French, or, scorching like
-fire, tore through their unprotected limbs. They stood firm, and sent
-back their shot so steadily that several of the assailants were laid
-dead, and the rest, two or three hundred in number, gave way as Ottigny
-came up with his men.
-
-They moved on for a quarter of a mile through a country, as it seems,
-comparatively open, when again the war-cry pealed in front, and three
-hundred savages bounded to the assault. Their whoops were echoed from
-the rear. It was the party whom Arlac had just repulsed, and who,
-leaping and showering their arrows, were rushing on again with a
-ferocity restrained only by their lack of courage. There was no panic
-among the French. The men threw down their bags of corn, and took to
-their weapons. They blew their matches, and, under two excellent
-officers, stood well to their work. The Indians, on their part, showed
-good discipline after their fashion, and were perfectly under the
-control of their chiefs. With cries that imitated the yell of owls, the
-scream of cougars, and the howl of wolves, they ran up in successive
-bands, let fly their arrows, and instantly fell back, giving place to
-others. At the sight of the leveled arquebuse, they dropped flat on the
-ground. Whenever the French charged upon them, sword in hand, they fled
-through the woods like foxes; and whenever the march was resumed, the
-arrows were showering again upon the flanks and rear of the retiring
-band. As they fell, the soldiers picked them up and broke them. Thus,
-beset with swarming savages, the handful of Frenchmen pushed slowly
-onward, fighting as they went.
-
-The Indians gradually drew off, and the forest was silent again. Two of
-the French had been killed and twenty-two wounded, several so severely
-that they were supported to the boats with the utmost difficulty. Of the
-corn, two bags only had been brought off.
-
-Famine and desperation now reigned at Fort Caroline. The Indians had
-killed two of the carpenters; hence long delay in the finishing of the
-new ship. They would not wait, but resolved to put to sea in the
-"Breton" and the brigantine. The problem was to find food for the
-voyage; for now, in their extremity, they roasted and ate snakes, a
-delicacy in which the neighborhood abounded.
-
-On the third of August, Laudonniere, perturbed and oppressed, was
-walking on the hill, when, looking seaward, he saw a sight that sent a
-thrill through his exhausted frame. A great ship was standing towards
-the river's mouth. Then another came in sight, and another, and another.
-He despatched a messenger with the tidings to the fort below. The
-languid forms of his sick and despairing men rose and danced for joy,
-and voices shrill with weakness joined in wild laughter and acclamation,
-insomuch, he says, "that one would have thought them to bee out of their
-wittes."
-
-A doubt soon mingled with their joy. Who were the strangers?  Were they
-the friends so long hoped for in vain? or were they Spaniards, their
-dreaded enemies? They were neither. The foremost ship was a stately one,
-of seven hundred tons, a great burden at that day. She was named the
-"Jesus;" and with her were three smaller vessels, the "Solomon," the
-"Tiger," and the "Swallow." Their commander was "a right worshipful and
-valiant knight,"--for so the record styles him,--a pious man and a
-prudent, to judge him by the orders he gave his crew when, ten months
-before, he sailed out of Plymouth: "Serve God daily, love one another,
-preserve your victuals, beware of fire, and keepe good companie." Nor
-were the crew unworthy the graces of their chief; for the devout
-chronicler of the voyage ascribes their deliverance from the perils of
-the sea to "the Almightie God, who never suffereth his Elect to perish."
-
-Who then were they, this chosen band, serenely conscious of a special
-Providential care? They were the pioneers of that detested traffic
-destined to inoculate with its infection nations yet unborn, the parent
-of discord and death, filling half a continent with the tramp of armies
-and the clash of fratricidal swords. Their chief was Sir John Hawkins,
-father of the English slave-trade.
-
-He had been to the coast of Guinea, where he bought and kidnapped a
-cargo of slaves. These he had sold to the jealous Spaniards of
-Hispaniola, forcing them, with sword, matchlock, and culverin, to grant
-him free trade, and then to sign testimonials that he had borne himself
-as became a peaceful merchant. Prospering greatly by this summary
-commerce, but distressed by the want of water, he had put into the River
-of May to obtain a supply.
-
-Among the rugged heroes of the British marine, Sir John stood in the
-front rank, and along with Drake, his relative, is extolled as "a man
-borne for the honour of the English name. . . . Neither did the West of
-England yeeld such an Indian Neptunian paire as were these two Ocean
-peeres, Hawkins and Drake." So writes the old chronicler, Purchas, and
-all England was of his thinking. A hardy and skilful seaman, a bold
-fighter, a loyal friend and a stern enemy, overbearing towards equals,
-but kind, in his bluff way, to those beneath him, rude in speech,
-somewhat crafty withal and avaricious, he buffeted his way to riches and
-fame, and died at last full of years and honor. As for the abject
-humanity stowed between the reeking decks of the ship "Jesus," they were
-merely in his eyes so many black cattle tethered for the market.[FN#18]
-
-Hawkins came up the river in a pinnace, and landed at Fort Caroline,
-accompanied, says Laudonniere, "with gentlemen honorably apparelled, yet
-unarmed." Between the Huguenots and the English Puritans there was a
-double tie of sympathy. Both hated priests, and both hated Spaniards.
-Wakening from their apathetic misery, the starveling garrison hailed him
-as a deliverer. Yet Hawkins secretly rejoiced when he learned their
-purpose to abandon Florida; for although, not to tempt his cupidity,
-they hid from him the secret of their Appalachian gold mine, he coveted
-for his royal mistress the possession of this rich domain. He shook his
-head, however, when he saw the vessels in which they proposed to embark,
-and offered them all a free passage to France in his own ships. This,
-from obvious motives of honor and prudence, Laudonniere declined, upon
-which Hawkins offered to lend or sell to him one of his smaller vessels.
-
-Laudonniere hesitated, and hereupon arose a great clamor. A mob of
-soldiers and artisans beset his chamber, threatening loudly to desert
-him, and take passage with Hawkins, unless the offer were accepted. The
-commandant accordingly resolved to buy the vessel. The generous slaver,
-whose reputed avarice nowhere appears in the transaction, desired him to
-set his own price; and, in place of money, took the cannon of the fort,
-with other articles now useless to their late owners. He sent them, too,
-a gift of wine and biscuit, and supplied them with provisions for the
-voyage, receiving in payment Laudonniere's note; "for which," adds the
-latter, "untill this present I am indebted to him." With a friendly
-leave taking, he returned to his ships and stood out to sea, leaving
-golden opinions among the grateful inmates of Fort Caroline.
-
-Before the English top-sails had sunk beneath the horizon, the colonists
-bestirred themselves to depart. In a few days their preparations were
-made. They waited only for a fair wind. It was long in coming, and
-meanwhile their troubled fortunes assumed a new phase.
-
-On the twenty eighth of August, the two captains Vasseur and Verdier
-came in with tidings of an approaching squadron. Again the fort was wild
-with excitement. Friends or foes, French or Spaniards, succor or death,
---betwixt these were their hopes and fears divided. On the following
-morning, they saw seven barges rowing up the river, bristling with
-weapons, and crowded with men in armor. The sentries on the bluff
-challenged, and received no answer. One of them fired at the advancing
-boats, and still there was no response. Laudonniere was almost
-defenceless. He had given his heavier cannon to Hawkins, and only two
-field-pieces were left. They were levelled at the foremost boats, and
-the word to fire was about to be given, when a voice from among the
-strangers called out that they were French, commanded by Jean Ribaut.
-
-At the eleventh hour, the long looked for succors were come. Ribaut had
-been commissioned to sail with seven ships for Florida. A disorderly
-concourse of disbanded soldiers, mixed with artisans and their families,
-and young nobles weary of a two years' peace, were mustered at the port
-of Dieppe, and embarked, to the number of three hundred men, bearing
-with them all things thought necessary to a prosperous colony.
-
-No longer in dread of the Spaniards, the colonists saluted the
-new-comers with the cannon by which a moment before they had hoped to
-blow them out of the water. Laudonniere issued from his stronghold to
-welcome them, and regaled them with what cheer he could. Ribaut was
-present, conspicuous by his long beard, an astonishment to the Indians;
-and here, too, were officers, old friends of Laudonniere. Why, then, had
-they approached in the attitude of enemies? The mystery was soon
-explained; for they expressed to the commandant their pleasure at
-finding that the charges made against him had proved false. He begged to
-know more; on which Ribaut, taking him aside, told him that the
-returning ships had brought home letters filled with accusations of
-arrogance, tyranny, cruelty, and a purpose of establishing an
-independent command,--accusations which he now saw to be unfounded, but
-which had been the occasion of his unusual and startling precaution. He
-gave him, too, a letter from Admiral Coligny. In brief but courteous
-terms, it required him to resign his command, and requested his return
-to France to clear his name from the imputations cast upon it. Ribaut
-warmly urged him to remain; but Laudonniere declined his friendly
-proposals.
-
-Worn in body and mind, mortified and wounded, he soon fell ill again. A
-peasant woman attended him, who was brought over, he says, to nurse the
-sick and take charge of the poultry, and of whom Le Moyne also speaks as
-a servant, but who had been made the occasion of additional charges
-against him, most offensive to the austere Admiral.
-
-Stores were landed, tents were pitched, women and children were sent on
-shore, feathered Indians mingled in the throng, and the borders of the
-River of May swarmed with busy life. "But, lo, how oftentimes misfortune
-doth search and pursue us, even then when we thinke to be at rest!"
-exclaims the unhappy Laudonniere. Amidst the light and cheer of
-renovated hope, a cloud of blackest omen was gathering in the east.
-
-At half-past eleven on the night of Tuesday, the fourth of September,
-the crew of Ribaut's flag-ship, anchored on the still sea outside the
-bar, saw a huge hulk, grim with the throats of cannon, drifting towards
-them through the gloom; and from its stern rolled on the sluggish air
-the portentous banner of Spain.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-1565.
-
-MENENDEZ.
-
-The monk, the inquisitor, and the Jesuit were lords of Spain,--
-sovereigns of her sovereign, for they had formed the dark and narrow
-mind of that tyrannical recluse. They had formed the minds of her
-people, quenched in blood every spark of rising heresy, and given over a
-noble nation to a bigotry blind and inexorable as the doom of fate.
-Linked with pride, ambition, avarice, every passion of a rich, strong
-nature, potent for good and ill, it made the Spaniard of that day a
-scourge as dire as ever fell on man.
-
-Day was breaking on the world. Light, hope, and freedom pierced with
-vitalizing ray the clouds and the miasma that hung so thick over the
-prostrate Middle Age, once noble and mighty, now a foul image of decay
-and death. Kindled with new life, the nations gave birth to a progeny of
-heroes, and the stormy glories of the sixteenth century rose on awakened
-Europe. But Spain was the citadel of darkness,--a monastic cell, an
-inquisitorial dungeon, where no ray could pierce. She was the bulwark of
-the Church, against whose adamantine wall the waves of innovation beat
-in vain.[FN#19] In every country of Europe the party of freedom and
-reform was the national party, the party of reaction and absolutism was
-the Spanish party, leaning on Spain, looking to her for help. Above all,
-it was so in France; and, while within her bounds there was for a time
-some semblance of peace, the national and religious rage burst forth on
-a wilder theatre. Thither it is for us to follow it, where, on the
-shores of Florida, the Spaniard and the Frenchman, the bigot and the
-Huguenot, met in the grapple of death.
-
-In a corridor of his palace, Philip the Second was met by a man who had
-long stood waiting his approach, and who with proud reverence placed a
-petition in the hand of the pale and sombre King.
-
-The petitioner was Pedro Menendez de Aviles, one of the ablest and most
-distinguished officers of the Spanish marine. He was born of an ancient
-Asturian family. His boyhood had been wayward, ungovernable, and fierce.
-He ran off at eight years of age, and when, after a search of six
-months, he was found and brought back, he ran off again. This time he
-was more successful, escaping on board a fleet bound against the Barbary
-corsairs, where his precocious appetite for blood and blows had
-reasonable contentment. A few years later, he found means to build a
-small vessel, in which he cruised against the corsairs and the French,
-and, though still hardly more than a boy, displayed a singular address
-and daring. The wonders of the New World now seized his imagination. He
-made a voyage thither, and the ships under his charge came back
-freighted with wealth. The war with France was then at its height. As
-captain-general of the fleet, he was sent with troops to Flanders; and
-to their prompt arrival was due, it is said, the victory of St. Quentin.
-Two years later, he commanded the luckless armada which bore back Philip
-to his native shore. On the way, the King narrowly escaped drowning in a
-storm off the port of Laredo. This mischance, or his own violence and
-insubordination, wrought to the prejudice of Menendez. He complained
-that his services were ill repaid. Philip lent him a favoring ear, and
-despatched him to the Indies as general of the fleet and army. Here he
-found means to amass vast riches; and, in 1561, on his return to Spain,
-charges were brought against him of a nature which his too friendly
-biographer does not explain. The Council of the Indies arrested him. He
-was imprisoned and sentenced to a heavy fine; but, gaining his release,
-hastened to court to throw himself on the royal clemency. His petition
-was most graciously received. Philip restored his command, but remitted
-only half his fine, a strong presumption of his guilt.
-
-Menendez kissed the royal hand; he had another petition in reserve. His
-son had been wrecked near the Bermudas, and he would fain go thither to
-find tidings of his fate. The pious King bade him trust in God, and
-promised that he should be despatched without delay to the Bermudas and
-to Florida, with a commission to make an exact survey of the neighboring
-seas for the profit of future voyagers; but Menendez was not content
-with such an errand. He knew, he said, nothing of greater moment to his
-Majesty than the conquest and settlement of Florida. The climate was
-healthful, the soil fertile; and, worldly advantages aside, it was
-peopled by a race sunk in the thickest shades of infidelity. "Such
-grief," he pursued, "seizes me, when I behold this multitude of wretched
-Indians, that I should choose the conquest and settling of Florida above
-all commands, offices, and dignities which your Majesty might bestow."
-Those who take this for hypocrisy do not know the Spaniard of the
-sixteenth century.
-
-The King was edified by his zeal. An enterprise of such spiritual and
-temporal promise was not to be slighted, and Menendez was empowered to
-conquer and convert Florida at his own cost. The conquest was to be
-effected within three years. Menendez was to take with him five hundred
-men, and supply them with five hundred slaves, besides horses, cattle,
-sheep, and hogs. Villages were to be built, with forts to defend them,
-and sixteen ecclesiastics, of whom four should be Jesuits, were to form
-the nucleus of a Floridan church. The King, on his part, granted
-Menendez free trade with Hispaniola, Porto Rico, Cuba, and Spain, the
-office of Adelantado of Florida for life, with the right of naming his
-successor, and large emoluments to be drawn from the expected conquest.
-
-The compact struck, Menendez hastened to his native Asturias to raise
-money among his relatives. Scarcely was he gone, when tidings reached
-Madrid that Florida was already occupied by a colony of French
-Protestants, and that a reinforcement, under Ribaut, was on the point of
-sailing thither. A French historian of high authority declares that
-these advices came from the Catholic party at the French court, in whom
-every instinct of patriotism was lost in their hatred of Coligny and the
-Huguenots. Of this there can be little doubt, though information also
-came about this time from the buccaneer Frenchmen captured in the West
-Indies.
-
-Foreigners had invaded the territory of Spain. The trespassers, too,
-were heretics, foes of God, and liegemen of the Devil. Their doom was
-fixed. But how would France endure an assault, in time of peace, on
-subjects who had gone forth on an enterprise sanctioned by the Crown,
-and undertaken in its name and under its commission?
-
-The throne of France, in which the corruption of the nation seemed
-gathered to a head, was trembling between the two parties of the
-Catholics and the Huguenots, whose chiefs aimed at royalty. Flattering
-both, caressing both, playing one against the other, and betraying both,
-Catherine de Medicis, by a thousand crafty arts and expedients of the
-moment, sought to retain the crown on the head of her weak and vicious
-son. Of late her crooked policy had led her towards the Catholic party,
-in other words the party of Spain; and she had already given ear to the
-savage Duke of Alva, urging her to the course which, seven years later,
-led to the carnage of St. Bartholomew. In short, the Spanish policy was
-in the ascendant, and no thought of the national interest or honor could
-restrain that basest of courts from abandoning by hundreds to the
-national enemy those whom it was itself meditating to immolate by
-thousands. It might protest for form's sake, or to quiet public clamor;
-but Philip of Spain well knew that it would end in patient submission.
-
-Menendez was summoned back in haste to the Spanish court. His force must
-be strengthened. Three hundred and ninety-four men were added at the
-royal charge, and a corresponding number of transport and supply ships.
-It was a holy war, a crusade, and as such was preached by priest and
-monk along the western coasts of Spain. All the Biscayan ports flamed
-with zeal, and adventurers crowded to enroll themselves; since to
-plunder heretics is good for the soul as well as the purse, and broil
-and massacre have double attraction when promoted into a means of
-salvation. It was a fervor, deep and hot, but not of celestial kindling;
-nor yet that buoyant and inspiring zeal which, when the Middle Age was
-in its youth and prime, glowed in the souls of Tancred, Godfrey, and St.
-Louis, and which, when its day was long since past, could still find its
-home in the great heart of Columbus. A darker spirit urged the new
-crusade,--born not of hope, but of fear, slavish in its nature, the
-creature and the tool of despotism; for the typical Spaniard of the
-sixteenth century was not in strictness a fanatic, he was bigotry
-incarnate.
-
-Heresy was a plague-spot, an ulcer to be eradicated with fire and the
-knife, and this foul abomination was infecting the shores which the
-Vicegerent of Christ had given to the King of Spain, and which the Most
-Catholic King had given to the Adelantado. Thus would countless heathen
-tribes be doomed to an eternity of flame, and the Prince of Darkness
-hold his ancient sway unbroken; and for the Adelantado himself, the vast
-outlays, the vast debts of his bold Floridan venture would be all in
-vain, and his fortunes be wrecked past redemption through these tools of
-Satan. As a Catholic, as a Spaniard, and as an adventurer, his course
-was clear.
-
-The work assigned him was prodigious. He was invested with power almost
-absolute, not merely over the peninsula which now retains the name of
-Florida, but over all North America, from Labrador to Mexico; for this
-was the Florida of the old Spanish geographers, and the Florida
-designated in the commission of Menendez. It was a continent which he
-was to conquer and occupy out of his own purse. The impoverished King
-contracted with his daring and ambitious subject to win and hold for him
-the territory of the future United States and British Provinces. His
-plan, as afterwards exposed at length in his letters to Philip the
-Second, was, first, to plant a garrison at Port Royal, and next to
-fortify strongly on Chesapeake Bay, called by him St. Mary's. He
-believed that adjoining this bay was an arm of the sea, running
-northward and eastward, and communicating with the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
-thus making New England, with adjacent districts, an island. His
-proposed fort on the Chesapeake, securing access by this imaginary
-passage, to the seas of Newfoundland, would enable the Spaniards to
-command the fisheries, on which both the French and the English had long
-encroached, to the great prejudice of Spanish rights. Doubtless, too,
-these inland waters gave access to the South Sea, and their occupation
-was necessary to prevent the French from penetrating thither; for that
-ambitious people, since the time of Cartier, had never abandoned their
-schemes of seizing this portion of the dominions of the King of Spain.
-Five hundred soldiers and one hundred sailors must, he urges, take
-possession, without delay, of Port Royal and the Chesapeake.[FN#20]
-
-Preparation for his enterprise was pushed with furious energy. His whole
-force, when the several squadrons were united, amounted to two thousand
-six hundred and forty-six persons, in thirty-four vessels, one of which,
-the San Pelayo, bearing Menendez himself, was of nine hundred and
-ninety-six tons burden, and is described as one of the finest ships
-afloat.[FN#21] There were twelve Franciscans and eight Jesuits, besides
-other ecclesiastics; and many knights of Galicia, Biscay, and the
-Asturias took part in the expedition. With a slight exception, the whole
-was at the Adelantado's charge. Within the first fourteen months,
-according to his admirer, Barcia, the adventure cost him a million
-ducats.[FN#22]
-
-Before the close of the year, Sancho do Arciniega was commissioned to
-join Menendez with an additional force of fifteen hundred men.
-
-Red-hot with a determined purpose, the Adelantado would brook no delay.
-To him, says the chronicler, every day seemed a year. He was eager to
-anticipate Ribaut, of whose designs and whose force he seems to have
-been informed to the minutest particular, but whom he hoped to thwart
-and ruin by gaining Fort Caroline before him. With eleven ships,
-therefore, he sailed from Cadiz, on the twenty-ninth of June, 1565,
-leaving the smaller vessels of his fleet to follow with what speed they
-might. He touched first at the Canaries, and on the eighth of July left
-them, steering for Dominica. A minute account of the voyage has come
-down to us, written by Mendoza, chaplain of the expedition,--a somewhat
-dull and illiterate person, who busily jots down the incidents of each
-passing day, and is constantly betraying, with a certain awkward
-simplicity, how the cares of this world and of the next jostle each
-other in his thoughts.
-
-On Friday, the twentieth of July, a storm fell upon them with appalling
-fury. The pilots lost their wits, and the sailors gave themselves up to
-their terrors. Throughout the night, they beset Mendoza for confession
-and absolution, a boon not easily granted, for the seas swept the
-crowded decks with cataracts of foam, and the shriekings of the gale in
-the rigging overpowered the exhortations of the half-drowned priest.
-Cannon, cables, spars, water-casks, were thrown overboard, and the
-chests of the sailors would have followed, had not the latter, in spite
-of their fright, raised such a howl of remonstrance that the order was
-revoked. At length day dawned, Plunging, reeling, half under water,
-quivering with the shock of the seas, whose mountain ridges rolled down
-upon her before the gale, the ship lay in deadly peril from Friday till
-Monday noon. Then the storm abated; the sun broke out; and again she
-held her course.
-
-They reached Dominica on Sunday, the fifth of August. The chaplain tells
-us how he went on shore to refresh himself; how, while his Italian
-servant washed his linen at a brook, he strolled along the beach and
-picked up shells; and how he was scared, first, by a prodigious turtle,
-and next by a vision of the cannibal natives, which caused his prompt
-retreat to the boats.
-
-On the tenth, they anchored in the harbor of Porto Rico, where they
-found two ships of their squadron, from which they had parted in the
-storm. One of them was the "San Pelayo," with Menendez on board. Mendoza
-informs us, that in the evening the officers came on board the ship to
-which he was attached, when he, the chaplain, regaled them with
-sweetmeats, and that Menendez invited him not only to supper that night,
-but to dinner the next day, "for the which I thanked him, as reason
-was," says the gratified churchman.
-
-Here thirty men deserted, and three priests also ran off, of which
-Mendoza bitterly complains, as increasing his own work. The motives of
-the clerical truants may perhaps be inferred from a worldly temptation
-to which the chaplain himself was subjected. "I was offered the service
-of a chapel where I should have got a peso for every mass I said, the
-whole year round; but I did not accept it, for fear that what I hear
-said of the other three would be said of me. Besides, it is not a place
-where one can hope for any great advancement, and I wished to try
-whether, in refusing a benefice for the love of the Lord, He will not
-repay me with some other stroke of fortune before the end of the voyage;
-for it is my aim to serve God and His blessed Mother."
-
-The original design had been to rendezvous at Havana, but with the
-Adelantado the advantages of despatch outweighed every other
-consideration. He resolved to push directly for Florida. Five of his
-scattered ships had by this time rejoined company, comprising, exclusive
-of officers, a force of about five hundred soldiers, two hundred
-sailors, and one hundred colonists. Bearing northward, he advanced by an
-unknown and dangerous course along the coast of Hayti and through the
-intricate passes of the Bahamas. On the night of the twenty-sixth, the
-"San Pelayo" struck three times on the shoals; "but," says the chaplain,
-"inasmuch as our enterprise was undertaken for the sake of Christ and
-His blessed Mother, two heavy seas struck her abaft, and set her afloat
-again."
-
-At length the ships lay becalmed in the Bahama Channel, slumbering on
-the glassy sea, torpid with the heats of a West Indian August. Menendez
-called a council of the commanders. There was doubt and indecision.
-Perhaps Ribaut had already reached the French fort, and then to attack
-the united force would be an act of desperation. Far better to await
-their lagging comrades. But the Adelantado was of another mind; and,
-even had his enemy arrived, ho was resolved that he should have no time
-to fortify himself.
-
-"It is God's will," he said, "that our victory should be due, not to our
-numbers, but to His all-powerful aid. Therefore has He stricken us with
-tempests, and scattered our ships." And he gave his voice for instant
-advance.
-
-There was much dispute; even the chaplain remonstrated; but nothing
-could bend the iron will of Menendez. Nor was a sign of celestial
-approval wanting. At nine in the evening, a great meteor burst forth in
-mid-heaven, and, blazing like the sun, rolled westward towards the coast
-of Florida. The fainting spirits of the crusaders were revived. Diligent
-preparation was begun. Prayers and masses were said; and, that the
-temporal arm might not fail, the men were daily practised on deck in
-shooting at marks, in order, says the chronicle, that the recruits might
-learn not to be afraid of their guns.
-
-The dead calm continued. "We were all very tired," says the chaplain,
-"and I above all, with praying to God for a fair wind. To-day, at about
-two in the afternoon, He took pity on us, and sent us a breeze." Before
-night they saw land,--the faint line of forest, traced along the watery
-horizon, that marked the coast of Florida. But where, in all this vast
-monotony, was the lurking-place of the French? Menendez anchored, and
-sent a captain with twenty men ashore, who presently found a band of
-Indians, and gained from them the needed information. He stood
-northward, till, on the afternoon of Tuesday, the fourth of September,
-he descried four ships anchored near the mouth of a river. It was the
-river St. John's, and the ships were four of Ribaut's squadron. The prey
-was in sight. The Spaniards prepared for battle, and bore down upon the
-Lutherans; for, with them, all Protestants alike were branded with the
-name of the arch-heretic. Slowly, before the faint breeze, the ships
-glided on their way; but while, excited and impatient, the fierce crews
-watched the decreasing space, and when they were still three leagues
-from their prize, the air ceased to stir, the sails flapped against the
-mast, a black cloud with thunder rose above the coast, and the warm rain
-of the South descended on the breathless sea. It was dark before the
-wind stirred again and the ships resumed their course. At half-past
-eleven they reached the French. The "San Pelayo" slowly moved to
-windward of Ribaut's flag-ship, the "Trinity," and anchored very near
-her. The other ships took similar stations. While these preparations
-were making, a work of two hours, the men labored in silence, and the
-French, thronging their gangways, looked on in equal silence. "Never,
-since I came into the world," writes the chaplain, "did I know such a
-stillness."
-
-It was broken at length by a trumpet from the deck of the "San Pelayo."
-A French trumpet answered. Then Menendez, "with much courtesy," says his
-Spanish eulogist, inquired, "Gentlemen, whence does this fleet come?"
-
-"From France," was the reply.
-
-"What are you doing here?" pursued the Adelantado.
-
-"Bringing soldiers and supplies for a fort which the King of France has
-in this country, and for many others which he soon will have."
-
-"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?"
-
-Many voices cried out together, "Lutherans, of the new religion." Then,
-in their turn, they demanded who Menendez was, and whence he came.
-
-He answered: "I am Pedro Menendez, General of the fleet of the King of
-Spain, Don Philip the Second, who have come to this country to hang and
-behead all Lutherans whom I shall find by land or sea, according to
-instructions from my King, so precise that I have power to pardon none;
-and these commands I shall fulfil, as you will see. At daybreak I shall
-board your ships, and if I find there any Catholic, he shall be well
-treated; but every heretic shall die."
-
-The French with one voice raised a cry of wrath and defiance.
-
-"If you are a brave man, don't wait till day. Come on now, and see what
-you will get!"
-
-And they assailed the Adelantado with a shower of scoffs and insults.
-
-Menendez broke into a rage, and gave the order to board.  The men
-slipped the cables, and the sullen black hulk of the "San Pelayo"
-drifted down upon the "Trinity." The French did not make good their
-defiance. Indeed, they were incapable of resistance, Ribaut with his
-soldiers being ashore at Fort Caroline. They cut their cables, left
-their anchors, made sail, and fled. The Spaniards fired, the French
-replied. The other Spanish ships had imitated the movement of the "San
-Pelayo;" "but," writes the chaplain, Mendoza, "these devils are such
-adroit sailors, and maneuvred so well, that we did not catch one of
-them." Pursuers and pursued ran out to sea, firing useless volleys at
-each other.
-
-In the morning Menendez gave over the chase, turned, and, with the "San
-Pelayo" alone, ran back for the St. John's. But here a welcome was
-prepared for him. He saw bands of armed men drawn up on the beach, and
-the smaller vessels of Ribaut's squadron, which had crossed the bar
-several days before, anchored behind it to oppose his landing. He would
-not venture an attack, but, steering southward, sailed along the coast
-till he came to an inlet which he named San Augustine, the same which
-Laudonniere had named the River of Dolphins.
-
-Here he found three of his ships already debarking their troops, guns,
-and stores. Two officers, Patiflo and Vicente, had taken possession of
-the dwelling of the Indian chief Seloy, a huge barn-like structure,
-strongly framed of entire trunks of trees, and thatched with palmetto
-leaves. Around it they were throwing up entrenchments of fascines and
-sand, and gangs of negroes were toiling at the work. Such was the birth
-of St. Augustine, the oldest town of the United States.
-
-On the eighth, Menendez took formal possession of his domain. Cannon
-were fired, trumpets sounded, and banners displayed, as he landed in
-state at the head of his officers and nobles. Mendoza, crucifix in hand,
-came to meet him, chanting Te Deum laudamus, while the Adelantado and
-all his company, kneeling, kissed the crucifix, and the assembled
-Indians gazed in silent wonder.
-
-Meanwhile the tenants of Fort Caroline were not idle. Two or three
-soldiers, strolling along the beach in the afternoon, had first seen the
-Spanish ships, and hastily summoned Ribaut. He came down to the mouth of
-the river, followed by an anxious and excited crowd; but, as they
-strained their eyes through the darkness, they could see nothing but the
-flashes of the distant guns. At length the returning light showed, far
-out at sea, the Adelantado in hot chase of their flying comrades.
-Pursuers and pursued were soon out of sight. The drums beat to arms.
-After many hours of suspense, the "San Pelayo" reappeared, hovering
-about the mouth of the river, then bearing away towards the south. More
-anxious hours ensued, when three other sail came in sight, and they
-recognized three of their own returning ships. Communication was opened,
-a boat's crew landed, and they learned from Cosette, one of the French
-captains, that, confiding in the speed of his ship, he had followed the
-Spaniards to St. Augustine, reconnoitred their position, and seen them
-land their negroes and intrench themselves.
-
-Laudonniere lay sick in bed in his chamber at Fort Caroline when Ribaut
-entered, and with him La Grange, Sainte Marie, Ottigny, Yonville, and
-other officers. At the bedside of the displaced commandant, they held
-their council of war. Three plans were proposed: first, to remain where
-they were and fortify themselves; next, to push overland for St.
-Augustine and attack the invaders in their intrenchments; and, finally,
-to embark and assail them by sea. The first plan would leave their ships
-a prey to the Spaniards; and so, too, in all likelihood, would the
-second, besides the uncertainties of an overland march through an
-unknown wilderness. By sea, the distance was short and the route
-explored. By a sudden blow they could capture or destroy the Spanish
-ships, and master the troops on shore before reinforcements could
-arrive, and before they had time to complete their defences.
-
-Such were the views of Ribaut, with which, not unnaturally, Laudonniere
-finds fault, and Le Moyne echoes the censures of his chief. And yet the
-plan seems as well conceived as it was bold, lacking nothing but
-success. The Spaniards, stricken with terror, owed their safety to the
-elements, or, as they say, to the special interposition of the Holy
-Virgin. Menendez was a leader fit to stand with Cortes and Pizarro; but
-he was matched with a man as cool, skilful, prompt, and daring as
-himself. The traces that have come down to us indicate in Ribaut one far
-above the common stamp,--"a distinguished man, of many high qualities,"
-as even the fault-finding Le Moyne calls him; devout after the best
-spirit of the Reform; and with a human heart under his steel
-breastplate.
-
-La Grange and other officers took part with Landonniere, and opposed the
-plan of an attack by sea; but Ribaut's conviction was unshaken, and the
-order was given. All his own soldiers fit for duty embarked in haste,
-and with them went La Caille, Arlac, and, as it seems, Ottigny, with the
-best of Laudonniere's men. Even Le Moyne, though wounded in the fight
-with Outina's warriors, went on board to bear his part in the fray, and
-would have sailed with the rest had not Ottigny, seeing his disabled
-condition, ordered him back to the fort.
-
-On the tenth, the ships, crowded with troops, set sail. Ribaut was gone,
-and with him the bone and sinew of the colony. The miserable remnant
-watched his receding sails with dreary foreboding,--a fore-boding which
-seemed but too just, when, on the next day, a storm, more violent than
-the Indians had ever known, howled through the forest and lashed the
-ocean into fury. Most forlorn was the plight of these exiles, left, it
-might be, the prey of a band of ferocious bigots more terrible than the
-fiercest hordes of the wilderness; and when night closed on the stormy
-river and the gloomy waste of pines, what dreams of terror may not have
-haunted the helpless women who crouched under the hovels of Fort
-Caroline!
-
-The fort was in a ruinous state, with the palisade on the water side
-broken down, and three breaches in the rampart. In the driving rain,
-urged by the sick Laudonniere, the men, bedrenched and disheartened,
-labored as they could to strengthen their defences. Their muster-roll
-shows but a beggarly array. "Now," says Laudonniere, "let them which
-have bene bold to say that I had men ynough left me, so that I had
-meanes to defend my selfe, give care a little now vnto mee, and if they
-have eyes in their heads, let them see what men I had." Of Ribaut's
-followers left at the fort, only nine or ten had weapons, while only two
-or three knew how to use them. Four of them were boys, who kept Ribaut's
-dogs, and another was his cook. Besides these, he had left a brewer, an
-old crossbow-maker, two shoemakers, a player on the spinet, four valets,
-a carpenter of threescore,--Challeux, no doubt, who has left us the
-story of his woes,--with a crowd of women, children, and eighty-six
-camp-followers. To these were added the remnant of Laudonniere's men, of
-whom seventeen could bear arms, the rest being sick or disabled by
-wounds received in the fight with Outina.
-
-Laudonniere divided his force, such as it was, into two watches, over
-which he placed two officers, Saint Cler and La Vigne, gave them
-lanterns for going the rounds, and an hour-glass for setting the time;
-while he himself, giddy with weakness and fever, was every night at the
-guard-room.
-
-It was the night of the nineteenth of September, the season of tempests;
-floods of rain drenched the sentries on the rampart, and, as day dawned
-on the dripping barracks and deluged parade, the storm increased in
-violence. What enemy could venture out on such a night? La Vigne, who
-had the watch, took pity on the sentries and on himself, dismissed them,
-and went to his quarters. He little knew what human energies, urged by
-ambition, avarice, bigotry, and desperation, will dare and do.
-
-To return to the Spaniards at St. Augustine.  On the morning of the
-eleventh, the crew of one of their smaller vessels, lying outside the
-bar, with Menendez himself on board, saw through the twilight of early
-dawn two of Ribaut's ships close upon them. Not a breath of air was
-stirring. There was no escape, and the Spaniards fell on their knees in
-supplication to Our Lady of Utrera, explaining to her that the heretics
-were upon them, and begging her to send them a little wind. "Forthwith,"
-says Mendoza, "one would have said that Our Lady herself came down upon
-the vessel." A wind sprang up, and the Spaniards found refuge behind the
-bar. The returning day showed to their astonished eyes all the ships of
-Ribaut, their decks black with men, hovering off the entrance of the
-port; but Heaven had them in its charge, and again they experienced its
-protecting care. The breeze sent by Our Lady of Utrera rose to a gale,
-then to a furious tempest; and the grateful Adelantado saw through rack
-and mist the ships of his enemy tossed wildly among the raging waters as
-they struggled to gain an offing. With exultation in his heart, the
-skilful seaman read their danger, and saw them in his mind's eye dashed
-to utter wreck among the sand-bars and breakers of the lee shore.
-
-A bold thought seized him. He would march overland with five hundred
-men, and attack Fort Caroline while its defenders were absent. First he
-ordered a mass, and then he called a council. Doubtless it was in that
-great Indian lodge of Seloy, where he had made his headquarters; and
-here, in this dim and smoky abode, nobles, officers, and priests
-gathered at his summons. There were fears and doubts and murmurings, but
-Menendez was desperate; not with the mad desperation that strikes wildly
-and at random, but the still white heat that melts and burns and seethes
-with a steady, unquenchable fierceness. "Comrades," he said, "the time
-has come to show our courage and our zeal. This is God's war, and we
-must not flinch. It is a war with Lutherans, and we must wage it with
-blood and fire."
-
-But his hearers gave no response. They had not a million of ducats at
-stake, and were not ready for a cast so desperate. A clamor of
-remonstrance rose from the circle. Many voices, that of Mendoza among
-the rest, urged waiting till their main forces should arrive. The
-excitement spread to the men without, and the swarthy, black-bearded
-crowd broke into tumults mounting almost to mutiny, while an officer was
-heard to say that he would not go on such a hare-brained errand to be
-butchered like a beast. But nothing could move the Adelantado. His
-appeals or his threats did their work at last; the confusion was
-quelled, and preparation was made for the march.
-
-On the morning of the seventeenth, five hundred arquebusiers and pikemen
-were drawn up before the camp. To each was given six pounds of biscuit
-and a canteen filled with wine. Two Indians and a renegade Frenchman,
-called Francois Jean, were to guide them, and twenty Biscayan axemen
-moved to the front to clear the way. Through floods of driving rain, a
-hoarse voice shouted the word of command, and the sullen march began.
-
-With dismal misgiving, Mendoza watched the last files as they vanished
-in the tempestuous forest. Two days of suspense ensued, when a messenger
-came back with a letter from the Adelantado, announcing that he had
-nearly reached the French fort, and that on the morrow, September the
-twentieth, at sunrise, he hoped to assault it. "May the Divine Majesty
-deign to protect us, for He knows that we have need of it," writes the
-scared chaplain; "the Adelantado's great zeal and courage make us hope
-he will succeed, but, for the good of his Majesty's service, he ought to
-be a little less ardent in pursuing his schemes."
-
-Meanwhile the five hundred pushed their march, now toiling across the
-inundated savanrias, waist-deep in bulrushes and mud; now filing through
-the open forest to the moan and roar of the storm-racked pines: now
-hacking their way through palmetto thickets; and now turning from their
-path to shun some pool, quagmire, cypress swamp, or "hummock," matted
-with impenetrable bushes, brambles, and vines. As they bent before the
-tempest, the water trickling from the rusty head-piece crept clammy and
-cold betwixt the armor and the skin; and when they made their wretched
-bivouac, their bed was the spongy soil, and the exhaustless clouds their
-tent.
-
-The night of Wednesday, the nineteenth, found their vanguard in a deep
-forest of pines, less than a mile from Fort Caroline, and near the low
-hills which extended in its rear, and formed a continuation of St.
-John's Bluff. All around was one great morass. In pitchy darkness,
-knee-deep in weeds and water, half starved, worn with toil and lack of
-sleep, drenched to the skin, their provisions spoiled, their ammunition
-wet, and their spirit chilled out of them, they stood in shivering
-groups, cursing the enterprise and the author of it. Menendez heard
-Fernando Perez, an ensign, say aloud to his comrades: "This Asturian
-Corito, who knows no more of war on shore than an ass, has betrayed us
-all. By God, if my advice had been followed, he would have had his
-deserts, the day he set out on this cursed journey! "
-
-The Adelantado pretended not to hear.
-
-Two hours before dawn he called his officers about him. All night, he
-said, he had been praying to God and the Virgin.
-
-"Senores, what shall we resolve on? Our ammunition and provisions are
-gone. Our case is desperate." And he urged a bold rush on the fort.
-
-But men and officers alike were disheartened and disgusted. They
-listened coldly and sullenly; many were for returning at every risk;
-none were in the mood for fight. Menendez put forth all his eloquence,
-till at length the dashed spirits of his followers were so far revived
-that they consented to follow him.
-
-All fell on their knees in the marsh; then, rising, they formed their
-ranks and began to advance, guided by the renegade Frenchman, whose
-hands, to make sure of him, were tied behind his back. Groping and
-stumbling in the dark among trees, roots, and underbrush, buffeted by
-wind and rain, and lashed in the face by the recoiling boughs which they
-could not see, they soon lost their way, fell into confusion, and came
-to a stand, in a mood more savagely desponding than before. But soon a
-glimmer of returning day came to their aid, and showed them the dusky
-sky, and the dark columns of the surrounding pines. Menendez ordered the
-men forward on pain of death. They obeyed, and presently, emerging from
-the forest, could dimly discern the ridge of a low hill, behind which,
-the Frenchman told them, was the fort. Menendez, with a few officers and
-men, cautiously mounted to the top. Beneath lay Fort Caroline, three
-bow-shots distant; but the rain, the imperfect light, and a cluster of
-intervening houses prevented his seeing clearly, and he sent two
-officers to reconnoiter. As they descended, they met a solitary
-Frenchman. They knocked him down with a sheathed sword, wounded him,
-took him prisoner, kept him for a time, and then stabbed him as they
-returned towards the top of the hill. Here, clutching their weapons, all
-the gang stood in fierce expectancy.
-
-"Santiago!" cried Menendez. "At them! God is with us! Victory!" And,
-shouting their hoarse war-cries, the Spaniards rushed down the slope
-like starved wolves.
-
-Not a sentry was on the rampart. La Vigne, the officer of the guard, had
-just gone to his quarters; but a trumpeter, who chanced to remain, saw,
-through sheets of rain, the swarm of assailants sweeping down the hill.
-He blew the alarm, and at the summons a few half-naked soldiers ran
-wildly out of the barracks. It was too late. Through the breaches and
-over the ramparts the Spaniards came pouring in, with shouts of
-"Santiago! Santiago!"
-
-Sick men leaped from their beds. Women and children, blind with fright,
-darted shrieking from the houses. A fierce, gaunt visage, the thrust of
-a pike, or blow of a rusty halberd,--such was the greeting that met all
-alike. Laudonniere snatched his sword and target, and ran towards the
-principal breach, calling to his soldiers. A rush of Spaniards met him;
-his men were cut down around him; and he, with a soldier named
-Bartholomew, was forced back into the yard of his house. Here stood a
-tent, and, as the pursuers stumbled among the cords, he escaped behind
-Ottigny's house, sprang through the breach in the western rampart, and
-fled for the woods.
-
-Le Moyne had been one of the guard. Scarcely had he thrown himself into
-a hammock which was slung in his room, when a savage shout, and a wild
-uproar of shrieks, outcries, and the clash of weapons, brought him to
-his feet. He rushed by two Spaniards in the doorway, ran behind the
-guard-house, leaped through an embrasure into the ditch, and escaped to
-the forest.
-
-Challeux, the carpenter, was going betimes to his work, a chisel in his
-hand. He was old, but pike and partisan brandished at his back gave
-wings to his flight. In the ecstasy of his terror, he leaped upward,
-clutched the top of the palisade, and threw himself over with the
-agility of a boy. He ran up the hill, no one pursuing, and, as he neared
-the edge of the forest, turned and looked back. From the high ground
-where he stood, he could see the butchery, the fury of the conquerors,
-and the agonizing gestures of the victims. He turned again in horror,
-and plunged into the woods. As he tore his way through the briers and
-thickets, he met several fugitives escaped like himself. Others
-presently came up, haggard and wild, like men broken loose from the jaws
-of death. They gathered together and consulted. One of them, known as
-Master Robert, in great repute for his knowledge of the Bible, was for
-returning and surrendering to the Spaniards. "They are men," he said;
-"perhaps, when their fury is over, they will spare our lives; and, even
-if they kill us, it will only be a few moments' pain. Better so, than to
-starve here in the woods, or be torn to pieces by wild beasts."
-
-The greater part of the naked and despairing company assented, but
-Challeux was of a different mind. The old Huguenot quoted Scripture, and
-called the names of prophets and apostles to witness, that, in the
-direst extremity, God would not abandon those who rested their faith in
-Him. Six of the fugitives, however, still held to their desperate
-purpose. Issuing from the woods, they descended towards the fort, and,
-as with beating hearts their comrades watched the result, a troop of
-Spaniards rushed out, hewed them down with swords and halberds, and
-dragged their bodies to the brink of the river, where the victims of the
-massacre were already flung in heaps.
-
-Le Moyne, with a soldier named Grandehemin, whom he had met in his
-flight, toiled all day through the woods and marshes, in the hope of
-reaching the small vessels anchored behind the bar. Night found them in
-a morass. No vessel could be seen, and the soldier, in despair, broke
-into angry upbraidings against his companion,--saying that he would go
-back and give himself up. Le Moyne at first opposed him, then yielded.
-But when they drew near the fort, and heard the uproar of savage revelry
-that rose from within, the artist's heart failed him. He embraced his
-companion, and the soldier advanced alone. A party of Spaniards came out
-to meet him. He kneeled, and begged for his life. He was answered by a
-death-blow; and the horrified Le Moyne, from his hiding-place in the
-thicket, saw his limbs hacked apart, stuck on pikes, and borne off in
-triumph.
-
-Meanwhile, Menendez, mustering his followers, had offered thanks to God
-for their victory; and this pious butcher wept with emotion as he
-recounted the favors which Heaven had showered upon their enterprise.
-His admiring historian gives it in proof of his humanity, that, after
-the rage of the assault was spent, he ordered that women, infants, and
-boys under fifteen should thenceforth be spared. Of these, by his own
-account, there were about fifty. Writing in October to the King, he says
-that they cause him great anxiety, since he fears the anger of God
-should he now put them to death in cold blood, while, on the other hand,
-he is in dread lest the venom of their heresy should infect his men.
-
-A hundred and forty-two persons were slain in and around the fort, and
-their bodies lay heaped together on the bank of the river. Nearly
-opposite was anchored a small vessel, called the "Pearl," commanded by
-Jacques Ribaut, son of the Admiral. The ferocious soldiery, maddened
-with victory and drunk with blood, crowded to the water's edge, shouting
-insults to those on board, mangling the corpses, tearing out their eyes,
-and throwing them towards the vessel from the points of their daggers.
-Thus did the Most Catholic Philip champion the cause of Heaven in the
-New World.
-
-It was currently believed in France, and, though no eye-witness attests
-it, there is reason to think it true, that among those murdered at Fort
-Caroline there were some who died a death of peculiar ignominy.
-Menendez, it is affirmed, hanged his prisoners on trees, and placed over
-them the inscription, "I do this, not as to Frenchmen, but as to
-Lutherans."
-
-The Spaniards gained a great booty in armor, clothing, and provisions.
-"Nevertheless," says the devout Mendoza, after closing his inventory of
-the plunder, "the greatest profit of this victory is the triumph which
-our Lord has granted us, whereby His holy Gospel will be introduced into
-this country, a thing so needful for saving so many souls from
-perdition." Again he writes in his journal, "We owe to God and His
-Mother, more than to human strength, this victory over the adversaries
-of the holy Catholic religion."
-
-To whatever influence, celestial or other, the exploit may best be
-ascribed, the victors were not yet quite content with their success. Two
-small French vessels, besides that of Jacques Ribaut, still lay within
-range of the fort. When the storm had a little abated, the cannon were
-turned on them. One of them was sunk, but Ribaut, with the others,
-escaped down the river, at the mouth of which several light craft,
-including that bought from the English, had been anchored since the
-arrival of his father's squadron.
-
-While this was passing, the wretched fugitives were flying from the
-scene of massacre through a tempest, of whose persistent violence all
-the narratives speak with wonder. Exhausted, starved, half naked,--for
-most of them had escaped in their shirts,--they pushed their toilsome
-way amid the ceaseless wrath of the elements. A few sought refuge in
-Indian villages; but these, it is said, were afterwards killed by the
-Spaniards. The greater number attempted to reach the vessels at the
-mouth of the river. Among the latter was Le Moyne, who, notwithstanding
-his former failure, was toiling through the mazes of tangled forests,
-when he met a Belgian soldier, with the woman described as Laudonniere's
-maid-servant, who was wounded in the breast; and, urging their flight
-towards the vessels, they fell in with other fugitives, including
-Laudonniere himself. As they struggled through the salt marsh, the rank
-sedge cut their naked limbs, and the tide rose to their waists.
-Presently they descried others, toiling like themselves through the
-matted vegetation, and recognized Challeux and his companions, also in
-quest of the vessels. The old man still, as he tells us, held fast to
-his chisel, which had done good service in cutting poles to aid the
-party to cross the deep creeks that channelled the morass. The united
-band, twenty-six in all, were cheered at length by the sight of a moving
-sail. It was the vessel of Captain Mallard, who, informed of the
-massacre, was standing along shore in the hope of picking up some of the
-fugitives. He saw their signals, and sent boats to their rescue; but
-such was their exhaustion, that, had not the sailors, wading to their
-armpits among the rushes, borne them out on their shoulders, few could
-have escaped. Laudonniere was so feeble that nothing but the support of
-a soldier, who held him upright in his arms, had saved him from drowning
-in the marsh.
-
-On gaining the friendly decks, the fugitives counselled together. One
-and all, they sickened for the sight of France.
-
-After waiting a few days, and saving a few more stragglers from the
-marsh, they prepared to sail. Young Ribaut, though ignorant of his
-father's fate, assented with something more than willingness; indeed,
-his behavior throughout had been stamped with weakness and poltroonery.
-On the twenty-fifth of September they put to sea in two vessels; and,
-after a voyage the privations of which were fatal to many of them, they
-arrived, one party at Rochelle, the other at Swansea, in Wales.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-1565.
-
-MASSACRE OF THE HERETICS.
-
-In suspense and fear, hourly looking seaward for the dreaded fleet of
-Jean Ribaut, the chaplain Mendoza and his brother priests held watch and
-ward at St. Augustine in the Adelantado's absence. Besides the celestial
-guardians whom they ceased not to invoke, they had as protectors
-Bartholomew Menendez, the brother of the Adelantado, and about a hundred
-soldiers. Day and night they toiled to throw up earthworks and
-strengthen their position.
-
-A week elapsed, when they saw a man running towards them, shouting as
-he ran.
-
-Mendoza went to meet him.
-
-"Victory! victory!" gasped the breathless messenger. "The French fort is
-ours!" And he flung his arms about the chaplain's neck.'
-
-"To-day," writes the priest in his journal, "Monday, the twenty-fourth,
-came our good general himself, with fifty soldiers, very tired, Like all
-those who were with him. As soon as they told me he was coming, I ran to
-my lodging, took a new cassock, the best I had, put on my surplice, and
-went out to meet him with a crucifix in my hand; whereupon he, like a
-gentleman and a good Christian, kneeled down with all his followers, and
-gave the Lord a thousand thanks for the great favors he had received
-from Him."
-
-In solemn procession, with four priests in front chanting Te Deum, the
-victors entered St. Augustine in triumph.
-
-On the twenty-eighth, when the weary Adelantado was taking his siesta
-under the sylvan roof of Seloy, a troop of Indians came in with news
-that quickly roused him from his slumbers. They had seen a French vessel
-wrecked on the coast towards the south. Those who escaped from her were
-four or six leagues off, on the banks of a river or arm of the sea,
-which they could not cross.
-
-Menendez instantly sent forty or fifty men in boats to reconnoitre.
-Next, he called the chaplain,--for he would fain have him at his elbow
-to countenance the deeds he meditated,--and, with him twelve soldiers
-and two Indian guides, embarked in another boat. They rowed along the
-channel between Anastasia Island and the main shore; then they landed,
-struck across the island on foot, traversed plains and marshes, reached
-the sea towards night, and. searched along shore till ten o'clock to
-find their comrades who had gone before. At length, with mutual joy, the
-two parties met, and bivouacked together on the sands. Not far distant
-they could see lights. These were the camp-fires of the shipwrecked
-French.
-
-To relate with precision the fortunes of these unhappy men is
-impossible; for henceforward the French narratives are no longer the
-narratives of eye-witnesses.
-
-It has been seen how, when on the point of assailing the Spaniards at
-St. Augustine, Jean Ribaut was thwarted by a gale, which they hailed as
-a divine interposition. The gale rose to a tempest of strange fury.
-Within a few days, all the French ships were cast on shore, between
-Matanzas Inlet and Cape Canaveral. According to a letter of Menendez,
-many of those on hoard were lost; but others affirm that all escaped but
-a captain, La Grange, an officer of high merit, who was washed from a
-floating mast. One of the ships was wrecked at a point farther northward
-than the rest, and it was her company whose campfires were seen by the
-Spaniards at their bivouac on the sands of Anastasia Island. They were
-endeavoring to reach Fort Caroline, of the fate of which they knew
-nothing, while Ribaut with the remainder was farther southward,
-struggling through the wilderness towards the same goal. What befell the
-latter will appear hereafter. Of the fate of the former party there is
-no French record. What we know of it is due to three Spanish
-eye-witnesses, Mendoza, Doctor Soils de las Meras, and Menendez himself.
-Soils was a priest, and brother-in-law to Menendez. Like Mendoza, he
-minutely describes what he saw, and, like him, was a red-hot zealot,
-lavishing applause on the darkest deeds of his chief. But the principal
-witness, though not the most minute or most trustworthy, is Menendez, in
-his long despatches sent from Florida to the King, and now first brought
-to light from the archives of Seville,--a cool record of unsurpassed
-atrocities, inscribed on the back with the royal indorsement, "Say to
-him that he has done well."
-
-When the Adelantado saw the French fires in the distance, he lay close
-in his bivouac, and sent two soldiers to reconnoitre. At two o'clock in
-the morning they came back, and reported that it was impossible to get
-at the enemy, since they were on the farther side of an arm of the sea
-(Matanzas Inlet). Menendez, however, gave orders to march, and before
-daybreak reached the hither bank, where he hid his men in a bushy
-hollow. Thence, as it grew light, they could discern the enemy, many of
-whom were searching along the sands and shallows for shell-fish, for
-they were famishing. A thought struck Menendez, an inspiration, says
-Mendoza, of the Holy Spirit. He put on the clothes of a sailor, entered
-a boat which had been brought to the spot, and rowed towards the
-shipwrecked men, the better to learn their condition. A Frenchman swam
-out to meet him. Menendez demanded what men they were.
-
-"Followers of Ribaut, Viceroy of the King of France," answered the
-swimmer.
-
-"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?"
-
-"All Lutherans."
-
-A brief dialogue ensued, during which the Adelantado declared his name
-and character, and the Frenchman gave an account of the designs of
-Ribaut, and of the disaster that had thwarted them. He then swam back to
-his companions, but soon returned, and asked safe conduct for his
-captain and four other gentlemen, who wished to hold conference with the
-Spanish general. Menendez gave his word for their safety, and, returning
-to the shore, sent his boat to bring them over. On their landing, he met
-them very courteously. His followers were kept at a distance, so
-disposed behind hills and among bushes as to give an exaggerated idea of
-their force,--a precaution the more needful, as they were only about
-sixty in number, while the French, says Solfs, were above two hundred.
-Menendez, however, declares that they did not exceed a hundred and
-forty. The French officer told him the story of their shipwreck, and
-begged him to lend them a boat to aid them in crossing the rivers which
-lay between them and a fort of their King, whither they were making
-their way.
-
-Then came again the ominous question,
-
-"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?"
-
-"We are Lutherans."
-
-"Gentlemen," pursued Menendez, "your fort is taken, and all in it are
-put to the sword." And, in proof of his declaration, he caused articles
-plundered from Fort Caroline to be shown to the unhappy petitioners. He
-then left them, and went to breakfast with his officers, first ordering
-food to be placed before them. Having breakfasted, he returned to them.
-
-"Are you convinced now," he asked, "that what I have told you is true?"
-
-The French captain assented, and implored him to lend them ships in
-which to return home. Menendez answered that he would do so willingly if
-they were Catholics, and if he had ships to spare, but he had none. The
-supplicants then expressed the hope that at least they and their
-followers would be allowed to remain with the Spaniards till ships could
-be sent to their relief, since there was peace between the two nations,
-whose kings were friends and brothers.
-
-"All Catholics," retorted the Spaniard, "I will befriend; but as you are
-of the New Sect, I hold you as enemies, and wage deadly war against you;
-and this I will do with all cruelty [crueldad] in this country, where I
-command as Viceroy and Captain-General for my King. I am here to plant
-the Holy Gospel, that the Indians may be enlightened and come to the
-knowledge of the Holy Catholic faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the
-Roman Church teaches it. If you will give up your arms and banners, and
-place yourselves at my mercy, you may do so, and I will act towards you
-as God shall give me grace. Do as you will, for other than this you can
-have neither truce nor friendship with me."
-
-Such were the Adelantado's words, as reported by a bystanders his
-admiring brother-in-law and that they contain an implied assurance of
-mercy has been held, not only by Protestants, but by Catholics and
-Spaniards. The report of Menendez himself is more brief, and
-sufficiently equivocal:--
-
-"I answered, that they could give up their arms and place themselves
-under my mercy,--that I should do with them what our Lord should order;
-and from that I did not depart, nor would I, unless God our Lord should
-otherwise inspire."
-
-One of the Frenchmen recrossed to consult with his companions. In two
-hours he returned, and offered fifty thousand ducats to secure their
-lives; but Menendez, says his brother-in-law, would give no pledges. On
-the other hand, expressions in his own despatches point to the inference
-that a virtual pledge was given, at least to certain individuals.
-
-The starving French saw no resource but to yield themselves to his
-mercy. The boat was again sent across the river. It returned laden with
-banners, arquebuses, swords, targets, and helmets. The Adelantado
-ordered twenty soldiers to bring over the prisoners, ten at a time. He
-then took the French officers aside behind a ridge of sand, two gunshots
-from the bank. Here, with courtesy on his lips and murder at his heart,
-he said:
-
-"Gentlemen, I have but few men, and you are so many that, if you were
-free, it would be easy for you to take your satisfaction on us for the
-people we killed when we took your fort. Therefore it is necessary that
-you should go to my camp, four leagues from this place, with your hands
-tied."
-
-Accordingly, as each party landed, they were led out of sight behind the
-sand-hill, and their hands tied behind their backs with the match-cords
-of the arquebuses, though not before each had been supplied with food.
-The whole day passed before all were brought together, bound and
-helpless, under the eye of the inexorable Adelantado. But now Mendoza
-interposed. "I was a priest," he says, "and had the bowels of a man." He
-asked that if there were Christians--that is to say, Catholics--among
-the prisoners, they should be set apart. Twelve Breton sailors professed
-themselves to be such; and these, together with four carpenters and
-calkers, "of whom," writes Menendez, "I was in great need," were put on
-board the boat and sent to St. Augustine. The rest were ordered to march
-thither by land.
-
-The Adelantado walked in advance till he came to a lonely spot, not far
-distant, deep among the bush-covered hills. Here he stopped, and with
-his cane drew a line in the sand. The sun was set when the captive
-Huguenots, with their escort, reached the fatal goal thus marked out.
-And now let the curtain drop; for here, in the name of Heaven, the
-hounds of hell were turned loose, and the savage soldiery, like wolves
-in a sheepfold, rioted in slaughter. Of all that wretched company, not
-one was left alive.
-
-
-"I had their hands tied behind their backs," writes the chief criminal,
-"and themselves put to the knife. It appeared to me that, by thus
-chastising them, God our Lord and your Majesty were served; whereby in
-future this evil sect will leave us more free to plant the Gospel in
-these parts."
-
-Again Menendez returned triumphant to St. Augustine, and behind him
-marched his band of butchers, steeped in blood to the elbows, but still
-unsated. Great as had been his success, he still had cause for anxiety.
-There was ill news of his fleet. Some of the ships were lost, others
-scattered, or lagging tardily on their way. Of his whole force, less
-than a half had reached Florida, and of these a large part were still at
-Fort Caroline. Ribaut could not be far off; and, whatever might be the
-condition of his shipwrecked company, their numbers would make them
-formidable, unless taken at advantage. Urged by fear and fortified by
-fanaticism, Menendez had well begun his work of slaughter; but rest for
-him there was none,--a darker deed was behind.
-
-On the tenth of October, Indians came with the tidings that, at the spot
-where the first party of the shipwrecked French had been found, there
-was now another party still larger. This murder-loving race looked with
-great respect on Menendez for his wholesale butchery of the night
-before,--an exploit rarely equalled in their own annals of massacre. On
-his part, he doubted not that Ribaut was at hand. Marching with a
-hundred and fifty men, he crossed the bush-covered sands of Anastasia
-Island, followed the strand between the thickets and the sea, reached
-the inlet at midnight, and again, like a savage, ambushed himself on the
-bank. Day broke, and he could plainly see the French on the farther
-side. They had made a raft, which lay in the water ready for crossing.
-Menendez and his men showed themselves, when, forthwith, the French
-displayed their banners, sounded drums and trumpets, and set their sick
-and starving ranks in array of battle. But the Adelantado, regardless of
-this warlike show, ordered his men to seat themselves at breakfast,
-while he with three officers walked unconcernedly along the shore. His
-coolness had its effect. The French blew a trumpet of parley, and showed
-a white flag. The Spaniards replied. A Frenchman came out upon the raft,
-and, shouting across the water, asked that a Spanish envoy should be
-sent over.
-
-"You have a raft," was the reply; "come yourselves."
-
-An Indian canoe lay under the bank on the Spanish side. A French sailor
-swam to it, paddled back unmolested, and presently returned, bringing
-with him La Caille, Ribaut's sergeant-major. He told Menendez that the
-French were three hundred and fifty in all, and were on their way to
-Fort Caroline; and, like the officers of the former party, he begged for
-boats to aid them in crossing the river.
-
-"My brother," said Menendez, "go and tell your general, that, if he
-wishes to speak with me, he may come with four or six companions, and
-that I pledge my word he shall go back safe."
-
-La Caille returned; and Ribaut, with eight gentlemen, soon came over in
-the canoe. Menendez met them courteously, caused wine and preserved
-fruits to be placed before them,--he had come well provisioned on his
-errand of blood,--and next led Ribaut to the reeking Golgotha, where,
-in heaps upon the sand, lay the corpses of his slaughtered followers.
-Ribaut was prepared for the spectacle,--La Caille had already seen it,
---but he would not believe that Fort Caroline was taken till a part of
-the plunder was shown him. Then, mastering his despair, he turned to the
-conqueror. "What has befallen us," he said, "may one day befall you."
-And, urging that the kings of France and Spain were brothers and close
-friends, he begged, in the name of that friendship, that the Spaniard
-would aid him in conveying his followers home. Menendez gave him the
-same equivocal answer that he had given the former party, and Ribaut
-returned to consult with his officers. After three hours of absence, he
-came back in the canoe, and told the Adelantado that some of his people
-were ready to surrender at discretion, but that many refused.
-
-"They can do as they please," was the reply. In behalf of those who
-surrendered, Ribaut offered a ransom of a hundred thousand ducats.
-"It would much grieve me," said Menendez, "not to accept it; for I have
-great need of it."
-
-Ribaut was much encouraged. Menendez could scarcely forego such a prize,
-and he thought, says the Spanish narrator, that the lives of his
-followers would now be safe. He asked to be allowed the night for
-deliberation, and at sunset recrossed the river. In the morning he
-reappeared among the Spaniards, and reported that two hundred of his men
-had retreated from the spot, but that the remaining hundred and fifty
-would surrender. At the same time he gave into the hands of Menendez the
-royal standard and other flags, with his sword, dagger, helmet, buckler,
-and the official seal given him by Coligny. Menendez directed an officer
-to enter the boat and bring over the French by tens. He next led Ribaut
-among the bushes behind the neighboring sand-hill, and ordered his hands
-to be bound fast. Then the scales fell from the prisoner's eyes. Face to
-face his fate rose up before him. He saw his followers and himself
-entrapped,--the dupes of words artfully framed to lure them to their
-ruin. The day wore on; and, as band after band of prisoners was brought
-over, they were led behind the sand-hill out of sight from the farther
-shore, and bound like their general. At length the transit was finished.
-With bloodshot eyes and weapons bared, the Spaniards closed around their
-victims.
-
-"Are you Catholics or Lutherans? and is there any one among you who will
-go to confession?"
-
-Ribaut answered, "I and all here are of the Reformed Faith."
-
-And he recited the Psalm, "Domine, memento mei."
-
-"We are of earth," he continued, "and to earth we must return; twenty
-years more or less can matter little;" and, turning to the Adelantado,
-he bade him do his will.
-
-The stony-hearted bigot gave the signal; and those who will may paint to
-themselves the horrors of the scene.
-
-A few, however, were spared. "I saved," writes Menendez, "the lives of
-two young gentlemen of about eighteen years of age, as well as of three
-others, the fifer, the drummer, and the trumpeter; and I caused Juan
-Ribao [Ribaut] with all the rest to be put to the knife, judging this to
-be necessary for the service of God our Lord and of your Majesty. And I
-consider it great good fortune that he [Juan Ribao] should be dead, for
-the King of France could effect more with him and five hundred ducats
-than with other men and five thousand; and he would do more in one year
-than another in ten, for he was the most experienced sailor and naval
-commander known, and of great skill in this navigation of the Indies and
-the coast of Florida. He was, besides, greatly liked in England, in
-which kingdom his reputation was such that he was appointed
-Captain-General of all the English fleet against the French Catholics in
-the war between England and France some years ago."
-
-Such is the sum of the Spanish accounts,--the self-damning testimony of
-the author and abettors of the crime; a picture of lurid and awful
-coloring; and yet there is reason to believe that the truth was darker
-still. Among those who were spared was one Christophe le Breton, who was
-carried to Spain, escaped to France, and told his story to Challeux.
-Among those struck down in the butchery was a sailor of Dieppe, stunned
-and left for dead under a heap of corpses. In the night he revived,
-contrived to draw his knife, cut the cords that bound his hands, and
-made his way to an Indian village. The Indians, not without reluctance,
-abandoned him to the Spaniards, who sold him as a slave; but, on his way
-in fetters to Portugal, the ship was taken by the Huguenots, the sailor
-set free, and his story published in the narrative of Le Moyne. When the
-massacre was known in France, the friends and relatives of the victims
-sent to the King, Charles the Ninth, a vehement petition for redress;
-and their memorial recounts many incidents of the tragedy. From these
-three sources is to be drawn the French version of the story. The
-following is its substance.
-
-Famished and desperate, the followers of Ribaut were toiling northward
-to seek refuge at Fort Caroline, when they found the Spaniards in their
-path. Some were filled with dismay; others, in their misery, almost
-hailed them as deliverers. La Caille, the sergeant-major, crossed the
-river. Menendez met him with a face of friendship, and protested that he
-would spare the lives of the shipwrecked men, sealing the promise with
-an oath, a kiss, and many signs of the cross. He even gave it in
-writing, under seal. Still, there were many among the French who would
-not place themselves in his power. The most credulous crossed the river
-in a boat. As each successive party landed, their hands were bound fast
-at their backs; and thus, except a few who were set apart, they were all
-driven towards the fort, like cattle to the shambles, with curses and
-scurrilous abuse. Then, at sound of drums and trumpets, the Spaniards
-fell upon them, striking them down with swords, pikes, and halberds.
-Ribaut vainly called on the Adelantado to remember his oath. By his
-order, a soldier plunged a dagger into the French commander's heart; and
-Ottigny, who stood near, met a similar fate. Ribaut's beard was cut off,
-and portions of it sent in a letter to Philip the Second. His head was
-hewn into four parts, one of which was displayed on the point of a lance
-at each corner of Fort St. Augustine. Great fires were kindled, and the
-bodies of the murdered burned to ashes.
-
-Such is the sum of the French accounts. The charge of breach of faith
-contained in them was believed by Catholics as well as Protestants; and
-it was as a defence against this charge that the narrative of the
-Adelantado's brother-in-law was published. That Ribaut, a man whose good
-sense and courage were both reputed high, should have submitted himself
-and his men to Menendez without positive assurance of safety, is
-scarcely credible; nor is it lack of charity to believe that a bigot so
-savage in heart and so perverted in conscience would act on the maxim,
-current among certain casuists of the day, that faith ought not to be
-kept with heretics.
-
-It was night when the Adelantado again entered St. Augustine. There were
-some who blamed his cruelty; but many applauded. "Even if the French had
-been Catholics,"--such was their language,--"he would have done right,
-for, with the little provision we have, they would all have starved;
-besides, there were so many of them that they would have cut our
-throats."
-
-And now Menendez again addressed himself to the despatch, already begun,
-in which he recounts to the King his labors and his triumphs, a
-deliberate and business-like document, mingling narratives of butchery
-with recommendations for promotions, commissary details, and petitions
-for supplies,--enlarging, too, on the vast schemes of encroachment
-which his successful generalship had brought to naught. The French, he
-says, had planned a military and naval depot at Los Martires, whence
-they would make a descent upon Havana, and another at the Bay of Ponce
-de Leon, whence they could threaten Vera Cruz. They had long been
-encroaching on Spanish rights at Newfoundland, from which a great arm of
-the sea--doubtless meaning the St. Lawrence--would give them access to
-the Moluccas and other parts of the East Indies. He adds, in a later
-despatch, that by this passage they may reach the mines of Zacatecas and
-St. Martin, as well as every part of the South Sea. And, as already
-mentioned, he urges immediate occupation of Chesapeake Bay, which, by
-its supposed water communication with the St. Lawrence, would enable
-Spain to vindicate her rights, control the fisheries of Newfoundland,
-and thwart her rival in vast designs of commercial and territorial
-aggrandizement. Thus did France and Spain dispute the possession of
-North America long before England became a party to the strife.[FN#24]
-
-Some twenty days after Menendez returned to St. Augustine, the Indians,
-enamoured of carnage, and exulting to see their invaders mowed down,
-came to tell him that on the coast southward, near Cape Canaveral, a
-great number of Frenchmen were intrenching themselves. They were those
-of Ribaut's party who had refused to surrender. Having retreated to the
-spot where their ships had been cast ashore, they were trying to build a
-vessel from the fragments of the wrecks.
-
-In all haste Menendez despatched messengers to Fort Caroline, named by
-him San Mateo, ordering a reinforcement of a hundred and fifty men. In a
-few days they came. He added some of his own soldiers, and, with a
-united force of two hundred and fifty, set out, as he tells us, on the
-second of November. A part of his force went by sea, while the rest
-pushed southward along the shore with such merciless energy that several
-men dropped dead with wading night and day through the loose sands.
-When, from behind their frail defences, the French saw the Spanish pikes
-and partisans glittering into view, they fled in a panic, and took
-refuge among the hills. Menendez sent a trumpet to summon them, pledging
-his honor for their safety. The commander and several others told the
-messenger that they would sooner be eaten by the savages than trust
-themselves to Spaniards; and, escaping, they fled to the Indian towns.
-The rest surrendered; and Menendez kept his word. The comparative number
-of his own men made his prisoners no longer dangerous. They were led
-back to St. Augustine, where, as the Spanish writer affirms, they were
-well treated. Those of good birth sat at the Adelantado's table, eating
-the bread of a homicide crimsoned with the slaughter of their comrades.
-The priests essayed their pious efforts, and, under the gloomy menace of
-the Inquisition, some of the heretics renounced their errors. The fate
-of the captives may be gathered from the endorsement, in the handwriting
-of the King, on one of the despatches of Menendez.
-
-"Say to him," writes Philip the Second, "that, as to those he has
-killed, he has done well; and as to those he has saved, they shall be
-sent to the galleys."
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-1565-1567.
-
-CHARLES IX. AND PHILLIP II.
-
-
-The state of international relations in the sixteenth century is hardly
-conceivable at this day. The Puritans of England and the Huguenots of
-France regarded Spain as their natural enemy, and on the high seas and
-in the British Channel they joined hands with godless freebooters to
-rifle her ships, kill her sailors, or throw them alive into the sea.
-Spain on her side seized English Protestant sailors who ventured into
-her ports, and burned them as heretics, or consigned them to a living
-death in the dungeons of the Inquisition. Yet in the latter half of the
-century these mutual outrages went on for years while the nations
-professed to be at peace. There was complaint, protest, and occasional
-menace, but no redress, and no declaration of war.
-
-Contemporary writers of good authority have said that, when the news of
-the massacres in Florida reached the court of France, Charles the Ninth
-and Catherine de Medicis submitted to the insult in silence; but
-documents lately brought to light show that a demand for redress was
-made, though not insisted on. A cry of horror and execration had risen
-from the Huguenots and many even of the Catholics had echoed it; yet the
-perpetrators of the crime, and not its victims, were the first to make
-complaint. Philip the Second resented the expeditions of Ribaut and
-Laudonniere as an invasion of the American domains of Spain, and ordered
-D'Alava, his ambassador at Paris, to denounce them to the French King.
-Charles, thus put on the defensive, replied, that the country in
-question belonged to France, having been discovered by Frenchmen a
-hundred years before, and named by them Terre des Bretons. This alludes
-to the tradition that the Bretons and Basques visited the northern
-coasts of America before the voyage of Columbus. In several maps of the
-sixteenth century the region of New England and the neighboring states
-and provinces is set down as Terre des Bretons, or Tierra de los
-Bretones, and this name was assumed by Charles to extend to the Gulf of
-Mexico, as the name of Florida was assumed by the Spaniards to extend to
-the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and even beyond it. Philip spurned the claim,
-asserted the Spanish right to all Florida, and asked whether or not the
-followers of Ribaut and Laudonniere had gone thither by authority of
-their King. The Queen Mother, Catherine de Medicis, replied in her son's
-behalf, that certain Frenchmen had gone to a country called Terre aux
-Bretons, discovered by French subjects, and that in so doing they had
-been warned not to encroach on lands belonging to the King of Spain. And
-she added, with some spirit, that the Kings of France were not in the
-habit of permitting themselves to be threatened.
-
-Philip persisted in his attitude of injured innocence; and Forquevaulx,
-French ambassador at Madrid, reported that, as a reward for murdering
-French subjects, Menendez was to receive the title of Marquis of
-Florida. A demand soon followed from Philip, that Admiral Coligny should
-be punished for planting a French colony on Spanish ground, and thus
-causing the disasters that ensued. It was at this time that the first
-full account of the massacres reached the French court, and the Queen
-Mother, greatly moved, complained to the Spanish ambassador, saying that
-she could not persuade herself that his master would refuse reparation.
-The ambassador replied by again throwing the blame on Coligny and the
-Huguenots; and Catherine de Medicis returned that, Huguenots or not, the
-King of Spain had no right to take upon himself the punishment of French
-subjects. Forquevaulx was instructed to demand redress at Madrid; but
-Philip only answered that he was very sorry for what had happened, and
-again insisted that Coligny should be punished as the true cause of it.
-
-Forquevaulx, an old soldier, remonstrated with firmness, declared that
-no deeds so execrable had ever been committed within his memory, and
-demanded that Menendez and his followers should be chastised as they
-deserved. The King said that he was sorry that the sufferers chanced to
-be Frenchmen, but, as they were pirates also, they ought to be treated
-as such. The ambassador replied, that they were no pirates, since they
-bore the commission of the Admiral of France, who in naval affairs
-represented the King; and Philip closed the conversation by saying that
-he would speak on the subject with the Duke of Alva. This was equivalent
-to refusal, for the views of the Duke were well known; "and so, Madame,"
-writes the ambassador to the Queen Mother, "there is no hope that any
-reparation will be made for the aforesaid massacre."
-
-On this, Charles wrote to Forquevaulx "It is my will that you renew your
-complaint, and insist urgently that, for the sake of the union and
-friendship between the two crowns, reparation be made for the wrong done
-me and the cruelties committed on my subjects, to which I cannot submit
-without too great loss of reputation." And, jointly with his mother, he
-ordered the ambassador to demand once more that Menendez and his men
-should be punished, adding, that he trusts that Philip will grant
-justice to the King of France, his brother-in-law and friend, rather
-than pardon a gang of brigands. "On this demand," concludes Charles,
-"the Sieur de Forquevaulx will not fail to insist, be the answer what it
-may, in order that the King of Spain shall understand that his Majesty
-of France has no less spirit than his predecessors to repel an insult."
-The ambassador fulfilled his commission, and Philip replied by referring
-him to the Duke of Alva. "I have no hope," reports Forquevaulx, "that
-the Duke will give any satisfaction as to the massacre, for it was he
-who advised it from the first." A year passed, and then he reported that
-Menendez had returned from Florida, that the King had given him a warm
-welcome, and that his fame as a naval commander was such that he was
-regarded as a sort of Neptune.
-
-In spite of their brave words, Charles and the Queen Mother tamely
-resigned themselves to the affront, for they would not quarrel with
-Spain. To have done so would have been to throw themselves into the arms
-of the Protestant party, adopt the principle of toleration, and save
-France from the disgrace and blight of her later years. France was not
-so fortunate. The enterprise of Florida was a national enterprise,
-undertaken at the national charge, with the royal commission, and under
-the royal standard; and it had been crushed in time of peace by a power
-professing the closest friendship. Yet Huguenot influence had prompted
-and Huguenot hands executed it. That influence had now ebbed low;
-Coligny's power had waned; Charles, after long vacillation, was leaning
-more and more towards the Guises and the Catholics, and fast subsiding
-into the deathly embrace of Spain, for whom, at last, on the bloody eve
-of St. Bartholomew, he was to become the assassin of his own best
-subjects.
-
-In vain the relatives of the slain petitioned him for redress; and had
-the honor of the nation rested in the keeping of its King, the blood of
-hundreds of murdered Frenchmen would have cried from the ground in vain.
-But it was not to be so. Injured humanity found an avenger, and outraged
-France a champion. Her chivalrous annals may be searched in vain for a
-deed of more romantic daring than the vengeance of Dominique de
-Gourgues.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-1567-1583.
-
-DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES.
-
-
-There was a gentleman of Mont-de-Marsan, Dominique de Gourgues, a
-soldier of ancient birth and high renown. It is not certain that he was
-a Huguenot. The Spanish annalist calls him a "terrible heretic;" but the
-French Jesuit, Charlevoix, anxious that the faithful should share the
-glory of his exploits, affirms that, like his ancestors before him, he
-was a good Catholic. If so, his faith sat lightly upon him; and,
-Catholic or heretic, he hated the Spaniards with a mortal hate. Fighting
-in the Italian wars,--for from boyhood he was wedded to the sword,--he
-had been taken prisoner by them near Siena, where he had signalized
-himself by a fiery and determined bravery. With brutal insult, they
-chained him to the oar as a galley slave. After he had long endured this
-ignominy the Turks captured the vessel and carried her to
-Constantinople. It was but a change of tyrants but, soon after, while
-she was on a cruise, Gourgues still at the oar, a galley of the knights
-of Malta hove in sight, bore down on her, recaptured her, and set the
-prisoner free. For several years after, his restless spirit found
-employment in voyages to Africa, Brazil, and regions yet more remote.
-His naval repute rose high, but his grudge against the Spaniards still
-rankled within him; and when, returned from his rovings, he learned the
-tidings from Florida, his hot Gascon blood boiled with fury.
-
-The honor of France had been foully stained, and there was none to wipe
-away the shame. The faction-ridden King was dumb. The nobles who
-surrounded him were in the Spanish interest. Then, since they proved
-recreant, he, Dominique de Gourgues, a simple gentleman, would take upon
-him to avenge the wrong, and restore the dimmed lustre of the French
-name. He sold his inheritance, borrowed money from his brother, who held
-a high post in Guienne, and equipped three small vessels, navigable by
-sail or oar. On board he placed a hundred arquebusiers and eighty
-sailors, prepared to fight on land, if need were. The noted Blaise de
-Montluc, then lieutenant for the King in Guienne, gave him a commission
-to make war on the negroes of Benin,--that is, to kidnap them as
-slaves, an adventure then held honorable.
-
-His true design was locked within his own breast. He mustered his
-followers,--not a few of whom were of rank equal to his own, feasted
-them, and, on the twenty-second of August, 1567, sailed from the mouth
-of the Charente. Off Cape Finisterre, so violent a storm buffeted his
-ships that his men clamored to return; but Gourgues's spirit prevailed.
-He bore away for Africa, and, landing at the Rio del Oro, refreshed and
-cheered them as he best might. Thence he sailed to Cape Blanco, where
-the jealous Portuguese, who had a fort in the neighborhoods set upon him
-three negro chiefs. Gourgues beat them off, and remained master of the
-harbor; whence, however, he soon voyaged onward to Cape Verd, and,
-steering westward, made for the West Indies. Here, advancing from island
-to island, he came to Hispaniola, where, between the fury of a hurricane
-at sea and the jealousy of the Spaniards on shore, he was in no small
-jeopardy,--"the Spaniards", exclaims the indignant journalist, "who
-think that this New World was made for nobody but them, and that no
-other living man has a right to move or breathe here!" Gourgues landed,
-however, obtained the water of which he was in need, and steered for
-Cape San Antonio, at the western end of Cuba. There he gathered his
-followers about him, and addressed them with his fiery Gascon eloquence.
-For the first time, he told them his true purpose, inveighed against
-Spanish cruelty, and painted, with angry rhetoric, the butcheries of
-Fort Caroline and St. Augustine.
-
-"What disgrace," he cried, "if such an insult should pass unpunished!
-What glory to us if we avenge it! To this I have devoted my fortune. I
-relied on you. I thought you jealous enough of your country's glory to
-sacrifice life itself in a cause like this. Was I deceived? I will show
-you the way; I will be always at your head; I will bear the brunt of the
-danger. Will you refuse to follow me?"
-
-At first his startled hearers listened in silence; but soon the passions
-of that adventurous age rose responsive to his words. The combustible
-French nature burst into flame. The enthusiasm of the soldiers rose to
-such a pitch that Gourgues had much ado to make them wait till the moon
-was full before tempting the perils of the Bahama Channel. His time came
-at length. The moon rode high above the lonely sea, and, silvered in its
-light, the ships of the avenger held their course.
-
-Meanwhile, it had fared ill with the Spaniards in Florida; the good-will
-of the Indians had vanished. The French had been obtrusive and vexatious
-guests; but their worst trespasses had been mercy and tenderness
-compared to the daily outrage of the new-comers. Friendship had changed
-to aversion, aversion to hatred, and hatred to open war. The forest
-paths were beset; stragglers were cut off; and woe to the Spaniard who
-should venture after nightfall beyond call of the outposts.
-
-Menendez, however, had strengthened himself in his new conquest. St.
-Augustine was well fortified; Fort Caroline, now Fort San Mateo, was
-repaired; and two redoubts, or small forts, were thrown up to guard the
-mouth of the River of May,--one of them near the present lighthouse at
-Mayport, and the other across the river on Fort George Island. Thence,
-on an afternoon in early spring, the Spaniards saw three sail steering
-northward. They suspected no enemy, and their batteries boomed a salute.
-Gourgues's ships replied, then stood out to sea, and were lost in the
-shades of evening.
-
-They kept their course all night, and, as day broke, anchored at the
-mouth of a river, the St. Mary's, or the Santilla, by their reckoning
-fifteen leagues north of the River of May. Here, as it grew light,
-Gourgues saw the borders of the sea thronged with savages, armed and
-plumed for war. They, too, had mistaken the strangers for Spaniards, and
-mustered to meet their tyrants at the landing. But in the French ships
-there was a trumpeter who had been long in Florida, and knew the Indians
-well. He went towards them in a boat, with many gestures of friendship;
-and no sooner was he recognized, than the naked crowd, with yelps of
-delight, danced for joy along the sands. Why had he ever left them? they
-asked; and why had he not returned before? The intercourse thus
-auspiciously begun was actively kept up. Gourgues told the principal
-chief,--who was no other than Satouriona, once the ally of the French,
---that he had come to visit them, make friendship with them, and bring
-them presents. At this last announcement, so grateful to Indian ears the
-dancing was renewed with double zeal. The next morning was named for a
-grand council, and Satouriona sent runners to summon all Indians within
-call; while Gourgues, for safety, brought his vessels within the mouth
-of the river.
-
-Morning came, and the woods were thronged with warriors. Gourgues and
-his soldiers landed with martial pomp. In token of mutual confidence,
-the French laid aside their arquebuses, and the Indians their bows and
-arrows. Satouriona came to meet the strangers, and seated their
-commander at his side, on a wooden stool, draped and cushioned with the
-gray Spanish moss. Two old Indians cleared the spot of brambles, weeds,
-and grass; and, when their task was finished, the tribesmen took their
-places, ring within ring, standing, sitting, and crouching on the
-ground,--a dusky concourse, plumed in festal array, waiting with grave
-visages and intent eyes. Gourgues was about to speak, when the chief,
-who, says the narrator, had not learned French manners, anticipated him,
-and broke into a vehement harangue, denouncing the cruelty of the
-Spaniards.
-
-Since the French fort was taken, he said, the Indians had not had one
-happy day. The Spaniards drove them from their cabins, stole their corn,
-ravished their wives and daughters, and killed their children; and all
-this they had endured because they loved the French. There was a French
-boy who had escaped from the massacre at the fort; they had found him in
-the woods and though the Spaniards, who wished to kill him, demanded
-that they should give him up, they had kept him for his friends.
-
-"Look!" pursued the chief, "here he is! "--and he brought forward a
-youth of sixteen, named Pierre Debre, who became at once of the greatest
-service to the French, his knowledge of the Indian language making him
-an excellent interpreter.
-
-Delighted as he was at this outburst against the Spaniards, Gourgues did
-not see fit to display the full extent of his satisfaction. He thanked
-the Indians for their good-will, exhorted them to continue in it, and
-pronounced an ill-merited eulogy on the greatness and goodness of his
-King. As for the Spaniards, he said, their day of reckoning was at hand;
-and, if the Indians had been abused for their love of the French, the
-French would be their avengers. Here Satouriona forgot his dignity, and
-leaped up for joy.
-
-"What!" he cried, "will you fight the Spaniards?"
-
-"I came here," replied Gourgues, "only to reconnoitre the country and
-make friends with you, and then go back to bring more soldiers; but,
-when I hear what you are suffering from them, I wish to fall upon them
-this very day, and rescue you from their tyranny." All around the ring a
-clamor of applauding voices greeted his words.
-
-"But you will do your part," pursued the Frenchman; "you will not leave
-us all the honor."
-
-"We will go," replied Satouriona, "and die with you, if need be."
-
-"Then, if we fight, we ought to fight at once. How soon can you have
-your warriors ready to march?"
-
-The chief asked three days for preparation. Gourgues cautioned him to
-secrecy, lest the Spaniards should take alarm.
-
-"Never fear," was the answer; "we hate them more than you do."
-
-Then came a distribution of gifts,--knives, hatchets, mirrors, bells,
-and beads,--while the warrior rabble crowded to receive them, with
-eager faces and outstretched arms. The distribution over, Gourgues asked
-the chiefs if there was any other matter in which he could serve them.
-On this, pointing to his shirt, they expressed a peculiar admiration for
-that garment, and begged each to have one, to be worn at feasts and
-councils during life, and in their graves after death. Gourgues
-complied; and his grateful confederates were soon stalking about him,
-fluttering in the spoils of his wardrobe.
-
-To learn the strength and position of the Spaniards, Gourgues now sent
-out three scouts; and with them went Olotoraca, Satourioria's nephew, a
-young brave of great renown.
-
-The chief, eager to prove his good faith, gave as hostages his only
-surviving son and his favorite wife. They were sent on board the ships,
-while the Indians dispersed to their encampments, with leaping,
-stamping, dancing, and whoops of jubilation.
-
-The day appointed came, and with it the savage army, hideous in
-war-paint, and plumed for battle. The woods rang back their songs and
-yells, as with frantic gesticulation they brandished their war-clubs and
-vaunted their deeds of prowess. Then they drank the black drink, endowed
-with mystic virtues against hardship and danger; and Gourgues himself
-pretended to swallow the nauseous decoction.[FN#25]
-
-These ceremonies consumed the day. It was evening before the allies
-filed off into their forests, and took the path for the Spanish forts.
-The French, on their part, were to repair by sea to the rendezvous.
-Gourgues mustered and addressed his men. It was needless: their ardor
-was at fever height. They broke in upon his words, and demanded to be
-led at once against the enemy. Francois Bourdelais, with twenty sailors,
-was left with the ships, and Gourgues affectionately bade him farewell.
-
-"If I am slain in this most just enterprise," he said, "I leave all in
-your charge, and pray you to carry back my soldiers to France."
-
-There were many embracings among the excited Frenchmen,--many
-sympathetic tears from those who were to stay behind,--many messages
-left with them for wives, children, friends, and mistresses; and then
-this valiant band pushed their boats from shore. It was a hare-brained
-venture, for, as young Debre had assured them, the Spaniards on the
-River of May were four hundred in number, secure behind their ramparts.
-
-Hour after hour the sailors pulled at the oar. They glided slowly by the
-sombre shores in the shimmering moonlight, to the sound of the surf and
-the moaning pine-trees. In the gray of the morning, they came to the
-mouth of a river, probably the Nassau; and here a northeast wind set in
-with a violence that almost wrecked their boats. Their Indian allies
-were waiting on the bank, but for a while the gale delayed their
-crossing. The bolder French would lose no time, rowed through the
-tossing waves, and, landing safely, left their boats, and pushed into
-the forest. Gourgues took the lead, in breastplate and back-piece. At
-his side marched the young chief Olotoraca, with a French pike in his
-hand; and the files of arquebuse-men and armed sailors followed close
-behind. They plunged through swamps, hewed their way through brambly
-thickets and the matted intricacies of the forests, and, at five in the
-afternoon, almost spent with fatigue and hunger, came to a river or
-inlet of the sea, not far from the first Spanish fort. Here they found
-three hundred Indians waiting for them.
-
-Tired as he was, Gourgues would not rest. He wished to attack at
-daybreak, and with ten arquebusiers and his Indian guide he set out to
-reconnoitre. Night closed upon him. It was a vain task to struggle on,
-in pitchy darkness, among trunks of trees, fallen logs, tangled vines,
-and swollen streams. Gourgues returned, anxious and gloomy. An Indian
-chief approached him, read through the darkness his perturbed look, and
-offered to lead him by a better path along the margin of the sea.
-Gourgues joyfully assented, and ordered all his men to march. The
-Indians, better skilled in wood-craft, chose the shorter course through
-the forest.
-
-The French forgot their weariness, and pressed on with speed. At dawn
-they and their allies met on the bank of a stream, probably Sister
-Creek, beyond which, and very near, was the fort. But the tide was in,
-and they tried in vain to cross. Greatly vexed,--for he had hoped to
-take the enemy asleep,--Gourgues withdrew his soldiers into the forest,
-where they were no sooner ensconced than a drenching rain fell, and they
-had much ado to keep their gun-matches burning. The light grew fast.
-Gourgues plainly saw the fort, the defences of which seemed slight and
-unfinished. He even saw the Spaniards at work within. A feverish
-interval elapsed, till at length the tide was out,--so far, at least,
-that the stream was fordable. A little higher up, a clump of trees lay
-between it and the fort. Behind this friendly screen the passage was
-begun. Each man tied his powder-flask to his steel cap, held his
-arquebuse above his head with one hand, and grasped his sword with the
-other. The channel was a bed of oysters. The sharp shells cut their feet
-as they waded through. But the farther bank was gained. They emerged
-from the water, drenched, lacerated, and bleeding, but with unabated
-mettle. Gourgues set them in array under cover of the trees. They stood
-with kindling eyes, and hearts throbbing, but not with fear. Gourgues
-pointed to the Spanish fort, seen by glimpses through the boughs. "Look
-I" he said, "there are the robbers who have stolen this land from our
-King; there are the murderers who have butchered our countrymen!" With
-voices eager, fierce, but half suppressed, they demanded to be led on.
-
-Gourgues gave the word. Cazenove, his lientenant, with thirty men,
-pushed for the fort gate; he himself, with the main body, for the
-glacis. It was near noon; the Spaniards had just finished their meal,
-and, says the narrative, "were still picking their teeth," when a
-startled cry rang in their ears:--"To arms! to arms! The French are
-coming! The French are coming!"
-
-It was the voice of a cannoneer who had that moment mounted the rampart
-and seen the assailants advancing in unbroken ranks, with heads lowered
-and weapons at the charge. He fired his cannon among them. He even had
-time to load and fire again, when the light-limbed Olotoraca bounded
-forward, ran up the glacis, leaped the unfinished ditch, and drove his
-pike through the Spaniard from breast to back. Gourgues was now on the
-glacis, when he heard Cazenove shouting from the gate that the Spaniards
-were escaping on that side. He turned and led his men thither at a run.
-In a moment, the fugitives, sixty in all, were enclosed between his
-party and that of his lieutenant. The Indians, too, came leaping to the
-spot. Not a Spaniard escaped. All were cut down but a few, reserved by
-Gourgues for a more inglorious end.
-
-Meanwhile the Spaniards in the other fort, on the opposite shore,
-cannonaded the victors without ceasing. The latter turned four captured
-guns against them. One of Gourgues's boats, a very large one, had been
-brought along-shore, and, entering it with eighty soldiers, he pushed
-for the farther bank. With loud yells, the Indians leaped into the
-river, which is here about three fourths of a mile wide. Each held his
-bow and arrows aloft in one hand, while he swam with the other. A panic
-seized the garrison as they saw the savage multitude. They broke out of
-the fort and fled into the forest. But the French had already landed;
-and, throwing themselves in the path of the fugitives, they greeted them
-with a storm of lead. The terrified wretches recoiled; but flight was
-vain. The Indian whoop rang behind them, and war-clubs and arrows
-finished the work. Gourgues's utmost efforts saved but fifteen, not out
-of mercy, but from a refinement of vengeance.
-
-The next day was Quasimodo Sunday, or the Sunday after Easter. Gourgues
-and his men remained quiet, making ladders for the assault on Fort San
-Mateo. Meanwhile the whole forest was in arms, and, far and near, the
-Indians were wild with excitement. They beset the Spanish fort till not
-a soldier could venture out. The garrison, aware of their danger, though
-ignorant of its extent, devised an expedient to gain information; and
-one of them, painted and feathered like an Indian, ventured within
-Gourgues's outposts. He himself chanced to be at hand, and by his side
-walked his constant attendant, Olotoraca. The keen-eyed young savage
-pierced the cheat at a glance. The spy was seized, and, being examined,
-declared that there were two hundred and sixty Spaniards in San Mateo,
-and that they believed the French to be two thousand, and were so
-frightened that they did not know what they were doing.
-
-Gourgues, well pleased, pushed on to attack them. On Monday evening he
-sent forward the Indians to ambush themselves on both sides of the fort.
-In the morning he followed with his Frenchmen; and, as the glittering
-ranks came into view, defiling between the forest and the river, the
-Spaniards opened on them with culverins from a projecting bastion. The
-French took cover in the woods with which the hills below and behind the
-fort were densely overgrown. Here, himself unseen, Gourgues could survey
-whole extent of the defences, and he presently descried a strong party
-of Spaniards issuing from their works, crossing the ditch, and advancing
-to reconnoitre.
-
-On this, he sent Cazenove, with a detachment, to station himself at a
-point well hidden by trees on the flank of the Spaniards, who, with
-strange infatuation, continued their advance. Gourgues and his followers
-pushed on through the thickets to meet them. As the Spaniards reached
-the edge of the open ground, a deadly fire blazed in their faces, and,
-before the smoke cleared, the French were among them, sword in hand. The
-survivors would have fled; but Cazenove's detachment fell upon their
-rear, and all were killed or taken.
-
-When their comrades in the fort beheld their fate, a panic seized them.
-Conscious of their own deeds, perpetrated on this very spot, they could
-hope no mercy, and their terror multiplied immeasurably the numbers of
-their enemy. They abandoned the fort in a body, and fled into the woods
-most remote from the French. But here a deadlier foe awaited them; for a
-host of Indians leaped up from ambush. Then rose those hideous war-cries
-which have curdled the boldest blood and blanched the manliest cheek.
-The forest warriors, with savage ecstasy, wreaked their long arrears of
-vengeance, while the French hastened to the spot, and lent their swords
-to the slaughter. A few prisoners were saved alive; the rest were slain;
-and thus did the Spaniards make bloody atonement for the butchery of
-Fort Caroline.
-
-But Gourgues's vengeance was not yet appeased. Hard by the fort, the
-trees were pointed out to him on which Menendez had hanged his captives,
-and placed over them the inscription, "Not as to Frenchmen, but as to
-Lutherans."
-
-Gourgues ordered the Spanish prisoners to be led thither.
-
-"Did you think," he sternly said, as the pallid wretches stood ranged
-before him, "that so vile a treachery, so detestable a cruelty, against
-a King so potent and a nation so generous, would go unpunished? I, one
-of the humblest gentlemen among my King's subjects, have charged myself
-with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most Catholic Kings
-had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and extreme cruelty would
-still have been unpardonable. Now that they are friends and close
-allies, there is no name vile enough to brand your deeds, no punishment
-sharp enough to requite them. But though you cannot suffer as you
-deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can honorably inflict, that
-your example may teach others to observe the peace and alliance which
-you have so perfidiously violated."
-
-They were hanged where the French had hung before them; and over them
-was nailed the inscription, burned with a hot iron on a tablet of pine,
-"Not as to Spaniards, but as to Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers."
-
-Gourgues's mission was fulfilled. To occupy the country had never been
-his intention; nor was it possible, for the Spaniards were still in
-force at St. Augustine. His was a whirlwind visitation,--to ravage,
-ruin, and vanish. He harangued the Indians, and exhorted them to
-demolish the fort. They fell to the work with eagerness, and in less
-than a day not one stone was left on another.
-
-Gourgues returned to the forts at the mouth of the river, destroyed them
-also, and took up his march for his ships. It was a triumphal
-procession. The Indians thronged around the victors with gifts of fish
-and game; and an old woman declared that she was now ready to die, since
-she had seen the French once more.
-
-The ships were ready for sea. Gourgues bade his disconsolate allies
-farewell, and nothing would content them but a promise to return soon.
-Before embarking, he addressed his own men:--"My friends, let us give
-thanks to God for the success He has granted us. It is He who saved us
-from tempests; it is He who inclined the hearts of the Indians towards
-us; it is He who blinded the understanding of the Spaniards. They were
-four to one, in forts well armed and provisioned. Our right was our only
-strength; and yet we have conquered. Not to our own swords, but to God
-only, we owe our victory. Then let us thank Him, my friends; let us
-never forget His favors; and let us pray that He may continue them,
-saving us from dangers, and guiding us safely home. Let us pray, too,
-that He may so dispose the hearts of men that our perils and toils may
-find favor in the eyes of our King and of all France, since all we have
-done was done for the King's service and for the honor of our country."
-
-Thus Spaniards and Frenchmen alike laid their reeking swords on God's
-altar.
-
-Gourgues sailed on the third of May, and, gazing back along their
-foaming wake, the adventurers looked their last on the scene of their
-exploits. Their success had cost its price. A few of their number had
-fallen, and hardships still awaited the survivors. Gourgues, however,
-reached Rochelle on the day of Pentecost, and the Huguenot citizens
-greeted him with all honor. At court it fared worse with him. The King,
-still obsequious to Spain, looked on him coldly and askance. The Spanish
-minister demanded his head. It was hinted to him that he was not safe,
-and he withdrew to Ronen, where he found asylum among his friends. His
-fortune was gone; debts contracted for his expedition weighed heavily on
-him; and for years he lived in obscurity, almost in misery.
-
-At length his prospects brightened. Elizabeth of England learned his
-merits and his misfortunes, and invited him to enter her service. The
-King, who, says the Jesuit historian, had always at heart been delighted
-with his achievement, openly restored him to favor; while, some years
-later, Don Antonio tendered him command of his fleet, to defend his
-right to the crown of Portugal against Philip the Second. Gourgues,
-happy once more to cross swords with the Spaniards, gladly embraced this
-offer; but in 1583, on his way to join the Portuguese prince, he died at
-Tours of a sudden illness. The French mourned the loss of the man who
-had wiped a blot from the national scutcheon, and respected his memory
-as that of one of the best captains of his time. And, in truth, if a
-zealous patriotism, a fiery valor, and skilful leadership are worthy of
-honor, then is such a tribute due to Dominique de Gourgues,
-slave-catcher and half-pirate as he was, like other naval heroes of that
-wild age.
-
-Romantic as was his exploit, it lacked the fullness of poetic justice,
-since the chief offender escaped him. While Gourgues was sailing towards
-Florida, Menendez was in Spain, high in favor at court, where he told to
-approving ears how he had butchered the heretics. Borgia, the sainted
-General of the Jesuits, was his fast friend; and two years later, when
-he returned to America, the Pope, Paul the Fifth, regarding him as an
-instrument for the conversion of the Indians, wrote him a letter with
-his benediction. He re-established his power in Florida, rebuilt Fort
-San Mateo, and taught the Indians that death or flight was the only
-refuge from Spanish tyranny. They murdered his missionaries and spurned
-their doctrine. "The Devil is the best thing in the world," they cried;
-"we adore him; he makes men brave." Even the Jesuits despaired, and
-abandoned Florida in disgust.
-
-Menendez was summoned home, where fresh honors awaited him from the
-Crown, though, according to the somewhat doubtful assertion of the
-heretical Grotius, his deeds had left a stain upon his name among the
-people. He was given command of the armada of three hundred sail and
-twenty thousand men, which, in 1574, was gathered at Santander against
-England and Flanders. But now, at the height of his fortunes, his career
-was abruptly closed. He died suddenly, at the age of fifty-five. Grotius
-affirms that he killed himself; but, in his eagerness to point the moral
-of his story, he seems to have overstepped the bounds of historic truth.
-The Spanish bigot was rarely a suicide; for the rites of Christian
-burial and repose in consecrated ground were denied to the remains of
-the self-murderer. There is positive evidence, too, in a codicil to the
-will of Menendez, dated at Santander on the fifteenth of September,
-1574, that he was on that day seriously ill, though, as the instrument
-declares, "of sound mind." There is reason, then, to believe that this
-pious cut-throat died a natural death, crowned with honors, and soothed
-by the consolations of his religion.
-
-It was he who crushed French Protestantism in America. To plant
-religious freedom on this western soil was not the mission of France. It
-was for her to rear in northern forests the banner of absolutism and of
-Rome; while among the rocks of Massachusetts England and Calvin fronted
-her in dogged opposition, long before the ice-crusted pines of Plymouth
-had listened to the rugged psalmody of the Puritan, the solitudes of
-Western New York and the stern wilderness of Lake Huron were trodden by
-the iron heel of the soldier and the sandalled foot of the Franciscan
-friar. France was the true pioneer of the Great West. They who bore the
-fleur-de-lis were always in the van, patient, daring, indomitable. And
-foremost on this bright roll of forest chivalry stands the
-half-forgotten name of Samuel de Champlain.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Part 2
-
-SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN
-AND
-HIS ASSOCIATES;
-
-WITH A
-VIEW OF EARLIER FRENCH ADVENTURE IN AMERICA,
-AND THE 
-LEGENDS OF THE NORTHERN COASTS.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN.
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-1488-1543.
-
-EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE IN NORTH AMERICA.
-
-
-When America was first made known to Europe, the part assumed by France
-on the borders of that new world was peculiar, and is little recognized.
-While the Spaniard roamed sea and land, burning for achievement, red-hot
-with bigotry and avarice, and while England, with soberer steps and a
-less dazzling result, followed in the path of discovery and
-gold-hunting, it was from France that those barbarous shores first
-learned to serve the ends of peaceful commercial industry.
-
-A French writer, however, advances a more ambitious claim. In the year
-1488, four years before the first voyage of Columbus, America, he
-maintains, was found by Frenchmen. Cousin, a navigator of Dieppe, being
-at sea off the African coast, was forced westward, it is said, by winds
-and currents to within sight of an unknown shore, where he presently
-descried the mouth of a great river. On board his ship was one Pinzon,
-whose conduct became so mutinous that, on his return to Dieppe, Cousin
-made complaint to the magistracy, who thereupon dismissed the offender
-from the maritime service of the town. Pinzon went to Spain, became
-known to Columbus, told him the discovery, and joined him on his voyage
-of 1492.
-
-To leave this cloudland of tradition, and approach the confines of
-recorded history. The Normans, offspring of an ancestry of conquerors,--
-the Bretons, that stubborn, hardy, unchanging race, who, among Druid
-monuments changeless as themselves, still cling with Celtic obstinacy to
-the thoughts and habits of the past,--the Basques, that primeval
-people, older than history,--all frequented from a very early date the
-cod-banks of Newfoundland. There is some reason to believe that this
-fishery existed before the voyage of Cabot, in 1497; there is strong
-evidence that it began as early as the year 1504; and it is well
-established that, in 1517, fifty Castilian, French, and Portuguese
-vessels were engaged in it at once; while in 1527, on the third of
-August, eleven sail of Norman, one of Breton, and two of Portuguese
-fishermen were to be found in the Bay of St. John.
-
-From this time forth, the Newfoundland fishery was never abandoned.
-French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese made resort to the Banks,
-always jealous, often quarrelling, but still drawing up treasure from
-those exhaustless mines, and bearing home bountiful provision against
-the season of Lent.
-
-On this dim verge of the known world there were other perils than those
-of the waves. The rocks and shores of those sequestered seas had, so
-thought the voyagers, other tenants than the seal, the walrus, and the
-screaming sea-fowl, the bears which stole away their fish before their
-eyes, and the wild natives dressed in seal-skins. Griffius--so ran the
-story--infested the mountains of Labrador. Two islands, north of
-Newfoundland, were given over to the fiends from whom they derived their
-name, the Isles of Demons. An old map pictures their occupants at
-length,--devils rampant, with wings, horns, and tail. The passing
-voyager heard the din of their infernal orgies, and woe to the sailor or
-the fisherman who ventured alone into the haunted woods. "True it is,"
-writes the old cosmographer Thevet, "and I myself have heard it, not
-from one, but from a great number of the sailors and pilots with whom I
-have made many voyages, that, when they passed this way, they heard in
-the air, on the tops and about the masts, a great clamor of men's
-voices, confused and inarticulate, such as you may hear from the crowd
-at a fair or market-place whereupon they well knew that the Isle of
-Demons was not far off." And he adds, that he himself, when among the
-Indians, had seen them so tormented by these infernal persecutors, that
-they would fall into his arms for relief; on which, repeating a passage
-of the Gospel of St. John, he had driven the imps of darkness to a
-speedy exodus. They are comely to look upon, he further tells us; yet,
-by reason of their malice, that island is of late abandoned, and all who
-dwelt there have fled for refuge to the main.
-
-While French fishermen plied their trade along these gloomy coasts, the
-French government spent it's energies on a different field. The vitality
-of the kingdom was wasted in Italian wars. Milan and Naples offered a
-more tempting prize than the wilds of Baccalaos. Eager for glory and for
-plunder, a swarm of restless nobles followed their knight-errant King,
-the would-be paladin, who, misshapen in body and fantastic in mind, had
-yet the power to raise a storm which the lapse of generations could not
-quell. Under Charles the Eighth and his successor, war and intrigue
-ruled the day; and in the whirl of Italian politics there was no leisure
-to think of a new world.
-
-Yet private enterprise was not quite benumbed. In 1506, one Denis of
-Honfleur explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence; 2 two years later, Aubert of
-Dieppe followed on his track; and in 1518, the Baron de Lery made an
-abortive attempt at settlement on Sable Island, where the cattle left by
-him remained and multiplied.
-
-The crown passed at length to Francis of Angouleme. There were in his
-nature seeds of nobleness,--seeds destined to bear little fruit.
-Chivalry and honor were always on his lips; but Francis the First, a
-forsworn gentleman, a despotic king, vainglorious, selfish, sunk in
-debaucheries, was but the type of an era which retained the forms of the
-Middle Age without its soul, and added to a still prevailing barbarism
-the pestilential vices which hung fog-like around the dawn of
-civilization. Yet he esteemed arts and letters, and, still more, coveted
-the eclat which they could give. The light which was beginning to pierce
-the feudal darkness gathered its rays around his throne. Italy was
-rewarding the robbers who preyed on her with the treasures of her
-knowledge and her culture; and Italian genius, of whatever stamp, found
-ready patronage at the hands of Francis. Among artists, philosophers,
-and men of letters enrolled in his service stands the humbler name of a
-Florentine navigator, John Verrazzano.
-
-He was born of an ancient family, which could boast names eminent in
-Florentine history, and of which the last survivor died in 1819. He has
-been called a pirate, and he was such in the same sense in which Drake,
-Hawkins, and other valiant sea-rovers of his own and later times,
-merited the name; that is to say, he would plunder and kill a Spaniard
-on the high seas without waiting for a declaration of war.
-
-The wealth of the Indies was pouring into the coffers of Charles the
-Fifth, and the exploits of Cortes had given new lustre to his crown.
-Francis the First begrudged his hated rival the glories and profits of
-the New World. He would fain have his share of the prize; and
-Verrazzano, with four ships, was despatched to seek out a passage
-westward to the rich kingdom of Cathay.
-
-Some doubt has of late been cast on the reality of this voyage of
-Verrazzano, and evidence, mainly negative in kind, has been adduced to
-prove the story of it a fabrication; but the difficulties of incredulity
-appear greater than those of belief, and no ordinary degree of
-scepticism is required to reject the evidence that the narrative is
-essentially true.
-
-Towards the end of the year 1523, his four ships sailed from Dieppe; but
-a storm fell upon him, and, with two of the vessels, he ran back in
-distress to a port of Brittany. What became of the other two does not
-appear. Neither is it clear why, after a preliminary cruise against the
-Spaniards, he pursued his voyage with one vessel alone, a caravel called
-the "Dauphine." With her he made for Madeira, and, on the seventeenth of
-January, 1524, set sail from a barren islet in its neighborhood, and
-bore away for the unknown world. In forty-nine days they neared a low
-shore, not far from the site of Wilmington in North Carolina, "a newe
-land," exclaims the voyager, "never before seen of any man, either
-auncient or moderne." Verrazzano steered southward in search of a
-harbor, and, finding none, turned northward again. Presently he sent a
-boat ashore. The inhabitants, who had fled at first, soon came down to
-the strand in wonder and admiration, pointing out a landing-place, and
-making gestures of friendship. "These people," says Verrazzano, "goe
-altogether naked, except only certain skinnes of beastes like unto
-marterns [martens], which they fasten onto a narrowe girdle made of
-grasse. They are of colour russet, and not much unlike the Saracens,
-their hayre blacke, thicke, and not very long, which they tye togeather
-in a knot behinde, and weare it like a taile."
-
-He describes the shore as consisting of small low hillocks of fine sand,
-intersected by creeks and inlets, and beyond these a country "full of
-Palme [pine?] trees, Bay trees, and high Cypresse trees, and many other
-sortes of trees, vnknowne in Europe, which yeeld most sweete sanours,
-farre from the shore." Still advancing northward, Verrazzano sent a boat
-for a supply of water. The surf ran high, and the crew could not land;
-but an adventurous young sailor jumped overboard and swam shoreward with
-a gift of beads and trinkets for the Indians, who stood watching him.
-His heart failed as he drew near; he flung his gift among them, turned,
-and struck out for the boat. The surf dashed him back, flinging him with
-violence on the beach among the recipients of his bounty, who seized him
-by the arms and legs, and, while he called lustily for aid, answered him
-with outcries designed to allay his terrors. Next they kindled a great
-fire,--doubtless to roast and devour him before the eyes of his
-comrades, gazing in horror from their boat. On the contrary, they
-carefully warmed him, and were trying to dry his clothes, when,
-recovering from his bewilderment, he betrayed a strong desire to escape
-to his friends; whereupon, "with great love, clapping him fast about,
-with many embracings," they led him to the shore, and stood watching
-till he had reached the boat.
-
-It only remained to requite this kindness, and an opportunity soon
-occurred; for, coasting the shores of Virginia or Maryland, a party went
-on shore and found an old woman, a young girl, and several children,
-hiding with great terror in the grass. Having, by various blandishments,
-gained their confidence, they carried off one of the children as a
-curiosity, and, since the girl was comely, would fain have taken her
-also, but desisted by reason of her continual screaming.
-
-Verrazzano's next resting-place was the Bay of New York. Rowing up in
-his boat through the Narrows, under the steep heights of Staten Island,
-he saw the harbor within dotted with canoes of the feathered natives,
-coming from the shore to welcome him. But what most engaged the eyes of
-the white men were the fancied signs of mineral wealth in the
-neighboring hills.
-
-Following the shores of Long Island, they came to an island, which may
-have been Block Island, and thence to a harbor, which was probably that
-of Newport. here they stayed fifteen days, most courteously received by
-the inhabitants. Among others appeared two chiefs, gorgeously arrayed in
-painted deer-skins,--kings, as Verrazzano calls them, with attendant
-gentlemen; while a party of squaws in a canoe, kept by their jealous
-lords at a safe distance from the caravel, figure in the narrative as
-the queen and her maids. The Indian wardrobe had been taxed to its
-utmost to do the strangers honor,--copper bracelets, lynx-skins,
-raccoon-skins, and faces bedaubed with gaudy colors.
-
-Again they spread their sails, and on the fifth of May bade farewell to
-the primitive hospitalities of Newport, steered along the rugged coasts
-of New England, and surveyed, ill pleased, the surf-beaten rocks, the
-pine-tree and the fir, the shadows and the gloom of mighty forests. Here
-man and nature alike were savage and repellent. Perhaps some plundering
-straggler from the fishing-banks, some manstealer like the Portuguese
-Cortereal, or some kidnapper of children and ravisher of squaws like
-themselves, had warned the denizens of the woods to beware of the
-worshippers of Christ. Their only intercourse was in the way of trade.
-From the brink of the rocks which overhung the sea the Indians would let
-down a cord to the boat below, demand fish-hooks, knives, and steel, in
-barter for their furs, and, their bargain made, salute the voyagers with
-unseemly gestures of derision and scorn. The French once ventured
-ashore; but a war-whoop and a shower of arrows sent them back to their
-boats.
-
-Verrazzano coasted the seaboard of Maine, and sailed northward as far as
-Newfoundland, whence, provisions failing, he steered for France. He had
-not found a passage to Cathay, but he had explored the American coast
-from the thirty-fourth degree to the fiftieth, and at various points had
-penetrated several leagues into the country. On the eighth of July, he
-wrote from Dieppe to the King the earliest description known to exist of
-the shores of the United States.
-
-Great was the joy that hailed his arrival, and great were the hopes of
-emolument and wealth from the new-found shores. The merchants of Lyons
-were in a flush of expectation. For himself, he was earnest to return,
-plant a colony, and bring the heathen tribes within the pale of the
-Church. But the time was inauspicious. The year of his voyage was to
-France a year of disasters,--defeat in Italy, the loss of Milan, the
-death of the heroic Bayard; and, while Verrazzano was writing his
-narrative at Dieppe, the traitor Bourbon was invading Provence.
-Preparation, too, was soon on foot for the expedition which, a few
-months later, ended in the captivity of Francis on the field of Pavia.
-Without a king, without an army, without money, convulsed within, and
-threatened from without, France after that humiliation was in no
-condition to renew her Transatlantic enterprise.
-
-Henceforth few traces remain of the fortunes of Verrazzano. Ramusio
-affirms, that, on another voyage, he was killed and eaten by savages, in
-sight of his followers; and a late writer hazards the conjecture that
-this voyage, if made at all, was made in the service of Henry the Eighth
-of England. But a Spanish writer affirms that, in 1527, he was hanged at
-Puerto del Pico as a pirate, and this assertion is fully confirmed by
-authentic documents recently brought to light.
-
-The fickle-minded King, always ardent at the outset of an enterprise and
-always flagging before its close, divided, moreover, between the smiles
-of his mistresses and the assaults of his enemies, might probably have
-dismissed the New World from his thoughts. But among the favorites of
-his youth was a high-spirited young noble, Philippe de BrionChabot, the
-partner of his joustings and tennis-playing, his gaming and gallantries.
-He still stood high in the royal favor, and, after the treacherous
-escape of Francis from captivity, held the office of Admiral of France.
-When the kingdom had rallied in some measure from its calamnities, he
-conceived the purpose of following up the path which Verrazzano had
-opened.
-
-The ancient town of St. Malo--thrust out like a buttress into the sea,
-strange and grim of aspect, breathing war front its walls and
-battlements of ragged stone, a stronghold of privateers, the home of a
-race whose intractable and defiant independence neither time nor change
-has subdued--has been for centuries a nursery of hardy mariners. Among
-the earliest and most eminent on its list stands the name of Jacques
-Cartier. His portrait hangs in the town-hall of St. Malo,--bold, keen
-features bespeaking a spirit not apt to quail before the wrath of man or
-of the elements. In him Chabot found a fit agent of his design, if,
-indeed, its suggestion is not due to the Breton navigator.
-
-Sailing from St. Malo on the twentieth of April, 1534, Cartier steered
-for Newfoundland, passed through the Straits of Belle Isle, entered the
-Gulf of Chaleurs, planted a cross at Gaspe, and, never doubting that he
-was on the high road to Cathay, advanced up the St. Lawrence till he saw
-the shores of Anticosti. But autumnal storms were gathering. The
-voyagers took counsel together, turned their prows eastward, and bore
-away for France, carrying thither, as a sample of the natural products
-of the New World, two young Indians, lured into their clutches by an act
-of villanous treachery. The voyage was a mere reconnoissance.
-
-The spirit of discovery was awakened. A passage to India could be found,
-and a new France built up beyond the Atlantic. Mingled with such views
-of interest and ambition was another motive scarcely less potent. The
-heresy of Luther was convulsing Germany, and the deeper heresy of Calvin
-infecting France. Devout Catholics, kindling with redoubled zeal, would
-fain requite the Church for her losses in the Old World by winning to
-her fold the infidels of the New. But, in pursuing an end at once so
-pious and so politic, Francis the First was setting at naught the
-supreme Pontiff himself, since, by the preposterous bull of Alexander
-the Sixth, all America had been given to the Spaniards.
-
-In October, 1534, Cartier received from Chabot another commission, and,
-in spite of secret but bitter opposition from jealous traders of St.
-Malo, he prepared for a second voyage. Three vessels, the largest not
-above a hundred and twenty tons, were placed at his disposal, and Claude
-de Pontbriand, Charles de la Pommeraye, and other gentlemen of birth,
-enrolled themselves for the adventure. On the sixteenth of May, 1535,
-officers and sailors assembled in the cathedral of St. Malo, where,
-after confession and mass, they received the parting blessing of the
-bishop. Three days later they set sail. The dingy walls of the rude old
-seaport, and the white rocks that line the neighboring shores of
-Brittany, faded from their sight, and soon they were tossing in a
-furious tempest. The scattered ships escaped the danger, and, reuniting
-at the Straits of Belle Isle, steered westward along the coast of
-Labrador, till they reached a small bay opposite the island of
-Anticosti. Cartier called it the Bay of St. Lawrence,--a name
-afterwards extended to the entire gulf, and to the great river above.
-
-To ascend this great river, and tempt the hazards of its intricate
-navigation with no better pilots than the two young Indians kidnapped
-the year before, was a venture of no light risk. But skill or fortune
-prevailed; and, on the first of September, the voyagers reached in
-safety the gorge of the gloomy Saguenay, with its towering cliffs and
-sullen depth of waters. Passing the Isle aux Coudres, and the lofty
-promontory of Cape Tourmente, they came to anchor in a quiet channel
-between the northern shore and the margin of a richly wooded island,
-where the trees were so thickly hung with grapes that Cartier named it
-the Island of Bacchus.
-
-Indians came swarming from the shores, paddled their canoes about the
-ships, and clambered to the decks to gaze in bewilderment at the novel
-scene, and listen to the story of their travelled countrymen, marvellous
-in their ears as a visit to another planet. Cartier received them
-kindly, listened to the long harangue of the great chief Donnacona,
-regaled him with bread and wine; and, when relieved at length of his
-guests, set forth in a boat to explore the river above.
-
-As he drew near the opening of the channel, the Hochelaga again spread
-before him the broad expanse of its waters. A mighty promontory, rugged
-and bare, thrust its scarped front into the surging current. Here,
-clothed in the majesty of solitude, breathing the stern poetry of the
-wilderness, rose the cliffs now rich with heroic memories, where the
-fiery Count Frontenac cast defiance at his foes, where Wolfe, Montcalm,
-and Montgomery fell. As yet, all was a nameless barbarism, and a cluster
-of wigwams held the site of the rock-built city of Quebec. Its name was
-Stadacone, and it owned the sway of the royal Donnacona.
-
-Cartier set out to visit this greasy potentate; ascended the river St.
-Charles, by him called the St. Croix, landed, crossed the meadows,
-climbed the rocks, threaded the forest, and emerged upon a squalid
-hamlet of bark cabins. When, having satisfied their curiosity, he and
-his party were rowing for the ships, a friendly interruption met them at
-the mouth of the St. Charles. An old chief harangued them from the bank,
-men, boys, and children screeched welcome from the meadow, and a troop
-of hilarious squaws danced knee-deep in the water. The gift of a few
-strings of beads completed their delight and redoubled their agility;
-and, from the distance of a mile, their shrill songs of jubilation still
-reached the ears of the receding Frenchmen.
-
-The hamlet of Stadacone, with its king, Donnacona, and its naked lords
-and princes, was not the metropolis of this forest state, since a town
-far greater--so the Indians averred--stood by the brink of the river,
-many days' journey above. It was called Hochelaga, and the great river
-itself, with a wide reach of adjacent country, had borrowed its name.
-Thither, with his two young Indians as guides, Cartier resolved to go;
-but misgivings seized the guides as the time drew near, while Donnacona
-and his tribesmen, jealous of the plan, set themselves to thwart it. The
-Breton captain turned a deaf ear to their dissuasions; on which, failing
-to touch his reason, they appealed to his fears.
-
-One morning, as the ships still lay at anchor, the French beheld three
-Indian devils descending in a canoe towards them, dressed in black and
-white dog-skins, with faces black as ink, and horns long as a man's arm.
-Thus arrayed, they drifted by, while the principal fiend, with fixed
-eyes, as of one piercing the secrets of futurity, uttered in a loud
-voice a long harangue. Then they paddled for the shore; and no sooner
-did they reach it than each fell flat like a dead man in the bottom of
-the canoe. Aid, however, was at hand; for Donnacona and his tribesmen,
-rushing pell-mell from the adjacent woods, raised the swooning
-masqueraders, and, with shrill clamors, bore them in their arms within
-the sheltering thickets. Here, for a full half-hour, the French could
-hear them haranguing in solemn conclave. Then the two young Indians whom
-Cartier had brought back from France came out of the bushes, enacting a
-pantomime of amazement and terror, clasping their hands, and calling on
-Christ and the Virgin; whereupon Cartier, shouting from the vessel,
-asked what was the matter. They replied, that the god Coudonagny had
-sent to warn the French against all attempts to ascend the great river,
-since, should they persist, snows, tempests, and drifting ice would
-requite their rashness with inevitable ruin. The French replied that
-Coudonagny was a fool; that he could not hurt those who believed in
-Christ; and that they might tell this to his three messengers. The
-assembled Indians, with little reverence for their deity, pretended
-great contentment at this assurance, and danced for joy along the beach.
-
-Cartier now made ready to depart. And, first, he caused the two larger
-vessels to be towed for safe harborage within the mouth of the St.
-Charles. With the smallest, a galleon of forty tons, and two open boats,
-carrying in all fifty sailors, besides Pontbriand, La Pommeraye, and
-other gentlemen, he set out for Hochelaga.
-
-Slowly gliding on their way by walls of verdure brightened in the
-autumnal sun, they saw forests festooned with grape-vines, and waters
-alive with wild-fowl; they heard the song of the blackbird, the thrush,
-and, as they fondly thought, the nightingale. The galleon grounded; they
-left her, and, advancing with the boats alone, on the second of October
-neared the goal of their hopes, the mysterious Hochelaga.
-
-Just below where now are seen the quays and storehouses of Montreal, a
-thousand Indians thronged the shore, wild with delight, dancing,
-singing, crowding about the strangers, and showering into the boats
-their gifts of fish and maize; and, as it grew dark, fires lighted up
-the night, while, far and near, the French could see the excited savages
-leaping and rejoicing by the blaze.
-
-At dawn of day, marshalled and accoutred, they marched for Hochelaga. An
-Indian path led them through the forest which covered the site of
-Montreal. The morning air was chill and sharp, the leaves were changing
-hue, and beneath the oaks the ground was thickly strewn with acorns.
-They soon met an Indian chief with a party of tribesmen, or, as the old
-narrative has it, "one of the principal lords of the said city,"
-attended with a numerous retinue. Greeting them after the concise
-courtesy of the forest, he led them to a fire kindled by the side of the
-path for their comfort and refreshment, seated them on the ground, and
-made them a long harangue, receiving in requital of his eloquence two
-hatchets, two knives, and a crucifix, the last of which he was invited
-to kiss. This done, they resumed their march, and presently came upon
-open fields, covered far and near with the ripened maize, its leaves
-rustling, and its yellow grains gleaming between the parting husks.
-Before them, wrapped in forests painted by the early frosts, rose the
-ridgy back of the Mountain of Montreal, and below, encompassed with its
-corn-fields, lay the Indian town. Nothing was visible but its encircling
-palisades. They were of trunks of trees, set in a triple row. The outer
-and inner ranges inclined till they met and crossed near the summit,
-while the upright row between them, aided by transverse braces, gave to
-the whole an abundant strength. Within were galleries for the defenders,
-rude ladders to mount them, and magazines of stones to throw down on the
-heads of assailants. It was a mode of fortification practised by all the
-tribes speaking dialects of the Iroquois.
-
-The voyagers entered the narrow portal. Within, they saw some fifty of
-those large oblong dwellings so familiar in after years to the eyes of
-the Jesuit apostles in Iroquois and Huron forests. They were about fifty
-yards in length, and twelve or fifteen wide, framed of sapling poles
-closely covered with sheets of bark, and each containing several fires
-and several families. In the midst of the town was an open area, or
-public square, a stone's throw in width. Here Cartier and his followers
-stopped, while the surrounding houses of bark disgorged their inmates,--
-swarms of children, and young women and old, their infants in their
-arms. They crowded about the visitors, crying for delight, touching
-their beards, feeling their faces, and holding up the screeching infants
-to be touched in turn. The marvellous visitors, strange in hue, strange
-in attire, with moustached lip and bearded chin, with arquebuse,
-halberd, helmet, and cuirass, seemed rather demigods than men.
-
-Due time having been allowed for this exuberance of feminine rapture,
-the warriors interposed, banished the women and children to a distance,
-and squatted on the ground around the French, row within row of swarthy
-forms and eager faces, "as if," says Cartier, "we were going to act a
-play." Then appeared a troop of women, each bringing a mat, with which
-they carpeted the bare earth for the behoof of their guests. The latter
-being seated, the chief of the nation was borne before them on a
-deerskin by a number of his tribesmen, a bedridden old savage, paralyzed
-and helpless, squalid as the rest in his attire, and distinguished only
-by a red fillet, inwrought with the dyed quills of the Canada porcupine,
-encircling his lank black hair. They placed him on the ground at
-Cartier's feet and made signs of welcome for him, while he pointed
-feebly to his powerless limbs, and implored the healing touch from the
-hand of the French chief. Cartier complied, and received in
-acknowledgment the red fillet of his grateful patient. Then from
-surrounding dwellings appeared a woeful throng, the sick, the lame, the
-blind, the maimed, the decrepit, brought or led forth and placed on the
-earth before the perplexed commander, "as if," he says, "a god had come
-down to cure them." His skill in medicine being far behind the
-emergency, he pronounced over his petitioners a portion of the Gospel of
-St. John, made the sign of the cross, and uttered a prayer, not for
-their bodies only, but for their miserable souls. Next he read the
-passion of the Saviour, to which, though comprehending not a word, his
-audience listened with grave attention. Then came a distribution of
-presents. The squaws and children were recalled, and, with the warriors,
-placed in separate groups. Knives and hatchets were given to the men,
-and beads to the women, while pewter rings and images of the Agnus Dei
-were flung among the troop of children, whence ensued a vigorous
-scramble in the square of Hochelaga. Now the French trumpeters pressed
-their trumpets to their lips, and blew a blast that filled the air with
-warlike din and the hearts of the hearers with amazement and delight.
-Bidding their hosts farewells the visitors formed their ranks and
-defiled through the gate once more, despite the efforts of a crowd of
-women, who, with clamorous hospitality, beset them with gifts of fish,
-beans, corn, and other viands of uninviting aspect, which the Frenchmen
-courteously declined.
-
-A troop of Indians followed, and guided them to the top of the
-neighboring mountain. Cartier called it Mont Royal, Montreal; and hence
-the name of the busy city which now holds the site of the vanished
-Iloclielaga. Stadacone and Hochelaga, Quebec and Montreal, in the
-sixteenth century as in the nineteenth, were the centres of Canadian
-population.
-
-From the summit, that noble prospect met his eye which at this day is
-the delight of tourists, but strangely changed, since, first of white
-men, the Breton voyager gazed upon it. Tower and dome and spire,
-congregated roofs, white sail, and gliding steamer, animate its vast
-expanse with varied life. Cartier saw a different scene. East, west, and
-south, the mantling forest was over all, and the broad blue ribbon of
-the great river glistened amid a realm of verdure. Beyond, to the bounds
-of Mexico, stretched a leafy desert, and the vast hive of industry, the
-mighty battle-ground of later centuries, lay sunk in savage torpor,
-wrapped in illimitable woods.
-
-The French re-embarked, bade farewell to Hochelaga, retraced their
-lonely course down the St. Lawrence, and reached Stadacone in safety. On
-the bank of the St. Charles, their companions had built in their absence
-a fort of palisades, and the ships, hauled up the little stream, lay
-moored before it. Here the self-exiled company were soon besieged by the
-rigors of the Canadian winter. The rocks, the shores, the pine-trees,
-the solid floor of the frozen river, all alike were blanketed in snow
-beneath the keen cold rays of the dazzling sun. The drifts rose above
-the sides of their ships; masts, spars, and cordage were thick with
-glittering incrustations and sparkling rows of icicles; a frosty armor,
-four inches thick, encased the bulwarks. Yet, in the bitterest weather,
-the neighboring Indians, "hardy," says the journal, "as so many beasts,"
-came daily to the fort, wading, half naked, waist-deep through the snow.
-At length, their friendship began to abate; their visits grew less
-frequent, and during December had wholly ceased, when a calamity fell
-upon the French.
-
-A malignant scurvy broke out among them. Man after man went down before
-the hideous disease, till twenty-five were dead, and only three or four
-were left in health. The sound were too few to attend the sick, and the
-wretched sufferers lay in helpless despair, dreaming of the sun and the
-vines of France. The ground, hard as flint, defied their feeble efforts,
-and, unable to bury their dead, they hid them in snow-drifts. Cartier
-appealed to the saints; but they turned a deaf ear. Then he nailed
-against a tree an image of the Virgin, and on a Sunday summoned forth
-his woe-begone followers, who, haggard, reeling, bloated with their
-maladies, moved in procession to the spot, and, kneeling in the snow,
-sang litanies and psalms of David. That day died Philippe Rougemont, of
-Amboise, aged twenty-two years. The Holy Virgin deigned no other
-response.
-
-There was fear that the Indians, learning their misery, might finish the
-work that scurvy had begun. None of them, therefore, were allowed to
-approach the fort; and when a party of savages lingered within hearing,
-Cartier forced his invalid garrison to beat with sticks and stones
-against the walls, that their dangerous neighbors, deluded by the
-clatter, might think them engaged in hard labor. These objects of their
-fear proved, however, the instruments of their salvation. Cartier,
-walking one day near the river, met an Indian, who not long before had
-been prostrate, like many of his fellows, with the scurvy, but who was
-now, to all appearance, in high health and spirits. What agency had
-wrought this marvellous recovery? According to the Indian, it was a
-certain evergreen, called by him ameda, a decoction of the leaves of
-which was sovereign against the disease. The experiment was tried. The
-sick men drank copiously of the healing draught,--so copiously indeed
-that in six days they drank a tree as large as a French oak. Thus
-vigorously assailed, the distemper relaxed its hold, and health and hope
-began to revisit the hapless company.
-
-When this winter of misery had worn away, and the ships were thawed from
-their icy fetters, Cartier prepared to return. He had made notable
-discoveries; but these were as nothing to the tales of wonder that had
-reached his ear,--of a land of gold and rubies, of a nation white like
-the French, of men who lived without food, and of others to whom Nature
-had granted but one leg. Should he stake his credit on these marvels? It
-were better that they who had recounted them to him should, with their
-own lips, recount them also to the King, and to this end he resolved
-that Donnacona and his chiefs should go with him to court. He lured them
-therefore to the fort, and led them into an ambuscade of sailors, who,
-seizing the astonished guests, hurried them on board the ships. Having
-accomplished this treachery, the voyagers proceeded to plant the emblem
-of Christianity. The cross was raised, the fleur-de-lis planted near it,
-and, spreading their sails, they steered for home. It was the sixteenth
-of July, 1536, when Cartier again cast anchor under the walls of St.
-Malo.
-
-A rigorous climate, a savage people, a fatal disease, and a soil barren
-of gold were the allurements of New France. Nor were the times
-auspicious for a renewal of the enterprise. Charles the Fifth, flushed
-with his African triumphs, challenged the Most Christian King to single
-combat. The war flamed forth with renewed fury, and ten years elapsed
-before a hollow truce varnished the hate of the royal rivals with a thin
-pretence of courtesy. Peace returned; but Francis the First was sinking
-to his ignominious grave, under the scourge of his favorite goddess, and
-Chabot, patron of the former voyages, was in disgrace.
-
-Meanwhile the ominous adventure of New France had found a champion in
-the person of Jean Francois de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, a nobleman
-of Picardy. Though a man of high account in his own province, his past
-honors paled before the splendor of the titles said to have been now
-conferred on him, Lord of Norembega, Viceroy and Lieutenant-General in
-Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Carpunt,
-Labrador, the Great Bay, and Baccalaos. To this windy gift of ink and
-parchment was added a solid grant from the royal treasury, with which
-five vessels were procured and equipped; and to Cartier was given the
-post of Captain-General. "We have resolved," says Francis, "to send him
-again to the lands of Canada and Hochelaga, which form the extremity of
-Asia towards the west." His commission declares the objects of the
-enterprise to be discovery, settlement, and the conversion of the
-Indians, who are described as "men without knowledge of God or use of
-reason,"--a pious design, held doubtless in full sincerity by the royal
-profligate, now, in his decline, a fervent champion of the Faith and a
-strenuous tormentor of heretics. The machinery of conversion was of a
-character somewhat questionable, since Cartier and Roberval were
-empowered to ransack the prisons for thieves, robbers, and other
-malefactors, to complete their crews and strengthen the colony.
-"Whereas," says the King, "we have undertaken this voyage for the honor
-of God our Creator, desiring with all our heart to do that which shall
-be agreeable to Him, it is our will to perform a compassionate and
-meritorious work towards criminals and malefactors, to the end that they
-may acknowledge the Creator, return thanks to Him, and mend their lives.
-Therefore we have resolved to cause to be delivered to our aforesaid
-lieutenant (Roberval), such and so many of the aforesaid criminals and
-malefactors detained in our prisons as may seem to him useful and
-necessary to be carried to the aforesaid countries." Of the expected
-profits of the voyage the adventurers were to have one third and the
-King another, while the remainder was to be reserved towards defraying
-expenses.
-
-With respect to Donnacona and his tribesmen, basely kidnapped at
-Stadacone, their souls had been better cared for than their bodies; for,
-having been duly baptized, they all died within a year or two, to the
-great detriment, as it proved, of the expedition.
-
-Meanwhile, from beyond the Pyrenees, the Most Catholic King, with
-alarmed and jealous eye, watched the preparations of his Most Christian
-enemy. America, in his eyes, was one vast province of Spain, to be
-vigilantly guarded against the intruding foreigner. To what end were men
-mustered, and ships fitted out in the Breton seaports? Was it for
-colonization, and if so, where? Was it in Southern Florida, or on the
-frozen shores of Baccalaos, of which Breton cod-fishers claimed the
-discovery? Or would the French build forts on the Bahamas, whence they
-could waylay the gold ships in the Bahama Channel? Or was the expedition
-destined against the Spanish settlements of the islands or the Main?
-Reinforcements were despatched in haste, and a spy was sent to France,
-who, passing from port to port, Quimper, St. Malo, Brest, Morlaix, came
-back freighted with exaggerated tales of preparation. The Council of the
-Indies was called. "The French are bound for Baccalaos,"--such was the
-substance of their report; "your Majesty will do well to send two
-caravels to watch their movements, and a force to take possession of the
-said country. And since there is no other money to pay for it, the gold
-from Peru, now at Panama, might be used to that end." The Cardinal of
-Seville thought lightly of the danger, and prophesied that the French
-would reap nothing from their enterprise but disappointment and loss.
-The King of Portugal, sole acknowledged partner with Spain in the
-ownership of the New World, was invited by the Spanish ambassador to
-take part in an expedition against the encroaching French. "They can do
-no harm at Baccalaos," was the cold reply; "and so," adds the indignant
-ambassador, "this King would say if they should come and take him here
-at Lisbon; such is the softness they show here on the one hand, while,
-on the other, they wish to give law to the whole world."
-
-The five ships, occasions of this turmoil and alarm, had lain at St.
-Malo waiting for cannon and munitions from Normandy and Champagne. They
-waited in vain, and as the King's orders were stringent against delay,
-it was resolved that Cartier should sail at once, leaving Roberval to
-follow with additional ships when the expected supplies arrived.
-
-On the twenty-third of May, 1541, the Breton captain again spread his
-canvas for New France, and, passing in safety the tempestuous Atlantic,
-the fog-banks of Newfoundland, the island rocks clouded with screaming
-sea-fowl, and the forests breathing piny odors from the shore, cast
-anchor again beneath the cliffs of Quebec. Canoes came out from shore
-filled with feathered savages inquiring for their kidnapped chiefs.
-"Donnacona," replied Cartier, "is dead;" but he added the politic
-falsehood, that the others had married in France, and lived in state,
-like great lords. The Indians pretended to be satisfied; but it was soon
-apparent that they looked askance on the perfidious strangers.
-
-Cartier pursued his course, sailed three leagues and a half up the St.
-Lawrence, and anchored off the mouth of the River of Cap Rouge. It was
-late in August, and the leafy landscape sweltered in the sun. The
-Frenchmen landed, picked up quartz crystals on the shore and thought
-them diamonds, climbed the steep promontory, drank at the spring near
-the top, looked abroad on the wooded slopes beyond the little river,
-waded through the tall grass of the meadow, found a quarry of slate, and
-gathered scales of a yellow mineral which glistened like gold, then
-returned to their boats, crossed to the south shore of the St. Lawrence,
-and, languid with the heat, rested in the shade of forests laced with an
-entanglement of grape-vines.
-
-Now their task began, and while some cleared off the woods and sowed
-turnip-seed, others cut a zigzag road up the height, and others built
-two forts, one at the summit, and one on the shore below. The forts
-finished, the Vicomte de Beaupre took command, while Cartier went with
-two boats to explore the rapids above Hochelaga. When at length he
-returned, the autumn was far advanced; and with the gloom of a Canadian
-November came distrust, foreboding, and homesickness. Roberval had not
-appeared; the Indians kept jealously aloof; the motley colony was sullen
-as the dull, raw air around it. There was disgust and ire at
-Charlesbourg-Royal, for so the place was called.
-
-Meanwhile, unexpected delays had detained the impatient Roberval; nor
-was it until the sixteenth of April, 1542, that, with three ships and
-two hundred colonists, he set sail from Rochelle. When, on the eighth of
-June, he entered the harbor of St. John, he found seventeen
-fishing-vessels lying there at anchor. Soon after, he descried three
-other sail rounding the entrance of the haven, and, with anger and
-amazement, recognized the ships of Jacques Cartier. That voyager had
-broken up his colony and abandoned New France. What motives had prompted
-a desertion little consonant with the resolute spirit of the man it is
-impossible to say,--whether sickness within, or Indian enemies without,
-disgust with an enterprise whose unripened fruits had proved so hard and
-bitter, or discontent at finding himself reduced to a post of
-subordination in a country which he had discovered and where he had
-commanded. The Viceroy ordered him to return; but Cartier escaped with
-his vessels under cover of night, and made sail for France, carrying
-with him as trophies a few quartz diamonds from Cap Rouge, and grains of
-sham gold from the neighboring slate ledges. Thus closed the third
-Canadian voyage of this notable explorer. His discoveries had gained for
-him a patent of nobility, and he owned the seigniorial mansion of
-Limoilou, a rude structure of stone still standing. Here, and in the
-neighboring town of St. Malo, where also he had a house, he seems to
-have lived for many years.
-
-Roberval once more set sail, steering northward to the Straits of Belle
-Isle and the dreaded Isles of Demons. And here an incident befell which
-the all-believing Thevet records in manifest good faith, and which,
-stripped of the adornments of superstition and a love of the marvellous,
-has without doubt a nucleus of truth. I give the tale as I find it.
-
-The Viceroy's company was of a mixed complexion. There were nobles,
-officers, soldiers, sailors, adventurers, with women too, and children.
-Of the women, some were of birth and station, and among them a damsel
-called Marguerite, a niece of Roberval himself. In the ship was a young
-gentleman who had embarked for love of her. His love was too well
-requited; and the stern Viceroy, scandalized and enraged at a passion
-which scorned concealment and set shame at defiance, cast anchor by the
-haunted island, landed his indiscreet relative, gave her four arquebuses
-for defence, and, with an old Norman nurse named Bastienne, who had
-pandered to the lovers, left her to her fate. Her gallant threw himself
-into the surf, and by desperate effort gained the shore, with two more
-guns and a supply of ammunition.
-
-The ship weighed anchor, receded, vanished, and they were left alone.
-Yet not so, for the demon lords of the island beset them day and night,
-raging around their hut with a confused and hungry clamoring, striving
-to force the frail barrier. The lovers had repented of their sin, though
-not abandoned it, and Heaven was on their side. The saints vouchsafed
-their aid, and the offended Virgin, relenting, held before them her
-protecting shield. In the form of beasts or other shapes abominably and
-unutterably hideous, the brood of hell, howling in baffled fury, tore at
-the branches of the sylvan dwelling; but a celestial hand was ever
-interposed, and there was a viewless barrier which they might not pass.
-Marguerite became pregnant. Here was a double prize, two souls in one,
-mother and child. The fiends grew frantic, but all in vain. She stood
-undaunted amid these horrors; but her lover, dismayed and heartbroken,
-sickened and died. Her child soon followed; then the old Norman nurse
-found her unhallowed rest in that accursed soil, and Marguerite was left
-alone. Neither her reason nor her courage failed. When the demons
-assailed her, she shot at them with her gun, but they answered with
-hellish merriment, and thenceforth she placed her trust in Heaven alone.
-There were foes around her of the upper, no less than of the nether
-world. Of these, the bears were the most redoubtable; yet, being
-vulnerable to mortal weapons, she killed three of them, all, says the
-story, "as white as an egg."
-
-It was two years and five months from her landing on the island, when,
-far out at sea, the crew of a small fishing-craft saw a column of smoke
-curling upward from the haunted shore. Was it a device of the fiends to
-lure them to their ruin? They thought so, and kept aloof. But misgiving
-seized them. They warily drew near, and descried a female figure in wild
-attire waving signals from the strand. Thus at length was Marguerite
-rescued and restored to her native France, where, a few years later, the
-cosmographer Thevet met her at Natron in Perigord, and heard the tale of
-wonder from her own lips.
-
-Having left his offending niece to the devils and bears of the Isles of
-Demons, Roberval held his course up the St. Lawrence, and dropped anchor
-before the heights of Cap Rouge. His company landed; there were bivouacs
-along the strand, a hubbub of pick and spade, axe, saw, and hammer; and
-soon in the wilderness uprose a goodly structure, half barrack, half
-castle, with two towers, two spacious halls, a kitchen, chambers,
-storerooms, workshops, cellars, garrets, a well, an oven, and two
-watermills. Roberval named it France-Roy, and it stood on that bold
-acclivity where Cartier had before intrenched himself, the St. Lawrence
-in front, and on the right the River of Cap Rouge. Here all the colony
-housed under the same roof, like one of the experimental communities of
-recent days,--officers, soldiers, nobles, artisans, laborers, and
-convicts, with the women and children in whom lay the future hope of New
-France.
-
-Experience and forecast had both been wanting. There were storehouses,
-but no stores; mills, but no grist; an ample oven, and a dearth of
-bread. It was only when two of the ships had sailed for France that they
-took account of their provision and discovered its lamentable
-shortcoming. Winter and famine followed. They bought fish from the
-Indians, and dug roots and boiled them in whale-oil. Disease broke out,
-and, before spring, killed one third of the colony. The rest would have
-quarrelled, mutinied, and otherwise aggravated their inevitable woes,
-but disorder was dangerous under the iron rule of the inexorable
-Roberval. Michel Gaillon was detected in a petty theft, and hanged. Jean
-de Nantes, for a more venial offence, was kept in irons. The quarrels of
-men and the scolding of women were alike requited at the whipping-post,
-"by which means," quaintly says the narrative, "they lived in peace."
-
-Thevet, while calling himself the intimate friend of the Viceroy, gives
-a darker coloring to his story. He says that, forced to unceasing labor,
-and chafed by arbitrary rules, some of the soldiers fell under
-Roberval's displeasure, and six of them, formerly his favorites, were
-hanged in one day. Others were banished to an island, and there kept in
-fetters; while, for various light offences, several, both men and women,
-were shot. Even the Indians were moved to pity, and wept at the sight of
-their woes.
-
-And here, midway, our guide deserts us; the ancient narrative is broken,
-and the latter part is lost, leaving us to divine as we may the future
-of the ill-starred colony. That it did not long survive is certain. The
-King, in great need of Roberval, sent Cartier to bring him home, and
-this voyage seems to have taken place in the summer of 1543. It is said
-that, in after years, the Viceroy essayed to repossess himself of his
-Transatlantic domain, and lost his life in the attempt. Thevet, on the
-other hand, with ample means of learning the truth, affirms that
-Roberval was slain at night, near the Church of the Innocents, in the
-heart of Paris.
-
-With him closes the prelude of the French-American drama. Tempestuous
-years and a reign of blood and fire were in store for France. The
-religious wars begot the hapless colony of Florida, but for more than
-half a century they left New France a desert. Order rose at length out
-of the sanguinary chaos; the zeal of discovery and the spirit of
-commercial enterprise once more awoke, while, closely following, more
-potent than they, moved the black-robed forces of the Roman Catholic
-reaction.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-1542-1604.
-
-LA ROCHE.--CHAMPLAIN.--DE MONTS.
-
-
-Years rolled on. France, long tossed among the surges of civil
-commotion, plunged at last into a gulf of fratricidal war. Blazing
-hamlets, sacked cities, fields steaming with slaughter, profaned altars,
-and ravished maidens, marked the track of the tornado. There was little
-room for schemes of foreign enterprise. Yet, far aloof from siege and
-battle, the fishermen of the western ports still plied their craft on
-the Banks of Newfoundland. Humanity, morality, decency, might be
-forgotten, but codfish must still be had for the use of the faithful in
-Lent and on fast days. Still the wandering Esquimaux saw the Norman and
-Breton sails hovering around some lonely headland, or anchored in fleets
-in the harbor of St. John; and still, through salt spray and driving
-mist, the fishermen dragged up the riches of the sea.
-
-In January and February, 1545, about two vessels a day sailed from
-French ports for Newfoundland. In 1565, Pedro Menendez complains that
-the French "rule despotically" in those parts. In 1578, there were a
-hundred and fifty French fishing-vessels there, besides two hundred of
-other nations, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Added to these were
-twenty or thirty Biscayan whalers. In 1607, there was an old French
-fisherman at Canseau who had voyaged to these seas for forty-two
-successive years.
-
-But if the wilderness of ocean had its treasures, so too had the
-wilderness of woods. It needed but a few knives, beads, and trinkets,
-and the Indians would throng to the shore burdened with the spoils of
-their winter hunting. Fishermen threw up their old vocation for the more
-lucrative trade in bear-skins and beaver-skins. They built rude huts
-along the shores of Anticosti, where, at that day, the bison, it is
-said, could be seen wallowing in the sands. They outraged the Indians;
-they quarrelled with each other; and this infancy of the Canadian
-fur-trade showed rich promise of the disorders which marked its riper
-growth. Others, meanwhile, were ranging the gulf in search of walrus
-tusks; and, the year after the battle of Ivry, St. Malo sent out a fleet
-of small craft in quest of this new prize.
-
-In all the western seaports, merchants and adventurers turned their eyes
-towards America; not, like the Spaniards, seeking treasures of silver
-and gold, but the more modest gains of codfish and train-oil,
-beaver-skins and marine ivory. St. Malo was conspicuous above them all.
-The rugged Bretons loved the perils of the sea, and saw with a jealous
-eye every attempt to shackle their activity on this its favorite field.
-When in 1588 Jacques Noel and Estienue Chaton--the former a nephew of
-Cartier and the latter pretending to be so--gained a monopoly of the
-American fur-trade for twelve year's, such a clamor arose within the
-walls of St. Malo that the obnoxious grant was promptly revoked.
-
-But soon a power was in the field against which all St. Malo might
-clamor in vain. A Catholic nobleman of Brittany, the Marquis de la
-Roche, bargained with the King to colonize New France. On his part, he
-was to receive a monopoly of the trade, and a profusion of worthless
-titles and empty privileges. He was declared Lieutenant-General of
-Canada, Hochelaga, Newfoundland, Labrador, and the countries adjacent,
-with sovereign power within his vast and ill-defined domain. he could
-levy troops, declare war and peace, make laws, punish or pardon at will,
-build cities, forts, and castles, and grant out lands in fiefs,
-seigniories, counties, viscounties, and baronies. Thus was effete and
-cumbrous feudalism to make a lodgment in the New World. It was a scheme
-of high-sounding promise, but in performance less than contemptible. La
-Roche ransacked the prisons, and, gathering thence a gang of thieves and
-desperadoes, embarked them in a small vessel, and set sail to plant
-Christianity and civilization in the West. Suns rose and set, and the
-wretched bark, deep freighted with brutality and vice, held on her
-course. She was so small that the convicts, leaning over her side, could
-wash their hands in the water. At length, on the gray horizon they
-descried a long, gray line of ridgy sand. It was Sable Island, off the
-coast of Nova Scotia. A wreck lay stranded on the beach, and the surf
-broke ominously over the long, submerged arms of sand, stretched far out
-into the sea on the right hand and on the left.
-
-Here La Roche landed the convicts, forty in number, while, with his more
-trusty followers, he sailed to explore the neighboring coasts, and
-choose a site for the capital of his new dominion, to which, in due
-time, he proposed to remove the prisoners. But suddenly a tempest from
-the west assailed him. The frail vessel was forced to run before the
-gale, which, howling on her track, drove her off the coast, and chased
-her back towards France.
-
-Meanwhile the convicts watched in suspense for the returning sail. Days
-passed, weeks passed, and still they strained their eyes in vain across
-the waste of ocean. La Roche had left them to their fate. Rueful and
-desperate, they wandered among the sand-hills, through the stunted
-whortleberry bushes, the rank sand-grass, and the tangled cranberry
-vines which filled the hollows. Not a tree was to be seen; but they
-built huts of the fragments of the wreck. For food they caught fish in
-the surrounding sea, and hunted the cattle which ran wild about the
-island, sprung, perhaps, from those left here eighty years before by the
-Baron de Lery. They killed seals, trapped black foxes, and clothed
-themselves in their skins. Their native instincts clung to them in their
-exile. As if not content with inevitable miseries, they quarrelled and
-murdered one another. Season after season dragged on. Five years
-elapsed, and, of the forty, only twelve were left alive. Sand, sea, and
-sky,--there was little else around them; though, to break the dead
-monotony, the walrus would sometimes rear his half-human face and
-glistening sides on the reefs and sand-bars. At length, on the far verge
-of the watery desert, they descried a sail. She stood on towards the
-island; a boat's crew landed on the beach, and the exiles were once more
-among their countrymen.
-
-When La Roche returned to France, the fate of his followers sat heavy on
-his mind. But the day of his prosperity was gone. A host of enemies rose
-against him and his privileges, and it is said that the Due de Mercaeur
-seized him and threw him into prison. In time, however, he gained a
-hearing of the King; and the Norman pilot, Chefdhotel, was despatched to
-bring the outcasts home.
-
-He reached Sable Island in September, 1603, and brought back to France
-eleven survivors, whose names are still preserved. When they arrived,
-Henry the Fourth summoned them into his presence. They stood before him,
-says an old writer, like river-gods of yore; for from head to foot they
-were clothed in shaggy skins, and beards of prodigious length hung from
-their swarthy faces. They had accumulated, on their island, a quantity
-of valuable furs. Of these Chefdhotel had robbed them; but the pilot was
-forced to disgorge his prey, and, with the aid of a bounty from the
-King, they were enabled to embark on their own account in the Canadian
-trade. To their leader, fortune was less kind. Broken by disaster and
-imprisonment, La Roche died miserably.
-
-In the mean time, on the ruin of his enterprise, a new one had been
-begun. Pontgrave, a merchant of St. Malo, leagued himself with Chauvin,
-a captain of the navy, who had influence at court. A patent was granted
-to them, with the condition that they should colonize the country. But
-their only thought was to enrich themselves.
-
-At Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, under the shadow of savage
-and inaccessible rocks, feathered with pines, firs, and birch-trees,
-they built a cluster of wooden huts and store-houses. Here they left
-sixteen men to gather the expected harvest of furs. Before the winter
-was over, several of them were dead, and the rest scattered through the
-woods, living on the charity of the Indians.
-
-But a new era had dawned on France. Exhausted with thirty years of
-conflict, she had sunk at last to a repose, uneasy and disturbed, yet
-the harbinger of recovery. The rugged soldier whom, for the weal of
-France and of mankind, Providence had cast to the troubled surface of
-affairs, was throned in the Louvre, composing the strife of factions and
-the quarrels of his mistresses. The bear-hunting prince of the Pyrenees
-wore the crown of France; and to this day, as one gazes on the time-worn
-front of the Tuileries, above all other memories rises the small, strong
-finger, the brow wrinkled with cares of love and war, the bristling
-moustache, the grizzled beard, the bold, vigorous, and withal somewhat
-odd features of the mountaineer of Warn. To few has human liberty owed
-so deep a gratitude or so deep a grudge. He cared little for creeds or
-dogmas. Impressible, quick in sympathy, his grim lip lighted often with
-a smile, and his war-worn cheek was no stranger to a tear. He forgave
-his enemies and forgot his friends. Many loved him; none but fools
-trusted him. Mingled of mortal good and ill, frailty and force, of all
-the kings who for two centuries and more sat on the throne of France
-Henry the Fourth alone was a man.
-
-Art, industry, and commerce, so long crushed and overborne, were
-stirring into renewed life, and a crowd of adventurous men, nurtured in
-war and incapable of repose, must seek employment for their restless
-energies in fields of peaceful enterprise.
-
-Two small, quaint vessels, not larger than the fishing-craft of
-Gloucester and Marblehead,--one was of twelve, the other of fifteen
-tons,--held their way across the Atlantic, passed the tempestuous
-headlands of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence, and, with adventurous
-knight-errantry, glided deep into the heart of the Canadian wilderness.
-On board of one of them was the Breton merchant, Pontgrave, and with him
-a man of spirit widely different, a Catholic of good family,--Samuel de
-Champlain, born in 1567 at the small seaport of Bronage on the Bay of
-Biscay. His father was a captain in the royal navy, where he himself
-seems also to have served, though during the war he had fought for the
-King in Brittany, under the banners of D'Aumont, St. Luc, and Brissac.
-His purse was small, his merit great; and Henry the Fourth out of his
-own slender revenues had given him a pension to maintain him near his
-person. But rest was penance to him. The war in Brittany was over. The
-rebellious Duc de Mercaeur was reduced to obedience, and the royal army
-disbanded. Champlain, his occupation gone, conceived a design consonant
-with his adventurous nature. He would visit the West Indies, and bring
-back to the King a report of those regions of mystery whence Spanish
-jealousy excluded foreigners, and where every intruding Frenchman was
-threatened with death. Here much knowledge was to be won and much peril
-to be met. The joint attraction was resistless.
-
-The Spaniards, allies of the vanquished Leaguers, were about to evacuate
-Blavet, their last stronghold in Brittany. Thither Champlain repaired;
-and here he found an uncle, who had charge of the French fleet destined
-to take on board the Spanish garrison. Champlain embarked with them,
-and, reaching Cadiz, succeeded, with the aid of his relative, who had
-just accepted the post of Pilot-General of the Spanish marine, in
-gaining command of one of the ships about to sail for the West Indies
-under Don Francisco Colombo.
-
-At Dieppe there is a curious old manuscript, in clear, decisive, and
-somewhat formal handwriting of the sixteenth century, garnished with
-sixty-one colored pictures, in a style of art which a child of ten might
-emulate. Here one may see ports, harbors, islands, and rivers, adorned
-with portraitures of birds, beasts, and fishes thereto pertaining. Here
-are Indian feasts and dances; Indians flogged by priests for not going
-to mass; Indians burned alive for heresy, six in one fire; Indians
-working the silver mines. Here, too, are descriptions of natural
-objects, each with its illustrative sketch, some drawn from life and
-some from memory,--as, for example, a chameleon with two legs; others
-from hearsay, among which is the portrait of the griffin said to haunt
-certain districts of Mexico,--a monster with the wings of a bat, the
-head of an eagle, and the tail of an alligator.
-
-This is Champlain's journal, written and illustrated by his own hand, in
-that defiance of perspective and absolute independence of the canons of
-art which mark the earliest efforts of the pencil.
-
-A true hero, after the chivalrous mediaeval type, his character was
-dashed largely with the spirit of romance. Though earnest, sagacious,
-and penetrating, he leaned to the marvellous; and the faith which was
-the life of his hard career was somewhat prone to overstep the bounds of
-reason and invade the domain of fancy. hence the erratic character of
-some of his exploits, and hence his simple faith in the Mexican griffin.
-
-His West-Indian adventure occupied him more than two years. He visited
-the principal ports of the islands, made plans and sketches of them all,
-after his fashion, and then, landing at Vera Cruz, journeyed inland to
-the city of Mexico. On his return he made his way to Panama. Here, more
-than two centuries and a half ago, his bold and active mind conceived
-the plan of a ship-canal across the isthmus, "by which," lie says, "the
-voyage to the South Sea would be shortened by more than fifteen hundred
-leagues."
-
-On reaching France he repaired to court, and it may have been at this
-time that a royal patent raised him to the rank of the untitled
-nobility. He soon wearied of the antechambers of the Louvre. It was
-here, however, that his destiny awaited him, and the work of his life
-was unfolded. Aymar de Chastes, Commander of the Order of St. John and
-Governor of Dieppe, a gray-haired veteran of the civil wars, wished to
-mark his closing days with some notable achievement for France and the
-Church. To no man was the King more deeply indebted. In his darkest
-hour, when the hosts of the League were gathering round him, when
-friends were falling off, and the Parisians, exulting in his certain
-ruin, were hiring the windows of the Rue St. Antoine to see him led to
-the Bastille, De Chastes, without condition or reserve, gave up to him
-the town and castle of Dieppe. Thus he was enabled to fight beneath its
-walls the battle of Arques, the first in the series of successes which
-secured his triumph; and he had been heard to say that to this friend in
-his adversity he owed his own salvation and that of France.
-
-De Chastes was one of those men who, amid the strife of factions and
-rage of rival fanaticisms, make reason and patriotism their watchwords,
-and stand on the firm ground of a strong and resolute moderation. He had
-resisted the madness of Leaguer and Huguenot alike; yet, though a foe of
-the League, the old soldier was a devout Catholic, and it seemed in his
-eyes a noble consummation of his life to plant the cross and the
-fleur-de-lis in the wilderness of New France. Chauvin had just died,
-after wasting the lives of a score or more of men in a second and a
-third attempt to establish the fur-trade at Tadoussac. De Chastes came
-to court to beg a patent of henry the Fourth; "and," says his friend
-Champlain, "though his head was crowned with gray hairs as with years,
-he resolved to proceed to New France in person, and dedicate the rest of
-his days to the service of God and his King."
-
-The patent, costing nothing, was readily granted; and De Chastes, to
-meet the expenses of the enterprise, and forestall the jealousies which
-his monopoly would awaken among the keen merchants of the western ports,
-formed a company with the more prominent of them. Pontgrave, who had
-some knowledge of the country, was chosen to make a preliminary
-exploration.
-
-This was the time when Champlain, fresh from the West Indies, appeared
-at court. De Chastes knew him well. Young, ardent, yet ripe in
-experience, a skilful seaman and a practised soldier, he above all
-others was a man for the enterprise. He had many conferences with the
-veteran, under whom he had served in the royal fleet off the coast of
-Brittany. De Chastes urged him to accept a post in his new company; and
-Champlain, nothing loath, consented, provided always that permission
-should be had from the King, "to whom," he says, "I was bound no less by
-birth than by the pension with which his Majesty honored me." To the
-King, therefore, De Chastes repaired. The needful consent was gained,
-and, armed with a letter to Pontgrave, Champlain set out for Honfleur.
-Here he found his destined companion, and embarking with him, as we have
-seen, they spread their sails for the west.
-
-Like specks on the broad bosom of the waters, the two pygmy vessels held
-their course up the lonely St. Lawrence. They passed abandoned
-Tadoussac, the channel of Orleans, and the gleaming cataract of
-Montmorenci; the tenantless rock of Quebec, the wide Lake of St. Peter
-and its crowded archipelago, till now the mountain reared before them
-its rounded shoulder above the forest-plain of Montreal. All was
-solitude. Hochelaga had vanished; and of the savage population that
-Cartier had found here, sixty-eight years before, no trace remained. In
-its place were a few wandering Algonquins, of different tongue and
-lineage. In a skiff, with a few Indians, Champlain essayed to pass the
-rapids of St. Louis. Oars, paddles, and poles alike proved vain against
-the foaming surges, and he was forced to return. On the deck of his
-vessel, the Indians drew rude plans of the river above, with its chain
-of rapids, its lakes and cataracts; and the baffled explorer turned his
-prow homeward, the objects of his mission accomplished, but his own
-adventurous curiosity unsated. When the voyagers reached Havre de Grace,
-a grievous blow awaited them. The Commander de Chastes was dead.
-
-His mantle fell upon Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, gentleman in
-ordinary of the King's chamber, and Governor of Polls. Undaunted by the
-fate of La Roche, this nobleman petitioned the king for leave to
-colonize La Cadie, or Acadie, a region defined as extending from the
-fortieth to the forty-Sixth degree of north latitude, or from
-Philadelphia to beyond Montreal. The King's minister, Sully, as he
-himself tells us, opposed the plan, on the ground that the colonization
-of this northern wilderness would never repay the outlay; but De Monts
-gained his point. He was made Lieutenant-General in Acadia, with
-viceregal powers; and withered Feudalism, with her antique forms and
-tinselled follies, was again to seek a new home among the rocks and
-pine-trees of Nova Scotia. The foundation of the enterprise was a
-monopoly of the fur-trade, and in its favor all past grants were
-unceremoniously annulled. St. Malo, Rouen, Dieppe, and Rochelle greeted
-the announcement with unavailing outcries. Patents granted and revoked,
-monopolies decreed and extinguished, had involved the unhappy traders in
-ceaseless embarrassment. De Monts, however, preserved De Chastes's old
-company, and enlarged it, thus making the chief malcontents sharers in
-his exclusive rights, and converting them from enemies into partners.
-
-A clause in his commission empowered him to impress idlers and vagabonds
-as material for his colony,--an ominous provision of which he largely
-availed himself. His company was strangely incongruous. The best and the
-meanest of France were crowded together in his two ships. Here were
-thieves and ruffians dragged on board by force; and here were many
-volunteers of condition and character, with Baron de Poutrincourt and
-the indefatigable Champlain. Here, too, were Catholic priests and
-Huguenot ministers; for, though De Monts was a Calvinist, the Church, as
-usual, displayed her banner in the van of the enterprise, and he was
-forced to promise that he would cause the Indians to be instructed in
-the dogmas of Rome.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-1604, 1605.
-
-ACADIA OCCUPIED.
-
-De Monts, with one of his vessels, sailed from Havre de Grace on the
-seventh of April, 1604. Pontgrave, with stores for the colony, was to
-follow in a few days.
-
-Scarcely were they at sea, when ministers and priests fell first to
-discussion, then to quarrelling, then to blows. "I have seen our cure
-and the minister," says Champlain, "fall to with their fists on
-questions of faith. I cannot say which had the more pluck, or which hit
-the harder; but I know that the minister sometimes complained to the
-Sieur de Monts that he had been beaten. This was their way of settling
-points of controversy. I leave you to judge if it was a pleasant thing
-to see."
-
-Sagard, the Franciscan friar, relates with horror, that, after their
-destination was reached, a priest and a minister happening to die at the
-same time, the crew buried them both in one grave, to see if they would
-lie peaceably together.
-
-De Monts, who had been to the St. Lawrence with Chauvin, and learned to
-dread its rigorous winters, steered for a more southern, and, as he
-flattered himself, a milder region. The first land seen was Cap la Heve,
-on the southern coast of Nova Scotia. Four days later, they entered a
-small bay, where, to their surprise, they saw a vessel lying at anchor.
-here was a piece of good luck. The stranger was a fur-trader, pursuing
-her traffic in defiance, or more probably in ignorance, of De Monts's
-monopoly. The latter, as empowered by his patent, made prize of ship and
-cargo, consoling the commander, one Rossignol, by giving his name to the
-scene of his misfortune. It is now called Liverpool Harbor.
-
-In an adjacent harbor, called by them Port Mouton, because a sheep here
-leaped overboard, they waited nearly a month for Pontgrave's store-ship.
-At length, to their great relief, she appeared, laden with the spoils of
-four Basque fur-traders, captured at Cansean. The supplies delivered,
-Pontgrave sailed for Tadoussac to trade with the Indians, while De
-Monts, followed by his prize, proceeded on his voyage.
-
-He doubled Cape Sable, and entered St. Mary's Bay, where he lay two
-weeks, sending boats' crews to explore the adjacent coasts. A party one
-day went on shore to stroll through the forest, and among them was
-Nicolas Aubry, a priest from Paris, who, tiring of the scholastic haunts
-of the Rue de la Sorbonne and the Rue d'Enfer, had persisted, despite
-the remonstrance of his friends, in joining the expedition. Thirsty with
-a long walk, under the sun of June, through the tangled and
-rock-encumbered woods, he stopped to drink at a brook, laying his sword
-beside him on the grass. On rejoining his companions, he found that he
-had forgotten it; and turning back in search of it, more skilled in the
-devious windings of the Quartier Latin than in the intricacies of the
-Acadian forest, he soon lost his way. His comrades, alarmed, waited for
-a time, and then ranged the woods, shouting his name to the echoing
-solitudes. Trumpets were sounded, and cannon fired from the ships, but
-the priest did not appear. All now looked askance on a certain Huguenot,
-with whom Aubry had often quarrelled on questions of faith, and who was
-now accused of having killed him. In vain he denied the charge. Aubry
-was given up for dead, and the ship sailed from St. Mary's Bay; while
-the wretched priest roamed to and fro, famished and despairing, or,
-couched on the rocky soil, in the troubled sleep of exhaustion, dreamed,
-perhaps, as the wind swept moaning through the pines, that he heard once
-more the organ roll through the columned arches of Sainte Genevieve.
-
-The voyagers proceeded to explore the Bay of Fundy, which De Monts
-called La Baye Francoise. Their first notable discovery was that of
-Annapolis Harbor. A small inlet invited them. They entered, when
-suddenly the narrow strait dilated into a broad and tranquil basin,
-compassed by sunny hills, wrapped in woodland verdure, and alive with
-waterfalls. Poutrincourt was delighted with the scene. The fancy seized
-him of removing thither from France with his family and, to this end, he
-asked a grant of the place from De Monts, who by his patent had nearly
-half the continent in his gift. The grant was made, and Poutrincourt
-called his new domain Port Royal.
-
-Thence they sailed round the head of the Bay of Fundy, coasted its
-northern shore, visited and named the river St. John, and anchored at
-last in Passamaquoddy Bay.
-
-The untiring Champlain, exploring, surveying, sounding, had made charts
-of all the principal roads and harbors; and now, pursuing his research,
-he entered a river which he calls La Riviere des Etechemins, from the
-name of the tribe of whom the present Passamaquoddy Indians are
-descendants. Near its mouth he found an islet, fenced round with rocks
-and shoals, and called it St. Croix, a name now borne by the river
-itself. With singular infelicity this spot was chosen as the site of the
-new colony. It commanded the river, and was well fitted for defence:
-these were its only merits; yet cannon were landed on it, a battery was
-planted on a detached rock at one end, and a fort begun on a rising
-ground at the other.
-
-At St. Mary's Bay the voyagers thought they had found traces of iron and
-silver; and Champdore, the pilot, was now sent back to pursue the
-search. As he and his men lay at anchor, fishing, not far from land, one
-of them heard a strange sound, like a weak human voice; and, looking
-towards the shore, they saw a small black object in motion, apparently a
-hat waved on the end of a stick. Rowing in haste to the spot, they found
-the priest Aubry. For sixteen days he had wandered in the woods,
-sustaining life on berries and wild fruits; and when, haggard and
-emaciated, a shadow of his former self, Champdore carried him back to
-St. Croix, he was greeted as a man risen from the grave.
-
-In 1783 the river St. Croix, by treaty, was made the boundary between
-Maine and New Brunswick. But which was the true St. Croix? In 1798, the
-point was settled. De Monts's island was found; and, painfully searching
-among the sand, the sedge, and the matted whortleberry bushes, the
-commissioners could trace the foundations of buildings long crumbled
-into dust; for the wilderness had resumed its sway, and silence and
-solitude brooded once more over this ancient resting-place of
-civilization.
-
-But while the commissioner bends over a moss-grown stone, it is for us
-to trace back the dim vista of the centuries to the life, the zeal, the
-energy, of which this stone is the poor memorial. The rock-fenced islet
-was covered with cedars, and when the tide was out the shoals around
-were dark with the swash of sea-weed, where, in their leisure moments,
-the Frenchmen, we are told, amused themselves with detaching the limpets
-from the stones, as a savory addition to their fare. But there was
-little leisure at St. Croix. Soldiers, sailors, and artisans betook
-themselves to their task. Before the winter closed in, the northern end
-of the island was covered with buildings, surrounding a square, where a
-solitary tree had been left standing. On the right was a spacious house,
-well built, and surmounted by one of those enormous roofs characteristic
-of the time. This was the lodging of De Monts. Behind it, and near the
-water, was a long, covered gallery, for labor or amusement in foul
-weather. Champlain and the Sieur d'Orville, aided by the servants of the
-latter, built a house for themselves nearly opposite that of De Monts;
-and the remainder of the square was occupied by storehouses, a magazine,
-workshops, lodgings for gentlemen and artisans, and a barrack for the
-Swiss soldiers, the whole enclosed with a palisade. Adjacent there was
-an attempt at a garden, under the auspices of Champlain; but nothing
-would grow in the sandy soil. There was a cemetery, too, and a small
-rustic chapel on a projecting point of rock. Such was the "Habitation de
-l'Isle Saincte-Croix," as set forth by Champlain in quaint plans and
-drawings, in that musty little quarto of 1613, sold by Jean Berjon, at
-the sign of the Flying Horse, Rue St. Jean de Beauvais.
-
-Their labors over, Poutrincourt set sail for France, proposing to return
-and take possession of his domain of Port Royal. Seventy-nine men
-remained at St. Croix. here was De Monts, feudal lord of half a
-continent in virtue of two potent syllables, "Henri," scrawled on
-parchment by the rugged hand of the Bearnais. Here were gentlemen of
-birth and breeding, Champlain, D'Orville, Beaumont, Sourin, La Motte,
-Boulay, and Fougeray; here also were the pugnacious cure and his fellow
-priests, with the Hugnenot ministers, objects of their unceasing ire.
-The rest were laborers, artisans, and soldiers, all in the pay of the
-company, and some of them forced into its service.
-
-Poutrincourt's receding sails vanished between the water and the sky.
-The exiles were left to their solitude. From the Spanish settlements
-northward to the pole, there was no domestic hearth, no lodgement of
-civilized men, save one weak band of Frenchmen, clinging, as it were for
-life, to the fringe of the vast and savage continent. The gray and
-sullen autumn sank upon the waste, and the bleak wind howled down the
-St. Croix, and swept the forest bare. Then the whirling snow powdered
-the vast sweep of desolate woodland, and shrouded in white the gloomy
-green of pine-clad mountains. Ice in sheets, or broken masses, swept by
-their island with the ebbing and flowing tide, often debarring all
-access to the main, and cutting off their supplies of wood and water. A
-belt of cedars, indeed, hedged the island; but De Monts had ordered them
-to be spared, that the north wind might spend something of its force
-with whistling through their shaggy boughs. Cider and wine froze in the
-casks, and were served out by the pound. As they crowded round their
-half-fed fires, shivering in the icy currents that pierced their rude
-tenements, many sank into a desperate apathy.
-
-Soon the scurvy broke out, and raged with a fearful malignity. Of the
-seventy-nine, thirty-five died before spring, and many more were brought
-to the verge of death. In vain they sought that marvellous tree which
-had relieved the followers of Cartier. Their little cemetery was peopled
-with nearly half their number, and the rest, bloated and disfigured with
-the relentless malady, thought more of escaping from their woes than of
-building up a Transatlantic empire. Yet among them there was one, at
-least, who, amid languor and defection, held to his purpose with
-indomitable tenacity; and where Champlain was present, there was no room
-for despair.
-
-Spring came at last, and, with the breaking up of the ice, the melting
-of the snow, and the clamors of the returning wild-fowl, the spirits and
-the health of the woe-begone company began to revive. But to misery
-succeeded anxiety and suspense. Where was the succor from France? Were
-they abandoned to their fate like the wretched exiles of La Roche? In a
-happy hour, they saw an approaching sail. Pontgrave, with forty men,
-cast anchor before their island on the sixteenth of June; and they
-hailed him as the condemned hails the messenger of his pardon.
-
-Weary of St. Croix, De Monts resolved to seek out a more auspicious
-site, on which to rear the capital of his wilderness dominion. During
-the preceding September, Champlain had ranged the westward coast in a
-pinnace, visited and named the island of Mount Desert, and entered the
-mouth of the river Penobscot, called by him the Pemetigoet, or
-Pentegoet, and previously known to fur-traders and fishermen as the
-Norembega, a name which it shared with all the adjacent region.[FN#27]
-Now, embarking a second time, in a bark of fifteen tons, with De Monts,
-several gentlemen, twenty sailors, and an Indian with his squaw, he set
-forth on the eighteenth of June on a second voyage of discovery. They
-coasted the strangely indented shores of Maine, with its reefs and
-surf-washed islands, rocky headlands, and deep embosomed bays, passed
-Mount Desert and the Penobscot, explored the mouths of the Kennebec,
-crossed Casco Bay, and descried the distant peaks of the White
-Mountains. The ninth of July brought them to Saco Bay. They were now
-within the limits of a group of tribes who were called by the French the
-Armouchiquois, and who included those whom the English afterwards called
-the Massachusetts. They differed in habits as well as in language from
-the Etechemins and Miemacs of Acadia, for they were tillers of the soil,
-and around their wigwams were fields of maize, beans, pumpkins,
-squashes, tobacco, and the so-called Jerusalem artichoke. Near Pront's
-Neck, more than eighty of them ran down to the shore to meet the
-strangers, dancing and yelping to show their joy. They had a fort of
-palisades on a rising ground by the Saco, for they were at deadly war
-with their neighbors towards the east.
-
-On the twelfth, the French resumed their voyage, and, like some
-adventurous party of pleasure, held their course by the beaches of York
-and Wells, Portsmouth Harbor, the Isles of Shoals, Rye Beach, and
-Hampton Beach, till, on the fifteenth, they descried the dim outline of
-Cape Ann. Champlain called it Cap aux Isles, from the three adjacent
-islands, and in a subsequent voyage he gave the name of Beauport to the
-neighboring harbor of Gloucester. Thence steering southward and
-westward, they entered Massachusetts Bay, gave the name of Riviere du
-Guast to a river flowing into it, probably the Charles; passed the
-islands of Boston Harbor, which Champlain describes as covered with
-trees, and were met on the way by great numbers of canoes filled with
-astonished Indians. On Sunday, the seventeenth, they passed Point
-Allerton and Nantasket Beach, coasted the shores of Cohasset, Scituate,
-and Marshfield, and anchored for the night near Brant Point. On the
-morning of the eighteenth, a head wind forced them to take shelter in
-Port St. Louis, for so they called the harbor of Plymouth, where the
-Pilgrims made their memorable landing fifteen years later. Indian
-wigwams and garden patches lined the shore. A troop of the inhabitants
-came down to the beach and danced; while others, who had been fishing,
-approached in their canoes, came on board the vessel, and showed
-Champlain their fish-hooks, consisting of a barbed bone lashed at an
-acute angle to a slip of wood.
-
-From Plymouth the party circled round the bay, doubled Cape Cod, called
-by Champlain Cap Blanc, from its glistening white sands, and steered
-southward to Nausett Harbor, which, by reason of its shoals and
-sand-bars, they named Port Mallebarre. Here their prosperity deserted
-them. A party of sailors went behind the sand-banks to find fresh water
-at a spring, when an Indian snatched a kettle from one of them, and its
-owner, pursuing, fell, pierced with arrows by the robber's comrades. The
-French in the vessel opened fire. Champlain's arquebuse burst, and was
-near killing him, while the Indians, swift as deer, quickly gained the
-woods. Several of the tribe chanced to be on board the vessel, but flung
-themselves with such alacrity into the water that only one was caught.
-They bound him hand and foot, but soon after humanely set him at
-liberty.
-
-Champlain, who we are told "delighted marvellously in these
-enterprises," had busied himself throughout the voyage with taking
-observations, making charts, and studying the wonders of land and sea.
-The "horse-foot crab" seems to have awakened his special curiosity, and
-he describes it with amusing exactness. Of the human tenants of the New
-England coast he has also left the first precise and trustworthy
-account. They were clearly more numerous than when the Puritans landed
-at Plymouth, since in the interval a pestilence made great havoc among
-them. But Champlain's most conspicuous merit lies in the light that he
-threw into the dark places of American geography, and the order that he
-brought out of the chaos of American cartography; for it was a result of
-this and the rest of his voyages that precision and clearness began at
-last to supplant the vagueness, confusion, and contradiction of the
-earlier map-makers.
-
-At Nausett Harbor provisions began to fail, and steering for St. Croix
-the voyagers reached that ill-starred island on the third of August. De
-Monts had found no spot to his liking. He now bethought him of that
-inland harbor of Port Royal which he had granted to Poutrincourt, and
-thither he resolved to remove. Stores, utensils, even portions of the
-buildings, were placed on board the vessels, carried across the Bay of
-Fundy, and landed at the chosen spot. It was on the north side of the
-basin opposite Goat Island, and a little below the mouth of the river
-Annapolis, called by the French the Equille, and, afterwards, the
-Dauphin. The axe-men began their task; the dense forest was cleared
-away, and the buildings of the infant colony soon rose in its place.
-
-But while De Monts and his company were struggling against despair at
-St. Croix, the enemies of his monopoly were busy at Paris; and, by a
-ship from France, he was warned that prompt measures were needed to
-thwart their machinations. Therefore he set sail, leaving Pontgrave to
-command at Port Royal: while Champlain, Champdore, and others, undaunted
-by the past, volunteered for a second winter in the wilderness.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-1605-1607.
-
-LESCARBOT AND CHAMPLAIN.
-
-Evil reports of a churlish wilderness, a pitiless climate, disease,
-misery, and death, had heralded the arrival of De Monts. The outlay had
-been great, the returns small; and when he reached Paris, he found his
-friends cold, his enemies active and keen. Poutrincourt, however, was
-still full of zeal; and, though his private affairs urgently called for
-his presence in France, he resolved, at no small sacrifice, to go in
-person to Acadia. He had, moreover, a friend who proved an invaluable
-ally. This was Marc Lescarbot, "avocat en Parlement," who had been
-roughly handled by fortune, and was in the mood for such a venture,
-being desirous, as he tells us, "to fly from a corrupt world," in which
-he had just lost a lawsuit. Unlike De Monts, Poutrincourt, and others of
-his associates, he was not within the pale of the noblesse, belonging to
-the class of "gens de robe," which stood at the head of the bourgeoisie,
-and which, in its higher grades, formed within itself a virtual
-nobility. Lescarbot was no common man,--not that his abundant gift of
-verse-making was likely to avail much in the woods of New France, nor
-yet his classic lore, dashed with a little harmless pedantry, born not
-of the man, but of the times; but his zeal, his good sense, the vigor of
-his understanding, and the breadth of his views, were as conspicuous as
-his quick wit and his lively fancy. One of the best, as well as
-earliest, records of the early settlement of North America is due to his
-pen; and it has been said, with a certain degree of truth, that he was
-no less able to build up a colony than to write its history. He
-professed himself a Catholic, but his Catholicity sat lightly on him;
-and he might have passed for one of those amphibious religionists who in
-the civil wars were called "Les Politiques."
-
-De Monts and Poutrincourt bestirred themselves to find a priest, since
-the foes of the enterprise had been loud in lamentation that the
-spiritual welfare of the Indians had been slighted. But it was Holy
-Week. All the priests were, or professed to be, busy with exercises and
-confessions, and not one could be found to undertake the mission of
-Acadia. They were more successful in engaging mechanics and laborers for
-the voyage. These were paid a portion of their wages in advance, and
-were sent in a body to Rochelle, consigned to two merchants of that
-port, members of the company. De Monts and Poutrincourt went thither by
-post. Lescarbot soon followed, and no sooner reached Rochelle than he
-penned and printed his Adieu a la France, a poem which gained for him
-some credit.
-
-More serious matters awaited him, however, than this dalliance with the
-Muse. Rochelle was the centre and citadel of Calvinism,--a town of
-austere and grim aspect, divided, like Cisatlantic communities of later
-growth, betwixt trade and religion, and, in the interest of both,
-exacting a deportment of discreet and well-ordered sobriety. "One must
-walk a strait path here," says Lescarbot, "unless he would hear from the
-mayor or the ministers." But the mechanics sent from Paris, flush of
-money, and lodged together in the quarter of St. Nicolas, made day and
-night hideous with riot, and their employers found not a few of them in
-the hands of the police. Their ship, bearing the inauspicious name of
-the "Jonas," lay anchored in the stream, her cargo on board, when a
-sudden gale blew her adrift. She struck on a pier, then grounded on the
-flats, bilged, careened, and settled in the mud. Her captain, who was
-ashore, with Poutrincourt, Lescarbot, and others, hastened aboard, and
-the pumps were set in motion; while all Rochelle, we are told, came to
-gaze from the ramparts, with faces of condolence, but at heart well
-pleased with the disaster. The ship and her cargo were saved, but she
-must be emptied, repaired, and reladen. Thus a month was lost; at
-length, on the thirteenth of May, 1606, the disorderly crew were all
-brought on board, and the "Jonas" put to sea. Poutrincourt and Lescarbot
-had charge of the expedition, De Monts remaining in France.
-
-Lescarbot describes his emotions at finding himself on an element so
-deficient in solidity, with only a two-inch plank between him and death.
-Off the Azores, they spoke a supposed pirate. For the rest, they
-beguiled the voyage by harpooning porpoises, dancing on deck in calm
-weather, and fishing for cod on the Grand Bank. They were two months on
-their way; and when, fevered with eagerness to reach land, they listened
-hourly for the welcome cry, they were involved in impenetrable fogs.
-Suddenly the mists parted, the sun shone forth, and streamed fair and
-bright over the fresh hills and forests of the New World, in near view
-before them. But the black rocks lay between, lashed by the snow-white
-breakers. "Thus," writes Lescarbot, "doth a man sometimes seek the land
-as one doth his beloved, who sometimes repulseth her sweetheart very
-rudely. Finally, upon Saturday, the fifteenth of July, about two o'clock
-in the afternoon, the sky began to salute us as it were with
-cannon-shots, shedding tears, as being sorry to have kept us so long in
-pain; . . . but, whilst we followed on our course, there came from the
-land odors incomparable for sweetness, brought with a warm wind so
-abundantly that all the Orient parts could not produce greater
-abundance. We did stretch out our hands as it were to take them, so
-palpable were they, which I have admired a thousand times since."
-
-It was noon on the twenty-seventh when the "Jonas" passed the rocky
-gateway of Port Royal Basin, and Lescarbot gazed with delight and wonder
-on the calm expanse of sunny waters, with its amphitheatre of woody
-hills, wherein he saw the future asylum of distressed merit and
-impoverished industry. Slowly, before a favoring breeze, they held their
-course towards the head of the harbor, which narrowed as they advanced;
-but all was solitude,--no moving sail, no sign of human presence. At
-length, on their left, nestling in deep forests, they saw the wooden
-walls and roofs of the infant colony. Then appeared a birch canoe,
-cautiously coming towards them, guided by an old Indian. Then a
-Frenchman, arquebuse in hand, came down to the shore; and then, from the
-wooden bastion, sprang the smoke of a saluting shot. The ship replied;
-the trumpets lent their voices to the din, and the forests and the hills
-gave back unwonted echoes. The voyagers landed, and found the colony of
-Port Royal dwindled to two solitary Frenchmen.
-
-These soon told their story. The preceding winter had been one of much
-suffering, though by no means the counterpart of the woful experience of
-St. Croix. But when the spring had passed, the summer far advanced, and
-still no tidings of De Monts had come, Pontgrave grew deeply anxious. To
-maintain themselves without supplies and succor was impossible. He
-caused two small vessels to be built, and set out in search of some of
-the French vessels on the fishing stations. This was but twelve days
-before the arrival of the ship "Jonas." Two men had bravely offered
-themselves to stay behind and guard the buildings, guns, and munitions;
-and an old Indian chief, named Memberton, a fast friend of the French,
-and still a redoubted warrior, we are told, though reputed to number
-more than a hundred years, proved a stanch ally. When the ship
-approached, the two guardians were at dinner in their room at the fort.
-Memberton, always on the watch, saw the advancing sail, and, shouting
-from the gate, roused them from their repast. In doubt who the
-new-comers might be, one ran to the shore with his gun, while the other
-repaired to the platform where four cannon were mounted, in the valorous
-resolve to show fight should the strangers prove to be enemies. Happily
-this redundancy of mettle proved needless. He saw the white flag
-fluttering at the masthead, and joyfully fired his pieces as a salute.
-
-The voyagers landed, and eagerly surveyed their new home. Some wandered
-through the buildings; some visited the cluster of Indian wigwams hard
-by; some roamed in the forest and over the meadows that bordered the
-neighboring river. The deserted fort now swarmed with life; and, the
-better to celebrate their prosperous arrival, Poutrincourt placed a
-hogs-head of wine in the courtyard at the discretion of his followers,
-whose hilarity, in consequence, became exuberant. Nor was it diminished
-when Pontgrave's vessels were seen entering the harbor. A boat sent by
-Pountrincourt, more than a week before, to explore the coasts, had met
-them near Cape Sable, and they joyfully returned to Port Royal.
-
-Pontgrave, however, soon sailed for France in the "Jonas," hoping on his
-way to seize certain contraband fur-traders, reported to be at Canseau
-and Cape Breton. Poutrincourt and Champlain, bent on finding a better
-site for their settlement in a more southern latitude, set out on a
-voyage of discovery, in an ill-built vessel of eighteen tons, while
-Lescarbot remained in charge of Port Royal. They had little for their
-pains but danger, hardship, and mishap. The autumn gales cut short their
-exploration; and, after visiting Gloucester Harbor, doubling Monoinoy
-Point, and advancing as far as the neighborhood of Hyannis, on the
-southeast coast of Massachusetts, they turned back, somewhat disgusted
-with their errand. Along the eastern verge of Cape Cod they found the
-shore thickly studded with the wigwams of a race who were less hunters
-than tillers of the soil. At Chatham Harbor--called by them Port
-Fortune--five of the company, who, contrary to orders, had remained on
-shore all night, were assailed, as they slept around their fire, by a
-shower of arrows from four hundred Indians. Two were killed outright,
-while the survivors fled for their boat, bristling like porcupines with
-the feathered missiles,--a scene oddly portrayed by the untutored
-pencil of Champlain. He and Poutrincourt, with eight men, hearing the
-war-whoops and the cries for aid, sprang up from sleep, snatched their
-weapons, pulled ashore in their shirts, and charged the yelling
-multitude, who fled before their spectral assailants, and vanished in
-the woods. "Thus," observes Lescarbot, "did thirty-five thousand
-Midianites fly before Gideon and his three hundred." The French buried
-their dead comrades; but, as they chanted their funeral hymn, the
-Indians, at a safe distance on a neighboring hill, were dancing in glee
-and triumph, and mocking them with unseemly gestures; and no sooner had
-the party re-embarked, than they dug up the dead bodies, burnt them, and
-arrayed themselves in their shirts. Little pleased with the country or
-its inhabitants, the voyagers turned their prow towards Port Royal,
-though not until, by a treacherous device, they had lured some of their
-late assailants within their reach, killed them, and cut off their heads
-as trophies. Near Mount Desert, on a stormy night, their rudder broke,
-and they had a hair-breadth escape from destruction. The chief object of
-their voyage, that of discovering a site for their colony under a more
-southern sky, had failed. Pontgrave's son had his hand blown off by the
-bursting of his gun; several of their number had been killed; others
-were sick or wounded; and thus, on the fourteenth of November, with
-somewhat downcast visages, they guided their helpless vessel with a pair
-of oars to the landing at Port Royal.
-
-"I will not," says Lescarbot, "compare their perils to those of Ulysses,
-nor yet of Aeneas, lest thereby I should sully our holy enterprise with
-things impure."
-
-He and his followers had been expecting them with great anxiety. His
-alert and buoyant spirit had conceived a plan for enlivening the courage
-of the company, a little dashed of late by misgivings and forebodings.
-Accordingly, as Poutrincourt, Champlain, and their weather-beaten crew
-approached the wooden gateway of Port Royal, Neptune issued forth,
-followed by his tritons, who greeted the voyagers in good French verse,
-written in all haste for the occasion by Lescarbot. And, as they
-entered, they beheld, blazoned over the arch, the arms of Prance,
-circled with laurels, and flanked by the scuteheons of De Monts and
-Poutrincourt.
-
-The ingenious author of these devices had busied himself, during the
-absence of his associates, in more serious labors for the welfare of the
-colony. He explored the low borders of the river Equille, or Annapolis.
-Here, in the solitude, he saw great meadows, where the moose, with their
-young, were grazing, and where at times the rank grass was beaten to a
-pulp by the trampling of their hoofs. He burned the grass, and sowed
-crops of wheat, rye, and barley in its stead. His appearance gave so
-little promise of personal vigor, that some of the party assured him
-that he would never see France again, and warned him to husband his
-strength; but he knew himself better, and set at naught these comforting
-monitions. He was the most diligent of workers. He made gardens near the
-fort, where, in his zeal, he plied the hoe with his own hands late into
-the moonlight evenings. The priests, of whom at the outset there had
-been no lack, had all succumbed to the scurvy at St. Croix; and
-Lescarbot, so far as a layman might, essayed to supply their place,
-reading on Sundays from the Scriptures, and adding expositions of his
-own after a fashion not remarkable for rigorous Catholicity. Of an
-evening, when not engrossed with his garden, he was reading or writing
-in his room, perhaps preparing the material of that History of New
-France in which, despite the versatility of his busy brain, his good
-sense and capacity are clearly made manifest.
-
-Now, however, when the whole company were reassembled, Lescarbot found
-associates more congenial than the rude soldiers, mechanics, and
-laborers who gathered at night around the blazing logs in their rude
-hall. Port Royal was a quadrangle of wooden buildings, enclosing a
-spacious court. At the southeast corner was the arched gateway, whence a
-path, a few paces in length, led to the water. It was flanked by a sort
-of bastion of palisades, while at the southwest corner was another
-bastion, on which four cannon were mounted. On the east side of the
-quadrangle was a range of magazines and storehouses; on the west were
-quarters for the men; on the north, a dining-hall and lodgings for the
-principal persons of the company; while on the south, or water side,
-were the kitchen, the forge, and the oven. Except the Garden-patches and
-the cemetery, the adjacent ground was thickly studded with the Stumps of
-the newly felled trees.
-
-Most bountiful provision had been made for the temporal wants of the
-colonists, and Lescarbot is profuse in praise of the liberality of Du
-Monte and two merchants of Rochelle, who had freighted the ship "Jonas."
-Of wine, in particular, the supply was so generous, that every man in
-Port Royal was served with three pints daily.
-
-The principal persons of the colony sat, fifteen in number, at
-Poutrincourt's table, which, by an ingenious device of Champlain, was
-always well furnished. He formed the fifteen into a new order,
-christened "L'Ordre de Bon-Temps." Each was Grand Master in turn,
-holding office for one day. It was his function to cater for the
-company; and, as it became a point of honor to fill the post with
-credit, the prospective Grand Master was usually busy, for several days
-before coming to his dignity, in hunting, fishing, or bartering
-provisions with the Indians. Thus did Poutrincourt's table groan beneath
-all the luxuries of the winter forest,--flesh of moose, caribou, and
-deer, beaver, otter, and hare, bears and wild-cats; with ducks, geese,
-grouse, and plover; sturgeon, too, and trout, and fish innumerable,
-speared through the ice of the Equille, or drawn from the depths of the
-neighboring bay. "And," says Lescarbot, in closing his bill of fare,
-"whatever our gourmands at home may think, we found as good cheer at
-Port Royal as they at their Rue aux Ours in Paris, and that, too, at a
-cheaper rate." For the preparation of this manifold provision, the Grand
-Master was also answerable; since, during his day of office, he was
-autocrat of the kitchen.
-
-Nor did this bounteous repast lack a solemn and befitting ceremonial.
-When the hour had struck, after the manner of our fathers they dined at
-noon, the Grand Master entered the hall, a napkin on his shoulder, his
-staff of office in his hand, and the collar of the Order--valued by
-Lescarbot at four crowns--about his neck. The brotherhood followed,
-each bearing a dish. The invited guests were Indian chiefs, of whom old
-Memberton was daily present, seated at table with the French, who took
-pleasure in this red-skin companionship. Those of humbler degree,
-warriors, squaws, and children, sat on the floor, or crouched together
-in the corners of the hall, eagerly waiting their portion of biscuit or
-of bread, a novel and much coveted luxury. Being always treated with
-kindness, they became fond of the French, who often followed them on
-their moose-hunts, and shared their winter bivouac.
-
-At the evening meal there was less of form and circumstance; and when
-the winter night closed in, when the flame crackled and the sparks
-streamed up the wide-throated chimney, and the founders of New France
-with their tawny allies were gathered around the blaze, then did the
-Grand Master resign the collar and the staff to the successor of his
-honors, and, with jovial courtesy, pledge him in a cup of wine. Thus
-these ingenious Frenchmen beguiled the winter of their exile.
-
-It was an unusually mild winter. Until January, they wore no warmer
-garment than their doublets. They made hunting and fishing parties, in
-which the Indians, whose lodges were always to be seen under the
-friendly shelter of the buildings, failed not to bear part. "I
-remember," says Lescarbot, "that on the fourteenth of January, of a
-Sunday afternoon, we amused ourselves with singing and music on the
-river Equille; and that in the same month we went to see the
-wheat-fields two leagues from the fort, and dined merrily in the
-sunshine."
-
-Good spirits and good cheer saved them in great measure from the scurvy;
-and though towards the end of winter severe cold set in, yet only four
-men died. The snow thawed at last, and as patches of the black and oozy
-soil began to appear, they saw the grain of their last autumn's sowing
-already piercing the mould. The forced inaction of the winter was over.
-The carpenters built a water-mill on the stream now called Allen's
-River; others enclosed fields and laid out gardens; others, again, with
-scoop-nets and baskets, caught the herrings and alewives as they ran up
-the innumerable rivulets. The leaders of the colony set a contagious
-example of activity. Poutrincourt forgot the prejudices of his noble
-birth, and went himself into the woods to gather turpentine from the
-pines, which he converted into tar by a process of his own invention;
-while Lescarbot, eager to test the qualities of the soil, was again, hoe
-in hand, at work all day in his garden.
-
-All seemed full of promise; but alas for the bright hope that kindled
-the manly heart of Champlain and the earnest spirit of the vivacions
-advocate! A sudden blight fell on them, and their rising prosperity
-withered to the ground. On a morning, late in spring, as the French were
-at breakfast, the ever watchful Membertou came in with news of an
-approaching sail. They hastened to the shore; but the vision of the
-centenarian sagamore put them all to shame. They could see nothing. At
-length their doubts were resolved. A small vessel stood on towards them,
-and anchored before the fort. She was commanded by one Chevalier, a
-young man from St. Malo, and was freighted with disastrous tidings. Dc
-Monts's monopoly was rescinded. The life of the enterprise was stopped,
-and the establishment at Port Royal could no longer be supported; for
-its expense was great, the body of the colony being laborers in the pay
-of the company. Nor was the annulling of the patent the full extent of
-the disaster; for, during the last summer, the Dutch had found their way
-to the St. Lawrence, and carried away a rich harvest of furs, while
-other interloping traders had plied a busy traffic along the coasts,
-and, in the excess of their avidity, dug up the bodies of buried Indians
-to rob them of their funeral robes.
-
-It was to the merchants and fishermen of the Norman, Breton, and
-Biscayan ports, exasperated at their exclusion from a lucrative trade,
-and at the confiscations which had sometimes followed their attempts to
-engage in it, that this sudden blow was due. Money had been used freely
-at court, and the monopoly, unjustly granted, had been more unjustly
-withdrawn. De Monts and his company, who had spent a hundred thousand
-livres, were allowed six thousand in requital, to be collected, if
-possible, from the fur-traders in the form of a tax.
-
-Chevalier, captain of the ill-omened bark, was entertained with a
-hospitality little deserved, since, having been intrusted with sundry
-hams, fruits, spices, sweetmeats, jellies, and other dainties, sent by
-the generous De Monts to his friends of New France, he with his crew had
-devoured them on the voyage, alleging that, in their belief, the inmates
-of Port Royal would all be dead before their arrival.
-
-Choice there was none, and Port Royal must be abandoned. Built on a
-false basis, sustained only by the fleeting favor of a government, the
-generous enterprise had come to naught. Yet Poutrincourt, who in virtue
-of his grant from De Monts owned the place, bravely resolved that, come
-what might, he would see the adventure to an end, even should it involve
-emigration with his family to the wilderness. Meanwhile, he began the
-dreary task of abandonment, sending boat-loads of men and stores to
-Canseau, where lay the ship "Jonas," eking out her diminished profits by
-fishing for cod.
-
-Membertou was full of grief at the departure of his friends. He had
-built a palisaded village not far from Port Royal, and here were
-mustered some four hundred of his warriors for a foray into the country
-of the Armouchiquois, dwellers along the coasts of Massachusetts, New
-Hampshire, and Western Maine. One of his tribesmen had been killed by a
-chief from the Saco, and he was bent on revenge. He proved himself a
-sturdy beggar, pursuing Pontrincourt with daily petitions,--now for a
-bushel of beans, now for a basket of bread, and now for a barrel of wine
-to regale his greasy crew. Memberton's long life had not been one of
-repose. In deeds of blood and treachery he had no rival in the Acadian
-forest; and, as his old age was beset with enemies, his alliance with
-the French had a foundation of policy no less than of affection. In
-right of his rank of Sagamore, he claimed perfect equality both with
-Poutrincourt and with the King, laying his shrivelled forefingers
-together in token of friendship between peers. Calumny did not spare
-him; and a rival chief intimated to the French, that, under cover of a
-war with the Armouchiquois, the crafty veteran meant to seize and
-plunder Port Royal. Precautions, therefore, were taken; but they were
-seemingly needless; for, their feasts and dances over, the warriors
-launched their birchen flotilla and set out. After an absence of six
-weeks they reappeared with howls of victory, and their exploits were
-commemorated in French verse by the muse of the indefatigable Lescarbot.
-
-With a heavy heart the advocate bade farewell to the dwellings, the
-cornfields, the gardens, and all the dawning prosperity of Port Royal,
-and sailed for Canseau in a small vessel on the thirtieth of July.
-Pontrincourt and Champlain remained behind, for the former was resolved
-to learn before his departure the results of his agricultural labors.
-Reaching a harbor on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, six leagues west
-of Cansean, Lescarbot found a fishing-vessel commanded and owned by an
-old Basque, named Savalet, who for forty-two successive years had
-carried to France his annual cargo of codfish. He was in great glee at
-the success of his present venture, reckoning his profits at ten
-thousand francs. The Indians, however, annoyed him beyond measure,
-boarding him from their canoes as his fishing-boats came alongside, and
-helping themselves at will to his halibut and cod. At Cansean--a harbor
-near the strait now bearing the name--the ship Jonas still lay, her
-hold well stored with fish; and here, on the twenty-seventh of August,
-Lescarbot was rejoined by Poutrincourt and Champlain, who had come from
-Port Royal in an open boat. For a few days, they amused themselves with
-gathering raspberries on the islands; then they spread their sails for
-France, and early in October, 1607, anchored in the harbor of St. Malo.
-
-First of Europeans, they had essayed to found an agricultural colony in
-the New World. The leaders of the enterprise had acted less as merchants
-than as citizens; and the fur-trading monopoly, odious in itself, had
-been used as the instrument of a large and generous design. There was a
-radical defect, however, in their scheme of settlement. Excepting a few
-of the leaders, those engaged in it had not chosen a home in the
-wilderness of New France, but were mere hirelings, without wives or
-families, and careless of the welfare of the colony. The life which
-should have pervaded all the members was confined to the heads alone. In
-one respect, however, the enterprise of De Monts was truer in principle
-than the Roman Catholic colonization of Canada, on the one hand, or the
-Puritan colonization of Massachusetts, on the other, for it did not
-attempt to enforce religions exclusion.
-
-Towards the fickle and bloodthirsty race who claimed the lordship of the
-forests, these colonists, excepting only in the treacherous slaughter at
-Port Fortune, bore themselves in a spirit of kindness contrasting
-brightly with the rapacious cruelty of the Spaniards and the harshness
-of the English settlers. When the last boat-load left Port Royal, the
-shore resounded with lamentation; and nothing could console the
-afflicted savages but reiterated promises of a speedy return.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-1610, 1611.
-
-THE JESUITS AND THEIR PATRONESS.
-
-Poutrincourt, we have seen, owned Port Royal in virtue of a grant from
-De Monts. The ardent and adventurous baron was in evil case, involved in
-litigation and low in purse; but nothing could damp his zeal. Acadia
-must become a new France, and he, Poutrincourt, must be its father. He
-gained from the King a confirmation of his grant, and, to supply the
-lack of his own weakened resources, associated with himself one Robin, a
-man of family and wealth. This did not save him from a host of delays
-and vexations; and it was not until the spring of 1610 that he found
-himself in a condition to embark on his new and doubtful venture.
-
-Meanwhile an influence, of sinister omen as he thought, had begun to act
-upon his schemes. The Jesuits were strong at court. One of their number,
-the famous Father Coton, was confessor to Henry the Fourth, and, on
-matters of this world as of the next, was ever whispering at the facile
-ear of the renegade King. New France offered a fresh field of action to
-the indefatigable Society of Jesus, and Coton urged upon the royal
-convert, that, for the saving of souls, some of its members should be
-attached to the proposed enterprise. The King, profoundly indifferent in
-matters of religion, saw no evil in a proposal which at least promised
-to place the Atlantic betwixt him and some of those busy friends whom at
-heart he deeply mistrusted. Other influences, too, seconded the
-confessor. Devout ladies of the court, and the Queen herself, supplying
-the lack of virtue with an overflowing piety, burned, we are assured,
-with a holy zeal for snatching the tribes of the West from the bondage
-of Satan. Therefore it was insisted that the projected colony should
-combine the spiritual with the temporal character,--or, in other words,
-that Poutrincourt should take Jesuits with him. Pierre Biard, Professor
-of Theology at Lyons, was named for the mission, and repaired in haste
-to Bordeaux, the port of embarkation, where he found no vessel, and no
-sign of preparation; and here, in wrath and discomfiture, he remained
-for a whole year.
-
-That Poutrincourt was a good Catholic appears from a letter to the Pope,
-written for him in Latin by Lescarbot, asking a blessing on his
-enterprise, and assuring his Holiness that one of his grand objects was
-the saving of souls. But, like other good citizens, he belonged to the
-national party in the Church, those liberal Catholics, who, side by side
-with the Huguenots, had made head against the League, with its Spanish
-allies, and placed Henry the Fourth upon the throne. The Jesuits, an
-order Spanish in origin and policy, determined champions of ultramontane
-principles, the sword and shield of the Papacy in its broadest
-pretensions to spiritual and temporal sway, were to him, as to others of
-his party, objects of deep dislike and distrust. He feared them in his
-colony, evaded what he dared not refuse, left Biarci waiting in solitude
-at Bordeax, and sought to postpone the evil day by assuring Father Coton
-that, though Port Royal was at present in no state to receive the
-missionaries, preparation should be made to entertain them the next year
-after a befitting fashion.
-
-Poutrincourt owned the barony of St. Just in Champagne, inherited a few
-years before from his mother. Hence, early in February, 1610, he set out
-in a boat loaded to the gunwales with provisions, furniture, goods, and
-munitions for Port Royal, descended the rivers Aube and Seine, and
-reached Dieppe safely with his charge. Here his ship was awaiting him;
-and on the twenty-sixth of February he set sail, giving the slip to the
-indignant Jesuit at Bordeaux.
-
-The tedium of a long passage was unpleasantly broken by a mutiny among
-the crew. It was suppressed, however, and Poutrincourt entered at length
-the familiar basin of Port Royal. The buildings were still standing,
-whole and sound save a partial falling in of the roofs. Even furniture
-was found untouched in the deserted chambers. The centenarian Membertou
-was still alive, his leathern, wrinkled visage beaming with welcome.
-
-Pontrincourt set himself without delay to the task of Christianizing New
-France, in an access of zeal which his desire of proving that Jesuit aid
-was superfluous may be supposed largely to have reinforced. He had a
-priest with him, one La Fleche, whom he urged to the pious work. No time
-was lost. Membertou first was catechised, confessed his sins, and
-renounced the Devil, whom we are told he had faithfully served during a
-hundred and ten years. His squaws, his children, his grandchildren, and
-his entire clan were next won over. It was in June, the day of St. John
-the Baptist, when the naked proselytes. twenty-one in number, were
-gathered on the shore at Port Royal. Here was the priest in the
-vestments of his office; here were gentlemen in gay attire, soldiers,
-laborers, lackeys, all the infant colony. The converts kneeled; the
-sacred rite was finished, Te Deum was sung, and the roar of cannon
-proclaimed this triumph over the powers of darkness. Membertou was named
-Henri, after the King; his principal squaw, Marie, after the Queen. One
-of his sons received the name of the Pope, another that of the Dauphin;
-his daughter was called Marguerite, after the divorced Marguerite de
-Valois, and, in like manner, the rest of the squalid company exchanged
-their barbaric appellatives for the names of princes, nobles, and ladies
-of rank.
-
-The fame of this chef-d'aeuvre of Christian piety, as Lescarbot gravely
-calls it, spread far and wide through the forest, whose denizens,--
-partly out of a notion that the rite would bring good luck, partly to
-please the French, and partly to share in the good cheer with which the
-apostolic efforts of Father La Fleche had been sagaciously seconded--
-came flocking to enroll themselves under the banners of the Faith. Their
-zeal ran high. They would take no refusal. Membertou was for war on all
-who would not turn Christian. A living skeleton was seen crawling from
-hut to hut in search of the priest and his saving waters; while another
-neophyte, at the point of death, asked anxiously whether, in the realms
-of bliss to which he was bound, pies were to be had comparable to those
-with which the French regaled him.
-
-A formal register of baptisms was drawn up to be carried to France in
-the returning ship, of which Pontrincourt's son, Biencourt, a spirited
-youth of eighteen, was to take charge. He sailed in July, his father
-keeping him company as far as Port la Have, whence, bidding the young
-man farewell, he attempted to return in an open boat to Port Royal. A
-north wind blew him out to sea; and for six days he was out of sight of
-land, subsisting on rain-water wrung from the boat's sail, and on a few
-wild-fowl which he had shot on an island. Five weeks passed before he
-could rejoin his colonists, who, despairing of his safety, were about to
-choose a new chief.
-
-Meanwhile, young Biencourt, speeding on his way, heard dire news from a
-fisherman on the Grand Bank. The knife of Ravaillac had done its work.
-Henry the Fourth was dead.
-
-There is an ancient street in Paris, where a great thoroughfare
-contracts to a narrow pass, the Rue de la Ferronnerie. Tall buildings
-overshadow it, packed from pavement to tiles with human life, and from
-the dingy front of one of them the sculptured head of a man looks down
-on the throng that ceaselessly defiles beneath. On the fourteenth of
-May, 1610, a ponderous coach, studded with fleurs-de-lis and rich with
-gilding, rolled along this street. In it was a small man, well advanced
-in life, whose profile once seen could not be forgotten,--a hooked
-nose, a protruding chin, a brow full of wrinkles, grizzled hair, a
-short, grizzled beard, and stiff, gray moustaches, bristling like a
-cat's. One would have thought him some whiskered satyr, grim from the
-rack of tumultuous years; but his alert, upright port bespoke unshaken
-vigor, and his clear eye was full of buoyant life. Following on the
-footway strode a tall, strong, and somewhat corpulent man, with
-sinister, deep-set eyes and a red beard, his arm and shoulder covered
-with his cloak. In the throat of the thoroughfare, where the sculptured
-image of Henry the Fourth still guards the spot, a collision of two
-carts stopped the coach. Ravaillac quickened his pace. In an instant he
-was at the door. With his cloak dropped from his shoulders, and a long
-knife in his hand, he set his foot upon a guardstone, thrust his head
-and shoulders into the coach, and with frantic force stabbed thrice at
-the King's heart. A broken exclamation, a gasping convulsion,--and then
-the grim visage drooped on the bleeding breast. Henry breathed his last,
-and the hope of Europe died with him.
-
-The omens were sinister for Old France and for New. Marie de Medicis,
-"cette grosse banquiere," coarse scion of a bad stock, false wife and
-faithless queen, paramour of an intriguing foreigner, tool of the
-Jesuits and of Spain, was Regent in the minority of her imbecile son.
-The Huguenots drooped, the national party collapsed, the vigorous hand
-of Sully was felt no more, and the treasure gathered for a vast and
-beneficent enterprise became the instrument of despotism and the prey of
-corruption. Under such dark auspices, young Biencourt entered the
-thronged chambers of the Louvre.
-
-He gained audience of the Queen, and displayed his list of baptisms;
-while the ever present Jesuits failed not to seize him by the button,
-assuring him, not only that the late King had deeply at heart the
-establishment of their Society in Acadia, but that to this end he had
-made them a grant of two thousand livres a year. The Jesuits had found
-an ally and the intended mission a friend at court, whose story and
-whose character are too striking to pass unnoticed.
-
-This was a lady of honor to the Queen, Antoinette de Pons, Marquise de
-Guercheville, once renowned for grace and beauty, and not less
-conspicuous for qualities rare in the unbridled court of Henry's
-predecessor, where her youth had been passed. When the civil war was at
-its height, the royal heart, leaping with insatiable restlessness from
-battle to battle, from mistress to mistress, had found a brief repose in
-the affections of his Corisande, famed in tradition and romance; but
-Corisande was suddenly abandoned, and the young widow, Madame de
-Guercheville, became the load-star of his erratic fancy. It was an evil
-hour for the Bearnais. Henry sheathed in rusty steel, battling for his
-crown and his life, and Henry robed in royalty and throned triumphant in
-the Louvre, alike urged their suit in vain. Unused to defeat, the King's
-passion rose higher for the obstacle that barred it. On one occasion he
-was met with an answer not unworthy of record:--
-
-"Sire, my rank, perhaps, is not high enough to permit me to be your
-wife, but my heart is too high to permit me to be your mistress."
-
-She left the court and retired to her chateau of La Roche-Guyon, on the
-Seine, ten leagues below Paris, where, fond of magnificence, she is said
-to have lived in much expense and splendor. The indefatigable King,
-haunted by her memory, made a hunting-party in the neighboring forests;
-and, as evening drew near, separating himself from his courtiers, he
-sent a gentleman of his train to ask of Madame de Guercheville the
-shelter of her roof. The reply conveyed a dutiful acknowledgment of the
-honor, and an offer of the best entertainment within her power. It was
-night when Henry with his little band of horsemen, approached the
-chateau, where lights were burning in every window, after a fashion of
-the day on occasions of welcome to an honored guest. Pages stood in the
-gateway, each with a blazing torch; and here, too, were gentlemen of the
-neighborhood, gathered to greet their sovereign. Madame de Guercheville
-came forth, followed by the women of her household; and when the King,
-unprepared for so benign a welcome, giddy with love and hope, saw her
-radiant in pearls and more radiant yet in a beauty enhanced by the wavy
-torchlight and the surrounding shadows, he scarcely dared trust his
-senses:--
-
-"Que vois-je, madame; est-ce bien vous, et suis-je ce roi meprise?"
-
-He gave her his hand, and she led him within the chateau, where, at the
-door of the apartment destined for him, she left him, with a graceful
-reverence. The King, nowise disconcerted, did not doubt that she had
-gone to give orders for his entertainment, when an attendant came to
-tell him that she had descended to the courtyard and called for her
-coach. Thither he hastened in alarm:
-
-"What! am I driving you from your house?"
-
-"Sire," replied Madame de Guercheville, "where a king is, he should be
-the sole master; but, for my part, I like to preserve some little
-authority wherever I may be."
-
-With another deep reverence, she entered her coach and disappeared,
-seeking shelter under the roof of a friend, some two leagues off, and
-leaving the baffled King to such consolation as he might find in a
-magnificent repast, bereft of the presence of the hostess.
-
-Henry could admire the virtue which he could not vanquish; and, long
-after, on his marriage, he acknowledged his sense of her worth by
-begging her to accept an honorable post near the person of the Queen.
-
-"Madame," he said, presenting her to Marie de Medicis, "I give you a
-lady of honor who is a lady of honor indeed."
-
-Some twenty years had passed since the adventure of La Roche-Guyon.
-Madame de Guercheville had outlived the charms which had attracted her
-royal suitor, but the virtue which repelled him was reinforced by a
-devotion no less uncompromising. A rosary in her hand and a Jesuit at
-her side, she realized the utmost wishes of the subtle fathers who had
-moulded and who guided her. She readily took fire when they told her of
-the benighted souls of New France, and the wrongs of Father Biard
-kindled her utmost indignation. She declared herself the protectress of
-the American missions; and the only difficulty, as a Jesuit writer tells
-us, was to restrain her zeal within reasonable bounds.
-
-She had two illustrious coadjutors. The first was the jealous Queen,
-whose unbridled rage and vulgar clamor had made the Louvre a hell. The
-second was Henriette d'Entragues, Marquise de Vernenil, the crafty and
-capricious siren who had awakened these conjugal tempests. To this
-singular coalition were joined many other ladies of the court; for the
-pious flame, fanned by the Jesuits, spread through hall and boudoir, and
-fair votaries of the Loves and Graces found it a more grateful task to
-win heaven for the heathen than to merit it for themselves.
-
-Young Biencourt saw it vain to resist. Biard must go with him in the
-returning ship, and also another Jesuit, Enemond Masse. The two fathers
-repaired to Dieppe, wafted on the wind of court favor, which they never
-doubted would bear them to their journey s end. Not so, however.
-Poutrincourt and his associates, in the dearth of their own resources,
-had bargained with two Huguenot merchants of Dieppe, Du Jardin and Du
-Quesne, to equip and load the vessel, in consideration of their becoming
-partners in the expected profits. Their indignation was extreme when
-they saw the intended passengers. They declared that they would not aid
-in building up a colony for the profit of the King of Spain, nor risk
-their money in a venture where Jesuits were allowed to intermeddle; and
-they closed with a fiat refusal to receive them on board, unless, they
-added with patriotic sarcasm, the Queen would direct them to transport
-the whole order beyond sea. Biard and Masse insisted, on which the
-merchants demanded reimbursement for their outlay, as they would have no
-further concern in the business.
-
-Biard communicated with Father Coton, Father Coton with Madame de
-Guercheville. No more was needed. The zealous lady of honor,
-"indignant," says Biard, "to see the efforts of hell prevail," and
-resolved "that Satan should not remain master of the field," set on foot
-a subscription, and raised an ample fund within the precincts of the
-court. Biard, in the name of the "Province of France of the Order of
-Jesus," bought out the interest of the two merchants for thirty-eight
-hundred livres, thus constituting the Jesuits equal partners in business
-with their enemies. Nor was this all; for, out of the ample proceeds of
-the subscription, he lent to the needy associates a further sum of seven
-hundred and thirty-seven livres, and advanced twelve hundred and
-twenty-five more to complete the outfit of the ship. Well pleased, the
-triumphant priests now embarked, and friend and foe set sail together on
-the twenty-sixth of January, 1611.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-1611, 1612.
-
-JESUITS IN ACADIA.
-
-
-The voyage was one of inordinate length,--beset, too, with icebergs,
-larger and taller, according to the Jesuit voyagers, than the Church of
-Notre Dame; but on the day of Pentecost their ship, "The Grace of God,"
-anchored before Port Royal. Then first were seen in the wilderness of
-New France the close black cap, the close black robe, of the Jesuit
-father, and the features seamed with study and thought and discipline.
-Then first did this mighty Proteus, this many-colored Society of Jesus,
-enter upon that rude field of toil and woe, where, in after years, the
-devoted zeal of its apostles was to lend dignity to their order and do
-honor to humanity.
-
-Few were the regions of the known world to which the potent brotherhood
-had not stretched the vast network of its influence. Jesuits had
-disputed in theology with the bonzes of Japan, and taught astronomy to
-the mandarins of China; had wrought prodigies of sudden conversion among
-the followers of Bralinra, preached the papal supremacy to Abyssinian
-schismatics, carried the cross among the savages of Caffraria, wrought
-reputed miracles in Brazil, and gathered the tribes of Paraguay beneath
-their paternal sway. And now, with the aid of the Virgin and her votary
-at court, they would build another empire among the tribes of New
-France. The omens were sinister and the outset was unpropitious. The
-Society was destined to reap few laurels from the brief apostleship of
-Biard and Masse.
-
-When the voyagers landed, they found at Port Royal a band of
-half-famished men, eagerly expecting their succor. The voyage of four
-months had, however, nearly exhausted their own very moderate stock of
-provisions, and the mutual congratulations of the old colonists and the
-new were damped by a vision of starvation. A friction, too, speedily
-declared itself between the spiritual and the temporal powers.
-Pontgrave's son, then trading on the coast, had exasperated the Indians
-by an outrage on one of their women, and, dreading the wrath of
-Poutrincourt, had fled to the woods. Biard saw fit to take his part,
-remonstrated for him with vehemence, gained his pardon, received his
-confession, and absolved him. The Jesuit says that he was treated with
-great consideration by Poutrincourt, and that he should be forever
-beholden to him. The latter, however, chafed at Biard's interference.
-
-"Father," he said, "I know my duty, and I beg you will leave me to do
-it. I, with my sword, have hopes of paradise, as well as you with your
-breviary. Show me my path to heaven. I will show you yours on earth."
-
-He soon set sail for France, leaving his son Biencourt in charge. This
-hardy young sailor, of ability and character beyond his years, had, on
-his visit to court, received the post of Vice-Admiral in the seas of New
-France, and in this capacity had a certain authority over the
-trading-vessels of St. Malo and Rochelle, several of which were upon the
-coast. To compel the recognition of this authority, and also to purchase
-provisions, he set out along with Biard in a boat filled with armed
-followers. His first collision was with young Pontgrave, who with a few
-men had built a trading-hut on the St. John, where he proposed to
-winter. Meeting with resistance, Biencourt took the whole party
-prisoners, in spite of the remonstrances of Biard. Next, proceeding
-along the coast, he levied tribute on four or five traders wintering at
-St. Croix, and, continuing his course to the Kennebec, found the Indians
-of that region greatly enraged at the conduct of certain English
-adventurers, who three or four years before had, as they said, set dogs
-upon them and otherwise maltreated them. These were the colonists under
-Popham and Gilbert, who in 1607 and 1608 made an abortive attempt to
-settle near the mouth of the river. Nothing now was left of them but
-their deserted fort. The neighboring Indians were Abenakis, one of the
-tribes included by the French under the general name of Armouchiquois.
-Their disposition was doubtful, and it needed all the coolness of young
-Biencourt to avoid a fatal collision. On one occasion a curious incident
-took place. The French met six canoes full of warriors descending the
-Kennebec, and, as neither party trusted the other, the two encamped on
-opposite banks of the river. In the evening the Indians began to sing
-and dance. Biard suspected these proceedings to be an invocation of the
-Devil, and "in order," he says, "to thwart this accursed tyrant, I made
-our people sing a few church hymns, such as the Salve, the Ave Mans
-Stella, and others. But being once in train, and getting to the end of
-their spiritual songs, they fell to singing such others as they knew,
-and when these gave out they took to mimicking the dancing and singing
-of the Armouchiquois on the other side of the water; and as Frenchmen
-are naturally good mimics, they did it so well that the Armouchiquols
-stopped to listen; at which our people stopped too; and then the Indians
-began again. You would have laughed to hear them, for they were like two
-choirs answering each other in concert, and you would hardly have known
-the real Armouchiquois from the sham ones."
-
-Before the capture of young Pontgrave, Biard made him a visit at his
-camp, six leagues up the St. John. Pontgrave's men were sailors from St.
-Malo, between whom and the other Frenchmen there was much ill blood,
-Biard had hardly entered the river when he saw the evening sky crimsoned
-with the dancing fires of a superb aurora borealis, and he and his
-attendants marvelled what evil thing the prodigy might portend. Their
-Indian companions said that it was a sign of war. In fact, the night
-after they had joined Pontgrave a furious quarrel broke out in the camp,
-with abundant shouting, gesticulating and swearing; and, says the
-father, "I do not doubt that an accursed band of furious and sanguinary
-spirits were hovering about us all night, expecting every moment to see
-a horrible massacre of the few Christians in those parts; but the
-goodness of God bridled their malice. No blood was shed, and on the next
-day the squall ended in a fine calm."
-
-He did not like the Indians, whom he describes as "lazy, gluttonous,
-irreligious, treacherous, cruel, and licentious." He makes an exception
-in favor of Memberton, whom he calls "the greatest, most renowned, and
-most redoubted savage that ever lived in the memory of man," and
-especially commends him for contenting himself with but one wife, hardly
-a superlative merit in a centenarian. Biard taught him to say the Lord's
-Prayer, though at the petition, "Give us this clay our daily bread," the
-chief remonstrated, saying, "If I ask for nothing but bread, I shall get
-no fish or moose meat." His protracted career was now drawing to a
-close, and, being brought to the settlement in a dying state, he was
-placed in Biard's bed and attended by the two Jesuits. He was as
-remarkable in person as in character, for he was bearded like a
-Frenchman. Though, alone among La Fleche's converts, the Faith seemed to
-have left some impression upon him, he insisted on being buried with his
-heathen forefathers, but was persuaded to forego a wish fatal to his
-salvation, and slept at last in consecrated ground.
-
-Another of the scanty fruits of the mission was a little girl on the
-point of death, whom Biard had asked her parents to give him for
-baptism. "Take her and keep her, if you like," was the reply, "for she
-is no better than a dead dog." "We accepted the offer," says Biard, "in
-order to show them the difference between Christianity and their
-impiety; and after giving her what care we could, together with some
-instruction, we baptized her. We named her after Madame the Marquise de
-Guercheville, in gratitude for the benefits we have received from that
-lady, who can now rejoice that her name is already in heaven; for, a few
-days after baptism, the chosen soul flew to that place of glory."
-
-Biard's greatest difficulty was with the Micmac language. Young
-Biencourt was his best interpreter, and on common occasions served him
-well; but the moment that religion was in question he was, as it were,
-stricken dumb,--the reason being that the language was totally without
-abstract terms. Biard resolutely set himself to the study of it,--a
-hard and thorny path, on which he made small progress, and often went
-astray. Seated, pencil in hand, before some Indian squatting on the
-floor, whom with the bribe of a mouldy biscuit he had lured into the
-hut, he plied him with questions which he often neither would nor could
-answer. What was the Indian word for Faith, Hope, Charity, Sacrament,
-Baptism, Eucharist, Trinity, Incarnation? The perplexed savage, willing
-to amuse himself, and impelled, as Biard thinks, by the Devil, gave him
-scurrilous and unseemly phrases as the equivalent of things holy, which,
-studiously incorporated into the father's Indian catechism, produced on
-his pupils an effect the reverse of that intended. Biard's colleague,
-Masse, was equally zealous, and still less fortunate. He tried a forest
-life among the Indians 'with signal ill success. Hard fare, smoke,
-filth, the scolding of squaws, and the cries of children reduced him to
-a forlorn condition of body and mind, wore him to a skeleton, and sent
-him back to Port Royal without a single convert.
-
-The dark months wore slowly on. A band of half-famished men gathered
-about the huge fires of their barn-like hall, moody, sullen, and
-quarrelsome. Discord was here in the black robe of the Jesuit and the
-brown capote of the rival trader. The position of the wretched little
-colony may well provoke reflection. Here lay the shaggy continent, from
-Florida to the Pole, outstretched in savage slumber along the sea, the
-stern domain of Nature,--or, to adopt the ready solution of the
-Jesuits, a realm of the powers of night, blasted beneath the sceptre of
-hell. On the banks of James River was a nest of woe-begone Englishmen, a
-handful of Dutch fur-traders at the mouth of the Hudson, and a few
-shivering Frenchmen among the snow-drifts of Acadia; while deep within
-the wild monotony of desolation, on the icy verge of the great northern
-river, the hand of Champlain upheld the fleur-de-lis on the rock of
-Quebec. These were the advance guard, the forlorn hope of civilization,
-messengers of promise to a desert continent. Yet, unconscious of their
-high function, not content with inevitable woes, they were rent by petty
-jealousies and miserable feuds; while each of these detached fragments
-of rival nationalities, scarcely able to maintain its own wretched
-existence on a few square miles, begrudged to the others the smallest
-share in a domain which all the nations of Europe could hardly have
-sufficed to fill.
-
-One evening, as the forlorn tenants of Port Royal sat together
-disconsolate, Biard was seized with a spirit of prophecy. He called upon
-Biencourt to serve out the little of wine that remained,--a proposal
-which met with high favor from the company present, though apparently
-with none from the youthful Vice-Admiral. The wine was ordered, however,
-and, as an unwonted cheer ran round the circle, the Jesuit announced
-that an inward voice told him how, within a month, they should see a
-ship from France. In truth, they saw one within a week. On the
-twentythird of January, 1612, arrived a small vessel laden with a
-moderate store of provisions and abundant seeds of future strife.
-
-This was the expected succor sent by Poutrincourt. A series of ruinous
-voyages had exhausted his resources but he had staked all on the success
-of the colony, had even brought his family to Acadia, and he would not
-leave them and his companions to perish. His credit was gone; his hopes
-were dashed; yet assistance was proffered, and, in his extremity, he was
-forced to accept it. It came from Madame de Guercheville and her Jesuit
-advisers. She offered to buy the interest of a thousand crowns in the
-enterprise. The ill-omened succor could not be refused; but this was not
-all. The zealous protectress of the missions obtained from De Monts,
-whose fortunes, like those of Poutrincouirt, had ebbed low, a transfer
-of all his claims to the lands of Acadia; while the young King, Louis
-the Thirteenth, was persuaded to give her, in addition, a new grant of
-all the territory of North America, from the St. Lawrence to Florida.
-Thus did Madame de Guercheville, or in other words, the Jesuits who used
-her name as a cover, become proprietors of the greater part of the
-future United States and British Provinces. The English colony of
-Virginia and the Dutch trading-houses of New York were included within
-the limits of this destined Northern Paraguay; while Port Royal, the
-seigniory of the unfortunate Poutrincourt, was encompassed, like a petty
-island, by the vast domain of the Society of Jesus. They could not
-deprive him of it, since his title had been confirmed by the late King,
-but they flattered themselves, to borrow their own language, that he
-would be "confined as in a prison." His grant, however, had been vaguely
-worded, and, while they held him restricted to an insignificant patch of
-ground, he claimed lordship over a wide and indefinite territory. Here
-was argument for endless strife. Other interests, too, were adverse.
-Poutrincourt, in his discouragement, had abandoned his plan of liberal
-colonization, and now thought of nothing but beaver-skins. He wished to
-make a trading-post; the Jesuits wished to make a mission.
-
-When the vessel anchored before Port Royal, Biencourt, with disgust and
-anger, saw another Jesuit landed at the pier. This was Gilbert du Thet,
-a lay brother, versed in affairs of this world, who had come out as
-representative and administrator of Madame de Guercheville.
-Poutrincourt, also, had his agent on board; and, without the loss of a
-day, the two began to quarrel. A truce ensued; then a smothered feud,
-pervading the whole colony, and ending in a notable explosion. The
-Jesuits, chafing under the sway of Biencourt, had withdrawn without
-ceremony, and betaken themselves to the vessel, intending to sail for
-France. Biencourt, exasperated at such a breach of discipline, and
-fearing their representations at court, ordered them to return, adding
-that, since the Queen had commended them to his especial care, he could
-not, in conscience, lose sight of them. The indignant fathers
-excommunicated him. On this, the sagamore Louis, son of the grisly
-convert Membertou, begged leave to kill them; but Biencourt would not
-countenance this summary mode of relieving his embarrassment. He again,
-in the King's name, ordered the clerical mutineers to return to the
-fort. Biard declared that he would not, threatened to excommunicate any
-who should lay hand on him, and called the Vice-Admiral a robber. His
-wrath, however, soon cooled; he yielded to necessity, and came quietly
-ashore, where, for the next three months, neither he nor his colleagues
-would say mass, or perform any office of religion. At length a change
-came over him; he made advances of peace, prayed that the past might be
-forgotten, said mass again, and closed with a petition that Brother du
-Thet might be allowed to go to France in a trading vessel then on the
-coast. His petition being granted, he wrote to Poutrincourt a letter
-overflowing with praises of his son; and, charged with this missive, Du
-Thet set sail.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-1613.
-
-LA SAUSSAYE.--ARGALL
-
-
-Pending these squabbles, the Jesuits at home were far from idle. Bent on
-ridding themselves of Poutrincourt, they seized, in satisfaction of
-debts due them, all the cargo of his returning vessel, and involved him
-in a network of litigation. If we accept his own statements in a letter
-to his friend Lescarbot, he was outrageously misused, and indeed
-defrauded, by his clerical copartners, who at length had him thrown into
-prison. Here, exasperated, weary, sick of Acadia, and anxious for the
-wretched exiles who looked to him for succor, the unfortunate man fell
-ill. Regaining his liberty, he again addressed himself with what
-strength remained to the forlorn task of sending relief to his son and
-his comrades.
-
-Scarcely had Brother Gilbert du Thet arrived in France, when Madame de
-Guercheville and her Jesuits, strong in court favor and in the charity
-of wealthy penitents, prepared to take possession of their empire beyond
-sea. Contributions were asked, and not in vain; for the sagacious
-fathers, mindful of every spring of influence, had deeply studied the
-mazes of feminine psychology, and then, as now, were favorite confessors
-of the fair. It was on the twelfth of March, 1613, that the "Mayflower"
-of the Jesuits sailed from Honfleur for the shores of New England. She
-was the "Jonas," formerly in the service of De Monts, a small craft
-bearing forty-eight sailors and colonists, including two Jesuits, Father
-Quentin and Brother Du Thet. She carried horses, too, and goats, and was
-abundantly stored with all things needful by the pious munificence of
-her patrons. A courtier named La Saussaye was chief of the colony,
-Captain Charles Fleury commanded. the ship, and, as she winged her way
-across the Atlantic, benedictions hovered over her from lordly halls and
-perfumed chambers.
-
-On the sixteenth of May, La Saussaye touched at La Heve, where he heard
-mass, planted a cross, and displayed the scutcheon of Madame de
-Guercheville. Thence, passing on to Port Royal, he found Biard, Masse,
-their servant-boy, an apothecary, and one man beside. Biencourt and his
-followers were scattered about the woods and shores, digging the
-tuberous roots called ground-nuts, catching alewives in the brooks, and
-by similar expedients sustaining their miserable existence. Taking the
-two Jesuits on board, the voyagers steered for the Penobscot. A fog rose
-upon the sea. They sailed to and fro, groping their way in blindness,
-straining their eyes through the mist, and trembling each instant lest
-they should descry the black outline of some deadly reef and the ghostly
-death-dance of the breakers, But Heaven heard their prayers. At night
-they could see the stars. The sun rose resplendent on a laughing sea,
-and his morning beams streamed fair and full on the wild heights of the
-island of Mount Desert. They entered a bay that stretched inland between
-iron-bound shores, and gave it the name of St. Sauveur. It is now called
-Frenchman's Bay. They saw a coast-line of weather-beaten crags set thick
-with spruce and fir, the surf-washed cliffs of Great Head and Schooner
-Head, the rocky front of Newport Mountain, patched with ragged woods,
-the arid domes of Dry Mountain and Green Mountain, the round bristly
-backs of the Porcupine Islands, and the waving outline of the
-Gouldsborough Hills.
-
-La Saussaye cast anchor not far from Schooner Head, and here he lay till
-evening. The jet-black shade betwixt crags and sea, the pines along the
-cliff, pencilled against the fiery sunset, the dreamy slumber of distant
-mountains bathed in shadowy purples--such is the scene that in this our
-day greets the wandering artist, the roving collegian bivouacked on the
-shore, or the pilgrim from stifled cities renewing his laded strength in
-the mighty life of Nature. Perhaps they then greeted the adventurous
-Frenchmen. There was peace on the wilderness and peace on the sea; but
-none in this missionary bark, pioneer of Christianity and civilization.
-A rabble of angry sailors clamored on her deck, ready to mutiny over the
-terms of their engagement. Should the time of their stay be reckoned
-from their landing at La Heve, or from their anchoring at Mount Desert?
-Fleury, the naval commander, took their part. Sailor, courtier, and
-priest gave tongue together in vociferous debate. Poutrincourt was far
-away, a ruined man, and the intractable Vice-Admiral had ceased from
-troubling; yet not the less were the omens of the pious enterprise
-sinister and dark. The company, however, went ashore, raised a cross,
-and heard mass.
-
-At a distance in the woods they saw the signal smoke of Indians, whom
-Biard lost no time in visiting. Some of them were from a village on the
-shore, three leagues westward. They urged the French to go with them to
-their wigwams. The astute savages had learned already how to deal with a
-Jesuit.
-
-"Our great chief, Asticou, is there. He wishes for baptism. He is very
-sick. He will die unbaptized. He will burn in hell, and it will be all
-your fault."
-
-This was enough. Biard embarked in a canoe, and they paddied him to the
-spot, where he found the great chief, Asticou, in his wigwam, with a
-heavy cold in the head. Disappointed of his charitable purpose, the
-priest consoled himself with observing the beauties of the neighboring
-shore, which seemed to him better fitted than St. Sauveur for the
-intended settlement. It was a gentle slope, descending to the water,
-covered with tall grass, and backed by rocky hills. It looked southeast
-upon a harbor where a fleet might ride at anchor, sheltered from the
-gales by a cluster of islands.
-
-The ship was brought to the spot, and the colonists disembarked. First
-they planted a cross; then they began their labors, and with their
-labors their quarrels. La Saussaye, zealous for agriculture, wished to
-break ground and raise crops immediately; the rest opposed him, wishing
-first to be housed and fortified. Fleury demanded that the ship should
-be unladen, and La Saussaye would not consent. Debate ran high, when
-suddenly all was harmony, and the disputants were friends once more in
-the pacification of a common danger.
-
-Far out at sea, beyond the islands that sheltered their harbor, they saw
-an approaching sail; and as she drew near, straining their anxious eyes,
-they could descry the red flags that streamed from her masthead and her
-stern; then the black muzzles of her cannon,--they counted seven on a
-side; then the throng of men upon her decks. The wind was brisk and
-fair; all her sails were set; she came on, writes a spectator, more
-swiftly than an arrow.
-
-Six years before, in 1607, the ships of Captain Newport had conveyed to
-the banks of James River the first vital germ of English colonization on
-the continent. Noble and wealthy speculators with Hispaniola, Mexico,
-and Peru for their inspiration, had combined to gather the fancied
-golden harvest of Virginia, received a charter from the Crown, and taken
-possession of their El Dorado. From tavern, gaming-house, and brothel
-was drawn the staple the colony,--ruined gentlemen, prodigal sons,
-disreputable retainers, debauched tradesmen. Yet it would be foul
-slander to affirm that the founders of Virginia were all of this stamp;
-for among the riotous crew were men of worth, and, above them all, a
-hero disguised by the homeliest of names. Again and again, in direst woe
-and jeopardy, the infant settlement owed its life to the heart and hand
-of John Smith.
-
-Several years had elapsed since Newport's voyage; and the colony,
-depleted by famine, disease, and an Indian war, had been recruited by
-fresh emigration, when one Samuel Argall arrived at Jamestown, captain
-of an illicit trading-vessel. He was a man of ability and force,--one
-of those compounds of craft and daring in which the age was fruitful;
-for the rest, unscrupulous and grasping. In the spring of 1613 he
-achieved a characteristic exploit,--the abduction of Pocahontas, that
-most interesting of young squaws, or, to borrow the style of the day, of
-Indian princesses. Sailing up the Potomac he lured her on board his
-ship, and then carried off the benefactress of the colony a prisoner to
-Jamestown. Here a young man of family, Rolfe, became enamoured of her,
-married her with more than ordinary ceremony, and thus secured a firm
-alliance between her tribesmen and the English.
-
-Meanwhile Argall had set forth on another enterprise. With a ship of one
-hundred and thirty tons, carrying fourteen guns and sixty men, he sailed
-in May for islands off the coast of Maine to fish, as he says for cod.
-He had a more important errand; for Sir Thomas Dale, Governor of
-Virginia, had commissioned him to expel the French from any settlement
-they might have made within the limits of King James's patents. Thick
-fogs involved him; and when the weather cleared he found himself not far
-from the Bay of Penobscot. Canoes came out from shore; the Indians
-climbed the ship's side, and, as they gained the deck, greeted the
-astonished English with an odd pantomime of bows and flourishes, which,
-in the belief of the latter, could have been learned from none but
-Frenchmen. By signs, too, and by often repeating the word Norman,--by
-which they always designated the French,--they betrayed the presence of
-the latter. Argall questioned them as well as his total ignorance of
-their language would permit, and learned, by signs, the position and
-numbers of the colonists. Clearly they were no match for him. Assuring
-the Indians that the Normans were his friends, and that he longed to see
-them, he retained one of the visitors as a guide, dismissed the rest
-with presents, and shaped his course for Mount Desert.
-
-Now the wild heights rose in view; now the English could see the masts
-of a small ship anchored in the sound; and now, as they rounded the
-islands, four white tents were visible on the grassy slope between the
-water and the woods. They were a gift from the Queen to Madame de
-Guercheville and her missionaries. Argall's men prepared for fight,
-while their Indian guide, amazed, broke into a howl of lamentation.
-
-On shore all was confusion. Bailleul, the pilot, went to reconnoitre,
-and ended by hiding among the islands. La Saussaye lost presence of
-mind, and did nothing for defence. La Motte, his lieutenant, with
-Captain Fleury, an ensign, a sergeant, the Jesuit Du Thet, and a few of
-the bravest men, hastened on board the vessel, but had no time to cast
-loose her cables. Argall bore down on them, with a furious din of drums
-and trumpets, showed his broadside, and replied to their hail with a
-volley of cannon and musket shot. "Fire! Fire!" screamed Fleury. But
-there was no gunner to obey, till Du Thet seized and applied the match.
-"The cannon made as much noise as the enemy's," writes Biard; but, as
-the inexperienced artillerist forgot to aim the piece, no other result
-ensued. Another storm of musketry, and Brother Gilbert du Thet rolled
-helpless on the deck.
-
-The French ship was mute. The English plied her for a time with shot,
-then lowered a boat and boarded. Under the awnings which covered her,
-dead and wounded men lay strewn about her deck, and among them the brave
-lay brother, smothering in his blood. He had his wish; for, on leaving
-France, he had prayed with uplifted hands that he might not return, but
-perish in that holy enterprise. Like the Order of which he was a humble
-member, he was a compound of qualities in appearance contradictory. La
-Motte, sword in hand, showed fight to the last, and won the esteem of
-his captors.
-
-The English landed without meeting any show of resistance, and ranged at
-will among the tents, the piles of baggage and stores, and the buildings
-and defences newly begun. Argall asked for the commander, but La
-Saussaye had fled to the woods. The crafty Englishman seized his chests,
-caused the locks to be picked, searched till he found the royal letters
-and commissions, withdrew them, replaced everything else as he had found
-it, and again closed the lids. In the morning, La Saussaye, between the
-English and starvation, preferred the former, and issued from his hiding
-place. Argall received him with studious courtesy. That country, he
-said, belonged to his master, King James. Doubtless they had authority
-from their own sovereign for thus encroaching upon it; and, for his
-part, he was prepared to yield all respect to the commissions of the
-King of France, that the peace between the two nations might not be
-disturbed. Therefore he prayed that the commissions might be shown to
-him. La Saussaye opened his chests. The royal signature was nowhere to
-be found. At this, Argall's courtesy was changed to wrath. He denounced
-the Frenchmen as robbers and pirates who deserved the gallows, removed
-their property on board his ship, and spent the afternoon in dividing it
-among his followers, The disconsolate French remained on the scene of
-their woes, where the greedy sailors as they came ashore would snatch
-from them, now a cloak, now a hat, and now a doublet, till the
-unfortunate colonists were left half naked. In other respects the
-English treated their captives well,--except two of them, whom they
-flogged; and Argall, whom Biard, after recounting his knavery, calls "a
-gentleman of noble courage," having gained his point, returned to his
-former courtesy.
-
-But how to dispose of the prisoners? Fifteen of them, including La
-Saussaye and the Jesuit Masse, were turned adrift in an open boat, at
-the mercy of the wilderness and the sea. Nearly all were lands-men; but
-while their unpractised hands were struggling with the oars, they were
-joined among the islands by the fugitive pilot and his boat's crew. Worn
-and half starved, the united bands made their perilous way eastward,
-stopping from time to time to hear mass, make a procession, or catch
-codfish. Thus sustained in the spirit and in the flesh, cheered too by
-the Indians, who proved fast friends in need, they crossed the Bay of
-Fundy, doubled Cape Sable, and followed the southern coast of Nova
-Scotia, till they happily fell in with two French trading-vessels, which
-bore them in safety to St. Malo.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-1613-1615.
-
-RUIN OF FRENCH ACADIA.
-
-
-"Praised be God, behold two thirds of our company safe in France,
-telling their strange adventures to their relatives and friends. And now
-you will wish to know what befell the rest of us." Thus writes Father
-Biard, who with his companions in misfortune, fourteen in all, prisoners
-on board Argall's ship and the prize, were borne captive to Virginia.
-Old Point Comfort was reached at length, the site of Fortress Monroe;
-Hampton Roads, renowned in our day for the sea-fight of the Titans;
-Sewell's Point; the Rip Raps; Newport News,--all household words in the
-ears of this generation. Now, far on their right, buried in the damp
-shade of immemorial verdure, lay, untrodden and voiceless, the fields
-where stretched the leaguering lines of Washington where the lilies of
-France floated beside the banners of the new-born republic, and where in
-later years embattled treason confronted the manhood of an outraged
-nation. And now before them they could descry the mast of small craft at
-anchor, a cluster of rude dwellings fresh from the axe, scattered
-tenements, and fields green with tobacco.
-
-Throughout the voyage the prisoners had been soothed with flattering
-tales of the benignity of the Governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale; of
-his love of the French, and his respect for the memory of Henry the
-Fourth, to whom, they were told, he was much beholden for countenance
-and favor. On their landing at Jamestown, this consoling picture was
-reversed. The Governor fumed and blustered, talked of halter and
-gallows, and declared that he would hang them all. In vain Argall
-remonstrated, urging that he had pledged his word for their lives. Dale,
-outraged by their invasion of British territory, was deaf to all
-appeals; till Argall, driven to extremity, displayed the stolen
-commissions, and proclaimed his stratagem, of which the French
-themselves had to that moment been ignorant. As they were accredited by
-their government, their lives at least were safe. Yet the wrath of Sir
-Thomas Dale still burned high. He summoned his council, and they
-resolved promptly to wipe off all stain of French intrusion from shores
-which King James claimed as his own.
-
-Their action was utterly unauthorized. The two kingdoms were at peace.
-James the First, by the patents of 1606, had granted all North America,
-from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, to the two
-companies of London and Plymouth,--Virginia being assigned to the
-former, while to the latter were given Maine and Acadia, with adjacent
-regions. Over these, though as yet the claimants had not taken
-possession of them, the authorities of Virginia had no color of
-jurisdiction. England claimed all North America, in virtue of the
-discovery of Cabot; and Sir Thomas Dale became the self-constituted
-champion of British rights, not the less zealous that his championship
-promised a harvest of booty.
-
-Argall's ship, the captured ship of La Saussaye, and another smaller
-vessel, were at once equipped and despatched on their errand of havoc.
-Argall commanded; and Biard, with Quentin and several others of the
-prisoners, were embarked with him. They shaped their course first for
-Mount Desert. Here they landed, levelled La Saussaye's unfinished
-defences, cut down the French cross, and planted one of their own in its
-place. Next they sought out the island of St. Croix, seized a quantity
-of salt, and razed to the ground all that remained of the dilapidated
-buildings of De Monts. They crossed the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal,
-guided, says Biard, by an Indian chief,--an improbable assertion, since
-the natives of these coasts hated the English as much as they loved the
-French, and now well knew the designs of the former. The unfortunate
-settlement was tenantless. Biencourt, with some of his men, was on a
-visit to neighboring bands of Indians, while the rest were reaping in
-the fields on the river, two leagues above the fort. Succor from
-Poutrincourt had arrived during the summer. The magazines were by no
-means empty, and there were cattle, horses, and hogs in adjacent fields
-and enclosures. Exulting at their good fortune, Argall's men butchered
-or carried off the animals, ransacked the buildings, plundered them even
-to the locks and bolts of the doors, and then laid the whole in ashes;
-"and may it please the Lord," adds the pious Biard, "that the sins
-therein committed may likewise have been consumed in that burning."
-
-Having demolished Port Royal, the marauders went in boats up the river
-to the fields where the reapers were at work. These fled, and took
-refuge behind the ridge of a hill, whence they gazed helplessly on the
-destruction of their harvest. Biard approached them, and, according to
-the declaration of Poutrincourt made and attested before the Admiralty
-of Guienne, tried to persuade them to desert his son, Biencourt, and
-take service with Argall. The reply of one of the men gave little
-encouragement for further parley:--
-
- "Begone, or I will split your head with this hatchet."
-
-There is flat contradiction here between the narrative of the Jesuit and
-the accounts of Poutrincourt and contemporary English writers, who agree
-in affirming that Biard, "out of indigestible malice that he had
-conceived against Biencourt," encouraged the attack on the settlements
-of St. Croix and Port Royal, and guided the English thither. The priest
-himself admits that both French and English regarded him as a traitor,
-and that his life was in danger. While Argall's ship was at anchor, a
-Frenchman shouted to the English from a distance that they would do well
-to kill him. The master of the ship, a Puritan, in his abomination of
-priests, and above all of Jesuits, was at the same time urging his
-commander to set Biard ashore and leave him to the mercy of his
-countrymen. In this pass he was saved, to adopt his own account, by what
-he calls his simplicity; for he tells us, that, while--instigated, like
-the rest of his enemies, by the Devil--the robber and the robbed were
-joining hands to ruin him, he was on his knees before Argall, begging
-him to take pity on the French, and leave them a boat, together with
-provisions to sustain their miserable lives through the winter. This
-spectacle of charity, he further says, so moved the noble heart of the
-commander, that he closed his ears to all the promptings of foreign and
-domestic malice.
-
-The English had scarcely re-embarked, when Biencourt arrived with his
-followers, and beheld the scene of destruction. Hopelessly outnumbered,
-he tried to lure Argall and some of his officers into an ambuscade, but
-they would not be entrapped. Biencourt now asked for an interview. The
-word of honor was mutually given, and the two chiefs met in a meadow not
-far from the demolished dwellings. An anonymous English writer says that
-Biencourt offered to transfer his allegiance to King James, on condition
-of being permitted to remain at Port Royal and carry on the fur-trade
-under a guaranty of English protection, but that Argall would not listen
-to his overtures. The interview proved a stormy one. Biard says that the
-Frenchmen vomited against him every species of malignant abuse. "In the
-mean time," he adds, "you will considerately observe to what madness the
-evil spirit exciteth those who sell themselves to him."
-
-According to Pontrincourt, Argall admitted that the priest had urged him
-to attack Port Royal. Certain it is that Biencourt demanded his
-surrender, frankly declaring that he meant to hang him. "Whilest they
-were discoursing together," says the old English writer above mentioned,
-"one of the savages, rushing suddenly forth from the Woods, and
-licentiated to come neere, did after his manner, with such broken French
-as he had, earnestly mediate a peace, wondring why they that seemed to
-be of one Country should vse others with such hostilitie, and that with
-such a forme of habit and gesture as made them both to laugh."
-
-His work done, and, as he thought, the French settlements of Acadia
-effectually blotted out, Argall set sail for Virginia on the thirteenth
-of November. Scarcely was he at sea when a storm scattered the vessels.
-Of the smallest of the three nothing was ever heard. Argall, severely
-buffeted, reached his port in safety, having first, it is said,
-compelled the Dutch at Manhattan to acknowledge for a time the
-sovereignty of King James. The captured ship of La Saussaye, with Biard
-and his colleague Quentin on board, was forced to yield to the fury of
-the western gales and bear away for the Azores. To Biard the change of
-destination was not unwelcome. He stood in fear of the truculent
-Governor of Virginia, and his tempest-rocked slumbers were haunted with
-unpleasant visions of a rope's end. It seems that some of the French at
-Port Royal, disappointed in their hope of hanging him, had commended him
-to Sir Thomas Dale as a proper subject for the gallows drawing up a
-paper, signed by six of them, and containing allegations of a nature
-well fitted to kindle the wrath of that vehement official. The vessel
-was commanded by Turnel, Argall's lieutenant, apparently an officer of
-merit, a scholar and linguist. He had treated his prisoner with great
-kindness, because, says the latter, "he esteemed and loved him for his
-naive simplicity and ingenuous candor." But of late, thinking his
-kindness misplaced, he had changed it for an extreme coldness,
-preferring, in the words of Biard himself, "to think that the Jesuit had
-lied, rather than so many who accused him."
-
-Water ran low, provisions began to fail, and they eked out their meagre
-supply by butchering the horses taken at Port Royal. At length they came
-within sight of Fayal, when a new terror seized the minds of the two
-Jesuits. Might not the Englishmen fear that their prisoners would
-denounce them to the fervent Catholics of that island as pirates and
-sacrilegious kidnappers of priests? From such hazard the escape was
-obvious. What more simple than to drop the priests into the sea? In
-truth, the English had no little dread of the results of conference
-between the Jesuits and the Portuguese authorities of Fayal; but the
-conscience or humanity of Turnel revolted at the expedient which
-awakened such apprehension in the troubled mind of Biard. He contented
-himself with requiring that the two priests should remain hidden while
-the ship lay off the port: Biard does not say that he enforced the
-demand either by threats or by the imposition of oaths. He and his
-companion, however, rigidiy complied with it, lying close in the hold or
-under the boats, while suspicious officials searched the ship, a proof,
-he triumphantly declares, of the audacious malice which has asserted it
-as a tenet of Rome that no faith need be kept with heretics.
-
-Once more at sea, Turnel shaped his course for home, having, with some
-difficulty, gained a supply of water and provisions at Fayal. All was
-now harmony between him and his prisoners. When he reached Pembroke, in
-Wales, the appearance of the vessel--a French craft in English hands--
-again drew upon him the suspicion of piracy. The Jesuits, dangerous
-witnesses among the Catholics of Fayal, could at the worst do little
-harm with the Vice-Admiral at Pembroke. To him, therefore, he led the
-prisoners, in the sable garb of their order, now much the worse for
-wear, and commended them as persons without reproach, "wherein," adds
-the modest father, "he spoke the truth." The result of their evidence
-was, we are told, that Turnel was henceforth treated, not as a pirate,
-but, according to his deserts, as an honorable gentleman. This interview
-led to a meeting with certain dignitaries of the Anglican Church, who,
-much interested in an encounter with Jesuits in their robes, were
-filled, says Biard, with wonder and admiration at what they were told of
-their conduct. He explains that these churchmen differ widely in form
-and doctrine from the English Calvinists, who, he says, are called
-Puritans; and he adds that they are superior in every respect to these,
-whom they detest as an execrable pest.
-
-Biard was sent to Dover and thence to Calais, returning, perhaps, to the
-tranquil honors of his chair of theology at Lyons. La Saussaye, La
-Motte, Fleury, and other prisoners were at various times sent from
-Virginia to England, and ultimately to France. Madame de Guercheville,
-her pious designs crushed in the bud, seems to have gained no further
-satisfaction than the restoration of the vessel. The French ambassador
-complained of the outrage, but answer was postponed; and, in the
-troubled state of France, the matter appears to have been dropped.
-
-Argall, whose violent and crafty character was offset by a gallant
-bearing and various traits of martial virtue, became Deputy-Governor of
-Virginia, and, under a military code, ruled the colony with a rod of
-iron. He enforced the observance of Sunday with an edifying rigor. Those
-who absented themselves from church were, for the first offence,
-imprisoned for the night, and reduced to slavery for a week; for the
-second offence, enslaved a month and for the third, a year. Nor was he
-less strenuous in his devotion to mammon. He enriched himself by
-extortion and wholesale peculation; and his audacious dexterity, aided
-by the countenance of the Earl of Warwick, who is said to have had a
-trading connection with him, thwarted all the efforts of the company to
-bring him to account. In 1623, he was knighted by the hand of King
-James.
-
-Early in the spring following the English attack, Pontrincourt came to
-Port Royal. He found the place in ashes, and his unfortunate son, with
-the men under his command, wandering houseless in the forests. They had
-passed a winter of extreme misery, sustaining their wretched existence
-with roots, the buds of trees, and lichens peeled from the rocks.
-
-Despairing of his enterprise, Poutrincourt returned to France. In the
-next year, 1615, during the civil disturbances which followed the
-marriage of the King, command was given him of the royal forces destined
-for the attack on Mery; and here, happier in his death than in his life,
-he fell, sword in hand.
-
-In spite of their reverses, the French kept hold on Acadia. Biencourt,
-partially at least, rebuilt Port Royal; while winter after winter the
-smoke of fur traders' huts curled into the still, sharp air of these
-frosty wilds, till at length, with happier auspices, plans of settlement
-were resumed.
-
-Rude hands strangled the "Northern Paraguay" in its birth. Its
-beginnings had been feeble, but behind were the forces of a mighty
-organization, at once devoted and ambitious, enthusiastic and
-calculating. Seven years later the "Mayflower" landed her emigrants at
-Plymouth. What would have been the issues had the zeal of the pious lady
-of honor preoccupied New England with a Jesuit colony?
-
-In an obscure stroke of lawless violence began the strife of France and
-England, Protestantism and Rome, which for a century and a half shook
-the struggling communities of North America, and closed at last in the
-memorable triumph on the Plains of Abraham.
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER--IX.
-
-1608, 1609.
-
-CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC.
-
-A LONELY ship sailed up the St. Lawrence. The white whales floundering
-in the Bay of Tadoussac, and the wild duck diving as the foaming prow
-drew near,--there was no life but these in all that watery solitude,
-twenty miles from shore to shore. The ship was from Honfleur, and was
-commanded by Samuel de Champlain. He was the AEneas of a destined
-people, and in her womb lay the embryo life of Canada.
-
-De Monts, after his exclusive privilege of trade was revoked and his
-Acadian enterprise ruined, had, as we have seen, abandoned it to
-Poutrincourt. Perhaps would it have been well for him had he abandoned
-with it all Transatlantic enterprises; but the passion for discovery and
-the noble ambition of founding colonies had taken possession of his
-mind. These, rather than a mere hope of gain, seem to have been his
-controlling motives; yet the profits of the fur-trade were vital to the
-new designs he was meditating, to meet the heavy outlay they demanded,
-and he solicited and obtained a fresh monopoly of the traffic for one
-year.
-
-Champlain was, at the time, in Paris; but his unquiet thoughts turned
-westward. He was enamoured of the New World, whose rugged charms had
-seized his fancy and his heart; and as explorers of Arctic seas have
-pined in their repose for polar ice and snow, so did his restless
-thoughts revert to the fog-wrapped coasts, the piny odors of forests,
-the noise of waters, the sharp and piercing sunlight, so dear to his
-remembrance. He longed to unveil the mystery of that boundless
-wilderness, and plant the Catholic faith and the power of France amid
-its ancient barbarism.
-
-Five years before, he had explored the St. Lawrence as far as the rapids
-above Montreal. On its banks, as he thought, was the true site for a
-settlement,--a fortified post, whence, as from a secure basis, the
-waters of the vast interior might be traced back towards their sources,
-and a western route discovered to China and Japan. For the fur-trade,
-too, the innumerable streams that descended to the great river might all
-be closed against foreign intrusion by a single fort at some commanding
-point, and made tributary to a rich and permanent commerce; while--and
-this was nearer to his heart, for he had often been heard to say that
-the saving of a soul was worth more than the conquest of an empire--
-countless savage tribes, in the bondage of Satan, might by the same
-avenues be reached and redeemed.
-
-De Monts embraced his views; and, fitting out two ships, gave command of
-one to the elder Pontgrave, of the other to Champlain. The former was to
-trade with the Indians and bring back the cargo of furs which, it was
-hoped, would meet the expense of the voyage. To Champlain fell the
-harder task of settlement and exploration.
-
-Pontgrave, laden with goods for the Indian trade of Tadoussac sailed
-from Honfleur on the fifth of April, 1608. Champlain, with men, arms,
-and stores for the colony, followed, eight days later. On the fifteenth
-of May he was on the Grand Bank; on the thirtieth he passed Gaspe, and
-on the third of June neared Tadoussac. No living thing was to be seen.
-He anchored, lowered a boat, and rowed into the port, round the rocky
-point at the southeast, then, from the fury of its winds and currents,
-called La Pointe de Tous les Diables. There was life enough within, and
-more than he cared to find. In the still anchorage under the cliffs lay
-Pontgrave's vessel, and at her side another ship, which proved to be a
-Basque furtrader.
-
-Poutgrave, arriving a few days before, had found himself anticipated by
-the Basques, who were busied in a brisk trade with bands of Indians
-cabined along the borders of the cove. He displayed the royal letters,
-and commanded a cessation of the prohibited traffic; but the Basques
-proved refractory, declared that they would trade in spite of the King,
-fired on Pontgrave with cannon and musketry, wounded him and two of his
-men, and killed a third. They then boarded his vessel, and carried away
-all his cannon, small arms, and ammunition, saying that they would
-restore them when they had finished their trade and were ready to return
-home.
-
-Champlain found his comrade on shore, in a disabled condition. The
-Basques, though still strong enough to make fight, were alarmed for the
-consequences of their conduct, and anxious to come to terms. A peace,
-therefore, was signed on board their vessel; all differences were
-referred to the judgment of the French courts, harmony was restored, and
-the choleric strangers betook themselves to catching whales.
-
-This port of Tadoussac was long the centre of the Canadian fur-trade. A
-desolation of barren mountains closes round it, betwixt whose ribs of
-rugged granite, bristling with savins, birches, and firs, the Saguenay
-rolls its gloomy waters from the northern wilderness. Centuries of
-civilization have not tamed the wildness of the place; and still, in
-grim repose, the mountains hold their guard around the waveless lake
-that glistens in their shadow, and doubles, in its sullen mirror, crag,
-precipice, and forest.
-
-Near the brink of the cove or harbor where the vessels lay, and a little
-below the mouth of a brook which formed one of the outlets of this small
-lake, stood the remains of the wooden barrack built by Chauvin eight
-years before. Above the brook were the lodges of an Indian camp,--
-stacks of poles covered with birch-bark. They belonged to an Algonquin
-horde, called Montagnais, denizens of surrounding wilds, and gatherers
-of their only harvest,--skins of the moose, caribou, and bear; fur of
-the beaver, marten, otter, fox, wild-cat, and lynx. Nor was this all,
-for there were intermediate traders betwixt the French and the shivering
-bands who roamed the weary stretch of stunted forest between the
-head-waters of the Saguenay and Hudson's Bay. Indefatigable canoe-men,
-in their birchen vessels, light as eggshells, they threaded the devious
-tracks of countless rippling streams, shady by-ways of the forest, where
-the wild duck scarcely finds depth to swim; then descended to their mart
-along those scenes of picturesque yet dreary grandeur which steam has
-made familiar to modern tourists. With slowly moving paddles they glided
-beneath the cliff whose shaggy brows frown across the zenith, and whose
-base the deep waves wash with a hoarse and hollow cadence; and they
-passed the sepulchral Bay of the Trinity, dark as the tide of Acheron,--
-a sanctuary of solitude and silence: depths which, as the fable runs, no
-sounding line can fathom, and heights at whose dizzy verge the wheeling
-eagle seems a speck.
-
-Peace being established with the Basques, and the wounded Pontgrave
-busied, as far as might be, in transferring to the hold of his ship the
-rich lading of the Indian canoes, Champlain spread his sails, and again
-held his course up the St. Lawrence. Far to the south, in sun and
-shadow, slumbered the woody mountains whence fell the countless springs
-of the St. John, behind tenantless shores, now white with glimmering
-villages,--La Chenaic, Granville, Kamouraska, St. Roche, St. Jean,
-Vincelot, Berthier. But on the north the jealous wilderness still
-asserts its sway, crowding to the river's verge its walls, domes, and
-towers of granite; and, to this hour, its solitude is scarcely broken.
-
-Above the point of the Island of Orleans, a constriction of the vast
-channel narrows it to less than a mile, with the green heights of Point
-Levi on one side, and on the other the cliffs of Quebec. Here, a small
-stream, the St. Charles, enters the St. Lawrence, and in the angle
-betwixt them rises the promontory on two sides a natural fortress.
-Between the cliffs and the river lay a strand covered with walnuts and
-other trees. From this strand, by a rough passage gullied downward from
-the place where Prescott Gate now guards the way, one might climb the
-height to the broken plateau above, now burdened with its ponderous load
-of churches, convents, dwellings, ramparts, and batteries. Thence, by a
-gradual ascent, the rock sloped upward to its highest summit, Cape
-Diamond, looking down on the St. Lawrence from a height of three hundred
-and fifty feet. Here the citadel now stands; then the fierce sun fell on
-the bald, baking rock, with its crisped mosses and parched lichens. Two
-centuries and a half have quickened the solitude with swarming life,
-covered the deep bosom of the river with barge and steamer and gliding
-sail, and reared cities and villages on the site of forests; but nothing
-can destroy the surpassing grandeur of the scene.
-
-On the strand between the water and the cliffs Champlain's axemen fell
-to their work. They were pioneers of an advancing host,--advancing, it
-is true, with feeble and uncertain progress,--priests, soldiers,
-peasants, feudal scutcheons, royal insignia: not the Middle Age, but
-engendered of it by the stronger life of modern centralization, sharply
-stamped with a parental likeness, heir to parental weakness and parental
-force.
-
-In a few weeks a pile of wooden buildings rose on the brink of the St.
-Lawrence, on or near the site of the marketplace of the Lower Town of
-Quebec. The pencil of Champlain, always regardless of proportion and
-perspective, has preserved its likeness. A strong wooden wall,
-surmounted by a gallery loop-holed for musketry, enclosed three
-buildings, containing quarters for himself and his men, together with a
-courtyard, from one side of which rose a tall dove-cot, like a belfry. A
-moat surrounded the whole, and two or three small cannon were planted on
-salient platforms towards the river. There was a large storehouse near
-at hand, and a part of the adjacent ground was laid out as a garden.
-
-In this garden Champlain was one morning directing his laborers, when
-Tetu, his pilot, approached him with an anxious countenance, and
-muttered a request to speak with him in private. Champlain assenting,
-they withdrew to the neighboring woods, when the pilot disburdened
-himself of his secret. One Antoine Natel, a locksmith, smitten by
-conscience or fear, had revealed to him a conspiracy to murder his
-commander and deliver Quebec into the hands of the Basques and Spaniards
-then at Tadoussac. Another locksmith, named Duval, was author of the
-plot, and, with the aid of three accomplices, had befooled or frightened
-nearly all the company into taking part in it. Each was assured that he
-should make his fortune, and all were mutually pledged to poniard the
-first betrayer of the secret. The critical point of their enterprise was
-the killing of Champlain. Some were for strangling him, some for raising
-a false alarm in the night and shooting him as he came out from his
-quarters.
-
-Having heard the pilot's story, Champlain, remaining in the woods,
-desired his informant to find Antoine Natel, and bring him to the spot.
-Natel soon appeared, trembling with excitement and fear, and a close
-examination left no doubt of the truth of his statement. A small vessel,
-built by Pontgrave at Tadoussac, had lately arrived, and orders were now
-given that it should anchor close at hand. On board was a young man in
-whom confidence could be placed. Champlain sent him two bottles of wine,
-with a direction to tell the four ringleaders that they had been given
-him by his Basque friends at Tadoussac, and to invite them to share the
-good cheer. They came aboard in the evening, and were seized and
-secured. "Voyla done mes galants bien estonnez," writes Champlain.
-
-It was ten o'clock, and most of the men on shore were asleep. They were
-wakened suddenly, and told of the discovery of the plot and the arrest
-of the ringleaders. Pardon was then promised them, and they were
-dismissed again to their beds, greatly relieved; for they had lived in
-trepidation, each fearing the other. Duval's body, swinging from a
-gibbet, gave wholesome warning to those he had seduced; and his head was
-displayed on a pike, from the highest roof of the buildings, food for
-birds and a lesson to sedition. His three accomplices were carried by
-Pontgrave to France, where they made their atonement in the galleys.
-
-It was on the eighteenth of September that Pontgrave set sail, leaving
-Champlain with twenty-eight men to hold Quebec through the winter. Three
-weeks later, and shores and hills glowed with gay prognostics of
-approaching desolation,--the yellow and scarlet of the maples, the deep
-purple of the ash, the garnet hue of young oaks, the crimson of the
-tupelo at the water's edge, and the golden plumage of birch saplings in
-the fissures of the cliff. It was a short-lived beauty. The forest
-dropped its festal robes. Shrivelled and faded, they rustled to the
-earth. The crystal air and laughing sun of October passed away, and
-November sank upon the shivering waste, chill and sombre as the tomb.
-
-A roving band of Montagnais had built their huts near the buildings, and
-were busying themselves with their autumn eel-fishery, on which they
-greatly relied to sustain their miserable lives through the winter.
-Their slimy harvest being gathered, and duly smoked and dried, they gave
-it for safe-keeping to Champlain, and set out to hunt beavers. It was
-deep in the winter before they came back, reclaimed their eels, built
-their birch cabins again, and disposed themselves for a life of ease,
-until famine or their enemies should put an end to their enjoyments.
-These were by no means without alloy. While, gorged with food, they lay
-dozing on piles of branches in their smoky huts, where, through the
-crevices of the thin birch bark, streamed in a cold capable at times of
-congealing mercury, their slumbers were beset with nightmare visions of
-Iroquois forays, scalpings, butcherings, and burnings. As dreams were
-their oracles, the camp was wild with fright. They sent out no scouts
-and placed no guard; but, with each repetition of these nocturnal
-terrors, they came flocking in a body to beg admission within the fort.
-The women and children were allowed to enter the yard and remain during
-the night, while anxious fathers and jealous husbands shivered in the
-darkness without.
-
-On one occasion, a group of wretched beings was seen on the farther bank
-of the St. Lawrence, like wild animals driven by famine to the borders
-of the settler's clearing. The river was full of drifting ice, and there
-was no crossing without risk of life. The Indians, in their desperation,
-made the attempt; and midway their canoes were ground to atoms among the
-tossing masses. Agile as wild-cats, they all leaped upon a huge raft of
-ice, the squaws carrying their children on their shoulders, a feat at
-which Champlain marveled when he saw their starved and emaciated
-condition. Here they began a wail of despair; when happily the pressure
-of other masses thrust the sheet of ice against the northern shore. They
-landed and soon made their appearance at the fort, worn to skeletons and
-horrible to look upon. The French gave them food, which they devoured
-with a frenzied avidity, and, unappeased, fell upon a dead dog left on
-the snow by Champlain for two months past as a bait for foxes. They
-broke this carrion into fragments, and thawed and devoured it, to the
-disgust of the spectators, who tried vainly to prevent them.
-
-This was but a severe access of the periodical famine which, during
-winter, was a normal condition of the Algonquin tribes of Acadia and the
-Lower St. Lawrence, who, unlike the cognate tribes of New England, never
-tilled the soil, or made any reasonable provision against the time of
-need.
-
-One would gladly know how the founders of Quebec spent the long hours of
-their first winter; but on this point the only man among them, perhaps,
-who could write, has not thought it necessary to enlarge. He himself
-beguiled his leisure with trapping foxes, or hanging a dead dog from a
-tree and watching the hungry martens in their efforts to reach it.
-Towards the close of winter, all found abundant employment in nursing
-themselves or their neighbors, for the inevitable scurvy broke out with
-virulence. At the middle of May, only eight men of the twenty-eight were
-alive, and of these half were suffering from disease.
-
-This wintry purgatory wore away; the icy stalactites that hung from the
-cliffs fell crashing to the earth; the clamor of the wild geese was
-heard; the bluebirds appeared in the naked woods; the water-willows were
-covered with their soft caterpillar-like blossoms; the twigs of the
-swamp maple were flushed with ruddy bloom; the ash hung out its black
-tufts; the shad-bush seemed a wreath of snow; the white stars of the
-bloodroot gleamed among dank, fallen leaves; and in the young grass of
-the wet meadows the marsh-marigolds shone like spots of gold.
-
-Great was the joy of Champlain when, on the fifth of June, he saw a
-sailboat rounding the Point of Orleans, betokening that the spring had
-brought with it the longed for succors. A son-in-law of Pontgrave, named
-Marais, was on board, and he reported that Pontgrave was then at
-Tadoussac, where he had lately arrived. Thither Champlain hastened, to
-take counsel with his comrade. His constitution or his courage had
-defied the scurvy. They met, and it was determined betwixt them, that,
-while Pontgrave remained in charge of Quebec, Champlain should enter at
-once on his long meditated explorations, by which, like La Salle seventy
-years later, he had good hope of finding a way to China.
-
-But there was a lion in the path. The Indian tribes, to whom peace was
-unknown, infested with their scalping parties the streams and pathways
-of the forest, and increased tenfold its inseparable risks. The after
-career of Champlain gives abundant proof that he was more than
-indifferent to all such chances; yet now an expedient for evading them
-offered itself, so consonant with his instincts that he was glad to
-accept it.
-
-During the last autumn, a young chief from the banks of the then unknown
-Ottawa had been at Quebec; and, amazed at what he saw, he had begged
-Champlain to join him in the spring against his enemies. These enemies
-were a formidable race of savages,--the Iroquois, or Five Confederate
-Nations, who dwelt in fortified villages within limits now embraced by
-the State of New York, and who were a terror to all the surrounding
-forests. They were deadly foes of their kindred the Hurons, who dwelt on
-the lake which bears their name, and were allies of Algonquin bands on
-the Ottawa. All alike were tillers of the soil, living at ease when
-compared with the famished Algonquins of the Lower St. Lawrence.
-
-By joining these Hurons and Algonquins against their Iroquois enemies,
-Champlain might make himself the indispensable ally and leader of the
-tribes of Canada, and at the same time fight his way to discovery in
-regions which otherwise were barred against him. From first to last it
-was the policy of France in America to mingle in Indian politics, hold
-the balance of power between adverse tribes, and envelop in the network
-of her power and diplomacy the remotest hordes of the wilderness. Of
-this policy the Father of New France may perhaps be held to have set a
-rash and premature example. Yet while he was apparently following the
-dictates of his own adventurous spirit, it became evident, a few years
-later, that under his thirst for discovery and spirit of knight-errantry
-lay a consistent and deliberate purpose. That it had already assumed a
-definite shape is not likely; but his after course makes it plain that,
-in embroiling himself and his colony with the most formidable savages on
-the continent, he was by no means acting so recklessly as at first sight
-would appear.
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-1609.
-
-LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
-
-It was past the middle of June, and the expected warriors from the upper
-country had not come,--a delay which seems to have given Champlain
-little concern, for, without waiting longer, he set out with no better
-allies than a band of Montagnais. But, as he moved up the St. Lawrence,
-he saw, thickly clustered in the bordering forest, the lodges of an
-Indian camp, and, landing, found his Huron and Algonquin allies. Few of
-them had ever seen a white man, and they surrounded the steel-clad
-strangers in speechless wonder. Champlain asked for their chief, and the
-staring throng moved with him towards a lodge where sat, not one chief,
-but two; for each band had its own. There were feasting, smoking, and
-speeches; and, the needful ceremony over, all descended together to
-Quebec; for the strangers were bent on seeing those wonders of
-architecture, the fame of which had pierced the recesses of their
-forests.
-
-On their arrival, they feasted their eyes and glutted their appetites;
-yelped consternation at the sharp explosions of the arquebuse and the
-roar of the cannon; pitched their camps, and bedecked themselves for
-their war-dance. In the still night, their fire glared against the black
-and jagged cliff, and the fierce red light fell on tawny limbs convulsed
-with frenzied gestures and ferocious stampings on contorted visages,
-hideous with paint; on brandished weapons, stone war-clubs, stone
-hatchets, and stone-pointed lances; while the drum kept up its hollow
-boom, and the air was split with mingled yells.
-
-The war-feast followed, and then all embarked together. Champlain was in
-a small shallop, carrying, besides himself, eleven men of Pontgrave's
-party, including his son-in-law Marais and the pilot La Routte. They
-were armed with the arquebuse,--a matchlock or firelock somewhat like
-the modern carbine, and from its shortness not ill suited for use in the
-forest. On the twenty-eighth of June they spread their sails and held
-their course against the current, while around them the river was alive
-with canoes, and hundreds of naked arms plied the paddle with a steady,
-measured sweep. They crossed the Lake of St. Peter, threaded the devious
-channels among its many islands, and reached at last the mouth of the
-Riviere des Iroquois, since called the Richelien, or the St. John. Here,
-probably on the site of the town of Sorel, the leisurely warriors
-encamped for two days, hunted, fished, and took their ease, regaling
-their allies with venison and wildfowl. They quarrelled, too; three
-fourths of their number seceded, took to their canoes in dudgeon, and
-paddled towards their homes, while the rest pursued their course up the
-broad and placid stream.
-
-Walls of verdure stretched on left and right. Now, aloft in the lonely
-air rose the cliffs of Belceil, and now, before them, framed in circling
-forests, the Basin of Chambly spread its tranquil mirror, glittering in
-the sun. The shallop outsailed the canoes. Champlain, leaving his allies
-behind, crossed the basin and tried to pursue his course; but, as he
-listened in the stillness, the unwelcome noise of rapids reached his
-ear, and, by glimpses through the dark foliage of the Islets of St. John
-he could see the gleam of snowy foam and the flash of hurrying waters.
-Leaving the boat by the shore in charge of four men, he went with
-Marais, La Routte, and five others, to explore the wild before him. They
-pushed their way through the damps and shadows of the wood, through
-thickets and tangled vines, over mossy rocks and mouldering logs. Still
-the hoarse surging of the rapids followed them; and when, parting the
-screen of foliage, they looked out upon the river, they saw it thick set
-with rocks where, plunging over ledges, gurgling under drift-logs,
-darting along clefts, and boiling in chasms, the angry waters filled the
-solitude with monotonous ravings.
-
-Champlain retraced his steps. He had learned the value of an Indian's
-word. His allies had promised him that his boat could pass unobstructed
-throughout the whole journey. "It afflicted me," he says, "and troubled
-me exceedingly to be obliged to return without having seen so great a
-lake, full of fair islands and bordered with the fine countries which
-they had described to me."
-
-When he reached the boat, he found the whole savage crew gathered at the
-spot. He mildly rebuked their bad faith, but added, that, though they
-had deceived him, he, as far as might be, would fulfil his pledge. To
-this end, he directed Marais, with the boat and the greater part of the
-men, to return to Quebec, while he, with two who offered to follow him,
-should proceed in the Indian canoes.
-
-The warriors lifted their canoes from the water, and bore them on their
-shoulders half a league through the forest to the smoother stream above.
-Here the chiefs made a muster of their forces, counting twenty-four
-canoes and sixty warriors. All embarked again, and advanced once more,
-by marsh, meadow, forest, and scattered islands,--then full of game,
-for it was an uninhabited land, the war-path and battleground of hostile
-tribes. The warriors observed a certain system in their advance. Some
-were in front as a vanguard; others formed the main body; while an equal
-number were in the forests on the flanks and rear, hunting for the
-subsistence of the whole; for, though they had a provision of parched
-maize pounded into meal, they kept it for use when, from the vicinity of
-the enemy, hunting should become impossible.
-
-Late in the day they landed and drew up their canoes, ranging them
-closely, side by side. Some stripped sheets of bark, to cover their camp
-sheds; others gathered wood, the forest being full of dead, dry trees;
-others felled the living trees, for a barricade. They seem to have had
-steel axes, obtained by barter from the French; for in less than two
-hours they had made a strong defensive work, in the form of a
-half-circle, open on the river side, where their canoes lay on the
-strand, and large enough to enclose all their huts and sheds.[FN#28]
-Some of their number had gone forward as scouts, and, returning,
-reported no signs of an enemy. This was the extent of their precaution,
-for they placed no guard, but all, in full security, stretched
-themselves to sleep,--a vicious custom from which the lazy warrior of
-the forest rarely departs.
-
-They had not forgotten, however, to consult their oracle. The
-medicine-man pitched his magic lodge in the woods, formed of a small
-stack of poles, planted in a circle and brought together at the tops
-like stacked muskets. Over these he placed the filthy deer-skins which
-served him for a robe, and, creeping in at a narrow opening, hid himself
-from view. Crouched in a ball upon the earth, he invoked the spirits in
-mumbling inarticulate tones; while his naked auditory, squatted on the
-ground like apes, listened in wonder and awe. Suddenly, the lodge moved,
-rocking with violence to and fro,--by the power of the spirits, as the
-Indians thought, while Champlain could plainly see the tawny fist of the
-medicine-man shaking the poles. They begged him to keep a watchful eye
-on the peak of the lodge, whence fire and smoke would presently issue;
-but with the best efforts of his vision, he discovered none. Meanwhile
-the medicine-man was seized with such convulsions, that, when his
-divination was over, his naked body streamed with perspiration. In loud,
-clear tones, and in an unknown tongue, he invoked the spirit, who was
-understood to be present in the form of a stone, and whose feeble and
-squeaking accents were heard at intervals, like the wail of a young
-puppy.
-
-In this manner they consulted the spirit--as Champlain thinks, the
-Devil--at all their camps. His replies, for the most part, seem to have
-given them great content; yet they took other measures, of which the
-military advantages were less questionable. The principal chief gathered
-bundles of sticks, and, without wasting his breath, stuck them in the
-earth in a certain order, calling each by the name of some warrior, a
-few taller than the rest representing the subordinate chiefs. Thus was
-indicated the position which each was to hold in the expected battle.
-All gathered round and attentively studied the sticks, ranged like a
-child's wooden soldiers, or the pieces on a chessboard; then, with no
-further instruction, they formed their ranks, broke them, and reformed
-them again and again with excellent alacrity and skill.
-
-Again the canoes advanced, the river widening as they went. Great
-islands appeared, leagues in extent,--Isle a la Motte, Long Island,
-Grande Isle; channels where ships might float and broad reaches of water
-stretched between them, and Champlain entered the lake which preserves
-his name to posterity. Cumberland Head was passed, and from the opening
-of the great channel between Grande Isle and the main he could look
-forth on the wilderness sea. Edged with woods, the tranquil flood spread
-southward beyond the sight. Far on the left rose the forest ridges of
-the Green Mountains, and on the right the Adirondacks,--haunts in these
-later years of amateur sportsmen from counting-rooms or college halls.
-Then the Iroquois made them their hunting-ground; and beyond, in the
-valleys of the Mohawk, the Onondaga, and the Genesce, stretched the long
-line of their five cantons and palisaded towns.
-
-At night they encamped again. The scene is a familiar one to many a
-tourist; and perhaps, standing at sunset on the peaceful strand,
-Champlain saw what a roving student of this generation has seen on those
-same shores, at that same hour,--the glow of the vanished sun behind
-the western mountains, darkly piled in mist and shadow along the sky;
-near at hand, the dead pine, mighty in decay, stretching its ragged arms
-athwart the burning heaven, the crow perched on its top like an image
-carved in jet; and aloft, the nighthawk, circling in his flight, and,
-with a strange whirring sound, diving through the air each moment for
-the insects he makes his prey.
-
-The progress of the party was becoming dangerous. They changed their
-mode of advance and moved only in the night. All day they lay close in
-the depth of the forest, sleeping, lounging, smoking tobacco of their
-own raising, and beguiling the hours, no doubt, with the shallow banter
-and obscene jesting with which knots of Indians are wont to amuse their
-leisure. At twilight they embarked again, paddling their cautious way
-till the eastern sky began to redden. Their goal was the rocky
-promontory where Fort Ticonderoga was long afterward built. Thence, they
-would pass the outlet of Lake George, and launch their canoes again on
-that Como of the wilderness, whose waters, limpid as a fountain-head,
-stretched far southward between their flanking mountains. Landing at the
-future site of Fort William Henry, they would carry their canoes through
-the forest to the river Hudson, and, descending it, attack perhaps some
-outlying town of the Mohawks. In the next century this chain of lakes
-and rivers became the grand highway of savage and civilized war, linked
-to memories of momentous conflicts.
-
-The allies were spared so long a progress. On the morning of the
-twenty-ninth of July, after paddling all night, they hid as usual in the
-forest on the western shore, apparently between Crown Point and
-Ticonderoga. The warriors stretched themselves to their slumbers, and
-Champlain, after walking till nine or ten o'clock through the
-surrounding woods, returned to take his repose on a pile of
-spruce-boughs. Sleeping, he dreamed a dream, wherein he beheld the
-Iroquois drowning in the lake; and, trying to rescue them, he was told
-by his Algonquin friends that they were good for nothing, and had better
-be left to their fate. For some time past he had been beset every
-morning by his superstitious allies, eager to learn about his dreams;
-and, to this moment, his unbroken slumbers had failed to furnish the
-desired prognostics. The announcement of this auspicious vision filled
-the crowd with joy, and at nightfall they embarked, flushed with
-anticipated victories.
-
-It was ten o'clock in the evening, when, near a projecting point of
-land, which was probably Ticonderoga, they descried dark objects in
-motion on the lake before them. These were a flotilla of Iroquois
-canoes, heavier and slower than theirs, for they were made of oak bark.
-Each party saw the other, and the mingled war-cries pealed over the
-darkened water. The Iroquois, who were near the shore, having no stomach
-for an aquatic battle, landed, and, making night hideous with their
-clamors, began to barricade themselves. Champlain could see them in the
-woods, laboring like beavers, hacking down trees with iron axes taken
-from the Canadian tribes in war, and with stone hatchets of their own
-making. The allies remained on the lake, a bowshot from the hostile
-barricade, their canoes made fast together by poles lashed across. All
-night they danced with as much vigor as the frailty of their vessels
-would permit, their throats making amends for the enforced restraint of
-their limbs. It was agreed on both sides that the fight should be
-deferred till daybreak; but meanwhile a commerce of abuse, sarcasm,
-menace, and boasting gave unceasing exercise to the lungs and fancy of
-the combatants, "much," says Champlain, "like the besiegers and besieged
-in a beleaguered town."
-
-As day approached, he and his two followers put on the light armor of
-the time. Champlain wore the doublet and long hose then in vogue. Over
-the doublet he buckled on a breastplate, and probably a back-piece,
-while his thighs were protected by cuisses of steel, and his head by a
-plumed casque. Across his shoulder hung the strap of his bandoleer, or
-ammunition-box; at his side was his sword, and in his hand his
-arquebuse. Such was the equipment of this ancient Indian-fighter, whose
-exploits date eleven years before the landing of the Puritans at
-Plymouth, and sixty-six years before King Philip's War.
-
-Each of the three Frenchmen was in a separate canoe, and, as it grew
-light, they kept themselves hidden, either by lying at the bottom, or
-covering themselves with an Indian robe. The canoes approached the
-shore, and all landed without opposition at some distance from the
-Iroquois, whom they presently could see filing out of their barricade,
--tall, strong men, some two hundred in number, the boldest and fiercest
-warriors of North America. They advanced through the forest with a
-steadiness which excited the admiration of Champlain. Among them could
-be seen three chiefs, made conspicuous by their tall plumes. Some bore
-shields of wood and hide, and some were covered with a kind of armor
-made of tough twigs interlaced with a vegetable fibre supposed by
-Champlain to be cotton.[FN#29]
-
-The allies, growing anxious, called with loud cries for their champion,
-and opened their ranks that he might pass to the front. He did so, and,
-advancing before his red companions in arms, stood revealed to the gaze
-of the Iroquois, who, beholding the warlike apparition in their path,
-stared in mute amazement. "I looked at them," says Champlain, "and they
-looked at me. When I saw them getting ready to shoot their arrows at us,
-I levelled my arquebuse, which I had loaded with four balls, and aimed
-straight at one of the three chiefs. The shot brought down two, and
-wounded another. On this, our Indians set up such a yelling that one
-could not have heard a thunder-clap, and all the while the arrows flew
-thick on both sides. The Iroquois were greatly astonished and frightened
-to see two of their men killed so quickly, in spite of their arrow-proof
-armor. As I was reloading, one of my companions fired a shot from the
-woods, which so increased their astonishment that, seeing their chiefs
-dead, they abandoned the field and fled into the depth of the forest."
-The allies dashed after them. Some of the Iroquois were killed, and more
-were taken. Camp, canoes, provisions, all were abandoned, and many
-weapons flung down in the panic flight. The victory was complete.
-
-At night, the victors led out one of the prisoners, told him that he was
-to die by fire, and ordered him to sing his death-song if he dared. Then
-they began the torture, and presently scalped their victim alive,[FN#20]
-when Champlain, sickening at the sight, begged leave to shoot him. They
-refused, and he turned away in anger and disgust; on which they called
-him back and told him to do as he pleased. He turned again, and a shot
-from his arquebuse put the wretch out of misery.
-
-The scene filled him with horror; but a few months later, on the Place
-de la Greve at Paris, he might have witnessed tortures equally revolting
-and equally vindictive, inflicted on the regicide Ravaillac by the
-sentence of grave and learned judges.
-
-The allies made a prompt retreat from the scene of their triumph. Three
-or four days brought them to the mouth of the Richelien. Here they
-separated; the Hurons and Algonquins made for the Ottawa, their homeward
-route, each with a share of prisoners for future torments. At parting,
-they invited Champlain to visit their towns and aid them again in their
-wars, an invitation which this paladin of the woods failed not to
-accept.
-
-The companions now remaining to him were the Montagnais. In their camp
-on the Richelien, one of them dreamed that a war party of Iroquois was
-close upon them; on which, in a torrent of rain, they left their huts,
-paddled in dismay to the islands above the Lake of St. Peter, and hid
-themselves all night in the rushes. In the morning they took heart,
-emerged from their hiding-places, descended to Quebec, and went thence
-to Tadoussac, whither Champlain accompanied them. Here the squaws, stark
-naked, swam out to the canoes to receive the heads of the dead Iroquois,
-and, hanging them from their necks, danced in triumph along the shore,
-One of the heads and a pair of arms were then bestowed on Champlain,--
-touching memorials of gratitude, which, however, he was by no means to
-keep for himself, but to present to the King.
-
-Thus did New France rush into collision with the redoubted warriors of
-the Five Nations. Here was the beginning, and in some measure doubtless
-the cause, of a long suite of murderous conflicts, bearing havoc and
-flame to generations yet unborn. Champlain had invaded the tiger's den;
-and now, in smothered fury, the patient savage would lie biding his day
-of blood.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.
-
-1610-1612.
-
-WAR.--TRADE.--DISCOVERY.
-
-Champlain and Pontgrave returned to France, while Pierre Chauvin of
-Dieppe held Quebec in their absence. The King was at Fontainebleau,--it
-was a few months before his assassination,--and here Champlain
-recounted his adventures, to the great satisfaction of the lively
-monarch. He gave him also, not the head of the dead Iroquois, but a belt
-wrought in embroidery of dyed quills of the Canada porcupine, together
-with two small birds of scarlet plumage, and the skull of a gar-fish.
-
-De Monts was at court, striving for a renewal of his monopoly. His
-efforts failed; on which, with great spirit but little discretion, he
-resolved to push his enterprise without it. Early in the spring of 1610,
-the ship was ready, and Champlain and Pontgrave were on board, when a
-violent illness seized the former, reducing him to the most miserable of
-all conflicts, the battle of the eager spirit against the treacherous
-and failing flesh. Having partially recovered, he put to sea, giddy and
-weak, in wretched plight for the hard career of toil and battle which
-the New World offered him. The voyage was prosperous, no other mishap
-occurring than that of an ardent youth of St. Malo, who drank the health
-of Pontgrave with such persistent enthusiasm that he fell overboard and
-was drowned.
-
-There were ships at Tadoussac, fast loading with furs; and boats, too,
-higher up the river, anticipating the trade, and draining De Monts's
-resources in advance. Champlain, who was left free to fight and explore
-wherever he should see fit, had provided, to use his own phrase, "two
-strings to his bow." On the one hand, the Montagnais had promised to
-guide him northward to Hudson's Bay; on the other, the Hurons were to
-show him the Great Lakes, with the mines of copper on their shores; and
-to each the same reward was promised,--to join them against the common
-foe, the Iroquois. The rendezvous was at the mouth of the river
-Richelien. Thither the Hurons were to descend in force, together with
-Algonquins of the Ottawa; and thither Champlain now repaired, while
-around his boat swarmed a multitude of Montagnais canoes, filled with
-warriors whose lank hair streamed loose in the wind.
-
-There is an island in the St. Lawrence near the mouth of the Richelien.
-On the nineteenth of June it was swarming with busy and clamorous
-savages, Champlain's Montagnais allies, cutting down the trees and
-clearing the ground for a dance and a feast; for they were hourly
-expecting the Algonquin warriors, and were eager to welcome them with
-befitting honors. But suddenly, far out on the river, they saw an
-advancing canoe. Now on this side, now on that, the flashing paddles
-urged it forward as if death were on its track; and as it drew near, the
-Indians on board cried out that the Algonquins were in the forest, a
-league distant, engaged with a hundred warriors of the Iroquois, who,
-outnumbered, were fighting savagely within a barricade of trees.
-The air was split with shrill outcries. The Montagnais snatched their
-weapons,--shields, bows, arrows, war-clubs, sword-blades made fast to
-poles,--and ran headlong to their canoes, impeding each other in their
-haste, screeching to Champlain to follow, and invoking with no less
-vehemence the aid of certain fur-traders, just arrived in four boats
-from below. These, as it was not their cue to fight, lent them a deaf
-ear; on which, in disgust and scorn, they paddled off, calling to the
-recusants that they were women, fit for nothing but to make war on
-beaver-skins.
-
-Champlain and four of his men were in the canoes. They shot across the
-intervening water, and, as their prows grated on the pebbles, each
-warrior flung down his paddle, snatched his weapons, and ran into the
-woods. The five Frenchmen followed, striving vainly to keep pace with
-the naked, light-limbed rabble, bounding like shadows through the
-forest. They quickly disappeared. Even their shrill cries grew faint,
-till Champlain and his men, discomforted and vexed, found themselves
-deserted in the midst of a swamp. The day was sultry, the forest air
-heavy, close, and filled with hosts of mosquitoes, "so thick," says the
-chief sufferer, "that we could scarcely draw breath, and it was
-wonderful how cruelly they persecuted us." Through black mud, spongy
-moss, water knee-deep, over fallen trees, among slimy logs and
-entangling roots, tripped by vines, lashed by recoiling boughs, panting
-under their steel head-pieces and heavy corselets, the Frenchmen
-struggled on, bewildered and indignant. At length they descried two
-Indians running in the distance, and shouted to them in desperation,
-that, if they wanted their aid, they must guide them to the enemy.
-
-At length they could hear the yells of the combatants; there was light
-in the forest before them, and they issued into a partial clearing made
-by the Iroquois axemen near the river. Champlain saw their barricade.
-Trees were piled into a circular breastwork, trunks, boughs, and matted
-foliage forming a strong defence, within which the Iroquois stood
-savagely at bay. Around them flocked the allies, half hidden in the
-edges of the forest, like hounds around a wild boar, eager, clamorous,
-yet afraid to rush in. They had attacked, and had met a bloody rebuff.
-All their hope was now in the French; and when they saw them, a yell
-arose from hundreds of throats that outdid the wilderness voices whence
-its tones were borrowed,--the whoop of the homed owl, the scream of the
-cougar, the howl of starved wolves on a winter night. A fierce response
-pealed from the desperate band within; and, amid a storm of arrows from
-both sides, the Frenchmen threw themselves into the fray, firing at
-random through the fence of trunks, boughs, and drooping leaves, with
-which the Iroquois had encircled themselves. Champlain felt a
-stone-headed arrow splitting his ear and tearing through the muscles of
-his neck. he drew it out, and, the moment after, did a similar office
-for one of his men. But the Iroquois had not recovered from their first
-terror at the arquebuse; and when the mysterious and terrible
-assailants, clad in steel and armed with thunder-bolts, ran up to the
-barricade, thrust their pieces through the openings, and shot death
-among the crowd within, they could not control their fright, but with
-every report threw themselves flat on the ground. Animated with unwonted
-valor, the allies, covered by their large shields, began to drag out the
-felled trees of the barricade, while others, under Champlain's
-direction, gathered at the edge of the forest, preparing to close the
-affair with a final rush. New actors soon appeared on the scene. These
-were a boat's crew of the fur-traders under a young man of St. Malo, one
-Des Prairies, who, when he heard the firing, could not resist the
-impulse to join the fight. On seeing them, Champlain checked the
-assault, in order, as he says, that the new-comers might have their
-share in the sport. The traders opened fire, with great zest and no less
-execution; while the Iroquois, now wild with terror, leaped and writhed
-to dodge the shot which tore through their frail armor of twigs.
-Champlain gave the signal; the crowd ran to the barricade, dragged down
-the boughs or clambered over them, and bore themselves, in his own
-words, "so well and manfully," that, though scratched and torn by the
-sharp points, they quickly forced an entrance. The French ceased their
-fire, and, followed by a smaller body of Indians, scaled the barricade
-on the farther side. Now, amid howlings, shouts, and screeches, the work
-was finished. Some of the Iroquois were cut down as they stood, hewing
-with their war-clubs, and foaming like slaughtered tigers; some climbed
-the barrier and were killed by the furious crowd without; some were
-drowned in the river; while fifteen, the only survivors, were made
-prisoners. "By the grace of God," writes Champlain, "behold the battle
-won!" Drunk with ferocious ecstasy, the conquerors scalped the dead and
-gathered fagots for the living; while some of the fur-traders, too late
-to bear part in the fight, robbed the carcasses of their
-blood-bedrenched robes of beaver-skin amid the derision of the
-surrounding Indians.
-
-That night, the torture fires blazed along the shore. Champlain saved
-one prisoner from their clutches, but nothing could save the rest. One
-body was quartered and eaten.[FN#31] "As for the rest of the prisoners,"
-says Champlain, "they were kept to be put to death by the women and
-girls, who in this respect are no less inhuman than the men, and,
-indeed, much more so; for by their subtlety they invent more cruel
-tortures, and take pleasure in it."
-
-On the next day, a large band of Hurons appeared at the rendezvous,
-greatly vexed that they had come too late. The shores were thickly
-studded with Indian huts, and the woods were full of them. Here were
-warriors of three designations, including many subordinate tribes, and
-representing three grades of savage society,--the Hurons, the
-Algonquins of the Ottawa, and the Montagnais; afterwards styled by a
-Franciscan friar, than whom few men better knew them, the nobles, the
-burghers, and the peasantry and paupers of the forest. Many of them,
-from the remote interior, had never before seen a white man; and,
-wrapped like statues in their robes, they stood gazing on the French
-with a fixed stare of wild and wondering eyes.
-
-Judged by the standard of Indian war, a heavy blow had been struck on
-the common enemy. Here were hundreds of assembled warriors; yet none
-thought of following up their success. Elated with unexpected fortune,
-they danced and sang; then loaded their canoes, hung their scalps on
-poles, broke up their camps, and set out triumphant for their homes.
-Champlain had fought their battles, and now might claim, on their part,
-guidance and escort to the distant interior. Why he did not do so is
-scarcely apparent. There were cares, it seems, connected with the very
-life of his puny colony, which demanded his return to France. Nor were
-his anxieties lessened by the arrival of a ship from his native town of
-Brouage, with tidings of the King's assassination. Here was a death-blow
-to all that had remained of De Monts's credit at court; while that
-unfortunate nobleman, like his old associate, Pontrincourt, was moving
-with swift strides toward financial ruin. With the revocation of his
-monopoly, fur-traders had swarmed to the St. Lawrence. Tadoussac was
-full of them, and for that year the trade was spoiled. Far from aiding
-to support a burdensome enterprise of colonization, it was in itself an
-occasion of heavy loss.
-
-Champlain bade farewell to his garden at Quebec, where maize, wheat,
-rye, and barley, with vegetables of all kinds, and a small vineyard of
-native grapes,--for he was a zealous horticulturist,--held forth a
-promise which he was not to see fulfilled. He left one Du Parc in
-command, with sixteen men, and, sailing on the eighth of August, arrived
-at Honfleur with no worse accident than that of running over a sleeping
-whale near the Grand Bank.
-
-With the opening spring he was afloat again. Perils awaited him worse
-than those of Iroquois tomahawks; for, approaching Newfoundland, the
-ship was entangled for days among drifting fields and bergs of ice.
-Escaping at length, she arrived at Tadoussac on the thirteenth of May,
-1611. She had anticipated the spring. Forests and mountains, far and
-near, all were white with snow. A principal object with Champlain was to
-establish such relations with the great Indian communities of the
-interior as to secure to De Monts and his associates the advantage of
-trade with them; and to this end he now repaired to Montreal, a position
-in the gateway, as it were, of their yearly descents of trade or war. On
-arriving, he began to survey the ground for the site of a permanent
-post.
-
-A few days convinced him, that, under the present system, all his
-efforts would be vain. Wild reports of the wonders of New France had
-gone abroad, and a crowd of hungry adventurers had hastened to the land
-of promise, eager to grow rich, they scarcely knew how, and soon to
-return disgusted. A fleet of boats and small vessels followed in
-Champlain's wake. Within a few days, thirteen of them arrived at
-Montreal, and more soon appeared. He was to break the ground; others
-would reap the harvest. Travel, discovery, and battle, all must inure to
-the profit, not of the colony, but of a crew of greedy traders.
-
-Champlain, however, chose the site and cleared the ground for his
-intended post. It was immediately above a small stream, now running
-under arches of masonry, and entering the St. Lawrence at Point
-Callieres, within the modern city. He called it Place Royale; and here,
-on the margin of the river, he built a wall of bricks made on the spot,
-in order to measure the destructive effects of the "ice-shove" in the
-spring.
-
-Now, down the surges of St. Louis, where the mighty floods of the St.
-Lawrence, contracted to a narrow throat, roll in fury among their sunken
-rocks,--here, through foam and spray and the roar of the angry torrent,
-a fleet of birch canoes came dancing like dry leaves on the froth of
-some riotous brook. They bore a band of Hurons first at the rendezvous.
-As they drew near the landing, all the fur-traders' boats blazed out a
-clattering fusillade, which was designed to bid them welcome, but in
-fact terrified many of them to such a degree that they scarcely dared to
-come ashore. Nor were they reassured by the bearing of the disorderly
-crowd, who, in jealous competition for their beaver-skins, left them not
-a moment's peace, and outraged all their notions of decorum. More soon
-appeared, till hundreds of warriors were encamped along the shore, all
-restless, suspicious, and alarmed. Late one night they awakened
-Champlain. On going with them to their camp, he found chiefs and
-warriors in solemn conclave around the glimmering firelight. Though they
-were fearful of the rest, their trust in him was boundless. "Come to our
-country, buy our beaver, build a fort, teach us the true faith, do what
-you will, but do not bring this crowd with you." The idea had seized
-them that these lawless bands of rival traders, all well armed, meant to
-plunder and kill them. Champlain assured them of safety, and the whole
-night was consumed in friendly colloquy. Soon afterward, however, the
-camp broke up, and the uneasy warriors removed to the borders of the
-Lake of St. Louis, placing the rapids betwixt themselves and the objects
-of their alarm. Here Champlain visited them, and hence these intrepid
-canoe-men, kneeling in their birchen egg-shells, carried him homeward
-down the rapids, somewhat, as he admits, to the discomposure of his
-nerves.[FN#32]
-
-The great gathering dispersed: the traders descended to Tadoussac, and
-Champlain to Quebec; while the Indians went, some to their homes, some
-to fight the Iroquois. A few months later, Champlain was in close
-conference with De Monts at Pons, a place near Rochelle, of which the
-latter was governor. The last two years had made it apparent, that, to
-keep the colony alive and maintain a basis for those discoveries on
-which his heart was bent, was impossible without a change of system. De
-Monts, engrossed with the cares of his government, placed all in the
-hands of his associate; and Champlain, fully empowered to act as he
-should judge expedient, set out for Paris. On the way, Fortune, at one
-stroke, wellnigh crushed him and New France together; for his horse fell
-on him, and he narrowly escaped with life. When he was partially
-recovered, he resumed his journey, pondering on means of rescue for the
-fading colony. A powerful protector must be had,--a great name to
-shield the enterprise from assaults and intrigues of jealous rival
-interests. On reaching Paris he addressed himself to a prince of the
-blood, Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Soissons; described New France, its
-resources, and its boundless extent; urged the need of unfolding a
-mystery pregnant perhaps with results of the deepest moment; laid before
-him maps and memoirs, and begged him to become the guardian of this new
-world. The royal consent being obtained, the Comte de Soissons became
-Lieutenant-General for the King in New France, with vice-regal powers.
-These, in turn, he conferred upon Champlain, making him his lieutenant,
-with full control over the trade in furs at and above Quebec, and with
-power to associate with himself such persons as he saw fit, to aid in
-the exploration and settlement of the country.
-
-Scarcely was the commission drawn when the Comte de Soissons, attacked
-with fever, died,--to the joy of the Breton and Norman traders, whose
-jubilation, however, found a speedy end. Henri de Bourbon, Prince de
-Conde, first prince of the blood, assumed the vacant protectorship. He
-was grandson of the gay and gallant Conde of the civil wars, was father
-of the great Conde, the youthful victor of Rocroy, and was husband of
-Charlotte de Moutmorency, whose blond beauties had fired the inflammable
-heart of Henry the Fourth. To the unspeakable wrath of that keen lover,
-the prudent Conde fled with his bride, first to Brussels, and then to
-Italy; nor did he return to France till the regicide's knife had put his
-jealous fears to rest. After his return, he began to intrigue against
-the court. He was a man of common abilities, greedy of money and power,
-and scarcely seeking even the decency of a pretext to cover his mean
-ambition. His chief honor--an honor somewhat equivocal--is, as
-Voltaire observes, to have been father of the great Conde. Busy with his
-intrigues, he cared little for colonies and discoveries; and his rank
-and power were his sole qualifications for his new post.
-
-In Champlain alone was the life of New France. By instinct and
-temperament he was more impelled to the adventurous toils of exploration
-than to the duller task of building colonies. The profits of trade had
-value in his eyes only as means to these ends, and settlements were
-important chiefly as a base of discovery. Two great objects eclipsed all
-others,--to find a route to the Indies, and to bring the heathen tribes
-into the embraces of the Church, since, while he cared little for their
-bodies, his solicitude for their souls knew no bounds.
-
-It was no part of his plan to establish an odious monopoly. He sought
-rather to enlist the rival traders in his cause; and he now, in
-concurrence with Du Monts, invited them to become sharers in the
-traffic, under certain regulations, and on condition of aiding in the
-establishment and support of the colony. The merchants of St. Malo and
-Rouen accepted the terms, and became members of the new company; but the
-intractable heretics of Rochelle, refractory in commerce as in religion,
-kept aloof, and preferred the chances of an illicit trade. The prospects
-of New France were far from flattering; for little could be hoped from
-this unwilling league of selfish traders, each jealous of the rest. They
-gave the Prince of Conde large gratuities to secure his countenance and
-support. The hungry viceroy took them, and with these emoluments his
-interest in the colony ended.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-1612, 1613.
-
-THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAU.
-
-The arrangements just indicated were a work of time. In the summer of
-1612, Champlain was forced to forego his yearly voyage to New France;
-nor, even in the following spring, were his labors finished and the
-rival interests brought to harmony. Meanwhile, incidents occurred
-destined to have no small influence on his movements. Three years
-before, after his second fight with the Iroquois, a young man of his
-company had boldly volunteered to join the Indians on their homeward
-journey, and winter among them. Champlain gladly assented, and in the
-following summer the adventurer returned. Another young man, one Nicolas
-de Vignan, next offered himself; and he also, embarking in the Algonquin
-canoes, passed up the Ottawa, and was seen no more for a twelvemonth. In
-1612 he reappeared in Paris, bringing a tale of wonders; for, says
-Champlain, "he was the most impudent liar that has been seen for many a
-day." He averred that at the sources of the Ottawa he had found a great
-lake; that he had crossed it, and discovered a river flowing northward;
-that he had descended this river, and reached the shores of the sea;
-that here he had seen the wreck of an English ship, whose crew, escaping
-to land, had been killed by the Indians; and that this sea was distant
-from Montreal only seventeen days by canoe. The clearness, consistency,
-and apparent simplicity of his story deceived Champlain, who had heard
-of a voyage of the English to the northern seas, coupled with rumors of
-wreck and disaster, and was thus confirmed in his belief of Vignau's
-honesty. The Marechal de Brissac, the President Jeannin, and other
-persons of eminence about the court, greatly interested by these
-dexterous fabrications, urged Champlain to follow up without delay a
-discovery which promised results so important; while he, with the
-Pacific, Japan, China, the Spice Islands, and India stretching in
-flattering vista before his fancy, entered with eagerness on the chase
-of this illusion. Early in the spring of 1613 the unwearied voyager
-crossed the Atlantic, and sailed up the St. Lawrence. On Monday, the
-twenty-seventh of May, he left the island of St. Helen, opposite
-Montreal, with four Frenchmen, one of whom was Nicolas de Vignau, and
-one Indian, in two small canoes. They passed the swift current at St.
-Ann's, crossed the Lake of Two Mountains, and advanced up the Ottawa
-till the rapids of Carillon and the Long Saut checked their course. So
-dense and tangled was the forest, that they were forced to remain in the
-bed of the river, trailing their canoes along the bank with cords, or
-pushing them by main force up the current. Champlain's foot slipped; he
-fell in the rapids, two boulders, against which he braced himself,
-saving him from being swept down, while the cord of the canoe, twisted
-round his hand, nearly severed it. At length they reached smoother
-water, and presently met fifteen canoes of friendly Indians. Champlain
-gave them the most awkward of his Frenchmen and took one of their number
-in return,--an exchange greatly to his profit.
-
-All day they plied their paddles, and when night came they made their
-camp-fire in the forest. He who now, when two centuries and a half are
-passed, would see the evening bivouac of Champlain, has but to encamp,
-with Indian guides, on the upper waters of this same Ottawa, or on the
-borders of some lonely river of New Brunswick or of Maine.
-
-Day dawned. The east glowed with tranquil fire, that pierced with eyes
-of flame the fir-trees whose jagged tops stood drawn in black against
-the burning heaven. Beneath, the glossy river slept in shadow, or spread
-far and wide in sheets of burnished bronze; and the white moon, paling
-in the face of day, hung like a disk of silver in the western sky. Now a
-fervid light touched the dead top of the hemlock, and creeping downward
-bathed the mossy beard of the patriarchal cedar, unstirred in the
-breathless air; now a fiercer spark beamed from the east; and now, half
-risen on the sight, a dome of crimson fire, the sun blazed with floods
-of radiance across the awakened wilderness.
-
-The canoes were launched again, and the voyagers held their course. Soon
-the still surface was flecked with spots of foam; islets of froth
-floated by, tokens of some great convulsion. Then, on their left, the
-falling curtain of the Rideau shone like silver betwixt its bordering
-woods, and in front, white as a snowdrift, the cataracts of the
-Chaudiere barred their way. They saw the unbridled river careering down
-its sheeted rocks, foaming in unfathomed chasms, wearying the solitude
-with the hoarse outcry of its agony and rage.
-
-On the brink of the rocky basin where the plunging torrent boiled like a
-caldron, and puffs of spray sprang out from its concussion like smoke
-from the throat of a cannon, Champlain's two Indians took their stand,
-and, with a loud invocation, threw tobacco into the foam,--an offering
-to the local spirit, the Manitou of the cataract.
-
-They shouldered their canoes over the rocks, and through the woods; then
-launched them again, and, with toil and struggle, made their amphibious
-way, pushing dragging, lifting, paddling, shoving with poles; till, when
-the evening sun poured its level rays across the quiet Lake of the
-Chaudiere, they landed, and made their camp on the verge of a woody
-island.
-
-Day by day brought a renewal of their toils. Hour by hour, they moved
-prosperously up the long windings of the solitary stream; then, in quick
-succession, rapid followed rapid, till the bed of the Ottawa seemed a
-slope of foam. Now, like a wall bristling at the top with woody islets,
-the Falls of the Chats faced them with the sheer plunge of their sixteen
-cataracts; now they glided beneath overhanging cliffs, where, seeing but
-unseen, the crouched wildcat eyed them from the thicket; now through the
-maze of water-girded rocks, which the white cedar and the spruce clasped
-with serpent-like roots, or among islands where old hemlocks darkened
-the water with deep green shadow. Here, too, the rock-maple reared its
-verdant masses, the beech its glistening leaves and clean, smooth stem,
-and behind, stiff and sombre, rose the balsam-fir. Here in the tortuous
-channels the muskrat swam and plunged, and the splashing wild duck dived
-beneath the alders or among the red and matted roots of thirsty water
-willows. Aloft, the white-pine towered above a sea of verdure; old
-fir-trees, hoary and grim, shaggy with pendent mosses, leaned above the
-stream, and beneath, dead and submerged, some fallen oak thrust from the
-current its bare, bleached limbs, like the skeleton of a drowned giant.
-In the weedy cove stood the moose, neck-deep in water to escape the
-flies, wading shoreward, with glistening sides, as the canoes drew near,
-shaking his broad antlers and writhing his hideous nostril, as with
-clumsy trot he vanished in the woods.
-
-In these ancient wilds, to whose ever verdant antiquity the pyramids are
-young and Nineveh a mushroom of yesterday; where the sage wanderer of
-the Odyssey, could he have urged his pilgrimage so far, would have
-surveyed the same grand and stern monotony, the same dark sweep of
-melancholy woods;--here, while New England was a solitude, and the
-settlers of Virginia scarcely dared venture inland beyond the sound of a
-cannon-shot, Champlain was planting on shores and islands the emblems of
-his faith. Of the pioneers of the North American forests, his name
-stands foremost on the list. It was he who struck the deepest and
-boldest strokes into the heart of their pristine barbarism. At
-Chantilly, at Fontainebleau, Paris, in the cabinets of princes and of
-royalty itself, mingling with the proud vanities of the court; then lost
-from sight in the depths of Canada, the companion of savages, sharer of
-their toils, privations, and battles, more hardy, patient, and bold than
-they;--such, for successive years, were the alternations of this man's
-life.
-
-To follow on his trail once more. His Indians said that the rapids of
-the river above were impassable. Nicolas de Vignan affirmed the
-contrary; but, from the first, Vignau had been found always in the
-wrong. His aim seems to have been to involve his leader in difficulties,
-and disgust him with a journey which must soon result in exposing the
-imposture which had occasioned it. Champlain took counsel of the
-Indians. The party left the river, and entered the forest.
-
-"We had a hard march," says Champlain. "I carried for my share of the
-luggage three arquebuses, three paddles, my overcoat, and a few
-bagatelles. My men carried a little more than I did, and suffered more
-from the mosquitoes than from their loads. After we had passed four
-small ponds and advanced two leagues and a half, we were so tired that
-we could go no farther, having eaten nothing but a little roasted fish
-for nearly twenty-four hours. So we stopped in a pleasant place enough
-by the edge of a pond, and lighted a fire to drive off the mosquitoes,
-which plagued us beyond all description; and at the same time we set our
-nets to catch a few fish."
-
-On the next day they fared still worse, for their way was through a pine
-forest where a tornado had passed, tearing up the trees and piling them
-one upon another in a vast "windfall," where boughs, roots, and trunks
-were mixed in confusion. Sometimes they climbed over and sometimes
-crawled through these formidable barricades, till, after an exhausting
-march, they reached the banks of Muskrat Lake, by the edge of which was
-an Indian settlement.
-
-This neighborhood was the seat of the principal Indian population of the
-river, and, as the canoes advanced, unwonted signs of human life could
-be seen on the borders of the lake. Here was a rough clearing. The trees
-had been burned; there was a rude and desolate gap in the sombre green
-of the pine forest. Dead trunks, blasted and black with fire, stood
-grimly upright amid the charred stumps and prostrate bodies of comrades
-half consumed. In the intervening spaces, the soil had been feebly
-scratched with hoes of wood or bone, and a crop of maize was growing,
-now some four inches high. The dwellings of these slovenly farmers,
-framed of poles covered with sheets of bark, were scattered here and
-there, singly or in groups, while their tenants were running to the
-shore in amazement. The chief, Nibachis, offered the calumet, then
-harangued the crowd: "These white men must have fallen from the clouds.
-How else could they have reached us through the woods and rapids which
-even we find it hard to pass? The French chief can do anything. All that
-we have heard of him must he true." And they hastened to regale the
-hungry visitors with a repast of fish.
-
-Champlain asked for guidance to the settlements above. It was readily
-granted. Escorted by his friendly hosts, he advanced beyond the foot of
-Muskrat Lake, and, landing, saw the unaccustomed sight of pathways
-through the forest. They led to the clearings and cabins of a chief
-named Tessonat, who, amazed at the apparition of the white strangers,
-exclaimed that he must be in a dream. Next, the voyagers crossed to the
-neighboring island, then deeply wooded with pine, elm, and oak. Here
-were more desolate clearings, more rude cornfields and bark-built
-cabins. Here, too, was a cemetery, which excited the wonder of
-Champlain, for the dead were better cared for than the living. Each
-grave was covered with a double row of pieces of wood, inclined like a
-roof till they crossed at the ridge, a long which was laid a thick
-tablet of wood, meant apparently either to bind the whole together or
-protect it from rain. At one end stood an upright tablet, or flattened
-post, rudely carved with an intended representation of the features of
-the deceased. If a chief, the head was adorned with a plume. If a
-warrior, there were figures near it of a shield, a lance, a war-club,
-and a bow and arrows; if a boy, of a small bow and one arrow; and if a
-woman or a girl, of a kettle, an earthen pot, a wooden spoon, and a
-paddle. The whole was decorated with red and yellow paint; and beneath
-slept the departed, wrapped in a robe of skins, his earthly treasures
-about him, ready for use in the land of souls.
-
-Tessouat was to give a tabagie, or solemn feast, in honor of Champlain,
-and the chiefs and elders of the island were invited. Runners were sent
-to summon the guests from neighboring hamlets; and, on the morrow,
-Tessonat's squaws swept his cabin for the festivity. Then Champlain and
-his Frenchmen were seated on skins in the place of honor, and the naked
-guests appeared in quick succession, each with his wooden dish and
-spoon, and each ejaculating his guttural salute as he stooped at the low
-door. The spacious cabin was full. The congregated wisdom and prowess of
-the nation sat expectant on the bare earth. Each long, bare arm thrust
-forth its dish in turn as the host served out the banquet, in which, as
-courtesy enjoined, he himself was to have no share. First, a mess of
-pounded maize, in which were boiled, without salt, morsels of fish and
-dark scraps of meat; then, fish and flesh broiled on the embers, with a
-kettle of cold water from the river. Champlain, in wise distrust of
-Ottawa cookery, confined himself to the simpler and less doubtful
-viands. A few minutes, and all alike had vanished. The kettles were
-empty. Then pipes were filled and touched with fire brought in by the
-squaws, while the young men who had stood thronged about the entrance
-now modestly withdrew, and the door was closed for counsel.
-
-First, the pipes were passed to Champlain. Then, for full half an hour,
-the assembly smoked in silence. At length, when the fitting time was
-come, he addressed them in a speech in which he declared, that, moved by
-affection for them, he visited their country to see its richness and its
-beauty, and to aid them in their wars; and he now begged them to furnish
-him with four canoes and eight men, to convey him to the country of the
-Nipissings, a tribe dwelling northward on the lake which bears their
-name.
-
-His audience looked grave, for they were but cold and jealous friends of
-the Nipissings. For a time they discoursed in murmuring tones among
-themselves, all smoking meanwhile with redoubled vigor. Then Tessouat,
-chief of these forest republicans, rose and spoke in behalf of all:--"We
-always knew you for our best friend among the Frenchmen. We love you
-like our own children. But why did you break your word with us last year
-when we all went down to meet you at Montreal, to give you presents and
-go with you to war? You were not there, but other Frenchmen were there
-who abused us. We will never go again. As for the four canoes, you shall
-have them if you insist upon it; but it grieves us to think of the
-hardships you must endure. The Nipissings have weak hearts. They are
-good for nothing in war, but they kill us with charms, and they poison
-us. Therefore we are on bad terms with them. They will kill you, too."
-
-Such was the pith of Tessouat's discourse, and at each clause the
-conclave responded in unison with an approving grunt.
-
-Champlain urged his petition; sought to relieve their tender scruples in
-his behalf; assured them that he was charm-proof, and that he feared no
-hardships. At length he gained his point. The canoes and the men were
-promised, and, seeing himself as he thought on the highway to his
-phantom Northern Sea, he left his entertainers to their pipes, and with
-a light heart issued from the close and smoky den to breathe the fresh
-air of the afternoon. He visited the Indian fields, with their young
-crops of pumpkins, beans, and French peas,--the last a novelty obtained
-from the traders. Here, Thomas, the interpreter, soon joined him with a
-countenance of ill news. In the absence of Champlain, the assembly had
-reconsidered their assent. The canoes were denied.
-
-With a troubled mind he hastened again to the hall of council, and
-addressed the naked senate in terms better suited to his exigencies than
-to their dignity:
-
-"I thought you were men; I thought you would hold fast to your word: but
-I find you children, without truth. You call yourselves my friends, yet
-you break faith with me. Still I would not incommode you; and if you
-cannot give me four canoes, two will Serve."
-
-The burden of the reply was, rapids, rocks, cataracts, and the
-wickedness of the Nipissings. "We will not give you the canoes. because
-we are afraid of losing you," they said.
-
-"This young man," rejoined Champlain, pointing to Vignau, who sat by his
-side, "has been to their country, and did not find the road or the
-people so bad as you have said."
-
-"Nicolas," demanded Tessouat, "did you say that you had been to the
-Nipissings?"
-
-The impostor sat mute for a time, and then replied, "Yes, I have been
-there."
-
-Hereupon an outcry broke from the assembly, and they turned their eyes
-on him askance, "as if," says Champlain, "they would have torn and eaten
-him."
-
-"You are a liar," returned the unceremonious host; "you know very well
-that you slept here among my children every night, and got up again
-every morning; and if you ever went to the Nipissings, it must have been
-when you were asleep. How can you be so impudent as to lie to your
-chief, and so wicked as to risk his life among so many dangers? He ought
-to kill you with tortures worse than those with which we kill our
-enemies."
-
-Champlain urged him to reply. but he sat motionless and dumb. Then he
-led him from the cabin, and conjured him to declare if in truth he had
-seen this sea of the north. Vignan, with oaths, affirmed that all he had
-said was true. Returning to the council, Champlain repeated the
-impostor's story--how he had seen the sea, the wreck of an English
-ship, the heads of eighty Englishmen, and an English boy, prisoner among
-the Indians.
-
-At this, an outcry rose louder than before, and the Indians turned in
-ire upon Vignan.
-
-"You are a liar." "Which way did you go?" "By what rivers?" "By what
-lakes?" "Who went with you?"
-
-Vignan had made a map of his travels, which Champlain now produced,
-desiring him to explain it to his questioners; but his assurance failed
-him, and he could not utter a word.
-
-Champlain was greatly agitated. His heart was in the enterprise, his
-reputation was in a measure at stake; and now, when he thought his
-triumph so near, he shrank from believing himself the sport of an
-impudent impostor. The council broke up,--the Indians displeased and
-moody, and he, on his part, full of anxieties and doubts.
-
-"I called Vignau to me in presence of his companions," he says. "I told
-him that the time for deceiving me was ended; that he must tell me
-whether or not he had really seen the things he had told of; that I had
-forgotten the past, but that, if he continued to mislead me, I would
-have him hanged without mercy."
-
-Vignau pondered for a moment; then fell on his knees, owned his
-treachery, and begged forgiveness. Champlain broke into a rage, and,
-unable, as he says, to endure the sight of him, ordered him from his
-presence, and sent the interpreter after him to make further
-examination. Vanity, the love of notoriety, and the hope of reward, seem
-to have been his inducements; for he had in fact spent a quiet winter in
-Tessonat's cabin, his nearest approach to the northern sea; and he had
-flattered himself that he might escape the necessity of guiding his
-commander to this pretended discovery. The Indians were somewhat
-exultant.
-
-"Why did you not listen to chiefs and warriors, instead of believing the
-lies of this fellow?" And they counselled Champlain to have him killed
-at once, adding, "Give him to us, and we promise you that he shall never
-lie again."
-
-No motive remaining for farther advance, the party set out on their
-return, attended by a fleet of forty canoes bound to Montreal for trade.
-They passed the perilous rapids of the Calumet, and were one night
-encamped on an island, when an Indian, slumbering in an uneasy posture,
-was visited with a nightmare. He leaped up with a yell, screamed, that
-somebody was killing him, and ran for refuge into the river. Instantly
-all his companions sprang to their feet, and, hearing in fancy the
-Iroquois war-whoop, took to the water, splashing, diving, and wading up
-to their necks, in the blindness of their fright. Champlain and his
-Frenchmen, roused at the noise, snatched their weapons and looked in
-vain for an enemy. The panic-stricken warriors, reassured at length,
-waded crestfallen ashore, and the whole ended in a laugh.
-
-At the Chaudiere, a contribution of tobacco was collected on a wooden
-platter, and, after a solemn harangue, was thrown to the guardian
-Manitou. On the seventeenth of June they approached Montreal, where the
-assembled traders greeted them with discharges of small arms and cannon.
-Here, among the rest, was Champlain's lieutenant, Du Parc, with his men,
-who had amused their leisure with hunting, and were revelling in a
-sylvan abundance, while their baffled chief, with worry of mind, fatigue
-of body, and a Lenten diet of half-cooked fish, was grievously fallen
-away in flesh and strength. He kept his word with DeVignau, left the
-scoundrel unpunished, bade farewell to the Indians, and, promising to
-rejoin then the next year, embarked in one of the trading-ships for
-France.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII.
-
-1615.
-
-DISCOVERY OF LAKE HURON.
-
-In New France, spiritual and temporal interests were inseparably
-blended, and, as will hereafter appear, the conversion of the Indians
-was used as a means of commercial and political growth. But, with the
-single-hearted founder of the colony, considerations of material
-advantage, though clearly recognized, were no less clearly subordinate.
-He would fain rescue from perdition a people living, as he says, "like
-brute beasts, without faith, without law, without religion, without
-God." While the want of funds and the indifference of his merchant
-associates, who as yet did not fully see that their trade would find in
-the missions its surest ally, were threatening to wreck his benevolent
-schemes, he found a kindred spirit in his friend Houd, secretary to the
-King, and comptroller-general of the salt-works of Bronage. Near this
-town was a convent of Recollet friars, some of whom were well known to
-Houel. To them he addressed himself; and several of the brotherhood,
-"inflamed," we are told, "with charity," were eager to undertake the
-mission. But the Recollets, mendicants by profession, were as weak in
-resources as Champlain himself. He repaired to Paris, then filled with
-bishops, cardinals, and nobles, assembled for the States-General.
-Responding to his appeal, they subscribed fifteen hundred livres for the
-purchase of vestments, candles, and ornaments for altars. The King gave
-letters patent in favor of the mission, and the Pope gave it his formal
-authorization. By this instrument the papacy in the person of Paul the
-Fifth virtually repudiated the action of the papacy in the person of
-Alexander the Sixth, who had proclaimed all America the exclusive
-property of Spain.
-
-The Recollets form a branch of the great Franciscan Order, founded early
-in the thirteenth century by Saint Francis of Assisi. Saint, hero, or
-madman, according to the point of view from which he is regarded, he
-belonged to an era of the Church when the tumult of invading heresies
-awakened in her defence a band of impassioned champions, widely
-different from the placid saints of an earlier age. He was very young
-when dreams and voices began to reveal to him his vocation, and kindle
-his high-wrought nature to sevenfold heat. Self-respect, natural
-affection, decency, became in his eyes but stumbling-blocks and snares.
-He robbed his father to build a church; and, like so many of the Roman
-Catholic saints, confounded filth with humility, exchanged clothes with
-beggars, and walked the streets of Assisi in rags amid the hootings of
-his townsmen. He vowed perpetual poverty and perpetual beggary, and, in
-token of his renunciation of the world, stripped himself naked before
-the Bishop of Assisi, and then begged of him in charity a peasant's
-mantle. Crowds gathered to his fervid and dramatic eloquence. His
-handful of disciples multiplied, till Europe became thickly dotted with
-their convents. At the end of the eighteenth century, the three Orders
-of Saint Francis numbered a hundred and fifteen thousand friars and
-twenty-eight thousand nuns. Four popes, forty-five cardinals, and
-forty-six canonized martyrs were enrolled on their record, besides about
-two thousand more who had shed their blood for the faith. Their missions
-embraced nearly all the known world; and, in 1621, there were in Spanish
-America alone five hundred Franciscan convents.
-
-In process of time the Franciscans had relaxed their ancient rigor; but
-much of their pristine spirit still subsisted in the Recollets, a
-reformed branch of the Order, sometimes known as Franciscans of the
-Strict Observance.
-
-Four of their number were named for the mission of New France,--Denis
-Jamay, Jean Dolbean, Joseph le Caron, and the lay brother Pacifique du
-Plessis. "They packed their church ornaments," says Champlain, "and we,
-our luggage." All alike confessed their sins, and, embarking at
-Honfleur, reached Quebec at the end of May, 1615. Great was the
-perplexity of the Indians as the apostolic mendicants landed beneath the
-rock. Their garb was a form of that common to the brotherhood of Saint
-Francis, consisting of a rude garment of coarse gray cloth, girt at the
-waist with the knotted cord of the Order, and furnished with a peaked
-hood, to be drawn over the head. Their naked feet were shod with wooden
-sandals, more than an inch thick.
-
-Their first care was to choose a site for their convent, near the
-fortified dwellings and storehouses built by Champlain. This done, they
-made an altar, and celebrated the first mass ever said in Canada.
-Dolbean was the officiating priest; all New France kneeled on the bare
-earth around him, and cannon from the ship and the ramparts hailed the
-mystic rite. Then, in imitation of the Apostles, they took counsel
-together, and assigned to each his province in the vast field of their
-mission,--to Le Caron the Hurons, and to Dolbean the Montagnais; while
-Jamay and Du Plessis were to remain for the present near Quebec.
-
-Dolbean, full of zeal, set out for his post, and in the next winter
-tried to follow the roving hordes of Tadoussac to their frozen
-hunting-grounds. He was not robust, and his eyes were weak. Lodged in a
-hut of birch bark, full of abominations, dogs, fleas, stench, and all
-uncleanness, he succumbed at length to the smoke, which had wellnigh
-blinded him, forcing him to remain for several days with his eyes
-closed. After debating within himself whether God required of him the
-sacrifice of his sight, he solved his doubts with a negative, and
-returned to Quebec, only to depart again with opening spring on a tour
-so extensive that it brought him in contact with outlying bands of the
-Esquimaux. Meanwhile Le Caron had long been absent on a more noteworthy
-mission.
-
-While his brethren were building their convent and garnishing their
-altar at Quebec, the ardent friar had hastened to the site of Montreal,
-then thronged with a savage concourse come down for the yearly trade. he
-mingled with them, studied their manners, tried to learn their
-languages, and, when Champlain and Pontgrave arrived, declared his
-purpose of wintering in their villages. Dissuasion availed nothing.
-"What," he demanded, "are privations to him whose life is devoted to
-perpetual poverty, and who has no ambition but to serve God?"
-
-The assembled Indians were more eager for temporal than for spiritual
-succor, and beset Champlain with clamors for aid against the Iroquois.
-He and Pontgrave were of one mind. The aid demanded must be given, and
-that from no motive of the hour, but in pursuance of a deliberate
-policy. It was evident that the innumerable tribes of New France,
-otherwise divided, were united in a common fear and hate of these
-formidable bands, who, in the strength of their fivefold league, spread
-havoc and desolation through all the surrounding wilds. It was the aim
-of Champlain, as of his successors, to persuade the threatened and
-endangered hordes to live at peace with each other, and to form against
-the common foe a virtual league, of which the French colony would be the
-heart and the head, and which would continually widen with the widening
-area of discovery. With French soldiers to fight their battles, French
-priests to baptize them, and French traders to supply their increasing
-wants, their dependence would be complete. They would become assured
-tributaries to the growth of New France. It was a triple alliance of
-soldier, priest, and trader. The soldier might be a roving knight, and
-the priest a martyr and a saint; but both alike were subserving the
-interests of that commerce which formed the only solid basis of the
-colony. The scheme of English colonization made no account of the Indian
-tribes. In the scheme of French colonization they were all in all.
-
-In one point the plan was fatally defective, since it involved the
-deadly enmity of a race whose character and whose power were as yet but
-ill understood,--the fiercest, boldest, most politic, and most
-ambitious savages to whom the American forest has ever given birth.
-
-The chiefs and warriors met in council,--Algonquins of the Ottawa, and
-Hurons from the borders of the great Fresh-Water Sea. Champlain promised
-to join them with all the men at his command, while they, on their part,
-were to muster without delay twenty-five hundred warriors for an inroad
-into the country of the Iroquois. He descended at once to Quebec for
-needful preparation; but when, after a short delay, he returned to
-Montreal, he found, to his chagrin, a solitude. The wild concourse had
-vanished; nothing remained but the skeleton poles of their huts, the
-smoke of their fires, and the refuse of their encampments. Impatient at
-his delay, they had set out for their villages, and with them had gone
-Father Joseph le Caron.
-
-Twelve Frenchmen, well armed, had attended him. Summer was at its
-height, and as his canoe stole along the bosom of the glassy river, and
-he gazed about him on the tawny multitude whose fragile craft covered
-the water like swarms of gliding insects, he thought, perhaps, of his
-whitewashed cell in the convent of Brouage, of his book, his table, his
-rosary, and all the narrow routine of that familiar life from which he
-had awakened to contrasts so startling. That his progress up the Ottawa
-was far from being an excursion of pleasure is attested by his letters,
-fragments of which have come down to us.
-
-"It would be hard to tell you," he writes to a friend, "how tired I was
-with paddling all day, with all my strength, among the Indians; wading
-the rivers a hundred times and more, through the mud and over the sharp
-rocks that cut my feet; carrying the canoe and luggage through the woods
-to avoid the rapids and frightful cataracts; and half starved all the
-while, for we had nothing to eat but a little sagantite, a sort of
-porridge of water and pounded maize, of which they gave us a very small
-allowance every morning and night. But I must needs tell you what
-abundant consolation I found under all my troubles; for when one sees so
-many infidels needing nothing but a drop of water to make them children
-of God, one feels an inexpressible ardor to labor for their conversion,
-and sacrifice to it one's repose and life."
-
-Another Recollet, Gabriel Sagard, followed the same route in similar
-company a few years later, and has left an account of his experience, of
-which Le Caron's was the counterpart. Sagard reckons from eighty to a
-hundred waterfalls and rapids in the course of the journey, and the task
-of avoiding them by pushing through the woods was the harder for him
-because he saw fit to go barefoot, "in imitation of our seraphic father,
-Saint Francis." "We often came upon rocks, mudholes, and fallen trees,
-which we had to scramble over, and sometimes we must force our way with
-head and hands through dense woods and thickets, without road or path.
-When the time came, my Indians looked for a good place to pass the
-night. Some went for dry wood; others for poles to make a shed; others
-kindled a fire, and hung the kettle to a stick stuck aslant in the
-ground; and others looked for two flat stones to bruise the Indian corn,
-of which they make sagamite."
-
-This sagamite was an extremely thin porridge; and, though scraps of fish
-were now and then boiled in it, the friar pined away daily on this weak
-and scanty fare, which was, moreover, made repulsive to him by the
-exceeding filthiness of the cookery. Nevertheless, he was forced to
-disguise his feelings. "One must always keep a smiling, modest,
-contented face, and now and then sing a hymn, both for his own
-consolation and to please and edify the savages, who take a singular
-pleasure in hearing us sing the praises of our God." Among all his
-trials, none afflicted him so much as the flies and mosquitoes. "If I
-had not kept my face wrapped in a cloth, I am almost sure they would
-have blinded me, so pestiferous and poisonous are the bites of these
-little demons. They make one look like a leper, hideous to the sight. I
-confess that this is the worst martyrdom I suffered in this country;
-hunger, thirst, weariness, and fever are nothing to it. These little
-beasts not only persecute you all day, but at night they get into your
-eyes and mouth, crawl under your clothes, or stick their long stings
-through them, and make such a noise that it distracts your attention,
-and prevents you from saying your prayers." He reckons three or four
-kinds of them, and adds, that in the Montagnais country there is still
-another kind, so small that they can hardly be seen, but which "bite
-like devils' imps." The sportsman who has bivouacked in the woods of
-Maine will at once recognize the minute tormentors there known as
-"no-see-'ems."
-
-While through tribulations like these Le Caron made his way towards the
-scene of his apostleship, Champlain was following on his track. With two
-canoes, ten Indians, Etienne Brule his interpreter, and another
-Frenchman, he pushed up the Ottawa till he reached the Algonquin
-villages which had formed the term of his former journeying. He passed
-the two lakes of the Allumettes; and now, for twenty miles, the river
-stretched before him, straight as the bee can fly, deep, narrow, and
-black, between its mountain shores. He passed the rapids of the Joachims
-and the Caribou, the Rocher Capitamne, and the Deux Rivieres, and
-reached at length the trihutary waters of the Mattawan. He turned to the
-left, ascended this little stream forty miles or more, and, crossing a
-portage track, well trodden, reached the margin of Lake Nipissing. The
-canoes were launched again, and glided by leafy shores and verdant
-islands till at length appeared signs of human life and clusters of bark
-lodges, half hidden in the vastness of the woods. It was the village of
-an Algonquin band, called the Nipissings,--a race so beset with
-spirits, infested by demons, and abounding in magicians, that the
-Jesuits afterwards stigmatized them as "the Sorcerers." In this
-questionable company Champlain spent two days, feasted on fish, deer,
-and bears. Then, descending to the outlet of the lake, he steered his
-canoes westward down the current of French River.
-
-Days passed, and no sign of man enlivened the rocky desolation. Hunger
-was pressing them hard, for the ten gluttonous Indians had devoured
-already nearly all their provision for the voyage, and they were forced
-to subsist on the blueberries and wild raspberries that grew abundantly
-in the meagre soil, when suddenly they encountered a troop of three
-hundred savages, whom, from their strange and startling mode of wearing
-their hair, Champlain named the Cheveux Releves. "Not one of our
-courtiers," he says, "takes so much pains in dressing his locks." Here,
-however, their care of the toilet ended; for, though tattooed on various
-parts of the body, painted, and armed with bows, arrows, and shields of
-bison-hide, they wore no clothing whatever. Savage as was their aspect,
-they were busied in the pacific task of gathering blueberries for their
-winter store. Their demeanor was friendly; and from them the voyager
-learned that the great lake of the Hurons was close at hand.
-
-Now, far along the western sky was traced the watery line of that inland
-ocean, and, first of white men except the Friar Le Caron, Champlain
-beheld the "Mer Douce," the Fresh-Water Sea of the Hurons. Before him,
-too far for sight, lay the spirit-haunted Manitonalins, and, southward,
-spread the vast bosom of the Georgian Bay. For more than a hundred
-miles, his course was along its eastern shores, among islets countless
-as the sea-sands,--an archipelago of rocks worn for ages by the wash of
-waves. He crossed Byng Inlet, Franklin Inlet, Parry Sound, and the wider
-bay of Matchedash, and seems to have landed at the inlet now called
-Thunder Bay, at the entrance of the Bay of Matchedash, and a little west
-of the Harbor of Penetanguishine.
-
-An Indian trail led inland, through woods and thickets, across broad
-meadows, over brooks, and along the skirts of green acclivities. To the
-eye of Champlain, accustomed to the desolation he had left behind, it
-seemed a land of beauty and abundance. He reached at last a broad
-opening in the forest, with fields of maize, pumpkins ripening in the
-sun, patches of sunflowers, from the seeds of which the Indians made
-hair-oil, and, in the midst, the Huron town of Otonacha. In all
-essential points, it resembled that which Cartier, eighty years before,
-had seen at Montreal,--the same triple palisade of crossed and
-intersecting trunks, and the same long lodges of bark, each containing
-several families. Here, within an area of thirty or forty miles, was the
-seat of one of the most remarkable savage communities on the continent.
-By the Indian standard, it was a mighty nation; yet the entire Huron
-population did not exceed that of a third or fourth class American city.
-
-To the south and southeast lay other tribes of kindred race and tongue,
-all stationary, all tillers of the soil, and all in a state of social
-advancement when compared with the roving bands of Eastern Canada: the
-Neutral Nation west of the Niagara, and the Eries and Andastes in Western
-New York and Pennsylvania; while from the Genesee eastward to the Hudson
-lay the banded tribes of the Iroquois, leading members of this potent
-family, deadly foes of their kindred, and at last their destroyers.
-
-In Champlain the Hurons saw the champion who was to lead them to
-victory. There was bountiful feasting in his honor in the great lodge at
-Otonacha; and other welcome, too, was tendered, of which the Hurons were
-ever liberal, but which, with all courtesy, was declined by the virtuous
-Champlain. Next, he went to Carmaron, a league distant, and then to
-Tonagnainchain and Tequenonquihayc; till at length he reached
-Carhagouha, with its triple palisade thirty-five feet high. Here he
-found Le Caron. The Indians, eager to do him honor, were building for
-him a bark lodge in the neighboring forest, fashioned like their own,
-but much smaller. In it the friar made an altar, garnished with those
-indispensable decorations which he had brought with him through all the
-vicissitudes of his painful journeying; and hither, night and day, came
-a curious multitude to listen to his annunciation of the new doctrine.
-It was a joyful hour when he saw Champlain approach his hermitage; and
-the two men embraced like brothers long sundered.
-
-The twelfth of August was a day evermore marked with white in the
-friar's calendar. Arrayed in priestly vestments, he stood before his
-simple altar; behind him his little band of Christians,--the twelve
-Frenchmen who had attended him, and the two who had followed Champlain.
-Here stood their devout and valiant chief, and, at his side, that
-pioneer of pioneers, Etienne Brule the interpreter. The Host was raised
-aloft; the worshippers kneeled. Then their rough voices joined in the
-hymn of praise, Te Deum laudamus; and then a volley of their guns
-proclaimed the triumph of the faith to the okies, the manitous, and all
-the brood of anomalous devils who had reigned with undisputed sway in
-these wild realms of darkness. The brave friar, a true soldier of the
-Church, had led her forlorn hope into the fastnesses of hell; and now,
-with contented heart, he might depart in peace, for he had said the
-first mass in the country of the Hurons.
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV.
-
-1615, 1616.
-
-THE GREAT WAR PARTY.
-
-The lot of the favored guest of an Indian camp or village is idleness
-without repose, for he is never left alone, with the repletion of
-incessant and inevitable feasts. Tired of this inane routine, Champlain,
-with some of his Frenchmen, set forth on a tour of observation.
-Journeying at their ease by the Indian trails, they visited, in three
-days, five palisaded villages. The country delighted them, with its
-meadows, its deep woods, its pine and cedar thickets, full of hares and
-partridges, its wild grapes and plums, cherries, crab-apples, nuts, and
-raspberries. It was the seventeenth of August when they reached the
-Huron metropolis, Cahiague, in the modern township of Orillia, three
-leagues west of the river Severn, by which Lake Simcoe pours its waters
-into the bay of Matchedash. A shrill clamor of rejoicing, the fixed
-stare of wondering squaws, and the screaming flight of terrified
-children hailed the arrival of Champlain. By his estimate, the place
-contained two hundred lodges; but they must have been relatively small,
-since, had they been of the enormous capacity sometimes found in these
-structures, Cahiague alone would have held the whole Huron population.
-Here was the chief rendezvous, and the town swarmed with gathering
-warriors. There was cheering news; for an allied nation, called
-Carantonans, probably identical with the Andastes, had promised to join
-the Hurons in the enemy's country, with five hundred men. Feasts and the
-war-dance consumed the days, till at length the tardy bands had all
-arrived; and, shouldering their canoes and scanty baggage, the naked
-host set forth.
-
-At the outlet of Lake Simcoe they all stopped to fish,--their simple
-substitute for a commissariat. Hence, too, the intrepid Etienne Brule,
-at his own request, was sent with twelve Indians to hasten forward the
-five hundred allied warriors,--a dangerous venture, since his course
-must lie through the borders of the Iroquois.
-
-He set out on the eighth of September, and on the morning of the tenth,
-Champlain, shivering in his blanket, awoke to see the meadows sparkling
-with an early frost, soon to vanish under the bright autumnal sun. The
-Huron fleet pursued its course along Lake Simcoe, across the portage to
-Balsam or Sturgeon Lake, and down the chain of lakes which form the
-sources of the river Trent. As the long line of canoes moved on its way,
-no human life was seen, no sign of friend or foe; yet at times, to the
-fancy of Champlain, the borders of the stream seemed decked with groves
-and shrubbery by the hands of man, and the walnut trees, laced with
-grape-vines, seemed decorations of a pleasure-ground.
-
-They stopped and encamped for a deer-hunt. Five hundred Indians, in
-line, like the skirmishers of an army advancing to battle, drove the
-game to the end of a woody point; and the canoe-men killed them with
-spears and arrows as they took to the river. Champlain and his men
-keenly relished the sport, but paid a heavy price for their pleasure. A
-Frenchman, firing at a buck, brought down an Indian, and there was need
-of liberal gifts to console the sufferer and his friends.
-
-The canoes now issued from the mouth of the Trent. Like a flock of
-venturous wild-fowl, they put boldly out upon Lake Ontario, crossed it
-in safety, and landed within the borders of New York, on or near the
-point of land west of Hungry Bay. After hiding their light craft in the
-woods, the warriors took up their swift and wary march, filing in
-silence between the woods and the lake, for four leagues along the
-strand. Then they struck inland, threaded the forest, crossed the outlet
-of Lake Oneida, and after a march of four days, were deep within the
-limits of the Iroquois. On the ninth of October some of their scouts met
-a fishing-party of this people, and captured them,--eleven in number,
-men, women, and children. They were brought to the camp of the exultant
-Hurons. As a beginning of the jubilation, a chief cut off a finger of
-one of the women, but desisted from further torturing on the angry
-protest of Champlain, reserving that pleasure for a more convenient
-season.
-
-On the next day they reached an open space in the forest. The hostile
-town was close at hand, surrounded by rugged fields with a slovenly and
-savage cultivation. The young Hurons in advance saw the Iroquois at work
-among the pumpkins and maize, gathering their rustling harvest. Nothing
-could restrain the hare-brained and ungoverned crew. They screamed their
-war-cry and rushed in; but the Iroquois snatched their weapons, killed
-and wounded five or six of the assailants, and drove back the rest
-discomfited. Champlain and his Frenchmen were forced to interpose; and
-the report of their pieces from the border of the woods stopped the
-pursuing enemy, who withdrew to their defences, bearing with them their
-dead and wounded.
-
-It appears to have been a fortified town of the Onondagas, the central
-tribe of the Iroquois confederacy, standing, there is some reason to
-believe, within the limits of Madison County, a few miles south of Lake
-Oneida. Champlain describes its defensive works as much stronger than
-those of the Huron villages. They consisted of four concentric rows of
-palisades, formed of trunks of trees, thirty feet high, set aslant in
-the earth, and intersecting each other near the top, where they
-supported a kind of gallery, well defended by shot-proof timber, and
-furnished with wooden gutters for quenching fire. A pond or lake, which
-washed one side of the palisade, and was led by sluices within the town,
-gave an ample supply of water, while the galleries were well provided
-with magazines of stones.
-
-Champlain was greatly exasperated at the desultory and futile procedure
-of his Huron allies. Against his advice, they now withdrew to the
-distance of a cannon-shot from the fort, and encamped in the forest, out
-of sight of the enemy. "I was moved," he says, "to speak to them roughly
-and harshly enough, in order to incite them to do their duty; for I
-foresaw that if things went according to their fancy, nothing but harm
-could come of it, to their loss and ruin. He proceeded, therefore, to
-instruct them in the art of war."
-
-In the morning, aided doubtless by his ten or twelve Frenchmen, they set
-themselves with alacrity to their prescribed task. A wooden tower was
-made, high enough to overlook the palisade, and large enough to shelter
-four or five marksmen. Huge wooden shields, or movable parapets, like
-the mantelets of the Middle Ages, were also constructed. Four hours
-sufficed to finish the work, and then the assault began. Two hundred of
-the strongest warriors dragged the tower forward, and planted it within
-a pike's length of the palisade. Three arquebusiers mounted to the top,
-where, themselves well sheltered, they opened a raking fire along the
-galleries, now thronged with wild and naked defenders. But nothing could
-restrain the ungovernable Hurons. They abandoned their mantelets, and,
-deaf to every command, swarmed out like bees upon the open field,
-leaped, shouted, shrieked their war-cries, and shot off their arrows;
-while the Iroquois, yelling defiance from their ramparts, sent back a
-shower of stones and arrows in reply. A Huron, bolder than the rest, ran
-forward with firebrands to burn the palisade, and others followed with
-wood to feed the flame. But it was stupidly kindled on the leeward side,
-without the protecting shields designed to cover it; and torrents of
-water, poured down from the gutters above, quickly extinguished it. The
-confusion was redoubled. Champlain strove in vain to restore order. Each
-warrior was yelling at the top of his throat, and his voice was drowned
-in the outrageous din. Thinking, as he says, that his head would split
-with shouting, he gave over the attempt, and busied himself and his men
-with picking off the Iroquois along their ramparts.
-
-The attack lasted three hours, when the assailants fell back to their
-fortified camp, with seventeen warriors wounded. Champlain, too, had
-received an arrow in the knee, and another in the leg, which, for the
-time, disabled him. He was urgent, however, to renew the attack; while
-the Hurons, crestfallen and disheartened, refused to move from their
-camp unless the five hundred allies, for some time expected, should
-appear. They waited five days in vain, beguiling the interval with
-frequent skirmishes, in which they were always worsted; then began
-hastily to retreat, carrying their wounded in the centre, while the
-Iroquois, sallying from their stronghold, showered arrows on their
-flanks and rear. The wounded, Champlain among the rest, after being
-packed in baskets made on the spot, were carried each on the back of a
-strong warrior, "bundled in a heap," says Champlain, "doubled and
-strapped together after such a fashion that one could move no more than
-an infant in swaddling-clothes. The pain is extreme, as I can truly say
-from experience, having been carried several days in this way, since I
-could not stand, chiefly on account of the arrow-wound I had got in the
-knee. I never was in such torment in my life, for the pain of the wound
-was nothing to that of being bound and pinioned on the back of one of
-our savages. I lost patience, and as soon as I could bear my weight I
-got out of this prison, or rather out of hell."
-
-At length the dismal march was ended. They reached the spot where their
-canoes were hidden, found them untouched, embarked, and recrossed to the
-northern shore of Lake Ontario. The Hurons had promised Champlain an
-escort to Quebec; but as the chiefs had little power, in peace or war,
-beyond that of persuasion, each warrior found good reasons for refusing
-to lend his canoe. Champlain, too, had lost prestige. The "man with the
-iron breast" had proved not inseparably wedded to victory; and though
-the fault was their own, yet not the less was the lustre of their hero
-tarnished. There was no alternative. He must winter with the Hurons. The
-great war party broke into fragments, each band betaking itself to its
-hunting-ground. A chief named Durantal, or Darontal, offered Champlain
-the shelter of his lodge, and he was glad to accept it.
-
-Meanwhile, Etienne Brule had found cause to rue the hour when he
-undertook his hazardous mission to the Carantonan allies. Three years
-passed before Champlain saw him. It was in the summer of 1618, that,
-reaching the Saut St. Louis, he there found the interpreter, his hands
-and his swarthy face marked with traces of the ordeal he had passed.
-Brule then told him his story.
-
-He had gone, as already mentioned, with twelve Indians, to hasten the
-march of the allies, who were to join the Hurons before the hostile
-town. Crossing Lake Ontario, the party pushed onward with all speed,
-avoiding trails, threading the thickest forests and darkest swamps, for
-it was the land of the fierce and watchful Iroquois. They were well
-advanced on their way when they saw a small party of them crossing a
-meadow, set upon them, surprised them, killed four, and took two
-prisoners, whom they led to Carantonan,--a palisaded town with a
-population of eight hundred warriors, or about four thousand souls. The
-dwellings and defences were like those of the Hurons, and the town seems
-to have stood on or near the upper waters of the Susquehanna. They were
-welcomed with feasts, dances, and an uproar of rejoicing. The five
-hundred warriors prepared to depart; but, engrossed by the general
-festivity, they prepared so slowly, that, though the hostile town was
-but three days distant, they found on reaching it that the besiegers
-were gone. Brule now returned with them to Carantonan, and, with
-enterprise worthy of his commander, spent the winter in a tour of
-exploration. Descending a river, evidently the Susquehanna, he followed
-it to its junction with the sea, through territories of populous tribes,
-at war the one with the other. When, in the spring, he returned to
-Carantonan, five or six of the Indians offered to guide him towards his
-countrymen. Less fortunate than before, he encountered on the way a band
-of Iroquois, who, rushing upon the party, scattered them through the
-woods. Brule ran like the rest. The cries of pursuers and pursued died
-away in the distance. The forest was silent around him. He was lost in
-the shady labyrinth. For three or four days he wandered, helpless and
-famished, till at length he found an Indian foot-path, and, choosing
-between starvation and the Iroquois, desperately followed it to throw
-himself on their mercy. He soon saw three Indians in the distance, laden
-with fish newly caught, and called to them in the Huron tongue, which
-was radically similar to that of the Iroquois. They stood amazed, then
-turned to fly; but Brule, gaunt with famine, flung down his weapons in
-token of friendship. They now drew near, listened to the story of his
-distress, lighted their pipes, and smoked with him; then guided him to
-their village, and gave him food.
-
-A crowd gathered about him. "Whence do you come? Are you not one of the
-Frenchmen, the men of iron, who make war on us?"
-
-Brule answered that he was of a nation better than the French, and fast
-friends of the Iroquois.
-
-His incredulous captors tied him to a tree, tore out his beard by
-handfuls, and burned him with fire-brands, while their chief vainly
-interposed in his behalf. He was a good Catholic, and wore an Agnus Dei
-at his breast. One of his torturers asked what it was, and thrust out
-his hand to take it.
-
-"If you touch it," exclaimed Brule, "you and all your race will die."
-
-The Indian persisted. The day was hot, and one of those thunder-gusts
-which often succeed the fierce heats of an American midsummer was rising
-against the sky. Brule pointed to the inky clouds as tokens of the anger
-of his God. The storm broke, and, as the celestial artillery boomed over
-their darkening forests, the Iroquois were stricken with a superstitious
-terror. They all fled from the spot, leaving their victim still bound
-fast, until the chief who had endeavored to protect him returned, cut
-the cords, led him to his lodge, and dressed his wounds. Thenceforth
-there was neither dance nor feast to which Brule was not invited; and
-when he wished to return to his countrymen, a party of Iroquois guided
-him four days on his way. He reached the friendly Hurons in safety, and
-joined them on their yearly descent to meet the French traders at
-Montreal.
-
-Brule's adventures find in some points their counterpart in those of his
-commander on the winter hunting-grounds of his Huron allies. As we turn
-the ancient, worm-eaten page which preserves the simple record of his
-fortunes, a wild and dreary scene rises before the mind,--a chill
-November air, a murky sky, a cold lake, bare and shivering forests, the
-earth strewn with crisp brown leaves, and, by the water-side, the bark
-sheds and smoking camp-fires of a band of Indian hunters. Champlain was
-of the party. There was ample occupation for his gun, for the morning
-was vocal with the clamor of wild-fowl, and his evening meal was
-enlivened by the rueful music of the wolves. It was a lake north or
-northwest of the site of Kingston. On the borders of a neighboring
-river, twenty-five of the Indians had been busied ten days in preparing
-for their annual deer-hunt. They planted posts interlaced with boughs in
-two straight converging lines, each extending mere than half a mile
-through forests and swamps. At the angle where they met was made a
-strong enclosure like a pound. At dawn of day the hunters spread
-themselves through the woods, and advanced with shouts, clattering of
-sticks, and howlings like those of wolves, driving the deer before them
-into the enclosure, where others lay in wait to despatch them with
-arrows and spears.
-
-Champlain was in the woods with the rest, when he saw a bird whose novel
-appearance excited his attention; and, gun in hand, he went in pursuit.
-The bird, flitting from tree to tree, lured him deeper and deeper into
-the forest; then took wing and vanished. The disappointed sportsman
-tried to retrace his steps. But the day was clouded, and he had left his
-pocket-compass at the camp. The forest closed around him, trees mingled
-with trees in endless confusion. Bewildered and lost, he wandered all
-day, and at night slept fasting at the foot of a tree. Awaking, he
-wandered on till afternoon, when he reached a pond slumbering in the
-shadow of the woods. There were water-fowl along its brink, some of
-which he shot, and for the first time found food to allay his hunger. He
-kindled a fire, cooked his game, and, exhausted, blanketless, drenched
-by a cold rain, made his prayer to Heaven, and again lay down to sleep.
-Another day of blind and weary wandering succeeded, and another night of
-exhaustion. He had found paths in the wilderness, but they were not made
-by human feet. Once more roused from his shivering repose, he journeyed
-on till he heard the tinkling of a little brook, and bethought him of
-following its guidance, in the hope that it might lead him to the river
-where the hunters were now encamped. With toilsome steps he followed the
-infant stream, now lost beneath the decaying masses of fallen trunks or
-the impervious intricacies of matted "windfalls," now stealing through
-swampy thickets or gurgling in the shade of rocks, till it entered at
-length, not into the river, but into a small lake. Circling around the
-brink, he found the point where the brook ran out and resumed its
-course. Listening in the dead stillness of the woods, a dull, hoarse
-sound rose upon his ear. He went forward, listened again, and could
-plainly hear the plunge of waters. There was light in the forest before
-him, and, thrusting himself through the entanglement of bushes, he stood
-on the edge of a meadow. Wild animals were here of various kinds; some
-skulking in the bordering thickets, some browsing on the dry and matted
-grass. On his right rolled the river, wide and turbulent, and along its
-bank he saw the portage path by which the Indians passed the neighboring
-rapids. He gazed about him. The rocky hills seemed familiar to his eye.
-A clew was found at last; and, kindling his evening fire, with grateful
-heart he broke a long fast on the game he had killed. With the break of
-day he descended at his ease along the bank, and soon descried the smoke
-of the Indian fires curling in the heavy morning air against the gray
-borders of the forest. The joy was great on both sides. The Indians had
-searched for him without ceasing; and from that day forth his host,
-Durantal, would never let him go into the forest alone.
-
-They were thirty-eight days encamped on this nameless river, and killed
-in that time a hundred and twenty deer. Hard frosts were needful to give
-them passage over the land of lakes and marshes that lay between them
-and the Huron towns. Therefore they lay waiting till the fourth of
-December; when the frost came, bridged the lakes and streams, and made
-the oozy marsh as firm as granite. Snow followed, powdering the broad
-wastes with dreary white. Then they broke up their camp, packed their
-game on sledges or on their shoulders, tied on their snowshoes, and
-began their march. Champlain could scarcely endure his load, though some
-of the Indians carried a weight fivefold greater. At night, they heard
-the cleaving ice uttering its strange groans of torment, and on the
-morrow there came a thaw. For four days they waded through slush and
-water up to their knees; then came the shivering northwest wind, and all
-was hard again. In nineteen days they reached the town of Cahiague, and,
-lounging around their smoky lodge-fires, the hunters forgot the
-hardships of the past.
-
-For Champlain there was no rest. A double motive urged him,--discovery,
-and the strengthening of his colony by widening its circle of trade.
-First, he repaired to Carhagouha; and here he found the friar, in his
-hermitage, still praying, preaching, making catechisms, and struggling
-with the manifold difficulties of the Huron tongue. After spending
-several weeks together, they began their journeyings, and in three days
-reached the chief village of the Nation of Tobacco, a powerful tribe
-akin to the Hurons, and soon to be incorporated with them. The
-travellers visited seven of their towns, and then passed westward to
-those of the people whom Champlain calls the Cheveax Releves, and whom
-he commends for neatness and ingenuity no less than he condemns them for
-the nullity of their summer attire. As the strangers passed from town to
-town, their arrival was everywhere the signal of festivity. Champlain
-exchanged pledges of amity with his hosts, and urged them to come down
-with the Hurons to the yearly trade at Montreal.
-
-Spring was now advancing, and, anxious for his colony, he turned
-homeward, following that long circuit of Lake Huron and the Ottawa which
-Iroquois hostility made the only practicable route. Scarcely had he
-reached the Nipissings, and gained from them a pledge to guide him to
-that delusive northern sea which never ceased to possess his thoughts,
-when evil news called him back in haste to the Huron towns. A band of
-those Algonquins who dwelt on the great island in the Ottawa had spent
-the winter encamped near Cahiague, whose inhabitants made them a present
-of an Iroquois prisoner, with the friendly intention that they should
-enjoy the pleasure of torturing him. The Algonquins, on the contrary,
-fed, clothed, and adopted him. On this, the donors, in a rage, sent a
-warrior to kill the Iroquois. He stabbed him, accordingly, in the midst
-of the Algonquin chiefs, who in requital killed the murderer. Here was a
-casus belli involving most serious issues for the French, since the
-Algonquins, by their position on the Ottawa, could cut off the Hurons
-and all their allies from coming down to trade. Already a fight had
-taken place at Cahiague the principal Algonquin chief had been wounded,
-and his band forced to purchase safety by a heavy tribute of
-wampum[FN#33] and a gift of two female prisoners.
-
-All eyes turned to Champlain as umpire of the quarrel. The great
-council-house was filled with Huron and Algonquin cltiefs, smoking with
-that immobility of feature beneath which their race often hide a more
-than tiger-like ferocity. The umpire addressed the assembly, enlarged on
-the folly of falling to blows between themselves when the common enemy
-stood ready to devour them both, extolled the advantages of the French
-trade and alliance, and, with zeal not wholly disinterested, urged them
-to shake hands like brothers. The friendly counsel was accepted, the
-pipe of peace was smoked, the storm dispelled, and the commerce of New
-France rescued from a serious peril.
-
-Once more Champlain turned homeward, and with him went his Huron host,
-Durantal. Le Caron had preceded him; and, on the eleventh of July, the
-fellow-travellers met again in the infant capital of Canada. The Indians
-had reported that Champlain was dead, and he was welcomed as one risen
-from the grave. The friars, who were all here, chanted lands in their
-chapel, with a solemn mass and thanksgiving. To the two travelers, fresh
-from the hardships of the wilderness, the hospitable board of Quebec,
-the kindly society of countrymen and friends, the adjacent gardens,--
-always to Champlain an object of especial interest,--seemed like the
-comforts and repose of home.
-
-The chief Durantal found entertainment worthy of his high estate. The
-fort, the ship, the armor, the plumes, the cannon, the marvellous
-architecture of the houses and barracks, the splendors of the chapel,
-and above all the good cheer outran the boldest excursion of his fancy;
-and he paddled back at last to his lodge in the woods, bewildered with
-astonishment and admiration.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV.
-
-1616-1627.
-
-HOSTILE SECTS.--RIVAL INTERESTS.
-
-At Quebec the signs of growth were faint and few. By the water-side,
-under the cliff, the so-called "habitation," built in haste eight years
-before, was already tottering, and Champlain was forced to rebuild it.
-On the verge of the rock above, where now are seen the buttresses of the
-demolished castle of St. Louis, he began, in 1620, a fort, behind which
-were fields and a few buildings. A mile or more distant, by the bank of
-the St. Charles, where the General Hospital now stands, the Recollets,
-in the same year, built for themselves a small stone house, with ditches
-and outworks for defence; and here they began a farm, the stock
-consisting of several hogs, a pair of asses, a pair of geese, seven
-pairs of fowls, and four pairs of ducks. The only other agriculturist in
-the colony was Louis Hebert, who had come to Canada in 1617 with a wife
-and three children, and who made a house for himself on the rock, at a
-little distance from Champlain's fort.
-
-Besides Quebec, there were the three trading-stations of Montreal, Three
-Rivers, and Tadoussac, occupied during a part of the year. Of these,
-Tadoussac was still the most important. Landing here from France in
-1617, the Recollet Paul Huet said mass for the first time in a chapel
-built of branches, while two sailors standing beside him waved green
-boughs to drive off the mosquitoes. Thither afterward came Brother
-Gervais Mohier, newly arrived in Canada; and meeting a crowd of Indians
-in festal attire, he was frightened at first, suspecting that they might
-be demons. Being invited by them to a feast, and told that he must not
-decline, he took his place among a party of two hundred, squatted about
-four large kettles full of fish, bear's meat, pease, and plums, mixed
-with figs, raisins, and biscuit procured at great cost from the traders,
-the whole boiled together and well stirred with a canoe-paddle. As the
-guest did no honor to the portion set before him, his entertainers tried
-to tempt his appetite with a large lump of bear's fat, a supreme luxury
-in their eyes. This only increased his embarrassment, and he took a
-hasty leave, uttering the ejaculation, "ho, ho, ho!" which, as he had
-been correctly informed, was the proper mode of acknowledgment to the
-master of the feast.
-
-A change had now begun in the life of Champlain. His forest rovings were
-over. To battle with savages and the elements was more congenial with
-his nature than to nurse a puny colony into growth and strength; yet to
-each task he gave himself with the same strong devotion.
-
-His difficulties were great. Quebec was half trading-factory, half
-mission. Its permanent inmates did not exceed fifty or sixty persons,--
-fur-traders, friars, and two or three wretched families, who had no
-inducement, and little wish, to labor. The fort is facetiously
-represented as having two old women for garrison, and a brace of hens
-for sentinels. All was discord and disorder. Champlain was the nominal
-commander; but the actual authority was with the merchants, who held,
-excepting the friars, nearly everybody in their pay. Each was jealous of
-the other, but all were united in a common jealousy of Champlain. The
-few families whom they brought over were forbidden to trade with the
-Indians, and compelled to sell the fruits of their labor to the agents
-of the company at a low, fixed price, receiving goods in return at an
-inordinate valuation. Some of the merchants were of Ronen, some of St.
-Malo; some were Catholics, some were Huguenots. Hence unceasing
-bickerings. All exercise of the Reformed religion, on land or water, was
-prohibited within the limits of New France; but the Huguenots set the
-prohibition at naught, roaring their heretical psalmody with such vigor
-from their ships in the river that the unhallowed strains polluted the
-ears of the Indians on shore. The merchants of Rochelle, who had refused
-to join the company, carried on a bold illicit traffic along the borders
-of the St. Lawrence, endangering the colony by selling fire-arms to the
-Indians, eluding pursuit, or, if hard pressed, showing fight; and this
-was a source of perpetual irritation to the incensed monopolists.
-
-The colony could not increase. The company of merchants, though pledged
-to promote its growth, did what they could to prevent it. They were
-fur-traders, and the interests of the fur-trade are always opposed to
-those of settlement and population. They feared, too, and with reason,
-that their monopoly might be suddenly revoked, like that of De Monts,
-and they thought only of making profit from it while it lasted. They had
-no permanent stake in the country; nor had the men in their employ, who
-formed nearly all the scanty population of Canada. Few, if any, of these
-had brought wives to the colony, and none of them thought of cultivating
-the soil. They formed a floating population, kept from starving by
-yearly supplies from France.
-
-Champlain, in his singularly trying position, displayed a mingled zeal
-and fortitude. He went every year to France, laboring for the interests
-of the colony. To throw open the trade to all competitors was a measure
-beyond the wisdom of the times; and he hoped only to bind and regulate
-the monopoly so as to make it subserve the generous purpose to which he
-had given himself. The imprisonment of Conde was a source of fresh
-embarrassment; but the young Duo de Montmorency assumed his place,
-purchasing from him the profitable lieuteuancy of New France for eleven
-thousand crowns, and continuing Champlain in command. Champlain had
-succeeded in binding the company of merchants with new and more
-stringent engagements; and, in the vain belief that these might not be
-wholly broken, he began to conceive fresh hopes for the colony. In this
-faith he embarked with his wife for Quebec in the spring of 1620; and,
-as the boat drew near the landing, the cannon welcomed her to the rock
-of her banishment. The buildings were falling to ruin; rain entered on
-all sides; the courtyard, says Champlain, was as squalid and dilapidated
-as a grange pillaged by soldiers. Madame de Champlain was still very
-young. If the Ursuline tradition is to be trusted, the Indians, amazed
-at her beauty and touched by her gentleness, would have worshipped her
-as a divinity. Her husband had married her at the age of twelve when, to
-his horror, he presently discovered that she was infected with the
-heresies of her father, a disguised Huguenot. He addressed himself at
-once to her conversion, and his pious efforts were something more than
-successful. During the four years which she passed in Canada, her zeal,
-it is true, was chiefly exercised in admonishing Indian squaws and
-catechising their children; but, on her return to France, nothing would
-content her but to become a nun. Champlain refused; but, as she was
-childless, he at length consented to a virtual though not formal
-separation. After his death she gained her wish, became an Ursuline nun,
-founded a convent of that order at Meaux, and died with a reputation
-almost saintly.
-
-At Quebec, matters grew from bad to worse. The few emigrants, with no
-inducement to labor, fell into a lazy apathy, lounging about the
-trading-houses, gaming, drinking when drink could be had, or roving into
-the woods on vagabond hunting excursions. The Indians could not be
-trusted. In the year 1617 they had murdered two men near the end of the
-Island of Orleans. Frightened at what they had done, and incited perhaps
-by other causes, the Montagnais and their kindred bands mustered at
-Three Rivers to the number of eight hundred, resolved to destroy the
-French. The secret was betrayed; and the childish multitude, naked and
-famishing, became suppliants to their intended victims for the means of
-life. The French, themselves at the point of starvation, could give
-little or nothing. An enemy far more formidable awaited them; and now
-were seen the fruits of Champlain's intermeddling in Indian wars. In the
-summer of 1622, the Iroquois descended upon the settlement. A strong
-party of their warriors hovered about Quebec, but, still fearful of the
-arquebuse, forbore to attack it, and assailed the Recollet convent on
-the St. Charles. The prudent friars had fortified themselves. While some
-prayed in the chapel, the rest, with their Indian converts, manned the
-walls. The Iroquois respected their palisades and demi-lunes, and
-withdrew, after burning two Huron prisoners.
-
-Yielding at length to reiterated complaints, the Viceroy Montmorency
-suppressed the company of St. Malo and Rouen, and conferred the trade of
-New France, burdened with similar conditions destined to be similarly
-broken, on two Huguenots, William and emery de Caen. The change was a
-signal for fresh disorders. The enraged monopolists refused to yield.
-The rival traders filled Quebec with their quarrels; and Champlain,
-seeing his authority set at naught, was forced to occupy his newly built
-fort with a band of armed followers. The evil rose to such a pitch that
-he joined with the Recollets and the better-disposed among the colonists
-in sending one of the friars to lay their grievances before the King.
-The dispute was compromised by a temporary union of the two companies,
-together with a variety of arrets and regulations, suited, it was
-thought, to restore tranquillity.
-
-A new change was at hand. Montmorency, tired of his viceroyalty, which
-gave him ceaseless annoyance, sold it to his nephew, Henri de Levis, Duc
-de Ventadour. It was no worldly motive which prompted this young
-nobleman to assume the burden of fostering the infancy of New France. He
-had retired from the court, and entered into holy orders. For trade and
-colonization he cared nothing; the conversion of infidels was his sole
-care. The Jesuits had the keeping of his conscience, and in his eyes
-they were the most fitting instruments for his purpose. The Recollets,
-it is true, had labored with an unflagging devotion. The six friars of
-their Order--for this was the number which the Calvinist Caen had bound
-himself to support--had established five distinct missions, extending
-from Acadia to the borders of Lake Huron; but the field was too vast for
-their powers. Ostensibly by a spontaneous movement of their own, but in
-reality, it is probable, under influences brought to bear on them from
-without, the Recollets applied for the assistance of the Jesuits, who,
-strong in resources as in energy, would not be compelled to rest on the
-reluctant support of Huguenots. Three of their brotherhood--Charles
-Lalemant, Enemond Masse, and Jean de Brebeuf--accordingly embarked;
-and, fourteen years after Biard and Masse had landed in Acadia, Canada
-beheld for the first time those whose names stand so prominent in her
-annals,--the mysterious followers of Loyola. Their reception was most
-inauspicious. Champlain was absent. Caen would not lodge them in the
-fort; the traders would not admit them to their houses. Nothing seemed
-left for them but to return as they came; when a boat, bearing several
-Recollets, approached the ship to proffer them the hospitalities of the
-convent on the St. Charles. They accepted the proffer, and became guests
-of the charitable friars, who nevertheless entertained a lurking
-jealousy of these formidable co-workers.
-
-The Jesuits soon unearthed and publicly burnt a libel against their
-Order belonging to some of the traders. Their strength was soon
-increased. The Fathers Noirot and De la Noue landed, with twenty
-laborers, and the Jesuits were no longer houseless. Brebeuf set forth
-for the arduous mission of the Hurons; but on arriving at Trois Rivieres
-he learned that one of his Franciscan predecessors, Nicolas Viel, had
-recently been drowned by Indians of that tribe, in the rapid behind
-Montreal, known to this day as the Saut au Recollet. Less ambitious for
-martyrdom than he afterwards approved himself, he postponed his voyage
-to a more auspicious season. In the following spring he renewed the
-attempt, in company with De la Noue and one of the friars. The Indians,
-however, refused to receive him into their canoes, alleging that his
-tall and portly frame would overset them; and it was only by dint of
-many presents that their pretended scruples could be conquered. Brebeuf
-embarked with his companions, and, after months of toil, reached the
-barbarous scene of his labors, his sufferings, and his death.
-
-Meanwhile the Viceroy had been deeply scandalized by the contumacious
-heresy of Emery de Caen, who not only assembled his Huguenot sailors at
-prayers, but forced Catholics to join them. He was ordered thenceforth
-to prohibit his crews from all praying and psalm-singing on the river
-St. Lawrence. The crews revolted, and a compromise was made. It was
-agreed that for the present they might pray, but not sing. "A bad
-bargain," says the pious Champlain, "but we made the best of it we
-could." Caen, enraged at the Viceroy's reproofs, lost no opportunity to
-vent his spleen against the Jesuits, whom he cordially hated.
-
-Eighteen years had passed since the founding of Quebec, and still the
-colony could scarcely be said to exist but in the founder's brain. Those
-who should have been its support were engrossed by trade or
-propagandism. Champlain might look back on fruitless toils, hopes
-deferred, a life spent seemingly in vain. The population of Quebec had
-risen to a hundred and five persons, men, women, and children. Of these,
-one or two families only had learned to support themselves from the
-products of the soil. All withered under the monopoly of the Caens.
-Champlain had long desired to rebuild the fort, which was weak and
-ruinous; but the merchants would not grant the men and means which, by
-their charter, they were bound to furnish. At length, however, his
-urgency in part prevailed, and the work began to advance. Meanwhile the
-Caens and their associates had greatly prospered, paying, it is said, an
-annual dividend of forty per cent. In a single year they brought from
-Canada twenty-two thousand beaver skins, though the usual number did not
-exceed twelve or fifteen thousand.
-
-While infant Canada was thus struggling into a half-stifled being, the
-foundation of a commonwealth destined to a marvellous vigor of
-development had been laid on the Rock of Plymouth. In their character,
-as in their destiny, the rivals were widely different; yet, at the
-outset, New England was unfaithful to the principle of freedom. New
-England Protestantism appealed to Liberty, then closed the door against
-her; for all Protestantism is an appeal from priestly authority to the
-right of private judgment, and the New England Puritan, after claiming
-this right for himself, denied it to all who differed with him. On a
-stock of freedom he grafted a scion of despotism; yet the vital juices
-of the root penetrated at last to the uttermost branches, and nourished
-them to an irrepressible strength and expansion. With New France it was
-otherwise. She was consistent to the last. Root, stem, and branch, she
-was the nursling of authority. Deadly absolutism blighted her early and
-her later growth. Friars and Jesuits, a Ventadour and a Richelieu,
-shaped her destinies. All that conflicted against advancing liberty--
-the centralized power of the crown and the tiara, the ultramontane in
-religion, the despotic in policy--found their fullest expression and
-most fatal exercise. Her records shine with glorious deeds, the
-self-devotion of heroes and of martyrs; and the result of all is
-disorder, imbecility, ruin.
-
-The great champion of absolutism, Richelieu, was now supreme in France.
-His thin frame, pale cheek, and cold, calm eye, concealed an inexorable
-will and a mind of vast capacity, armed with all the resources of
-boldness and of craft. Under his potent agency, the royal power, in the
-weak hands of Louis the Thirteenth, waxed and strengthened daily,
-triumphing over the factions of the court, the turbulence of the
-Huguenots, the ambitious independence of the nobles, and all the
-elements of anarchy which, since the death of Henry the Fourth, had
-risen into fresh life. With no friends and a thousand enemies, disliked
-and feared by the pitiful King whom he served, making his tool by turns
-of every party and of every principle, he advanced by countless crooked
-paths towards his object,--the greatness of France under a concentrated
-and undivided authority.
-
-In the midst of more urgent cares, he addressed himself to fostering the
-commercial and naval power. Montmorency then held the ancient charge of
-Admiral of France. Richelieu bought it, suppressed it, and, in its
-stead, constituted himself Grand Master and Superintendent of Navigation
-and Commerce. In this new capacity, the mismanaged affairs of New France
-were not long concealed from him; and he applied a prompt and powerful
-remedy. The privileges of the Caens were annulled. A company was formed,
-to consist of a hundred associates, and to be called the Company of New
-France. Richelieu himself was the head, and the Marechal Deffiat and
-other men of rank, besides many merchants and burghers of condition,
-were members. The whole of New France, from Florida to the Arctic
-Circle, and from Newfoundland to the sources of the--St. Lawrence and
-its tributary waters, was conferred on them forever, with the attributes
-of sovereign power. A perpetual monopoly of the fur-trade was granted
-them, with a monopoly of all other commerce within the limits of their
-government for fifteen years. The trade of the colony was declared free,
-for the same period, from all duties and imposts. Nobles, officers, and
-ecclesiastics, members of the Company, might engage in commercial
-pursuits without derogating from the privileges of their order; and, in
-evidence of his good-will, the King gave them two ships of war, armed
-and equipped.
-
-On their part, the Company were bound to convey to New France during the
-next year, 1628, two or three hundred men of all trades, and before the
-year 1643 to increase the number to four thousand persons, of both
-sexes; to lodge and support them for three years; and, this time
-expired, to give them cleared lands for their maintenance. Every settler
-must be a Frenchman and a Catholic; and for every new settlement at
-least three ecclesiastics must be provided. Thus was New France to be
-forever free from the taint of heresy. The stain of her infancy was to
-be wiped away. Against the foreigner and the Huguenot the door was
-closed and barred. England threw open her colonies to all who wished to
-enter,--to the suffering and oppressed, the bold, active, and
-enterprising. France shut out those who wished to come, and admitted
-only those who did not,--the favored class who clung to the old faith
-and had no motive or disposition to leave their homes. English
-colonization obeyed a natural law, and sailed with wind and tide; French
-colonization spent its whole struggling existence in futile efforts to
-make head against them. The English colonist developed inherited freedom
-on a virgin soil; the French colonist was pursued across the Atlantic by
-a paternal despotism better in intention and more withering in effect
-than that which he left behind. If, instead of excluding Huguenots,
-France had given them an asylum in the west, and left them there to work
-out their own destinies, Canada would never have been a British
-province, and the United States would have shared their vast domain with
-a vigorous population of self-governing Frenchmen.
-
-A trading company was now feudal proprietor of all domains in North
-America within the claim of France. Fealty and homage on its part, and
-on the part of the Crown the appointment of supreme judicial officers,
-and the confirmation of the titles of dukes, marquises, counts, and
-barons, were the only reservations. The King heaped favors on the new
-corporation. Twelve of the bourgeois members were ennobled; while
-artisans and even manufacturers were tempted, by extraordinary
-privileges, to emigrate to the New World. The associates, of whom
-Champlain was one, entered upon their functions with a capital of three
-hundred thousand livres.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI.
-
-1628, 1629.
-
-THE ENGLISH AT QUEBEC.
-
-The first care of the new Company was to succor Quebec, whose inmates
-were on the verge of starvation. Four armed vessels, with a fleet of
-transports commanded by Roquemont, one of the associates, sailed from
-Dieppe with colonists and supplies in April, 1628; but nearly at the
-same time another squadron, destined also for Quebec, was sailing from
-an English port. War had at length broken out in France. The Huguenot
-revolt had come to a head. Rochelle was in arms against the King; and
-Richelieu, with his royal ward, was beleaguering it with the whole
-strength of the kingdom. Charles the First of England, urged by the
-heated passions of Buckingham, had declared himself for the rebels, and
-sent a fleet to their aid. At home, Charles detested the followers of
-Calvin as dangerous to his own authority; abroad, he befriended them as
-dangerous to the authority of a rival. In France, Richelieu crushed
-Protestantism as a curb to the house of Bourbon; in Germany, he nursed
-and strengthened it as a curb to the house of Austria.
-
-The attempts of Sir William Alexander to colonize Acadia had of late
-turned attention in England towards the New World; and on the breaking
-out of the war an expedition was set on foot, under the auspices of that
-singular personage, to seize on the French possessions in North America.
-It was a private enterprise, undertaken by London merchants, prominent
-among whom was Gervase Kirke, an Englishman of Derbyshire, who had long
-lived at Dieppe, and had there married a Frenchwoman. Gervase Kirke and
-his associates fitted out three small armed ships, commanded
-respectively by his sons David, Lewis, and Thomas. Letters of marque
-were obtained from the King, and the adventurers were authorized to
-drive out the French from Acadia and Canada. Many Huguenot refugees were
-among the crews. Having been expelled from New France as settlers, the
-persecuted sect were returning as enemies. One Captain Michel, who had
-been in the service of the Caens, "a furious Calvinist," is said to have
-instigated the attempt, acting, it is affirmed, under the influence of
-one of his former employers.
-
-Meanwhile the famished tenants of Quebec were eagerly waiting the
-expected succor. Daily they gazed beyond Point Levi and along the
-channels of Orleans, in the vain hope of seeing the approaching sails.
-At length, on the ninth of July, two men, worn with struggling through
-forests and over torrents, crossed the St. Charles and mounted the rock.
-They were from Cape Tourmente, where Champlain had some time before
-established an outpost, and they brought news that, according to the
-report of Indians, six large vessels lay in the harbor of Tadoussac. The
-friar Le Caron was at Quebec, and, with a brother Recollet, he went in a
-canoe to gain further intelligence. As the missionary scouts were
-paddling along the borders of the Island of Orleans, they met two canoes
-advancing in hot haste, manned by Indians, who with shouts and gestures
-warned them to turn back.
-
-The friars, however, waited till the canoes came up, when they saw a man
-lying disabled at the bottom of one of them, his moustaches burned by
-the flash of the musket which had wounded him. He proved to be Foucher,
-who commanded at Cape Tourmente. On that morning,--such was the story
-of the fugitives,--twenty men had landed at that post from a small
-fishing-vessel. Being to all appearance French, they were hospitably
-received; but no sooner had they entered the houses than they began to
-pillage and burn all before them, killing the cattle, wounding the
-commandant, and making several prisoners.
-
-The character of the fleet at Tadoussac was now sufficiently clear.
-Quebec was incapable of defence. Only fifty pounds of gunpowder were
-left in the magazine; and the fort, owing to the neglect and ill-will of
-the Caens, was so wretchedly constructed, that, a few days before, two
-towers of the main building had fallen. Champlain, however, assigned to
-each man his post, and waited the result. On the next afternoon, a boat
-was seen issuing from behind the Point of Orleans and hovering
-hesitatingly about the mouth of the St. Charles. On being challenged,
-the men on board proved to be Basque fishermen, lately captured by the
-English, and now sent by Kirke unwilling messengers to Champlain.
-Climbing the steep pathway to the fort, they delivered their letter,--a
-summons, couched in terms of great courtesy, to surrender Quebec. There
-was no hope but in courage. A bold front must supply the lack of
-batteries and ramparts; and Champlain dismissed the Basques with a
-reply, in which, with equal courtesy, he expressed his determination to
-hold his position to the last.
-
-All now stood on the watch, hourly expecting the enemy; when, instead of
-the hostile squadron, a small boat crept into sight, and one Desdames,
-with ten Frenchmen, landed at the storehouses. He brought stirring news.
-The French commander, Roquemont, had despatched him to tell Champlain
-that the ships of the Hundred Associates were ascending the St.
-Lawrence, with reinforcements and supplies of all kinds. But on his way
-Desdames had seen an ominous sight,--the English squadron standing
-under full sail out of Tadoussac, and steering downwards as if to
-intercept the advancing succor. He had only escaped them by dragging his
-boat up the beach and hiding it; and scarcely were they out of sight
-when the booming of cannon told him that the fight was begun.
-
-Racked with suspense, the starving tenants of Quebec waited the result;
-but they waited in vain. No white sail moved athwart the green solitudes
-of Orleans. Neither friend nor foe appeared; and it was not till long
-afterward that Indians brought them the tidings that Roquemont's crowded
-transports had been overpowered, and all the supplies destined to
-relieve their miseries sunk in the St. Lawrence or seized by the
-victorious English. Kirke, however, deceived by the bold attitude of
-Champlain, had been too discreet to attack Quebec, and after his victory
-employed himself in cruising for French fishing-vessels along the
-borders of the Gulf.
-
-Meanwhile, the suffering at Quebec increased daily. Somewhat less than a
-hundred men, women, and children were cooped up in the fort, subsisting
-on a meagre pittance of pease and Indian corn. The garden of the
-Heberts, the only thrifty settlers, was ransacked for every root or seed
-that could afford nutriment. Months wore on, and in the spring the
-distress had risen to such a pitch that Champlain had wellnigh resolved
-to leave to the women, children, and sick the little food that remained,
-and with the able-bodied men invade the Iroquois, seize one of their
-villages, fortify himself in it, and sustain his followers on the buried
-stores of maize with which the strongholds of these provident savages
-were always furnished.
-
-Seven ounces of pounded pease were now the daily food of each; and, at
-the end of May, even this failed. Men, women, and children betook
-themselves to the woods, gathering acorns and grubbing up roots. Those
-of the plant called Solomon's seal were most in request. Some joined the
-Hurons or the Algonquins; some wandered towards the Abenakis of Maine;
-some descended in a boat to Gaspe, trusting to meet a French
-fishing-vessel. There was scarcely one who would not have hailed the
-English as deliverers. But the English had sailed home with their booty,
-and the season was so late that there was little prospect of their
-return. Forgotten alike by friends and foes, Quebec was on the verge of
-extinction.
-
-On the morning of the nineteenth of July, an Indian, renowned as a
-fisher of eels, who had built his hut on the St. Charles, hard by the
-new dwelling of the Jesuits, came, with his usual imperturbability of
-visage, to Champlain. He had just discovered three ships sailing up the
-south channel of Orleans. Champlain was alone. All his followers were
-absent, fishing or searching for roots. At about ten o'clock his servant
-appeared with four small bags of roots, and the tidings that he had seen
-the three ships a league off, behind Point Levi. As man after man
-hastened in, Champlain ordered the starved and ragged band, sixteen in
-all, to their posts, whence with hungry eyes, they watched the English
-vessels anchoring in the basin below, and a boat with a white flag
-moving towards the shore. A young officer landed with a summons to
-surrender. The terms of capitulation were at length settled. The French
-were to be conveyed to their own country, and each soldier was allowed
-to take with him his clothes, and, in addition, a coat of beaver-skin.
-On this some murmuring rose, several of those who had gone to the Hurons
-having lately returned with peltry of no small value. Their complaints
-were vain; and on the twentieth of July, amid the roar of cannon from
-the ships, Lewis Kirke, the Admiral's brother, landed at the head of his
-soldiers, and planted the cross of St. George where the followers of
-Wolfe again planted it a hundred and thirty years later. After
-inspecting the worthless fort, he repaired to the houses of the
-Recollets and Jesuits on the St. Charles. He treated the former with
-great courtesy, but displayed against the latter a violent aversion,
-expressing his regret that he could not have begun his operations by
-battering their house about their ears. The inhabitants had no cause to
-complain of him. He urged the widow and family of the settler Hebert,
-the patriarch, as he has been styled, of New France, to remain and enjoy
-the fruits of their industry under English allegiance; and, as beggary
-in France was the alternative, his offer was accepted.
-
-Champlain, bereft of his command, grew restless, and begged to be sent
-to Tadoussac, where the Admiral, David Kirke, lay with his main
-squadron, having sent his brothers Lewis and Thomas to seize Quebec.
-Accordingly, Champlain, with the Jesuits, embarking with Thomas Kirke,
-descended the river. Off Mal Bay a strange sail was seen. As she
-approached, she proved to be a French ship. in fact. she was on her way
-to Quebec with supplies, which, if earlier sent, would have saved the
-place. She had passed the Admiral's squadron in a fog; but here her good
-fortune ceased. Thomas Kirke bore down on her, and the cannonade began.
-The fight was hot and doubtful; but at length the French struck, and
-Kirke sailed into Tadoussac with his prize. here lay his brother, the
-Admiral, with five armed ships.
-
-The Admiral's two voyages to Canada were private ventures; and though he
-had captured nineteen fishing-vessels, besides Roquemont's eighteen
-transports and other prizes, the result had not answered his hopes. His
-mood, therefore, was far from benign, especially as he feared, that,
-owing to the declaration of peace, he would be forced to disgorge a part
-of his booty; yet, excepting the Jesuits, he treated his captives with
-courtesy, and often amused himself with shooting larks on shore in
-company with Champlain. The Huguenots, however, of whom there were many
-in his ships, showed an exceeding bitterness against the Catholics.
-Chief among them was Michel, who had instigated and conducted the
-enterprise, the merchant admiral being but an indifferent seaman.
-Michel, whose skill was great, held a high command and the title of
-Rear-Admiral. He was a man of a sensitive temperament, easily piqued on
-the point of honor. His morbid and irritable nerves were wrought to the
-pitch of frenzy by the reproaches of treachery and perfidy with which
-the French prisoners assailed him, while, on the other hand, he was in a
-state of continual rage at the fancied neglect and contumely of his
-English associates. He raved against Kirke, who, as he declared, treated
-him with an insupportable arrogance. "I have left my country," he
-exclaimed, "for the service of foreigners; and they give me nothing but
-ingratitude and scorn." His fevered mind, acting on his diseased body,
-often excited him to transports of fury, in which he cursed
-indiscriminately the people of St. Malo, against whom he had a grudge,
-and the Jesuits, whom he detested. On one occasion, Kirke was conversing
-with some of the latter.
- 
-"Gentlemen," he said, "your business in Canada was to enjoy what
-belonged to M. de Caen, whom you dispossessed."
-
-"Pardon me, sir," answered Brebeuf, "we came purely for the glory of
-God, and exposed ourselves to every kind of danger to convert the
-Indians."
-
-Here Michel broke in: "Ay, ay, convert the Indians! You mean, convert
-the beaver!"
-
-"That is false!" retorted Brebeuf.
-
-Michel raised his fist, exclaiming, "But for the respect I owe the
-General, I would strike you for giving me the lie."
-
-Brebeuf, a man of powerful frame and vehement passions, nevertheless
-regained his practised self-command, and replied: "You must excuse me. I
-did not mean to give you the lie. I should be very sorry to do so. The
-words I used are those we use in the schools when a doubtful question is
-advanced, and they mean no offence. Therefore I ask you to pardon me."
-
-Despite the apology, Michel's frenzied brain harped the presumed insult,
-and he raved about it without ceasing.
-
-"Bon Dieu!" said Champlain, "you swear well for a Reformer!"
-
-"I know it," returned Michel; "I should be content if I had but struck
-that Jesuit who gave me the lie before my General."
-
-At length, one of his transports of rage ended in a lethargy from which
-he never awoke. His funeral was conducted with a pomp suited to his
-rank; and, amid discharges of cannon whose dreary roar was echoed from
-the yawning gulf of the Saguenay, his body was borne to its rest under
-the rocks of Tadoussac. Good Catholics and good Frenchmen saw in his
-fate the immediate finger of Providence. "I do not doubt that his soul
-is in perdition," remarks Champlain, who, however, had endeavored to
-befriend the unfortunate man during the access of his frenzy.
-
-Having finished their carousings, which were profuse, and their trade
-with the Indians, which was not lucrative, the English steered down the
-St. Lawrence. Kirke feared greatly a meeting with Razilly, a naval
-officer of distinction, who was to have sailed from France with a strong
-force to succor Quebec; but, peace having been proclaimed, the
-expedition had been limited to two ships under Captain Daniel. Thus
-Kirke, wilfully ignoring the treaty of peace, was left to pursue his
-depredations unmolested. Daniel, however, though too weak to cope with
-him, achieved a signal exploit. On the island of Cape Breton, near the
-site of Louisburg, he found an English fort, built two months before,
-under the auspices, doubtless, of Sir William Alexander. Daniel,
-regarding it as a bold encroachment on French territory, stormed it at
-the head of his pike-men, entered sword in hand, and took it with all
-its defenders.
-
-Meanwhile, Kirke with his prisoners was crossing the Atlantic. His
-squadron at length reached Plymouth, whence Champlain set out for
-London. Here he had an interview with the French ambassador, who, at his
-instance, gained from the King a promise, that, in pursuance of the
-terms of the treaty concluded in the previous April, New France should
-be restored to the French Crown.
-
-It long remained a mystery why Charles consented to a stipulation which
-pledged him to resign so important a conquest. The mystery is explained
-by the recent discovery of a letter from the King to Sir Isaac Wake, his
-ambassador at Paris. The promised dowry of Queen Henrietta Maria,
-amounting to eight hundred thousand crowns, had been but half paid by
-the French government, and Charles, then at issue with his Parliament,
-and in desperate need of money, instructs his ambassador, that, when he
-receives the balance due, and not before, he is to give up to the French
-both Quebec and Port Royal, which had also been captured by Kirke. The
-letter was accompanied by "solemn instruments under our hand and seal"
-to make good the transfer on fulfillment of the condition. It was for a
-sum equal to about two hundred and forty thousand dollars that Charles
-entailed on Great Britain and her colonies a century of bloody wars. The
-Kirkes and their associates, who had made the conquest at their own
-cost, under the royal authority, were never reimbursed, though David
-Kirke received the honor of knighthood, which cost the King nothing.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII.
-
-1632-1635.
-
-DEATH OF CHAMPLAIN.
-
-On Monday, the fifth of July, 1632, Emery de Caen anchored before
-Quebec. He was commissioned by the French Crown to reclaim the place
-from the English; to hold for one year a monopoly of the fur-trade, as
-an indemnity for his losses in the war; and, when this time had expired,
-to give place to the Hundred Associates of New France.
-
-By the convention of Suza, New France was to be restored to the French
-Crown; yet it had been matter of debate whether a fulfillment of this
-engagement was worth the demanding. That wilderness of woods and savages
-had been ruinous to nearly all connected with it. The Caens, successful
-at first, had suffered heavily in the end. The Associates were on the
-verge of bankruptcy. These deserts were useless unless peopled; and to
-people them would depopulate France. Thus argued the inexperienced
-reasoners of the time, judging from the wretched precedents of Spanish
-and Portuguese colonization. The world had not as yet the example of an
-island kingdom, which, vitalized by a stable and regulated liberty, has
-peopled a continent and spread colonies over all the earth, gaining
-constantly new vigor with the matchless growth of its offspring.
-
-On the other hand, honor, it was urged, demanded that France should be
-reinstated in the land which she had discovered and explored. Should
-she, the centre of civilization, remain cooped up within her own narrow
-limits, while rivals and enemies were sharing the vast regions of the
-West? The commerce and fisheries of New France would in time become a
-school for French sailors. Mines even now might be discovered; arid the
-fur-trade, well conducted, could not but be a source of wealth.
-Disbanded soldiers and women from the streets might be shipped to
-Canada. Thus New France would be peopled and old France purified. A
-power more potent than reason reinforced such arguments. Richelieu seems
-to have regarded it as an act of personal encroachment that the subjects
-of a foreign crown should seize on the domain of a company of which he
-was the head; and it could not be supposed, that, with power to eject
-them, the arrogant minister would suffer them to remain in undisturbed
-possession.
-
-A spirit far purer and more generous was active in the same behalf. The
-character of Champlain belonged rather to the Middle Age than to the
-seventeenth century. Long toil and endurance had calmed the adventurous
-enthusiasm of his youth into a steadfast earnestness of purpose; and he
-gave himself with a loyal zeal and devotedness to the profoundly
-mistaken principles which he had espoused. In his mind, patriotism and
-religion were inseparably linked. France was the champion of
-Christianity, and her honor, her greatness, were involved in her
-fidelity to this high function. Should she abandon to perdition the
-darkened nations among whom she had cast the first faint rays of hope?
-Among the members of the Company were those who shared his zeal; and
-though its capital was exhausted, and many of the merchants were
-withdrawing in despair, these enthusiasts formed a subordinate
-association, raised a new fund, and embarked on the venture afresh.
-
-England, then, resigned her prize, and Caen was despatched to reclaim
-Quebec from the reluctant hands of Thomas Kirke. The latter, obedient to
-an order from the King of England, struck his flag, embarked his
-followers, and abandoned the scene of his conquest. Caen landed with the
-Jesuits, Paul le Jeune and Anne de la Noue. They climbed the steep
-stairway which led up the rock, and, as they reached the top, the
-dilapidated fort lay on their left, while farther on was the stone
-cottage of the Heberts, surrounded with its vegetable gardens,--the
-only thrifty spot amid a scene of neglect. But few Indians could be
-seen. True to their native instincts, they had, at first, left the
-defeated French and welcomed the conquerors. Their English partialities
-were, however, but short-lived. Their intrusion into houses and
-store-rooms, the stench of their tobacco, and their importunate begging,
-though before borne patiently, were rewarded by the newcomers with oaths
-and sometimes with blows. The Indians soon shunned Quebec, seldom
-approaching it except when drawn by necessity or a craving for brandy.
-This was now the case; and several Algonquin families, maddened with
-drink, were howling, screeching, and fighting within their bark lodges.
-The women were frenzied like the men. it was dangerous to approach the
-place unarmed.
-
-In the following spring, 1633, on the twenty-third of May, Champlain,
-commissioned anew by Richelieu, resumed command at Quebec in behalf of
-the Company. Father le Jeune, Superior of the mission, was wakened from
-his morning sleep by the boom of the saluting cannon. Before he could
-sally forth, the convent door was darkened by the stately form of his
-brother Jesuit, Brebeuf, newly arrived; and the Indians who stood by
-uttered ejaculations of astonishment at the raptures of their greeting.
-The father hastened to the fort, and arrived in time to see a file of
-musketeers and pikemen mounting the pathway of the cliff below, and the
-heretic Caen resigning the keys of the citadel into the Catholic hands
-of Champlain. Le Jeune's delight exudes in praises of one not always a
-theme of Jesuit eulogy, but on whom, in the hope of a continuance of his
-favors, no praise could now be ill bestowed. "I sometimes think that
-this great man [Richelieu], who by his admirable wisdom and matchless
-conduct of affairs is so renowned on earth, is preparing for himself a
-dazzling crown of glory in heaven by the care he evinces for the
-conversion of so many lost infidel souls in this savage land. I pray
-affectionately for him every day," etc.
-
-For Champlain, too, he has praises which, if more measured, are at least
-as sincere. Indeed, the Father Superior had the best reason to be
-pleased with the temporal head of the colony. In his youth, Champlain
-had fought on the side of that; more liberal and national form of
-Romanism of which the Jesuits were the most emphatic antagonists. Now,
-as Le Jeune tells us, with evident contentment, he chose him, the
-Jesuit, as director of his conscience. In truth, there were none but
-Jesuits to confess and absolve him; for the Recollets, prevented, to
-their deep chagrin, from returning to the missions they had founded,
-were seen no more in Canada, and the followers of Loyola were sole
-masters of the field. The manly heart of the commandant, earnest,
-zealous, and direct, was seldom chary of its confidence, or apt to stand
-too warily on its guard in presence of a profound art mingled with a no
-less profound sincerity.
-
-A stranger visiting the fort of Quebec would have been astonished at its
-air of conventual decorum. Black Jesuits and scarfed officers mingled at
-Champlain's table. There was little conversation, but, in its place,
-histories and the lives of saints were read aloud, as in a monastic
-refectory. Prayers, masses, and confessions followed one another with an
-edifying regularity, and the bell of the adjacent chapel, built by
-Champlain, rang morning, noon, and night. Godless soldiers caught the
-infection, and whipped themselves in penance for their sins. Debauched
-artisans outdid each other in the fury of their contrition. Quebec was
-become a mission. Indians gathered thither as of old, not from the
-baneful lure of brandy, for the traffic in it was no longer tolerated,
-but from the less pernicious attractions of gifts, kind words, and
-politic blandishments. To the vital principle of propagandism both the
-commercial and the military character were subordinated; or, to speak
-more justly, trade, policy, and military power leaned on the missions as
-their main support, the grand instrument of their extension. The
-missions were to explore the interior; the missions were to win over the
-savage hordes at once to Heaven and to France. Peaceful, benign,
-beneficent, were the weapons of this conquest. France aimed to subdue,
-not by the sword, but by the cross; not to overwhelm and crush the
-nations she invaded, but to convert, civilize, and embrace them among
-her children.
-
-And who were the instruments and the promoters of this proselytism, at
-once so devout and so politic? Who can answer? Who can trace out the
-crossing and mingling currents of wisdom and folly, ignorance and
-knowledge, truth and falsehood, weakness and force, the noble and the
-base, can analyze a systematized contradiction, and follow through its
-secret wheels, springs, and levers a phenomenon of moral mechanism? Who
-can define the Jesuits? The story of their missions is marvellous as a
-tale of chivalry, or legends of the lives of saints. For many years, it
-was the history of New France and of the wild communities of her desert
-empire.
-
-Two years passed. The mission of the Hurons was established, and here
-the indomitable Breheuf, with a band worthy of him, toiled amid miseries
-and perils as fearful as ever shook the constancy of man; while
-Champlain at Quebec, in a life uneventful, yet harassing and laborious,
-was busied in the round of cares which his post involved.
-
-Christmas day, 1635, was a dark day in the annals of New France. In a
-chamber of the fort, breathless and cold, lay the hardy frame which war,
-the wilderness, and the sea had buffeted so long in vain. After two
-months and a half of illness, Champlain, stricken with paralysis, at the
-age of sixty-eight, was dead. His last cares were for his colony and the
-succor of its suffering families. Jesuits, officers, soldiers, traders,
-and the few settlers of Quebec followed his remains to the church; Le
-Jeune pronounced his eulogy, and the feeble community built a tomb to
-his honor.
-
-The colony could ill spare him. For twenty-seven years he had labored
-hard and ceaselessly for its welfare, sacrificing fortune, repose, and
-domestic peace to a cause embraced with enthusiasm and pursued with
-intrepid persistency. His character belonged partly to the past, partly
-to the present. The preux chevalier, the crusader, the romance-loving
-explorer, the curious, knowledge-seeking traveler, the practical
-navigator, all claimed their share in him. His views, though far beyond
-those of the mean spirits around him, belonged to his age and his creed.
-He was less statesman than soldier. He leaned to the most direct and
-boldest policy, and one of his last acts was to petition Richelieu for
-men and munitions for repressing that standing menace to the colony, the
-Iroquois. His dauntless courage was matched by an unwearied patience,
-proved by life-long vexations, and not wholly subdued even by the
-saintly follies of his wife. He is charged with credulity, from which
-few of his age were free, and which in all ages has been the foible of
-earnest and generous natures, too ardent to criticise, and too honorable
-to doubt the honor of others. Perhaps the heretic might have liked him
-more if the Jesuit had liked him less. The adventurous explorer of Lake
-Huron, the bold invader of the Iroquois, befits but indifferently the
-monastic sobrieties of the fort of Quebec, and his sombre environment of
-priests. Yet Champlain was no formalist, nor was his an empty zeal. A
-soldier from his youth, in an age of unbridled license, his life had
-answered to his maxims; and when a generation had passed after his visit
-to the Hurons, their elders remembered with astonishment the continence
-of the great French war-chief.
-
-His books mark the man,--all for his theme and his purpose, nothing for
-himself. Crude in style, full of the superficial errors of carelessness
-and haste, rarely diffuse, often brief to a fault, they bear on every
-page the palpable impress of truth.
-
-With the life of the faithful soldier closes the opening period of New
-France. Heroes of another stamp succeed; and it remains to tell the
-story of their devoted lives, their faults, follies, and virtues.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-END NOTES:
-
-
-[FN#1] Herrera, Hist. General, Dec. I. Lib. LX. c. 11; De Laet, Novus
-Orbis, Lib. I. C. 16 Garcilaso, Just. de la Florida, Part I. Lib. I. C.
-3; Gomara, Ilist. Gin. des Indes Occidentales, Lib. II. c. 10. Compare
-Peter Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis, Dec. VII. c. 7, who says that the
-fountain was in Florida.
-
-The story has an explanation sufficiently characteristic, having been
-suggested, it is said, by the beauty of the native women, which none
-could resist, and which kindled the fires of youth in the veins of age.
-
-The terms of Ponce de Leon's bargain with the King are set forth in the
-MS. Gapitnincion con Juan Ponce sobre Biminy. He was to have exclusive
-right to the island, settle it at his own cost, and be called Adelantado
-of Bimini; but the King was to build and hold forts there, send agents
-to divide the Indians among the settlers, and receive first a tenth,
-afterwards a fifth, of the gold.
-
-[FN#2] Fontanedo in Ternaux-Compans, Recueil sur la Floride, 18, 19, 42.
-Compare Herrera, Dec. I. Lib. IX. c. 12. In allusion to this belief, the
-name Jordan was given eight years afterwards by Ayllon to a river of
-South Carolina.
-
-[FN#3] Hakinyt, Voyaqes, V. 838; Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, 5.
-
-[FN#4] Peter Martyr in Hakinyt. V. 333; De Laet, Lib. IV. c. 2.
-
-[FN#5] Their own exaggerated reckoning. The journey was prohably from
-Tampa Bay to the Appalachicola, by a circuitous route.
-
-
-[FN#6] Narrative of Alvar Nunez Caheca de Vaca, second in command to
-Narvaez, translated by Buckingham Smith. Cabeca do Vaca was one of the
-four who escaped, and, after living for years among the tribes of
-Mississippi, crossed the river Mississippi near Memphis, journeyed
-westward by the waters of the Arkansas and Red River to New Mexico and
-Chihuahua, thence to Cinaloa on the Gulf of California, and thence to
-Mexico. The narrative is one of the most remarkable of the early
-relations. See also Ramusin, III. 310, and Purchas, IV. 1499, where a
-portion of Cabeca de Vaca is given. Also, Garcilaso, Part I. Lib. I. C.
-3; Gomara, Lih. II. a. 11; De Laet, Lib. IV. c. 3; Barcia, Ensayo
-Crenolegico, 19.
-
-[FN#7] I have followed the accounts of Biedma and the Portuguese of
-Elvas, rejecting the romantic narrative of Garcilaso, in which fiction
-is hopelessly mingled with truth.
-
-[FN#8] The spirit of this and other Spanish enterprises may be gathered
-from the following passage in an address to the King, signed by Dr.
-Pedro do Santander, and dated 15 July, 1557:-
-
-"It is lawful that your Majesty, like a good shepherd, appointed by the
-hand of the Eternal Father, should tend and lead out your sheep, since
-the Holy Spirit has shown spreading pastures whereon are feeding lost
-sheep which have been snatched away by the dragon, the Demon. These
-pastures are the New World, wherein is comprised Florida, now in
-possession of the Demon, and here he makes himself adored and revered.
-This is the Land of Promise, possessed by idolaters, the Amorite,
-Ainalekite, Moabite, Cauaauite. This is the land promised by the Eternal
-Father to the faithful, since we are commanded by God in the Holy
-Scriptures to take it from them, being idolaters, and, by reason of
-their idolatry and sin, to put them all to the knife, leaving no living
-thing save maidens and children, their cities robbed and sacked, their
-walls and houses levelled to the earth."
-
-The writer then goes into detail, proposing to occupy Florida at various
-points with from one thousand to fifteen hundred colonists, found a city
-to be called Philippina, also another at Tuscaloosa, to be called
-Cxsarea, another at Tallahassee, and another at Tampa Bay, where he
-thinks many slaves can be had. Carta del Doctor Pedro de Santander.
-
-[PFN#9] The True and Last Discoverie of Florida, made by Captian John
-Ribault, in the Yeere 1692, dedicated to a great Nobleman in Fraunce,
-and translated into Englishe by one Thomas Haclcit, This is Ribaut's
-journal, which seems not to exist in the original. The translation is
-contained in the rare black-letter tract of Hakinyt called Divers
-Voyages (London, 1582), a copy of which is in the library of Harvard
-College. It has been reprinted by the Hakluyt Society. The journal first
-appeared in 1563, under the title of The Whole and True Discoverie of
-Terra Florida (Englished The Florishing Land). This edition is of
-extreme rarity.
-
-[FN#10] Ribaut thinks that the Broad River of Port Royal is the Jordan
-of the Spanish navigator Yasquez de Ayllon, who was here in 1520, and
-gave the name of St. Helena to a neighboring cape (Garcilaso, Florida
-del Inca). The adjacent district, now called St. Helena, is the Chicora
-of the old Spanish maps.
-
-[FN#11] No trace of this fort has been found. The old fort of which the
-remains may be seen a little below Beaufort is of later date.
-
-[FN#12] For all the latter part of the chapter, the authority is the
-first of the three long letters of Rena de Laudonniere, Companion of
-Ribaut and his successor in command. They are contained in the Histoire
-Notable de la Floride, compiled by Basanier (Paris, 1586), and are also
-to he found, quaintly "done into English," in the third volume of
-Hakluyt's great collection. In the main, they are entitled to much
-confidence.
-
-[FN#13]  Above St. John's Bluff the shore curves in a semicircle, along
-which the water runs in a deep, strong current, which has half cut away
-the flat knoll above mentioned, and encroached greatly on the bluff
-itself. The formation of the ground, joined to the indicatons furnished
-by Laudonniere and Le Moyne, leave little doubt that the fort was built
-on the knoll.
-
-[FN#14] I La Caille, as before mentioned, was Laudonniere's sergeant.
-
-The feudal rank of sergeant, it will be remembered, was widely different
-from the modern grade so named, and was held by men of noble birth.
-
-Le Moyne calls La Caille "Captain."
-
-[FN#15] Laudonniere in Hakinyt, III. 406. Brinton, Floridian Peninsula,
-thinks there is truth in the story, and that Lake Weir, in Marion
-County, is the Lake of Sarrope. I give these romantic tales as I find
-them.
-
-[FN#16] This scene is the subject of Plate XII. of Le Moyne.
-
-[FN#17] Le Moyne drew a picture of the fight (Plate XIII.). In the
-foreground Ottigny is engaged in single combat with a gigantic savage,
-who, with club upheaved, aims a deadly stroke at the plumed helmet of
-his foe; but the latter, with target raised to guard his head, darts
-under the arms of the naked Goliath, and transfixes him with his sword.
-
-[FN#18] For Hawkins, see the three narratives in Hakinyt, III. 594;
-Purchas, IV. 1177 ; Stow, Chron., 807; Biog. Briton., Art. Hawkins;
-Anderson, History of Commerce, I. 400.
-
-He was not knighted until after the voyage of 1564-65; hence there is an
-anachronism in the text. As he was held "to have opened a new trade," he
-was entitled to bear as his crest a "Moor" or negro, bound with a cord.
-In Fairhairn's Crests of Great Britain and Ireland, where it is figured,
-it is described, not as a negro, but as a "naked man." In Burke's Landed
-Gentry, it is said that Sir John obtained it in honor of a great victory
-over the Moors! His only African victories were in kidnapping raids on
-negro villages. In Letters on Certain Passages in the Life of Sir John
-Hawkins, the coat is engraved in detail. The "demi-Moor" has the thick
-lips, the flat nose, and the wool of the unequivocal negro.
-
-Sir John became Treasurer of the Royal Navy and Rear-Admiral, and
-founded a marine hospital at Chatham.
-
-[FN#19] "Better a ruined kingdom, true to itself and its king, than one
-left unharmed to the profit of the Devil and the heretics."--
-Correspondance de Philippe II., cited by Prescott, Philip IL, Book III.
-c. 2, note 36.
-
-"A prince can do nothing more shameful, or more hurtful to himself, than
-to permit his people to live according to their conscience."
-The Duke of Alva, in Davila, Lib. III. p. 341.
-
-[FN#20] Cartas escritas al Rep per el General Pero Menendez de Aeilgs.
-These are the official despatches of Menendez, of which the originals
-are preserved in the archives of Seville. They are very voluminous and
-minute in detail. Copies of them were ohtained by the aid of Buckiugham
-Smith, Esq., to whom the writer is also indebted for various other
-documents from the same source, throwing new light on the events
-descrihed. Menendez calls Port Royal St. Elena, "a name afterwards
-applied to the sound which still retains it." Compare Historical
-Magazine, IV. 320.
-
-[FN#21] This was not so remarkable as it may appear. Charnock, History
-of Marine Architecture gives the tonnage of the ships of the Invincible
-Armada. The flag-ship of the Andalusian squadron was of fifteen hundred
-and fifty tons; several were of about twelve hundred.
-
-[FN#22] Barcia, 69. The following passage in one of the unpublished
-letters of Menendez seems to indicate that the above is exaggerated:
-"Your Majesty may he assured by me, that, had I a million, more or less,
-I would employ and spend the whole in this undertaking, it being so
-greatly to the glory of the God our Lord, and the increase of our Holy
-Catholic Faith, and the service and authority of your Majesty and thus I
-have offered to our Lord whatever He shall give me in this world, [and
-whatever] I shall possess, gain, or acquire shall he devoted to the
-planting of the Gospel in this land, and the enlightenment of the
-natives thereof, and this I do promise to your Majesty." This letter is
-dated 11 Septemher, 1565.
-
-[FN#23]  I have examined the country on the line of march of Menendez. 
-In many places it retains its original features.
-
-[FN#24] Amid all the confusion of his geographical statements, it seems
-clear that Menendez believed that Cheeapeake Bay communicated with the
-St. Lawrence, and thence with Newfoundland on the one hand, and the
-South Sea on the other. The notion that the St. Lawrence would give
-access to China survived till the time of La Salle, or more than a
-century. In the map of Gastaldi, made, according to Kohl, about 1550, a
-belt of water connecting the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic is laid down.
-So also in the map of Ruscelli, 1561, and that of Mactines, 1578, as
-well as in that of Michael Lok, 1582. In Munster's map, 1545, the St.
-Lawrence is rudely indicated, with the words, "Per hoc fretfl iter ad
-Molucas."
-
-[FN#25] The "black drink" was, till a recent period, in use among the
-Creeks. It is a strong decoctiun of the plant popularly called eassina,
-or nupon tea. Major Swan, deputy agent for the Creeks in 1791, thus
-describes their belief in its properties: "that it purifies them from
-all sin, and leaves them in a state of perfect innocence; that it
-inspires them with an invincible prowess in war; and that it is the only
-solid cement of friendship, benevolence, and hospitality." Swan's
-account of their mode of drinking and ejecting it corresponds perfectly
-with Le Moyne's picture in De Bry. See the United States government
-publication, History, Condition, and Prospects of Indian Tribes, V. 266.
-
-[FN#27] The earliest maps and narratives indicate a city, also called
-Norembega, on the banks of the Penobseot. The pilot, Jean Alphonse, of
-Saintonge, says that this fabulous city is fifteen or twenty leagues
-from the sea, and that its inhabitants are of small stature and dark
-complexion. As late as 1607 the fable was repeated in the Histoire
-Unicerselle des Indes Occidentales.
-
-[FN#28] Such extempore works of defence are still used among some tribes
-of the remote west. The author has twice seen them, made of trees piled
-together as described by Champlain, probably by war parties of the Crow
-or Snake Indians.
-
-Champlain, usually too concise, is very minute in his description of the
-march and encampment.
-
-[FN#29] According to Lafitan, hoth bucklers and breastplates were in
-frequent use among the Iroquois. The former were very large and made of
-cedar wood covered with interwoven thongs of hide. The kindred nation of
-the Hurons, says Sagard (Voyage des hlurens, 126-206), carried large
-shields, and wore greaves for the legs and enirasses made of twigs
-interwoven with cords. His account corresponds with that of Champlain,
-who gives a wood-cut of a warrior thus armed.
-
-[FN#30] It has been erroneously asserted that the practice of scalping
-did not prevail among the Indians before the advent of Europeans. In
-1535, Cartier saw five scalps at Quebec, dried and stretched on hoops.
-In 1564, Laudonniere saw them among the Indians of Florida. The
-Algonquins of New England and Nova Scotia were accustomed to cut off and
-carry away the head, which they afterwards scalped. Those of Canada, it
-seems, sometimes scalped dead bodies on the field. Thu Algonquin
-practice of carrying off heads as trophies is mentioned by Lalemant,
-Roger Williams, Lescarbot, and Champlain. Compare Historical Magazine,
-First Series, V. 233.
-
-[FN#31] Traces of cannibalism may be found among most of the North
-American tribes, though they are rarely very conspicuous. Sometimes the
-practice arose, as in the present instance, from revenge or ferocity
-sometimes it bore a religious character, as with the Miamis, among whom
-there existed a secret religions fraternity of man-eaters sometimes the
-heart of a brave enemy was devoured in the idea that it made the eater
-brave. This last practice was common. The ferocious threat, used in
-speaking of an enemy, "I will eat his heart," is by no means a mere
-figure of speech. The roving hunter-tribes, in their winter wanderings,
-were not infrequently impelled to cannibalism by famine.
-
-[FN#32] 1 The first white man to descend the rapids of St. Louis was a
-youth named Louis, who, on the 10th of June, 1611, went with two Indians
-to shoot herons on an island, and was drowned on the way down; the
-second was a young man who in the summer before had gone with the Hurons
-to their country, and who returned with them on the 18th of June; the
-third was Champlain himself.
-
-[FN#33] Wampum was a sort of beads, of several colors, made originally
-by the Indians from the inner portion of certain shells, and afterwards
-by the French of porcelain and glass. It served a treble purpose,--that
-of currency, decoration, and record, wrought into belts of various
-devices, each having its significance, it preserved the substance of
-treaties and compacts from generation to generation.
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg Pioneers Of France In The New World, by Parkman
-