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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78668 ***
+
+
+
+
+                                WHEN CANADA
+                              WAS NEW FRANCE
+
+                                    BY
+                              GEORGE H. LOCKE
+                          CHIEF LIBRARIAN OF THE
+                          PUBLIC LIBRARY, TORONTO
+
+                              [Illustration]
+
+                         _Love of country is born
+                    of a knowledge of its institutions,
+                        its traditions and history
+                           wherein are revealed
+                          the lives of its people
+                      and their heroic achievements._
+
+                                WITH SEVEN
+                               ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                        PUBLISHED AT THE END OF THE
+                               GREAT WAR BY
+
+                     TORONTO: J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD.
+                         PARIS: J. M. DENT ET FILS
+                                   1919
+
+                            COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
+                             J. M. DENT & SONS
+
+                         Published September, 1919
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE LANDING OF THE CANADIANS IN FRANCE, 1915.]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                            PAGE
+
+        INTRODUCTION                                                    7
+
+     I. CARTIER AND THE ST. LAWRENCE                                   13
+
+    II. CHAMPLAIN AND THE GREAT LAKES                                  25
+
+   III. JOLIET, MARQUETTE AND THE RIVER OF A HUNDRED THOUSAND STREAMS  40
+
+    IV. LA SALLE AND THE GREATER NEW FRANCE                            48
+
+     V. RADISSON AND THE GREAT NORTH WEST                              59
+
+    VI. MONTCALM AND THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE                            72
+
+   VII. PONTIAC AND THE LAST HOPE OF INDIAN SUPREMACY                  82
+
+  VIII. THE GRAY GOWNS AND THE BLACK                                   96
+
+    IX. THE IROQUOIS AND THE HURONS                                   111
+
+     X. THE COUREUR-DES-BOIS AND THE VOYAGEUR                         126
+
+    XI. THE SEIGNIOR AND THE HABITANT                                 134
+
+   XII. STORIES WHICH ILLUSTRATE REFERENCES IN THIS BOOK.             143
+
+  XIII. POEMS WHICH ILLUSTRATE REFERENCES IN THIS BOOK.               151
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    THE LANDING OF THE CANADIANS IN FRANCE, 1914            _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                              FACING PAGE
+
+    SENECA HUNTER GROUP                                                16
+
+    THE RETURN OF THE WARRIORS                                         34
+
+    COUNCIL OF THE TURTLE CLAN                                         68
+
+    THE CAYUGA FALSE FACE CEREMONY                                     86
+
+    THE CORN HARVEST                                                  104
+
+    TYPICAL IROQUOIS INDUSTRIES                                       122
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+The Great War has had a special meaning for Canadians. Soldiers from our
+shores, citizen-soldiers, have been landing on the northern coast of
+France in tens of thousands, and passing through the same seaport towns
+whence nearly four hundred years ago men sailed forth to the westward to
+discover a fabled land.
+
+This country, discovered by the French and colonized by them and by the
+English, this land which was now French and now English as the fortune
+of war changed in Europe as well as in America, has become a nation, and
+when the time of trial came and danger threatened the ancestral homes
+in the two Motherlands, Canada hesitated not a moment but offered her
+services in the cause of freedom.
+
+Canada has been fighting more truly perhaps than any other nation in what
+we speak of as “the common cause,” and it is to make clear to ourselves
+as well as to others the great meaning of this in the development of
+nationality in our Dominion that this story of the two centuries when
+Canada was New France has been told and in this form.
+
+The early history of Canada is a history of men, and if Canada is
+to become a great nation, its future history will depend upon the
+development of men who can and will inspire, guide and lead us to the
+greater things.
+
+This is not intended for children only, but for the youth of every age,
+those who are young enough to enjoy a story and who know not, or know
+but dimly, our wonderful history during the two hundred years of our
+country when its history was bound up with that of the two great empires
+of France and England, France of the times of Henry of Navarre and of
+Richelieu, England of the days of the Tudors and of the Pitts.
+
+The frontispiece of this little book illustrates a dramatic incident in
+our history. The landing of the Canadians at St. Nazaire in 1915 to help
+Old France against the ruthless invader brings to one’s mind the landing
+of a French exploring expedition under Cartier nearly three hundred years
+ago when the flag of France was raised high upon the cliff of Gaspé and
+the newly discovered land was called New France. Our thanks are due to
+the Canadian War Memorials Committee for permission to reproduce this
+picture.
+
+To the kindness of Dr. John M. Clarke, the Director of the New York
+State Museum, himself a contributor to the history of New France, we
+are indebted for the great privilege of reproducing the illustrations
+of the Iroquois Indian Groups which form the Myron H. Clark Memorial
+in the Museum at Albany. They portray the aboriginal activities of the
+Confederacy of the Six Nations.
+
+                                                          GEORGE H. LOCKE.
+
+
+
+
+WHEN CANADA WAS NEW FRANCE
+
+
+
+
+OLD FRANCE.
+
+    Le Gaulois semble au saule verdissant:
+    Plus on le coupe et plus il est naissant,
+    Et rejetonne en branches davantage,
+    Prenant vigueur de son propre dommage.
+
+                                    —RONSARD.
+
+    The Gaul is like the verdant willow-bush:
+    The more you prune, the more it’s lithe and lush,
+    Shooting a crown of branchy twigs all round,
+    And draws new life and vigour from a wound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CARTIER AND THE ST. LAWRENCE
+
+    “He told them of the river, whose mighty current gave
+    Its freshness for a hundred leagues to ocean’s briny wave;
+    He told them of the glorious scene presented to his sight
+    What time he reared the cross and crown on Hochelaga’s height,
+    And of the fortress cliff that keeps of Canada the key,
+    And they welcomed back Jacques Cartier from his perils over sea.”
+
+                                                   —HON. T. D’ARCY MCGEE.
+
+
+Almost four hundred years ago, when bluff King Hal ruled over Merry
+England and Francis over Sunny France, there were strange stories told in
+the ports of the west of England and the north of France of lands away to
+the Westward. The voyage of Columbus was the talk of Europe, and while
+the Spaniards were joyfully telling how he had come to the edge of a
+great new world which would give them a new route to the marvellous East
+with all its treasures, John Cabot, of the port of Bristol, the pioneer
+of English adventurers, sailed off to the west and it is likely saw
+the continent itself as soon as did Columbus. Both Columbus and Cabot
+discovered islands first, Columbus on his way to the west, Cabot after he
+had passed along the coast.
+
+So, from the northern country of England, as well as from the southern
+land of Spain, the men of the seaports talked of nothing as much as the
+great land over the sea. It was but natural that the hardy mariners of
+the northern French ports should join in the search, and for nearly half
+a century vessels manned by the more adventurous spirits visited the cod
+banks of Newfoundland and brought back cargoes of fish.
+
+One can picture the interest that would be aroused in a port like Bristol
+in England or St. Malo or Dieppe in France when a vessel came back to
+harbour after an absence of many months and the mariners spun their tales
+of adventure to an eager audience. It was in this kind of an atmosphere,
+hearing these stories and wishing that he would grow old quickly so
+that he too could go and see these lands, that Jacques Cartier grew up.
+He was a clever and ambitious boy and when he became a master mariner
+had made such a reputation that the King sent for him to discuss the
+possibility of finding an opening in the coast of America in the vicinity
+of Newfoundland, which was then thought to be but a projection of the
+eastern coast of Asia. There is no doubt that Cartier had made trips to
+the fishing banks many times in company with his fellow fishermen of
+Brittany, whose enterprise is preserved to us in the name of Cape Breton.
+
+King Francis was anxious that France should have a share in the great
+discoveries that so far had been made by England and by Spain. Indeed,
+the whole land had been claimed by the King of Spain and Francis is said
+to have been so annoyed by this statement that he exclaimed:
+
+“I should like to see the clause in our father Adam’s will which
+bequeathed to him this fine heritage.”
+
+It was on an April day in 1534 that Cartier set sail in two ships of 60
+tons each to find what was beyond the shores known to the sailors, and in
+the hope that he would be able to penetrate to India and the treasures of
+the East by a shorter route. On his way out, and in what are known now as
+the Straits of Belle Isle, he passed a great ship which had sailed from
+Rochelle, thus proving that those straits and the adjacent waters were
+known to the French mariners.
+
+[Illustration: SENECA HUNTER GROUP
+
+This group represents a Seneca family clustered about the door-yard
+of their hunting lodge, each individual being engaged in his allotted
+duties. The old father, who no longer goes to war (indicated by his
+clothing and hair), is bringing in a fawn. The mother is busy skiving
+a dry deer skin, while the daughter is cutting strips of venison for
+“jerking.” The elder son is a hunter and warrior and the younger son is
+burning down a tree which obstructs the yard. The wad of clay about the
+tree trunk confines the flames. The exterior of the hunting cabin is
+shown on the left.
+
+The scene depicts Canandaigua lake with Ganundewa, the sacred hill of the
+Senecas, in the distance.
+
+The time is early morning and the season midspring.
+
+The purpose of this group is to depict a Seneca family during the hunting
+season. The activities represented show the utility of the deer as a
+source of raw material. Deer meat was a favorite food, the skin furnished
+leather for mats, bags, clothing and thongs. The antlers and bones were
+used for tool material, the jaws for scrapers, the hoofs for ornaments
+and the hair for stuffing cushions. The group also faithfully represents
+the various costumes ornamented with hair embroidery.]
+
+Cartier and his ships kept on westward, and we can imagine his feelings
+when they passed from the cold straits where doubtless he had seen
+icebergs, into a part of what is now the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where
+the heat of July was so oppressive that he called it the Bay of Chaleur
+(heat), a name preserved to this day. On these shores they found
+gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and roses growing in abundance
+and the rivers were full of salmon. They reached what we call Gaspé on
+July 24th, and at once raised a great cross with a shield on which were
+the lilies of France and “Vive le Roi de France.”
+
+The Indians (for Cartier thought and hoped that he was on the road to
+India) were friendly, and Cartier persuaded two sons of the chief to go
+back to France with him. Being unprovided for a longer stay and fearful
+of the stormy weather, he set sail for home and entered the harbour of
+St. Malo early in September.
+
+For a person of his imagination and daring and with the two Indian
+princes to show to the court of France, there were no difficulties in
+getting ready an expedition for the next year, and in July, 1535, he left
+St. Malo with three small vessels. One can picture the excitement in
+that seaport town when the vessels weighed anchor and stood out to sea,
+vessels commissioned by the King and commanded by a son of St. Malo who
+had proved his worth already, and who had on board the evidence of his
+discoveries in the persons of the Indian princes now on their way back
+home with him.
+
+In August he was in the great Gulf, and aided by the knowledge of these
+princes, he sailed boldly on until he saw the banks drawing together
+and he realized that he was going out of the gulf into a great river.
+They stopped at the narrows where Quebec now stands and met the Indian
+chief, Donnaconna, in his village of Stadacona, which in the language of
+the Huron-Iroquois, means “wing,” the formation of land between the St.
+Lawrence and St. Charles rivers. This chief they saluted as the Lord of
+Canada, the chief of the village or collection of huts. This is the first
+time we meet the word “Canada,” a collection of huts, for Cartier had
+taken possession of the country as New France.
+
+Nearly four hundred years afterwards, from the same port went forth great
+vessels bearing tens of thousands of troops from Canada to help old
+France against the ruthless invader.[1]
+
+Cartier was told of the great river which stretched on for miles and that
+after many days’ journey there was a large town. He gave the river the
+name “St. Lawrence,” and up it he made his way, astonished at the beauty
+and grandeur of the ever-changing scene. And in those days it must have
+been wonderful, for he tells us that he was impressed with the great
+trees on the banks, the oak, the walnut, birch and willow and with the
+vines heavy with grapes. It was September, and even to this day with so
+many of those features gone, it would be difficult anywhere to find a
+more impressive and beautiful journey than from the ancient Quebec to the
+almost as ancient Montreal, when autumn tints the trees.
+
+It was in the last days of this autumn month that he entered the
+expansion of the river, which is now called Lac St. Pierre, so named
+nearly a century afterwards by Champlain and known to many to-day by
+Drummond’s famous poem.[2]
+
+Landing on October 2nd he found the well-built town of Hochelaga, and was
+welcomed by the inhabitants, the first white man they had ever seen. The
+reception must have been impressive to both parties, and was made still
+more so by the Indians taking Cartier up on the great hill to which he
+gave the name of Mount Royal, and from which he looked over fields of
+maize and beans and peas and wild fruits, with the silver river winding
+its way among the beautiful foliage of the autumn, and away in the
+distance the faint outline of what now are known as the Adirondacks of
+New York State and the Green Mountains of Vermont. His men were full of
+wonder and it is interesting to read that what attracted them most was “a
+great pile of rats, which live in the water and are as large as rabbits
+and are wonderfully good to eat.”[3]
+
+He returned to Quebec, where he built huts in which to spend the winter.
+Unaccustomed to so severe a climate and not well provisioned, disease
+broke out and so many of his men died that when spring came and he set
+sail for France he had to abandon one of his vessels, “La Petite Hermine.”
+
+Cartier had a story worth telling. Whereas Columbus had touched the New
+World and Cabot had sailed along its shores, Cartier had penetrated
+a thousand miles into the continent—“Up the greatest river without
+comparison that is known to have ever been seen,” as Cartier told the
+King, and when he stood on Mount Royal on that October day he was the
+only white man in all that country now known as Canada and the United
+States of America. It makes one think of another great adventurer who, at
+almost the same time, upon the same continent, is depicted as standing
+“silent upon a peak in Darien.”[4]
+
+This was Cortez of Spain and so we have the French and the Spanish in the
+North American continent.
+
+To confirm his story and to illustrate the transfer of the land to
+France, Cartier took back with him Donnaconna and two other chiefs who
+were presented to the King. They really were kidnapped, and sad to tell
+they did not live to return to their own land.
+
+When Cartier reached France there were serious political troubles
+which prevented the authorities from acting at once, and so it was not
+until 1538 that Francis took up the question of New France overseas.
+He organized an expedition of which Lord Roberval was to be chief and
+Cartier captain-general, and with a crew recruited mainly from the
+prisons Cartier left St. Malo in 1541, sailed up the St. Lawrence,
+explored the rapids (afterwards known as La Chine), spent a miserable
+winter and returned to St. Malo a disappointed man. The Indians had lost
+faith in him, for when they welcomed him and asked for their chiefs,
+whose loss they had felt keenly, Cartier told them that the chiefs had
+stayed in France, whereas they had died. Superseded at home by political
+favourites, and distrusted in New France by the natives, Cartier retired
+from the sea, his name passes from history and the first chapter of the
+history of New France comes to an end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAMPLAIN.
+
+    “There are few chapters in history so full of romantic
+    interest, so compelling in their demands for sympathy and
+    admiration, as the record of the century and a half that began
+    with the wooden fortress of Champlain under the bluff at
+    Quebec, and ended with the fall of Montcalm on the Heights of
+    Abraham.”
+
+                                                   —HON. ELIHU ROOT.
+
+
+CHAMPLAIN AND THE GREAT LAKES.
+
+On the Bay of Biscay, on the west coast of France, and not very far from
+Rochelle, there is a small village now some miles from the sea, but
+which in the days of Cartier and for some years after was a flourishing
+seaport. This is called Brouage, and is almost a deserted village to-day,
+the sea having receded and the railway passed it by. The great salt
+marshes are still there to remind one of the time when cargoes of salt
+were shipped from this harbour, and where ships, then considered great,
+found safe anchorage.
+
+In this seaport, with its face to the great mysterious Western land,
+young Samuel de Champlain, son of a sea captain, grew up during the
+stirring times of civil war in France. When a boy of nine[5] his city was
+captured by Henry of Navarre, who, after years of struggle, during which
+were many mighty deeds of valour, finally overcame his enemies, entered
+Paris in triumph, and was crowned King of France. Indeed, the struggle
+was so long that Champlain grew up sufficiently to be accounted a gallant
+officer in Henry’s army.
+
+When peace was declared and the country had settled down, Champlain in
+his love for adventure entered the service of the King of Spain, and made
+trips to the West Indies, going inland in America even to the city of
+Mexico.
+
+On his return he made a report to the King of France, concerning this
+Western land, in the hope that his own country might once more send
+expeditions of discovery. In this report he says: “One might judge if the
+territory four leagues in extent, lying between Panama and the river were
+cut through, he could pass from the South Sea to that on the other side,
+and thus shorten the route by more than fifteen hundred leagues. From
+Panama to Magellan would make an island and from Panama to the Newlands
+(Newfoundland) would make another, so that the whole of America would be
+in two islands.”
+
+Three hundred years afterwards this was done, and by the people of a
+country then undiscovered, and supplies from the Pacific Coast of that
+great nation passed through that canal to help the cause of the France
+which Champlain loved and served so well.
+
+During the years of civil strife in France, the exploration of the
+Western world was being pushed forward by the merchant adventurers of
+England, and especially of Spain. Spies from the court of Spain watched
+every port and sent home the news of prospective sailings so that these
+rivals might be intercepted and America be preserved for Spain.
+
+But now that peace was established enterprising mariners of the northern
+seaports of France remembered the expeditions of Cartier, and so the
+governor of Dieppe induced Champlain to undertake a voyage to New France.
+They left that port in March, 1603, and after coasting along the shores
+of Newfoundland, Anticosti and Cape Breton, sailed up the St. Lawrence
+and anchored at Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay. Thence Champlain
+made a journey up the great river to Hochelaga, which in Cartier’s time
+was a flourishing town. Now all was deserted and nothing remained of what
+had been a great Indian community. Gathering up what furs they could,
+Champlain and his party sailed for home, which they reached in September.
+
+This was a journey of inspection, spying out the land, and the King
+was so impressed by Champlain’s account that he gave his patronage to
+a larger expedition. This was under the command of Sieur de Monts, a
+nobleman, with Champlain as the King’s geographer, and was sent out in
+the hope that a colony might be established, and so actual possession of
+New France might be maintained against European nations who were claiming
+parts of the New World.
+
+De Monts became the first Lieutenant-Governor of New France, and with
+nobles, soldiers, priests, and peasants, about 120 in all, his little
+fleet discovered and entered the harbour and river of St. John on the
+24th of June, 1604, exactly to the day one hundred and seven years
+after the discovery of Newfoundland by Cabot; and there on the island
+of St. Croix (Holy Cross) established a colony, the only settlement of
+Europeans north of Florida. It was an exceptionally severe winter and the
+colonists suffered almost as much as Cartier’s men so many years before
+at Quebec.
+
+In the spring Champlain set out to find some place for the settlement
+which might have a more congenial climate. Although he went south and
+passed the islands at the mouth of what is now the harbour of Portland,
+Maine, and even entered the harbour of Boston, he returned to Port Royal
+in Nova Scotia, the situation of which had appealed to him, and there the
+colony moved.
+
+It was a prosperous settlement, and it is of interest in these days of
+grain growing, hydro-power development and ship building in Canada to
+know that these settlers raised the first wheat grown in America; here
+was used the first wheel to turn a millstone upon this continent; and in
+this harbour in 1606 the first Canadian vessel was built.
+
+The position on the sea, with fertile soil and great forests near by, was
+very attractive, and perhaps is best described by Longfellow centuries
+afterwards:
+
+    “This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
+    Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
+    Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
+    Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
+    Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep voiced neighboring ocean
+    Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.”
+
+To-day in its loneliness it reminds one of Brouage and it is difficult to
+think that it has been the most besieged city in America.
+
+But it was when Champlain came back from France in 1608, after a year’s
+absence from the colony, that our great interest begins, for then he
+determined to press inland and re-assert the sovereignty claimed for
+France by Cartier. The bold headland where Cartier had spent the winter
+had attracted his attention upon his previous voyage, and so he founded
+there in 1608 a town, really the capital of New France, and to it he gave
+the native Algonquin name, “Quebec,” which means “the narrowing of the
+stream.”
+
+In the following year he went up the St. Lawrence, and finding a party
+of Huron and Algonquin Indians about to set out on an expedition against
+their great enemy, the Iroquois, who were encroaching upon Algonquin
+territory near what is now Lake Champlain, he joined with them, thinking
+thereby to establish friendly and profitable relations with such
+powerful tribes. The result was that he made the fighting Iroquois the
+everlasting and unrelenting enemies, not only of himself but of France.
+
+This was one of the great fights of history, full of meaning in the after
+years of Canadian life. When the Algonquins came within fighting distance
+of their adversaries they opened ranks, and Champlain, steel armour on
+breast and thighs, a plumed helmet on his head, a sword at his side, and
+a musket in his hands, stepped out to the front, and for the first time
+the Indians saw the death-dealing firearms of the white man.[6]
+
+In his own words:
+
+“I looked at them and they looked at me. When I saw them getting ready to
+shoot their arrows at us, I levelled my arquebus which I had loaded with
+four balls and aimed straight at one of the chiefs. The shot brought down
+two and wounded another.”
+
+This day of fateful beginnings was two months before Hudson discovered
+the river that bears his name and eleven years before the Pilgrim
+Fathers landed upon the stern and rock-bound coast of America. One of our
+own poets, Bliss Carman, pictures the setting out of the expedition:
+
+    “On such a day three hundred years ago
+    By toilsome trails, and slow,
+    But with the adventurer’s spirit all aflame
+    The great discoverer came
+    Finding another Indies that he guessed
+    To reward his darling quest
+    And fill the wonder-volume of Romance,
+    The sailor of Little Brouage, the founder of New France,
+    Sturdy, sagacious, plain
+    Samuel de Champlain.”
+
+During the next few years Champlain crossed the sea almost annually and
+arranged for the development of the fur trade, for which he established a
+post on the site of the ancient Hochelaga and where Montreal now stands.
+Then he resumed his search for the great “Western Sea” which lured on
+these early adventurers, or some outlet through the great continent to
+the fabled land beyond; and in 1613 he followed up the waterway of the
+St. Lawrence by going up the Ottawa beyond where now is the capital of
+the Dominion of Canada. His journey really began when he left the end
+of the island of Montreal at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and
+the Ottawa, where St. Anne de Bellevue now stands and where, many years
+after, Tom Moore, the famous Irish poet, lived for a short time and wrote
+the Canadian Boat Song.[7]
+
+He soon came back, his information having proved unreliable, and he
+returned to France to make his report on the fur trade and the state
+of the country. He set sail again in 1615 for New France, having with
+him four Franciscan Fathers called Récollet friars from the convent in
+Brouage, who were anxious to convert to Christianity the savages of this
+great new world of which Champlain had told them.
+
+He stayed but a short time at Quebec as he wished to follow up a party
+of Huron and Algonquin Indians who had gone up the Ottawa to gather the
+tribes for a raid against the Iroquois. With them went Father Le Caron,
+one of the Récollets who had come out from Brouage with Champlain.
+
+[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE WARRIORS
+
+The advance party of a Mohawk war expedition has returned to Theonondiogo
+(Two Noses), the Mohawk capital (1634). They have brought with them two
+Mahikan Indian captives from the vicinity of Skanehtade (Albany).
+
+One prisoner in defiance has thrown down his burden and his captor is
+about to strike him when a chief woman of the village coming up the steep
+hill interposes by holding up a string of white ransom wampum saving the
+captive from death. Another warrior examines the bag of booty dropped by
+the prisoner. To the right near the stockade wall is seen a Mohawk war
+chief in full regalia leading a captive Mahikan, who bends beneath his
+burden. In the background is a figure calling the rest of the warriors to
+the hilltop council.
+
+The scene is laid on the hill overlooking the ancient Mohawk site of Two
+Noses, just above the present village of Sprakers in the Mohawk valley,
+and the observer is looking north toward the foothills of the Adirondacks.
+
+The purpose of this group is to illustrate (1) the treatment of
+prisoners, (2) the authority of the Iroquois woman, (3) the difference
+between the Mohawks and the Hudson river Mahikans, (4) an Iroquois
+village with its stockade wall, (5) a typical Mohawk valley landscape in
+Indian times.]
+
+Accompanied by Etienne Brulé, his interpreter, a brave and skilful
+woodsman, Champlain’s party went up the Ottawa, crossed over the divide
+from the Upper Ottawa and launched their canoes on Lake Nipissing. Thence
+they paddled down the French River into Lake Huron. One can imagine the
+joy of Champlain when he saw this great body of water stretching away
+beyond his vision and which he christened Mer Douce (Fresh Water Sea).
+This was the first of the Great Lakes to be discovered by a white man,
+and Champlain, with Le Caron and Brulé, were the first white men to sail
+on its waters.
+
+Down the shore they went for more than a hundred miles until the Indians
+came to the outlet of a well-known trail leading into the heart of the
+territory of the Hurons, to the palisaded town of Otoucha. This part of
+the country had many permanent Indian villages whose inhabitants were
+more agricultural than those in the east, and Champlain was greatly
+impressed with the fields of maize and pumpkins and sun flowers. Here he
+found Le Caron, who had preceded him on the journey, and on August 12th,
+1615, the first mass, the first religious service in what was afterwards
+known as Upper Canada, was celebrated in what is now the township of
+Tiny, near Penetanguishene, in the county of Simcoe. This event was
+commemorated three hundred years later by the Archbishop of Toronto, who
+celebrated mass as nearly as possible on the same spot, and to mark which
+a monument has been erected.
+
+The Indians gathered up their warriors and started southward. When the
+expedition reached Lake Simcoe, Brulé left Champlain that he might go
+directly south and persuade an Indian tribe who lived in that part of the
+country west and south of where Buffalo now stands, to join them against
+the Iroquois. Brulé paddled up the Holland river, crossed over the height
+of land and thence down the Humber river until he came to its mouth where
+the city of Toronto now stands. He was the first white man who saw Lake
+Ontario; and this was some five years before the landing of the Pilgrim
+Fathers.
+
+Champlain in the meantime crossed Lake Simcoe, portaged to Balsam Lake,
+thence through the Otonabee River, Rice Lake, and the Trent River, into
+Lake Ontario, which he too saw for the first time, and with his Huron
+companions crossed over to the country of the Iroquois. The raid was a
+failure, and Champlain, himself wounded, returned with the retreating
+Hurons and spent the winter with them in Huronia on the Georgian Bay.
+
+The remaining years of Champlain’s life were spent in trying to build up
+this little colony[8] in a vast country and reconciling the conflicting
+elements in it. The most important event was the capture of Quebec in
+1629 by an English fleet under Sir David Kirke, a descendant of French
+Huguenots who had taken refuge in England. Those were times when news
+travelled slowly, and much to their mutual surprise it was found that a
+peace had already been signed between England and France, and so Quebec
+was restored to France in 1632 and Champlain, who had been taken to
+England as a prisoner, was released and restored to his governorship.
+
+But his spirit was failing, and on Christmas Day, 1635, one hundred years
+after Cartier had first sailed up to the great rock at the narrowing of
+the stream, this brave soldier, resourceful general, and true gentleman,
+passed away in the country which he loved and in the city he had founded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+JOLIET, MARQUETTE AND THE RIVER OF A HUNDRED THOUSAND STREAMS.
+
+    “The first French followers of the river courses were devotees
+    of a religion for the salvation of others, bearers of advancing
+    banners for the glory of France, and lovers of nature and
+    adventure.”
+
+                                            —PRESIDENT J. H. FINLEY.
+
+
+JOLIET AND MARQUETTE.
+
+Frontenac landed at Quebec in 1672 as governor of New France, full
+of plans for the development of the country, the extension of its
+boundaries, and the exploration of “the fabled West that is charted
+dim but certain in the volume of the breast,” as our own Bliss Carman
+phrases it. He found among the coureurs des bois (runners of the woods) a
+native Canadian, Louis Joliet, the son of a wagon-maker in Quebec, a man
+reputed to be courageous, enterprising, of good nature and endowed with
+common sense. Him he commissioned to go up to Sault Ste. Marie and thence
+explore for the great South Sea. This was an exceedingly wise choice and
+due to the advice of the Intendant, M. Talon, a very able man, who knew
+of Joliet’s previous exploits.
+
+Some three years previously the governor of the time, Courcelles,
+sent Joliet to learn the truth about the reputed copper deposits on
+Lake Superior. He went by the great highway of the Ottawa river, Lake
+Nipissing and French River to Georgian Bay, and thence to the Sault. On
+his return he went down Lake Huron from the Sault through what we now
+call St. Clair and Detroit, and then along the north shore of Lake Erie
+and up the Grand River. The reason for leaving the lake at this point was
+the fear of his Indian guide for the warlike tribes at the end of the
+lake.
+
+Joliet was the first white man known to have passed through Lake Erie and
+this lake was the last of the Great Lakes to be discovered. Leaving the
+Grand River he was making his way eastward when in an Indian village in
+what is now known as the Beverley Swamp, near the present city of Galt,
+he met La Salle, Galinée and his Sulpician companion, Father Dollier. La
+Salle, greatly impressed by the dashing Joliet, who was much more to his
+taste than his priestly companions, turned back with him.
+
+It was to this seasoned explorer that the commission was given and
+he left for the Sault, near which he was told he would find Father
+Marquette, who would be his companion. Marquette was of a noble family
+of Laon, a city of Northern France, associated with nearly all the
+epoch-making incidents in the history of France, and which has been one
+of the great centres of fighting on the Western Front in the Great War
+of to-day. His mother was Rose de la Salle of Rheims. Marquette had
+been in the country about five years, and after two years of training
+in the mission at Three Rivers had been sent to the remnants of the
+Huron nation driven north-westward by the Iroquois, until near the
+western end of Lake Superior they established themselves in a village
+where they hoped to be far enough away from their great enemy to recover
+themselves. Hither in the summer came wandering Indians of a tribe called
+the Illinois, who told Marquette of the great river which flowed through
+their country, of the fertile lands, and how glad they all would be if he
+would visit them. After the village was broken up by the Sioux Indians,
+the Hurons determined to go back to more familiar haunts and settled at
+Michillimackinac, fifty miles to the south-west of the Sault. Marquette
+accompanied them and there he was found by Joliet.
+
+They spent the winter making their plans for the journey, and in May,
+1673, they started westwards with their party of Frenchmen and Indians,
+through Lake Michigan to Green Bay. Thence up the bay they went and up
+the Fox River to its source. A short portage over a narrow strip of
+prairie and they dropped their canoes into water flowing southwards, now
+the Wisconsin River, and after about 40 leagues they glided out into the
+great river, the Mississippi, first christened by a religious name, then
+called by a statesman’s name and finally back to its Indian name, with
+the significant meaning of “great water.”[9]
+
+Down they floated through the land of the buffalo and the wild turkey,
+until seeing upon the bank traces of men, they landed and came to the
+villages of the Indian tribe who had invited Marquette to visit them.
+The Black Gown, the distinctive garb of the Jesuit brotherhood, was at
+once recognized and here they stayed for some days, exchanging gifts and
+courtesies and making enquiries about the further reaches of the river.
+
+Before leaving these friendly Indian villages the Illinois Indians
+gave them a calumet, or pipe of peace, as a safeguard for them in their
+passage through hostile savages, probably just to show to the savages by
+using their own sign that they were coming in friendship. The calumet
+used by these Indians was made of a bowl of red stone with a long stick
+as a stem. This stick was covered along its whole length with heads of
+birds all coloured like flame, while a bunch of red feathers shaped like
+a great fan adorned the middle of the stick.
+
+Southwards again they went as far as the Arkansas, where, fearing the
+Spaniards, who were in that part of the country, they turned northwards,
+and following the advice of the Indians, they entered the Illinois River.
+Marquette was greatly impressed with the fertility of that wonderful
+valley, and well he might be, for his experience hitherto in New France
+had not been in very fertile regions. “I have seen,” said he, “nothing
+like this river for the fertility of the land, its prairies, woods, wild
+cattle, stag, deer, wild cats, bustards, swans, ducks, parrots and even
+beaver, its many little lakes and rivers.”
+
+On that river, in the great Indian village of Kaskaskia, seven miles
+below the present city of Ottawa, Illinois, Marquette was so kindly
+treated that he promised to return to them as soon as he could.
+Following up one of the branches of the river they portaged across only
+about 1,000 paces and put their canoes into a little stream that emptied
+into Lake Michigan. That portage is where stands to-day the city of
+Chicago, the great city of the State called after the Indians for whom
+Marquette had made the journey. Along the shore they went, across the
+portage at Sturgeon Bay, and at the end of September reached the mission
+at Green Bay, where they spent the winter.
+
+Early in the spring they separated, Marquette to return to his mission
+to recruit his strength that he might redeem his promise to his Indian
+friends at Kaskaskia, Joliet to report to Frontenac the result of his
+voyage. Unfortunately, Joliet’s canoe was upset in the Lachine rapids and
+all his papers, including the map of the discovered region, were lost.
+In his report he said, with the insight of the prophet: “We could easily
+go to Florida in a ship, and with very easy navigation. It would only be
+necessary to make a canal by cutting through but half a league of prairie
+to pass from the foot of the lake of the Illinois (Michigan) to the River
+St. Louis (Des Plaines),”—and we have lived to see that done in the
+great sanitary and ship canal connecting the Chicago River with the Des
+Plaines River at the present city of Joliet. Joliet held minor positions
+until 1680, when he was granted fishing rights in the lower St. Lawrence
+and later the island of Anticosti was included. But in 1690 the English
+invasion under Phips destroyed his establishment and ten years later he
+died in poverty.
+
+Marquette, weak in body but with a giant spirit, was preparing himself
+to fulfil his promise and in the fall of the next year, 1674, he started
+for Kaskaskia. Bad weather and his physical weakness made him halt so
+many times that it was April before he reached the village. Here he was
+welcomed as an angel from heaven, and on the Easter Sunday, before an
+altar erected on the prairie at the edge of the great wood, he preached
+to thousands of the Indians as they squatted in a semi-circle, chiefs,
+young men, women and children, to hear the impressive words of the
+black-robed missionary.
+
+Leaving them that he might get treatment for his ailment and promising
+that he never would forget them, he started for home, but he succumbed
+on the banks of the Great Lake on May 18th, 1675. In compliance with
+his request, he was buried there, but a year later the Ottawa Indians,
+finding the grave, opened it, and took the remains to St. Ignace in
+a great procession of canoes and buried under the chapel the great
+priest with solemn ceremonies. Early in the next century the chapel
+was destroyed by fire. In 1877 the remains of a burned building were
+discovered at the site of the old mission and the remains wrapped in
+birch bark were discovered.
+
+Small wonder it is that his name lives throughout that great fertile
+valley, drained by the river of a hundred thousand streams, the man
+of courage, kindliness of heart and speech, of unselfish devotion and
+high ideals, a fitting hero for a land that becoming fabulously rich in
+material wealth needs the inspiration of the life of the simple, zealous
+priest who put the good of others above his own pleasure and comfort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+LA SALLE AND THE GREATER NEW FRANCE.
+
+    “The fertile plains of Texas, the vast basin of the Mississippi
+    from its frozen springs to the sultry borders of the gulf; from
+    the wooded ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of the
+    Rocky Mountains,—a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked
+    deserts and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers,
+    ranged by a thousand warlike tribes.”
+
+                                                           —PARKMAN.
+
+
+LA SALLE AND THE GREATER NEW FRANCE.
+
+With the exception of Champlain, the most romantic figure in the history
+of New France is that of La Salle, the young adventurer from Rouen. He
+landed at Quebec in 1666, the same year as Marquette, and went at once to
+Montreal where he had relatives among the Sulpician order of priests, to
+whom most of the island of Montreal belonged. Here he purchased from them
+an estate or seigniory, as it was called. This was but a few miles west
+of Montreal, and was called in derision by his friends “La Chine,” having
+reference to La Salle’s dream of finding a road to China by following
+westward.
+
+In preparation for his explorations he settled down to acquaint himself
+with the Indian languages, and hearing from some Seneca Indians that
+there was a great river called the Ohio, which he thought might lead him
+to the great Western Sea, he joined the expedition of Galinée and Father
+Dollier, the Sulpician, who were setting out to establish a mission
+in the Far West. With nine canoes and twenty-one men they skirted the
+eastern and southern shores of Lake Ontario, and about the middle of
+September reached the mouth of a river which Galinée describes: “We
+discovered a river one-eighth of a league wide and extremely rapid.” The
+Indians told them of a great cataract up this river which was “higher
+than the highest pine trees,” and indeed he tells us he could hear the
+roar. But they had a set purpose and pressed on their way, thus losing
+the opportunity to be the first white men to visit the Falls of Niagara.
+Indeed this is the first description of the river by any one who is known
+to have reached it.
+
+They passed on to Burlington Bay and leaving it about where Hamilton now
+stands, they struck across the country, and on the 24th of September,
+in an Indian village in what is known as the Beverley Swamp, near the
+present city of Galt, they met Joliet returning from his search for the
+copper mines on Lake Superior. La Salle was so attracted by Joliet, a
+kindred adventurer in spirit, that he turned back and left Dollier and
+Galinée to go on to the West, guided as to their course by the advice of
+Joliet, who told them of the Pottawatomies, a tribe of Indians to whom no
+missionary had yet come.
+
+They went down the Grand River and as the season was so far advanced
+they built a shelter on the lake shore near where Port Dover now stands,
+erected a cross and took formal possession of the Lake Erie country in
+the name of Louis the Magnificent.[10]
+
+Here they spent the winter and are enthusiastic in their praise of the
+mildness of the climate and the luscious autumn fruit. This is of great
+interest to many of us who to-day look upon that county (Norfolk) as one
+of the greatest fruit centres of the province of Ontario.
+
+La Salle returned east, and we know that during the next few years he was
+with Frontenac, and doubtless made many exploration trips. But in 1675
+he received from the French Government a grant on Lake Ontario similar
+to the seigniory at La Chine, and so at Cataraqui, where Kingston now
+stands, he built a fort to control the trade coming east and to prevent
+it from going to the English colony in New York. This he called “Fort
+Frontenac.” He was raised to the nobility and was given a commission in
+1678 to discover the “Western part of New France” and “to construct forts
+in the places you may think necessary.” This meant that he would seek
+out the mouth of the great Mississippi and erect a chain of forts which
+would connect and hold for France the country from the mouth of the St.
+Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi.
+
+Here was the great chance for which this adventurous man had longed and
+for which he had toiled, and so in November of that year he began to
+gather men and material for the great project. He threw himself into this
+work with energy and was backed up by Frontenac, whose policy had ever
+been the extension of the boundaries of New France. Indeed, Frontenac had
+advised the Home Government as early as 1673 that a fort at the mouth of
+the Niagara River and a vessel on Lake Erie would enable the French to
+command the Great Lakes. Like many other Home Governments when urged to
+progressive measures, Colbert, the Colonial Minister, advised caution.[11]
+
+When La Salle arrived from Rochelle with these wonderfully indefinite
+powers these two men saw great possibilities and went to work at once.
+Ship carpenters, blacksmiths, and other artisans were gathered at the
+Niagara River, and while a fort was being built at the mouth of the river
+to cut off the trade of the English, a store house was erected below the
+Falls near where Lewiston now stands, and a shipyard was planned above
+the Falls, where a large boat was to be built for the great western
+expedition. This was the work of La Salle’s lieutenant, Henry Tonty. With
+La Salle was a Récollet priest, Father Hennepin, and to him we owe our
+first written account of Niagara Falls.
+
+After many disappointments, the Griffon, named after Frontenac’s armorial
+bearing, was launched, equipped, and set sail. Tonty rejoined La Salle
+on board the Griffon at Detroit. He has an interest for us to-day in
+that his name is preserved to us in the Tontine plan of insurance, which
+was the invention of his father, a Neapolitan nobleman. And in a greater
+sense this Henry Tonty was a nobleman, for through all his wandering and
+discouragements La Salle found in him a sincere and trustworthy friend.
+At Mackinac they were to meet with advance guards of traders sent on
+by La Salle, but most of them had deserted. Gathering up a few whom he
+thought would be loyal, La Salle made his way to the Illinois River,
+where a fort was built and a boat begun by Tonty for exploration of the
+great river. The Griffon was sent home from Green Bay, loaded with furs,
+and there our knowledge of her ends.
+
+In the meantime La Salle determined to return to Fort Frontenac to get
+more material and more men to undertake the great journey. By canoe
+and on foot they crossed Southern Michigan and passed over the Detroit
+on a raft, thence on foot along the shores of Lake Erie (in the month
+of March), and utterly worn out he, his faithful hunter, and two white
+companions reached the Falls, only to hear heart-breaking news. He had
+travelled more than a thousand miles in 65 days in the very worst season
+of the year. There was no news of his ship—his fortune and his hope.
+
+Deceived and even robbed by his men, in addition to all his other
+disappointments, La Salle, undaunted and undismayed, sent Dautray, one
+of the white men who had accompanied him, with four others, to reinforce
+Tonty, and pushed on to Fort Frontenac. As if he had not already enough
+bad news, just as he arrived at the Fort, messengers from Tonty told
+him that the men who were building the vessel in the Illinois River had
+stolen what they could and had deserted. These precious rascals, joined
+by other deserters, must have been following close behind the messengers,
+as we hear of them breaking into La Salle’s storehouse on the Niagara,
+looting everything they could and setting out for the East. La Salle
+heard of it, intercepted some of them, killed two, and took the rest
+prisoners to Fort Frontenac.
+
+But Tonty must be rescued and the exploration go on, so La Salle gathered
+men and supplies and started for the West. With twelve men he went up the
+Humber River, crossed to Lake Simcoe, and thence down the Severn River to
+the Georgian Bay; the others with the heavier freight went by Niagara and
+Lake Erie. They were to meet at Mackinac, but La Salle could not wait,
+and hastened on with a foreboding that something awful may have happened
+to Tonty at his Fort Crevecoeur (broken heart) in the Illinois country.
+
+And when they arrived it was to see where once had been the chief town
+of the Illinois, nothing but ashes, skulls, and mangled corpses. The
+Iroquois had been there. Down the river he went looking for Tonty, even
+into the Mississippi. Discouraged, they turned back to the St. Joseph
+River and there at Fort Miami, where La Forest was in charge, they
+settled down for the winter. In the meantime, Tonty, after trying in vain
+to prevent the battle between the Iroquois and the Illinois, had escaped
+and after weeks of suffering had reached Green Bay.
+
+La Salle in the spring set out for Fort Frontenac to refit and went
+by Michillimackinac. We can imagine his joy when he found Tonty, who
+accompanied him to the East. By October they had arranged their affairs
+and arrived at Fort Miami in November. Here they organized their
+expedition of 18 Indians and 23 Frenchmen, and in Christmas week, 1681,
+they set out. Across Lake Michigan to the Chicago River, thence portaging
+to the north branch of the Illinois, they entered the Mississippi on
+February 6th, but saw no human beings until March 13th, near the mouth
+of the Arkansas River. Landing there La Salle raised the banner of
+France, planted a cross, and took possession of the country in the name
+of the King.
+
+Thence down the river they went for three hundred miles to the Taensas
+Indians, who lived in large square houses built of mud and straw with a
+high roof of cane and surrounding a large open court. Soon they came to
+the mouth or delta of the Mississippi, and going in different parties
+down the channels they joined together on an island at the mouth, erected
+a column, and took possession of all Louisiana from the mouth of the
+Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. And so from Lake Erie west and north to the
+Rocky Mountains and the Canadian North West, and south from Lake Erie to
+the Gulf, and west to the Rio Grande was added to the New France whose
+capital was at the narrowing of the stream of the mighty St. Lawrence.
+
+La Salle had realized his dream, and against obstacles which would have
+staggered any ordinary man; and New France now extended from the Gulf
+of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. They retraced their way up the
+Mississippi and after a long illness he reached Mackinac, whither he had
+sent Tonty to announce their success. It was too late to go to Quebec,
+and there was a rumour that the Iroquois were on the warpath, so La Salle
+and Tonty returned to the Illinois and spent the winter of 1682-3 in
+fortifying Starved Rock, which was to be one of the chain of forts to
+hold the new country.
+
+But in the meantime Frontenac was recalled, the forward policy entirely
+changed, and La Salle’s own possessions at Fort Frontenac seized. This
+seemed the cap stone of all his troubles, and he passed eastward in the
+fall of 1683, reached Quebec in November, and finding his case hopeless,
+sailed for France to lay his case personally before his King.
+
+He was a wonderful man. His vessels had been wrecked, his goods lost,
+his possessions confiscated. He had been deserted by his men, been
+robbed, and yet he retained that faith in himself and in his cause, and
+so impressed the King that he was given command of an expedition to sail
+for the mouths of the Mississippi to drive the Spaniards out of North
+America. They landed somewhere near where Galveston, Texas, now stands,
+having missed the Mississippi. Again through wrecks and desertion La
+Salle found his numbers depleted. Added to this, dreadful sickness broke
+out. La Salle determined to seek a way out to the Mississippi and thence
+up to New France. He made repeated attempts, and at last, deserted by
+nearly all his men who despaired of ever seeing home again, he was shot
+by one of his own followers on March 18th, 1687.
+
+Thus perished one of the most remarkable men in our history, the first
+great Imperialist, who had an empire in his brain, and who if he had been
+given backing would have made a New France greater than Old France could
+ever hope to be. And the map of North America would have been greatly
+changed!
+
+Tonty, the faithful friend and companion of La Salle, stayed for some
+years in the country of the Illinois, joined Iberville in Louisiana
+in 1702, and died near where Mobile now stands about 1704. Faithful,
+not only to the erratic La Salle, but also to the Home Government, he
+received no recompense in any form, but has left for us an undying
+picture of how true and faithful a friend can be, and under the most
+trying circumstances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+RADISSON AND THE GREAT NORTH WEST.
+
+    “If he had not had his faults, if he had not been as impulsive,
+    as daring, as reckless, as inconstant, as improvident of the
+    morrow as a savage or a child, he would not have accomplished
+    the exploration of half a continent. Men who weigh consequences
+    are not of the stuff to win empires. He went ahead and when the
+    way did not open he went around, or crawled over, or carved his
+    way through.
+
+    “Memorial tablets commemorate other discoverers. Radisson needs
+    none. The Great Northwest is his monument for all time.”
+
+                                                     —AGNES C. LAUT.
+
+
+RADISSON AND THE GREAT NORTH WEST
+
+Before Joliet, Marquette, or La Salle had made their memorable
+expeditions in search of the Western Sea, a man unattached to any
+religious order, and under the protection of no government, had traversed
+these unknown wilds for the sheer joy of exploration and excitement. The
+hair-breadth escapes of the hero of modern fiction cannot compare in
+thrills to the marvellous adventures of this man to whom the country from
+Quebec to the prairies of the great North West were alike his hunting
+and his playground.
+
+This was Pierre Radisson, who left his native St. Malo about a century
+after the great Cartier, and settled at Three Rivers, which then was a
+comparatively large place, having a population of about 200 souls.
+
+With the enthusiasm and recklessness of youth he disregarded the warnings
+of his friends and went duck shooting with a couple of equally reckless
+and youthful companions. They were but boys and were at the age when
+Indians had no terrors for them. Separated in the chase, Radisson had
+splendid luck, and returning to where they had agreed to meet, he found
+his two companions dead among the rushes. When he looked about, the heads
+of Indians appeared everywhere. They set upon him, and after a game
+struggle he was disarmed, stripped, tied around the waist with a rope and
+brought to the camp fire.
+
+The very recklessness of the youth compelled the admiration of the
+Indians, who spared his life, gave him his clothes, dressed his hair and
+daubed his face as of an Indian brave. Though but a boy he showed the
+coolness in the face of danger which was to characterize him throughout
+his adventurous life. We are told that he slept that night between
+two warriors under a common blanket and so soundly that he was with
+difficulty awakened at the break of day.
+
+Taking no chances, they tied him to the cross bar of a canoe when the
+party set off for the Indian village many miles distant. On the fourth
+day he was released from the cross bar, and being given a paddle, entered
+with zest into the work of helping onward the canoe. He was a cheerful
+lad, and the Indians, instead of allowing him to work himself out in
+his awkward manner, taught him how to give the light feather strokes of
+the true canoe man. He, in turn, took his share of the burdens, and was
+always eager to help. Their village was near Lake George in what is now
+New York State, and there they prepared to make merry with their captives
+and their plunder. He had to run the gauntlet of the braves, and was so
+successful that he was sought for adoption by a captive Huron squaw who
+had been adopted by the tribe. She pleaded for his life before the Great
+Council and was allowed to take him as her son. He was now a Mohawk of
+the Iroquois nation.
+
+Watching his opportunity, and with an Algonquin captive, they made their
+escape, after killing three of the Mohawks; and after wandering many
+days, they were within sight of Three Rivers when the Iroquois overtook
+them, killed the Algonquin, and Radisson was again a prisoner. He was
+recognized and subjected to tortures, his thumb being thrust into a
+pipe of live coals, and the soles of both feet burned. Still worse was
+in store for him, but his adopted father, a chief among them, and his
+adopted mother, purchased his freedom by a recital of their own deeds of
+valour and by gifts of wampum.
+
+This seventeen year old lad seemingly had won the hearts of all. He
+accompanied them on their expeditions and visited the lodges of the
+Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas in their wanderings about what
+is now known as the Niagara district. Indeed, he won the confidence of
+his Mohawk friends to such an extent that they took him with them when
+they visited the white man’s village of Orange (Albany), and he justified
+their confidence by returning with them, even though the Dutch offered to
+pay a great ransom to free him.
+
+He wanted to make himself free and was ever on the alert for the suitable
+moment. It came in 1653, and alone he made his way back to Orange after
+many hair-breadth escapes. Here he was befriended—indeed he seemed
+always and everywhere to make friends—by a Jesuit priest who gave him
+enough money to enable him to sail down the Hudson to New York, whence he
+took boat for Amsterdam, which he reached in 1654, and thence he made his
+way home to France.
+
+This adventure I have dwelt upon in some detail, because it is an
+illustration in miniature of his eventful life. One would think there had
+been enough crowded into these months to suffice for a life time, but the
+lure of the West was upon him, and his relatives, like himself, had gone
+overseas.
+
+Therefore he joined the fishing fleet that was sailing for the Banks of
+Newfoundland, and made his way back to Three Rivers in May of 1654, just
+two years after he had disappeared.
+
+His sister, Marguerite, had lost her husband in a fight with the Mohawks,
+and had married Chouart, a famous fur trader. This man was a widower, his
+wife having been a daughter of Abraham Martin, whose farm near Quebec
+City was in another century to become famous as the scene of the battle
+of the Plains of Abraham.
+
+These two men, Radisson and Chouart, became not only fast friends, but
+inseparable companions in a life of adventure. The traders coming East to
+dispose of their furs told of a great country beyond the Great Lakes,
+and these two lovers of the wild set off up the Ottawa across Lake Huron
+and Michigan, over what is now Wisconsin, and came to a “mighty river,
+great, rushing, profound, and comparable to the St. Lawrence.” This
+undoubtedly was the Upper Mississippi, and these two white men were the
+first to see it and the “farflung, fenceless prairie, where the quick
+cloud-shadows trail,” which make up what we call the Great North West.
+
+The Indians told them of a great river to the south which divided itself
+in two, the Forked River, the junction of Missouri and Mississippi,
+but the adventurers decided to make their way back again, and crossing
+through what is now Nebraska, North Dakota, and Minnesota, they came to
+Lake Superior and the Sault. Here the Crees told Radisson of a great
+sea to the north, Hudsons Bay, where there were quantities of furs.
+So alluring was the description that he set off on snow shoes, but
+the season was too late and he returned and made his way east. At the
+rapids of the Long Sault his large party came upon the Iroquois who had
+massacred Dollard and his noble band of Frenchmen. These they put to
+flight and as deliverers they made a triumphant journey to Montreal,
+Three Rivers and Quebec.
+
+Their one thought was when could they resume their explorations in the
+North, and as they could not come to terms with the Governor, who wanted
+all the profits without assuming any of the risks, they stole away and in
+October reached Lake Superior. Pressing on they came to where Duluth now
+stands, and there they established a fur trading post, the first between
+the Missouri River and the North Pole. This marks the opening of the
+Great West as truly as when the railway passing through unknown portions
+of our Great West established a station as a centre of influence and
+trade.
+
+In the spring they set off with their hosts of the winter, the Crees, to
+find the Great Sea, and it is possible that they were successful, but
+after great hardships. However, we know that they returned in 1663 with
+costly furs, and instead of the welcome which might reasonably be looked
+for, they were heavily fined by the French governor for trading without
+a license, and most of their furs were confiscated. They tried to get
+redress in France, but utterly failed, and so with no support in either
+Old France or New France they sought out new friends and joined the
+English in an expedition against Port Royal. This was unsuccessful, and
+being taken prisoners by the Dutch they were landed in Spain, whence they
+made their way to England. This was in 1666, when the great plague was
+raging in London, and Charles II. and his court were at Oxford.
+
+They met at the court a man who was greatly impressed with their stories,
+and whose name was to be intimately associated with the great Northland.
+This was Prince Rupert, the dashing cavalry leader of the Stuarts, who
+became their patron, outfitted them for exploration, and they set off for
+Hudsons Bay. Chouart was successful, but Radisson, shipwrecked, returned
+to England where, in 1670, on the return of Chouart, a “company of
+adventurers trading with Hudsons Bay” was formed through the influence of
+Prince Rupert, who became the first governor of the Hudsons Bay Company,
+to whom was given an empire.
+
+In the following spring ships were sent out, posts established, and so
+successful was their venture that the French not only sent expeditions
+and exploring parties northward, but the great gathering of the Indian
+tribes at the Sault Ste. Marie, which Perrot organized, was to strengthen
+the French against the English traders who were trying to divert trade
+from the posts of the French.
+
+But negotiations in England fell through and Radisson made more
+satisfactory terms with his old allies, the French, and sailed under that
+flag to Hudsons Bay, outwitted both the officials of the Hudsons Bay
+Company and the free traders from New England and France became supreme
+in the Bay. But again the government of New France threw away the prize,
+for when Radisson and Chouart arrived at Montreal they were prosecuted
+for trading without a license. They were summoned to France to explain
+the circumstances to the Home Government, but when they arrived they
+found that Colbert, the minister who summoned them, was dead. Chouart,
+thoroughly discouraged, retired to end his days in quietness, for the
+outlook was anything but encouraging.
+
+However, Radisson, looking with eagerness still for the life of
+adventure, and having a family to support, played French against English
+offers until at last he went across to England and in 1684 he sailed for
+Hudsons Bay under the flag of the Company. Here he found young Chouart,
+the son, who had been holding the Bay for France, who, when he heard of
+the treatment given his father and Radisson, surrendered the fort and
+the furs to Radisson, who thereupon gathered the Indian tribes and made
+a treaty with them and the Hudsons Bay Company, which in essence lasts
+unto this day. Returning to England they received a great welcome, and
+for five years Radisson made annual visits to the Bay and the Company
+flourished.
+
+[Illustration: COUNCIL OF THE TURTLE CLAN
+
+The Turtle Clan chiefs of the Onondagas are discussing some important
+tribal subject within the private bark lodge of their fire-keeper. The
+presiding chief must give the decision. The chief woman of the clan feels
+that the council’s action is adverse to her interests and requests her
+secretary, a young man, to register her protest.
+
+The bark cabin is a typical Iroquois lodge of the individual type.
+
+All the furnishings of the council lodge are of genuine Indian make and
+typical of prehistoric times in an Onondaga village. The figures are cast
+from living Onondaga models.
+
+The purpose of this group is to illustrate (1) one of the political units
+of the Iroquois Confederacy, which had a stable government and a definite
+code of law, (2) the interior of a bark cabin (many of which were more
+than 100 feet in length), (3) the four Turtle clan sachems in council,
+(4) the method of recording by wampum the transactions of a council, (5)
+the privilege of the Iroquois woman to voice her opinions in the highest
+or lowest councils of the nation, (6) typical Onondaga Indians and a
+scene in the Onondaga country.]
+
+The great Seven Years’ War between France and England broke out in 1688
+with the accession of William and Mary, and the Bay was invaded by the
+French, the fur trade badly disorganized, and the profits of the Company
+greatly decreased.
+
+As is too often the case with corporations, gratitude for what had been
+accomplished was wiped out by the disappointment of the present, and
+Radisson, who had done so much for the company, was ignored; too old to
+be of aggressive service to them, he drops out of sight, and is forgotten
+except for the record of the payment of a small pension up to the year
+1710.
+
+His was a wonderful life. Impulsive, yet cool-headed at critical times,
+daring, reckless and inconstant, but generous and brave, he was the true
+adventurer who, with no thought of himself, braved danger for the very
+love of it, and whose memory is preserved among the Indians as one who
+was untainted by the vices of the white man, who never was cruel and who
+was admired for his sheer bravery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MONTCALM AND THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE.
+
+    “The history of French America is far more picturesque than the
+    history of British America in the period of 1608-1754. But the
+    English were doing work more solid, valuable and permanent than
+    their northern neighbours. The French took to the lakes, rivers
+    and forests; they cultivated the Indians; their explorers were
+    intent on discovery, their traders on furs, their missionaries
+    on souls. The English did not either take to the woods or
+    cultivate the Indians, they loved agriculture and trade, state
+    and church, and so clung to the fields, shops, politics and
+    churches. As a result while Canada languished, the English
+    states grew up on the Atlantic plain modelled on the Saxon
+    pattern, and became populous, rich and strong. At the beginning
+    of the war there were 80,000 white inhabitants in New France,
+    1,160,000 in the British colonies.”
+
+                                          —PROFESSOR B. A. HINSDALE.
+
+
+MONTCALM AND THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE.
+
+What the gold mines of Mexico and Peru were to the Spaniards the fur
+trade of New France was to the French, and until the furs arrived in
+Montreal or Quebec, they could not be considered safe, for in the Ohio
+country and especially at the Niagara portage, and even on the way to
+Frontenac, they were liable to attack from the English and their Indian
+allies.
+
+To protect this trade the French built a strong fort at the mouth of the
+Niagara River, part of which may be seen to-day in what is known as Fort
+Niagara on the American side of the river. At the head of the portage,
+above the Falls, there was a smaller fort called Fort Little Niagara.
+
+This was the great trading centre, not only for the district immediately
+tributary to it, such as Toronto (at the mouth of what is now called
+the Humber River, and which in summer was very busy) but for all the
+north-west country which with the development of Detroit had increased in
+wealth and inhabitants. Toronto was really an outpost of Niagara and was
+established with the great French forward movement in 1749. It had been
+officially named Fort Rouillé after the Colonial Minister of the day, who
+was also a man of letters, and the head of the Royal Library. However,
+this name was too artificial to survive and the old name for the bay and
+river, Toronto, maintained its hold upon the people.
+
+In 1749 the French determined upon a great expedition to show their power
+and assert their sovereignty over the Ohio country and to warn off all
+strangers from trading on French territory. So in June of that year with
+23 canoes and 250 men they left Lachine, passed through Niagara in July,
+and made their triumphal way through the Ohio country to Detroit, and
+thence back to Montreal in November.
+
+The headquarters of the English on the Lakes was at Oswego. This was
+the great rival of Niagara as a trading centre. When the war had raised
+the prices in France the French traders at Niagara raised their prices
+correspondingly—and even more. The Indians grumbled and went on to
+Oswego, where they could trade with the English to better advantage. The
+French, feeling that their trade with the Indians was being endangered
+urged an expedition against Oswego, and in 1756 Montcalm took the place
+by storm in the greatest battle which up to that time had been fought
+between the French and the English for control of the Lakes.
+
+This disaster followed closely upon the defeat of Braddock at Duquesne,
+made especially famous because of the presence of George Washington,
+the colonial, as junior officer, who, accustomed to the Indian manner
+of fighting, warned General Braddock, but whose advice the haughty
+English general thought beneath notice; and still more was heaped upon
+the unfortunate English when Montcalm defeated them at Ticonderoga. It
+certainly looked as if there must needs be a vigorous policy on the part
+of the English if they were to have any of the trade on the great inland
+waters.
+
+Pitt, the Premier of England, saw this and made plans for an aggressive
+campaign. In 1758 Colonel Bradstreet, with American provincials, captured
+Fort Frontenac, burned and sank seven vessels of war, captured sixty
+cannon and destroyed the Fort and incidentally the shipyard, which was
+the first upon the Great Lakes. This success greatly heartened the
+English and made them think how simple might be the conquest of other
+places if they had ships of war. It was the awakening of the English to
+the importance of “sea power” on the Lakes.
+
+Now Niagara was the centre of French power and influence, situated on the
+great portage which practically controlled the great trade from the West.
+The fort had been greatly strengthened during 1756-7, and the English
+carefully gathered a strong force. It was a real siege, in which the
+assailing force used trench warfare to make steady and safe advances.
+After nineteen days the garrison surrendered to Sir William Johnson, who
+was ranking commander on account of the deaths of the superior officers
+during the siege. Sir William had joined the investing force with 900
+Indians, the largest number ever led into battle by a white man. When he
+entered the fort one of the most interesting of his companions was Joseph
+Brant, a Mohawk lad of 17, destined to become one of the most renowned
+men of his day. And now the English for the first time had access to the
+great fur trade.
+
+While speaking of this fort it will be of interest to note that in the
+common English speech of that day the pronunciation of the name of the
+fort was Niagàra. Our present pronunciation would have been impossible to
+the Iroquois tongue, which requires that each syllable should end in a
+vowel.
+
+While these disasters were overtaking the French on the Lakes, the
+English under Wolfe had sailed up the St. Lawrence after clearing the
+coasts below, and were preparing to attack Quebec. Indeed the news of
+the capture of Niagara, which came at a very opportune moment, greatly
+heartened the English and correspondingly depressed the French.
+
+The situation was perilous. Fort Frontenac was destroyed, Fort Niagara in
+the hands of the English, Amherst was advancing, as part of Pitt’s plan,
+through New York State by way of Oswego, against Montreal, and a strong
+English force under Wolfe, selected specially for this work by Pitt, was
+before the capital city of Quebec.
+
+The internal affairs of the country were not promising. Montcalm, the
+general of the French forces, an able military man of good experience,
+was not supreme, but had to take his orders from Vaudreuil, the governor,
+a weak and jealous man, fatal failings in a position of authority. And
+with almost the powers of the governor, was the Intendant, a man called
+Bigot, to whose looseness in matters of morals and money may be partially
+ascribed the loss of New France. The defects of the rulers were to be
+seen in the officials under them, and it was a difficult task that
+confronted Montcalm.
+
+The advance against Quebec was made by water, and up to the battle
+itself the movements were those of a fleet. The commander of the army
+was General Wolfe, selected by Pitt, the Prime Minister of England, and
+to him was given what was then the extraordinary privilege of selecting
+most of his staff and thus providing for unity of aim and community of
+interest. Saunders was Admiral of the fleet.
+
+At first they lay below the city and tried sundry attacks by land, but
+without success. Then they made a skilful movement up the river and in a
+better position to make a direct attack.
+
+Quebec is a natural stronghold, and had to depend largely upon this
+for protection. Large sums of money had been assigned for the greater
+development and strengthening of the fortifications, but in those days of
+corruption and thoughtlessness the money had doubtless been squandered.
+Its great cliffs might have presented a hopeless appearance to the enemy
+if properly guarded, but Wolfe knew through his capable Intelligence
+Department, that there was but little ammunition and little food in the
+garrison. Above all, there was a lack of intelligence and co-operation
+among the rulers of the French, an evidence of which was the fact that
+a great fleet could make its way up the dangerous St. Lawrence with
+practically no opposition.
+
+Wolfe studied out the situation and, emboldened by the good news from
+the Lakes, planned an assault by night. Carefully selecting the place,
+he told no one but the admiral and the captain who was to lead the great
+procession of boats to the assault. Shortly after midnight on September
+12th, 1759, the boats in line dropped down the river with Wolfe and his
+staff in the leading boat. They passed successfully a French sentry who
+thought they were a French convoy, and about four o’clock on that autumn
+morning Wolfe leaped ashore at a cove about a mile and a half above the
+city, and led his men up the steep path which he had already carefully
+investigated. Again they successfully answered the challenge of a sentry
+and by six o’clock the whole landing force was on the heights.
+
+It was a surprise to the French, but even then the chance for recovery
+would have been greater if Montcalm had not been hampered by having to
+consult the governor on all details. This was a national crisis. Half a
+continent was at stake and yet the man whose training had been for this
+purpose, whose business it was to know what to do at such a crisis, had
+to lay his plans before a political appointee, who in turn used his power
+for the humiliation of the expert military leader.
+
+But Montcalm was a patriot, and he made the best of the situation. By
+nine o’clock the French marched out in battle array against Wolfe’s army,
+which by this time had reached the level known as the Plains of Abraham.
+The armies were almost equal in numbers, approximately 5,000 each, and
+as the French advanced to the attack, which was their best policy, Wolfe,
+advancing his men so that the action would be close, gave the order that
+no shot was to be fired until the enemy was within forty paces. It was
+a difficult matter to remain steady and resist the temptation to fire,
+but they did, and when at forty paces a volley was let loose, followed
+immediately by a second, the French line wavered and Wolfe gave the order
+to charge.
+
+The French could not withstand the shock and the battle was won. Wolfe,
+already wounded, received a death wound in the first moment of the
+charge. While being carried to the rear he heard some one say, “They run,
+they run!” Wolfe roused himself and asked, “Who run?” “The French, sir!
+Egad! they give way everywhere!” “Then I die content.” And so passed
+away the young intrepid general, who had recognized fully the great
+issues involved in this encounter and on the previous evening had made a
+disposition of all his belongings.
+
+And Montcalm, while trying to rally the fugitives, was stricken down, and
+when told that he could not live, replied calmly, “So much the better. I
+am happy not to live to see the surrender of Quebec.”
+
+The battle lasted until mid-day, and the result was a triumph for Wolfe’s
+tactics, for it was a carefully planned attack, and nothing was left
+to chance. Quebec surrendered, the French troops marched out with the
+honours of war, and the reign of France was virtually over in the New
+World.
+
+Montcalm was buried in the Ursuline chapel at Quebec, while Wolfe’s body
+was carried on the Royal William to Portsmouth in charge of Sergeant
+Donald MacLeod, of the Black Watch, all his years a soldier and with
+twelve sons in the army and navy.
+
+Years afterwards, to these two great generals, noble and self-sacrificing
+men, each doing his duty to his country even to the sacrifice of his
+life, a monument was erected in the city for whose possession they had
+fought. On one side is the word Montcalm; on the other Wolfe; and on the
+pedestal between these words:
+
+                          MORTEM VIRTUS COMMUNEM
+                              FAMAM HISTORIA
+                           MONUMENTUM POSTERITAS
+                                  DEDIT.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+PONTIAC AND THE LAST HOPE OF INDIAN SUPREMACY.
+
+    “For a mausoleum a city has arisen above the forest hero; and
+    the race whom he hated with such burning rancour trample with
+    unceasing footsteps over his forgotten grave.”
+
+                                                           —PARKMAN.
+
+
+PONTIAC AND THE LAST HOPE OF INDIAN SUPREMACY.
+
+We sometimes speak of the victory of Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham
+and the subsequent surrender of Quebec as having involved the transfer
+of Canada or New France from the French to the English. It really was
+the first and most important in the series of events which led to this
+transfer.
+
+The situation at Quebec presented many difficulties. England had but a
+small force, and had barely defeated the French. It was the Fall of the
+year with the cold winter approaching which proved a terrible time for
+the English, unaccustomed to so severe a climate, and in a city much
+of which was in ruins. Unity of purpose and decisive action on the part
+of the French might have cut off the English, but in the dread of being
+separated from their base of supplies the French retreated to Montreal.
+
+Early in the spring Chevalier de Levis, second in command to Montcalm,
+gathered an army in Montreal of 7,000 men and reached Quebec in April.
+Murray, the English commander, marched out to the attack, but was badly
+defeated and retreated into the city.
+
+And now the fate of New France was in the balance. Quebec was not in
+condition to stand a siege. The English forces had met with a decided
+reverse. The French were heartened by the victory, but were not strong
+enough to follow it up vigorously. Word was received that ships were
+coming up the river. Were they French or English? It was an anxious
+moment, and when at last the English flag was seen floating at the
+masthead the French fell back upon Montreal and the fate of New France
+was practically settled.
+
+Against Montreal Murray led the forces from Quebec expecting there to
+make connections with Amherst, who was on his way from New York by way of
+Oswego and the St. Lawrence. The junction of forces was so well managed
+that Vaudreuil surrendered, and was able to make excellent terms with his
+generous conquerors.
+
+And so from Louisbourg to Quebec, to Montreal, to Frontenac (taken by
+Bradstreet) to Niagara (taken by Sir William Johnson) New France was in
+the possession of the English.
+
+But New France extended far beyond Niagara, and the forts at Pitt (where
+Pittsburg now stands), Detroit, Michillimackinac, Sault Ste. Marie,
+and the strongly fortified Fort Chartres near the present city of St.
+Louis, had heard nothing of the happenings in the Far East; and in this
+connection it must be remembered that all the Indians except the Iroquois
+were allies of the French or friendly disposed towards them, and none but
+an Englishman of that day could have imagined, as Amherst did, that the
+Indians were hardly worth considering and that the fighting was now over.
+
+These outposts of the French were to be formally taken over and Major
+Robert Rogers, of Rogers’ Rangers, was despatched to Detroit. He sent a
+messenger ahead to acquaint the commander with what had taken place at
+Montreal, so to give him time to consider the question of surrendering
+the fort.
+
+When nearing Detroit Major Rogers was stopped by Pontiac, an Indian chief
+of the Ottawa nation, who demanded of him by what right he was entering
+upon the territory of the Ottawas and allied tribes. He was given a
+friendly answer; they smoked the pipe of peace and seemingly parted good
+friends; but the English made no further efforts to conciliate him by
+presents or friendly overtures. In other words, they were not diplomatic
+in their dealings, and the Indians resented the lack of tact and
+consideration shown them, the original inhabitants of the country.
+
+There is nothing which so hurts a sensitive man or a sensitive nation as
+contempt, and Pontiac, gathering about him a great council of the Indians
+of that region, spoke in an impassioned and eloquent manner of this
+opportunity, perhaps the last, to drive out the white man.
+
+Pontiac was the Napoleon of the Indian tribes of New France. He was not
+only courageous in battle but he was a genius in the art of war and was
+eloquent in council, with a power of winning others to his cause. It is
+said that he was in command of the Indians on the occasion of Braddock’s
+famous defeat at Fort Duquesne, made especially noteworthy because of
+the presence of George Washington on Braddock’s staff. At any rate it is
+known that Pontiac had been the guest of Montcalm at Quebec, certainly a
+tribute to his greatness, and that he proudly wore a uniform presented to
+him by that general.
+
+[Illustration: THE CAYUGA FALSE FACE CEREMONY
+
+This is the midwinter purification rite, when evil spirits are driven
+from all the houses of the Iroquois village. Grotesquely clad and masked
+medicine men burst into the cabins throwing open the doors and windows
+and commence to scatter the ashes of the hearth and to kindle a new
+fire. Then they sprinkle white ashes on the heads of the people, blowing
+through their hands. This is supposed to cure any disease. The medicine
+man’s reward is a pipe bowl of tobacco, which one dancer is begging from
+the frightened boy.
+
+The Indian cabin is genuine and typical of the period (1687-1850) when
+New York Indians had traders’ cloth and tools. The figures are life casts
+of Cayuga Indians.
+
+The purpose of this group is to show the changes wrought by the
+acquisition of European metallic tools, cloth and other articles.
+Material culture was greatly changed by the giving up of native tools
+and materials. The methods of labor to a degree also changed, but the
+religious, social and civil organization yet remained and was more slowly
+disintegrated. The false face ceremony is one of the more spectacular
+rites common among all the Iroquois.]
+
+This, then, was the man who in 1763 assembled a council near Detroit,
+at which were present Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Miamis, Sacs,
+Foxes, Menominees, Wyandots, Mississagas, Shawnees and Delawares,
+representing nearly 2,000 warriors, and told them that he had received a
+wampum belt from their father, the King of France, who commanded his red
+children to fight the English.
+
+When Major Rogers reached Detroit the city at once surrendered and Rogers
+planned to go to Mackinac, but it was too late in the year and he had to
+return to New York.
+
+In the spring Pontiac laid out his great plan of campaign by which
+Detroit was to be the first fort to be assailed. Having obtained
+permission to hold a peace dance at Detroit, his braves had carefully
+spied out the fort, and after consultation with him fifty warriors were
+selected who were to saw off their gun barrels, so that the weapons
+might be hidden under the blankets, and in this fashion were to ask for
+a parley with the English commander. Fortunately for the garrison, the
+commander was informed of these plans by a spy, and when Pontiac and his
+fifty followers entered the fort they were surprised to see the warlike
+preparations. With a bland innocence which often had served him well,
+Pontiac asked why so many of the young men were in the streets with guns.
+“Just for exercise and discipline,” said the equally bland commander, and
+asked Pontiac to state his case. Just as the Indian was about to present
+the wampum belt in the reverse way—which was to be the signal for the
+massacre—the commander made a sign, the war drums of the garrison crashed
+out a charge and Pontiac saw that he was detected. He then presented it
+in the usual way and the English commander told him that as long as they
+behaved they would be taken care of and peace would be maintained. He
+then approached Pontiac, pulled open his blanket and disclosed the short
+rifle concealed beneath. There was nothing for Pontiac to do but retire,
+which he did with his fifty braves.
+
+This was really the beginning of the contest and Detroit was in a state
+of siege. The fort was in the midst of what was a military colony
+extending from twelve to sixteen miles along the west bank of the river.
+It had been founded in 1701 by Cadillac, who was virtually a feudal lord,
+owning the fort, the church, the gristmill, the brewery, warehouses, barn
+and the very fruit trees themselves, which had been brought from France.
+Cadillac was a remarkable organizer, and against great difficulties and
+severe opposition from forts already established, he had been able to
+persuade the French Government to support him in the development of this
+colony.
+
+Indeed, this is one of the earliest instances in Canada of assisted
+immigration and subsidies to settlers, such as we are accustomed to think
+of as belonging to modern times. In 1748 the French Government offered
+any settler who would go to Detroit one spade, one axe, one plough, one
+large and one small wagon, a cow, and a pig. Seed would be given to be
+returned after the third harvest. The women and children were supported
+for one year after coming to the colony. In this way Detroit had come to
+be a place of about 2,500 people.
+
+The plan now was to starve out the garrison by killing all the settlers
+outside the fort who were in any way sympathetic with the English cause.
+At the same time they waylaid all relief expeditions sent from the
+East, and at first were very fortunate, as the English officers did
+not understand the Indian method of warfare and were easily led into
+ambuscades. For five months this little garrison had been surrounded by
+a thousand or more savages, but notwithstanding various successes the
+Indians were becoming tired.
+
+Siege warfare long continued was not congenial to them, and little by
+little they began to desert until by October there were only the Ottawas,
+his own tribe, left. When, therefore, at the end of that month the French
+governor at Fort Chartres sent a message to Pontiac that the Great Father
+in France had given up all his possessions over here to the English, the
+great chief raised the siege in disgust and left for the south. There he
+hoped to rally the Indians for a final stand, but when he found it could
+not be done he reluctantly made terms of peace with the representative
+of Sir William Johnson at Detroit in August of 1764. On that occasion he
+spoke in the Peace Council as follows:
+
+    “Father, we have all smoked out of this pipe of peace. It is
+    your children’s pipe; and as the war is over and the Great
+    Spirit and Giver of Light who has made all the earth and
+    everything therein has brought us all together this day for
+    our mutual good, I declare to all nations that I have settled
+    my peace with you before I came here, and now deliver my pipe
+    to be sent to Sir William Johnson that he may know I have
+    made peace and taken the King of England for my father in the
+    presence of all the nations now assembled; and whenever any of
+    these nations go to visit him they may smoke out of it with him
+    in peace. Fathers, we are obliged to you for lighting up our
+    old council fire for us and desiring us to return to it, but we
+    are now settled on the Miami river not far from hence. Whenever
+    you want us you will find us there.”
+
+In 1766 Pontiac visited Sir William Johnson at his castle on the Mohawk
+and smoked the pipe of peace with that great warrior. Thence he went
+south to Fort Chartres, the last place in New France where floated the
+lilies of France, that flag which for over two centuries had been the
+symbol of sovereignty from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of
+Mexico. There he became embroiled in a quarrel and was killed by one of
+the Illinois in a cowardly manner, an act for which that tribe had to pay
+dearly in the vengeance exacted by the friends of the great old chief.
+
+But this story would hardly be complete if we did not point out that
+Pontiac’s plot for the surprise of Detroit was not a merely local
+attack, but was part of a comprehensive plan for the surprise of all
+the forts held by the English against which, as far as possible, a
+simultaneous attack was to be made so that it would be difficult for the
+English to help the garrisons and impossible for the forts to help one
+another.
+
+The most striking of these attacks was that on Fort Michillimackinac. On
+June 4th the English garrison planned to celebrate the anniversary of the
+birthday of George III. Games were to be held on the plain outside the
+fort and the Chippewas and Sacs asked that they be allowed to take part
+and give the garrison the pleasure of seeing the great Indian national
+game of lacrosse played by experts. This was granted and a great crowd
+gathered.
+
+The game was well played and so warmly contested that the excitement was
+intense. Player pursued player, tripping and slashing in true Indian
+fashion. When the game was at its height a player threw the ball at a
+point near the gate of the fort. There was a wild rush for the ball, and
+when they reached the gate lacrosse sticks were thrown aside and the
+closely blanketed squaws who were there in large numbers opened their
+blankets and threw out tomahawks and knives to the braves. Madly they
+rushed in, took possession of the fort, fell upon the garrison and the
+traders, butchered some and carried off the others as prisoners.
+
+Smaller trading posts were taken in like fashion by cunning or by direct
+attack when cunning failed, and for a short time it looked as if the
+English would have a difficult task to capture and hold the Mississippi
+Valley. But the rebellion ceased with the fall of the genius who had
+conceived it, the last great Indian chief of New France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE GRAY GOWNS AND THE BLACK.
+
+    “My boatmen sit apart,
+      Wolf-eyed, wolf-sinewed, stiller than the trees.
+    Help me, O Lord, for very slow of heart
+      And hard of faith are these.
+    Cruel are they, yet Thy children. Foul are they,
+      Yet wert Thou born to save them utterly.
+      Then make me as I pray,
+    Just to their hates, kind to their sorrows, wise
+      After their speech, and strong before their free
+    Indomitable eyes.”
+
+                                                      MARJORIE PICKTHALL.
+
+
+THE GRAY GOWNS AND THE BLACK.
+
+When Champlain on his return from New France to his native village of
+Brouage told of the vast country which lay beyond the seas, with its
+thousands of inhabitants who knew nothing of Christianity, the priests of
+the monastery in that village were so impressed with the magnitude of the
+work and the necessity for having Christianity presented to these heathen
+and savages, that four volunteered to accompany him to New France. They
+reached Quebec in May, 1615. They were Franciscans of the Récollet
+Order, and were distinguished in dress by the gray robe girt with the
+white cord. Hence they are often referred to as the priests of the Gray
+Gown.
+
+The most prominent of these was Le Caron, who joined a band of Hurons
+returning after a successful sale of their winter’s hunting. Their route
+was up the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing and French River to Lake Huron. This
+was a memorable trip in many ways, but especially because Le Caron was
+the first white man to see what we now call Lake Huron—indeed the first
+of the Great Lakes to be discovered by a white man—or to sail upon its
+waters. Down among the islands of what is now Georgian Bay they went
+until they came near where Penetanguishene now stands, and at a large
+Huron village he awaited the coming of Champlain.
+
+On the 12th August Le Caron celebrated mass and held the first religious
+service in all this territory, which afterwards was known as Upper
+Canada. Three hundred years afterwards this event was remembered by mass
+being celebrated as nearly as known on the same spot, and a monument
+erected.
+
+Champlain and he spent most of the winter with the Hurons and made visits
+to their neighbours, the Petuns, or Tobacco Indians, along the south
+shore of Nottawasaga Bay, and at the foot of the Blue Hills near where
+the town of Collingwood now stands.
+
+After returning to Quebec to consult with the other members of the Order
+who had come out to reinforce the small number of missionaries, Le Caron
+in 1623 returned to his Hurons with Father Viel and Brother Sagard. To
+the industry of the latter we owe a dictionary of the Huron language.
+
+They laboured on with zeal but without making much lasting impression and
+they realized that the field was too large and the priests were too few.
+The Récollets had been in New France for about ten years and had founded
+missions in Acadia in the east, Huronia in the west, Nipissing and Upper
+St. John. They now realized that the Order was not equipped with the
+machinery or organization necessary to deal with so great a problem and
+in their despair they sent a deputation to the Jesuits in France to state
+the problem and ask their aid.
+
+The invitation to come to their help was accepted by the Jesuits and in
+1625 three of these priests of the “Black Gown” landed at Quebec. They
+were met by the Récollets, who became their hosts and took care of them
+until the work of organizing the mission could be undertaken. Two of
+these were Brebeuf and Lalemant, the former of whom set off for Huronia
+but turned back when he heard of the death of the Gray Robe, Father Viel,
+who was on his way from Huronia to Quebec. He was drowned in what is
+known as the Riviere des Prairies near Montreal, where the rapids are
+known to this day as the Sault au Récollet—The Récollet Rapids.
+
+Champlain granted to the Jesuits land for their headquarters, where
+they might build their mission, and establish their farm in connection
+therewith, for they were practical men. Indeed, so firmly did they
+believe in having a definite investment in the country in which they were
+labouring that by the end of the French rule in this country the Jesuits
+were the largest land owners in New France. In planning their missionary
+labours Brebeuf was assigned to Huronia, the field which for nearly
+twenty-three years was to be his home.
+
+When Quebec was taken by Kirke four years afterwards, the priests with
+the other official inhabitants were taken away as prisoners, and when the
+country was restored to France and the conduct of affairs given over to
+the Company of 100 Associates, the Récollets were not allowed to return.
+The excuse was that one Order was all that could be supported by the
+Company, and the Jesuits were the better organized. Thus passed away the
+Brethren of the Gray Robes except in some isolated cases in later days,
+when as in 1669, under the Intendant Talon, some few returned.
+
+And now commences the romantic story of the Jesuits, the priests of the
+Black Robe, to whose mission journals called “Relations,” we owe most of
+our information of the early history of our country. From 1632 to 1673
+there appeared annually in Paris a volume called a Relation, in which the
+work of the Jesuits in New France for the twelve months was described and
+reports from the missionaries incorporated or quoted.
+
+These were very popular for they were interesting, romantic, full of
+information that was new and strange, and often were the means of
+stimulating wealthy people to help the cause of evangelisation; in some
+cases impelling persons to offer themselves as helpers in the great work,
+and still others to come out to this great land for the sheer adventure.
+
+All the work of the Jesuits was characterized by the spirit of
+self-sacrifice on the part of the individual and by the efficiency of
+machinery. This is noticeable in the Relation or Annual Report published
+each year and which in form and method furnishes even to-day a model
+for the annual report of great institutions. Another aspect of their
+efficiency is seen in the way in which they prepared their missionaries
+for the task before them. There was a training period of two years during
+which the Jesuit studied the languages of the tribes among whom he was
+likely to live and became accustomed to the methods of living and the
+customs of the new country.
+
+A striking illustration of the worldly wisdom of the superior officers of
+the Order is found in a circular issued to the missionaries who were to
+go up with the Indians to Huronia:
+
+    “You should love the Indians like brothers with whom you are
+    to spend the rest of your life. Never make them wait for you
+    when embarking. Take a flint and steel to light their pipes
+    and kindle their fires at night; for these little services win
+    their hearts. Try to eat their sagamité, as they cook it,—bad
+    and dirty as it is. Fasten up the skirts of your cassock
+    that you may not carry water or sand into the canoe. Wear no
+    shoes or stockings in the canoe, but you may put them on in
+    crossing the portages. Do not make yourself troublesome even
+    to a single Indian. Do not ask them too many questions. Bear
+    their faults in silence and appear always cheerful. Buy fish
+    for them from the tribes you will pass; and for this purpose
+    take with you some awls, beads, knives, and fish hooks. Be not
+    ceremonious with the Indians; take at once what they offer you.
+    Ceremony offends them. Be very careful when in the canoe that
+    the brim of your hat does not annoy them. Perhaps it would
+    be better to wear your night cap. There is no such thing as
+    impropriety among Indians. Remember it is Christ and His cross
+    that you are seeking; and if you aim at anything else you will
+    get nothing but affliction for body and mind.”
+
+There were some, of course, who had not the gift of learning languages.
+These returned to France or were employed in the missions in the white
+settlements. It was from such training and with the motto of the Order
+animating every thought and action they went forth: “Ad majorem Dei
+gloriam,”—for the greater glory of God.
+
+Naturally, the first great mission was to the Hurons, who had been the
+firm friends of the French, and who had been introduced to Christianity
+already by the Récollets; and who, moreover, lived in permanent
+settlements, and cultivated their fields. So the Jesuits followed the
+trail of Le Caron and for nearly a quarter of a century Brebeuf and his
+companions worked faithfully in Huronia, that part of what is now known
+as the province of Ontario called the county of Simcoe and bordering upon
+the Georgian Bay. His brother priest in this great missionary enterprise
+was Lalemant. Headquarters with a school were now established in a
+well-planned fort, which they built on the eastern bank of the Wye and
+from which missionaries were sent out to some twelve stations in Huronia,
+and among the neighbouring tribes. This was really a model settlement for
+the Hurons, who could see fields of corn, beans, pumpkins and wheat, with
+pigs and cattle outside, and shops of useful trades inside where were the
+men at the forge, the shoe shop, the laundry and the carpenter shop.
+
+The Hurons, however, were ignorant and superstitious and the medicine men
+took advantage of epidemics of sickness, which arose from the unsanitary
+living, to blame the missionaries, who indeed must have been men of
+infinite patience and unselfish devotion to their work.
+
+[Illustration: THE CORN HARVEST
+
+Among the Iroquois the cultivation of maize, beans, squashes and other
+garden produce was extensive and furnished a large portion of their food
+supply. The women of each village were organized in companies to plant
+and harvest the grain. The men cleared the land and provided the meat
+supply, but they seldom worked in the fields.
+
+This group depicts a harvest scene in the Genesee valley on the flats
+near Squakie hill at Mount Morris. The activities are gathering and
+braiding corn, shelling beans, pounding corn for meal and baking corn
+bread. The man has just come from his canoe and reaches the field in time
+for lunch.
+
+The figures are life casts of Seneca Indians.]
+
+And now just when it seemed as if they might see some result of their
+long and unselfish labour the Iroquois began to make raids upon this
+northern country. There were constant encounters on the trading journeys
+to Quebec, but in 1642 a great Huron village near where the town of
+Orillia now stands was wiped out by a marauding party of Iroquois.
+And yet the Hurons would not take seriously the warnings of their
+missionaries and made no preparations against their unrelenting enemies.
+
+Watching for the departure of the great canoe fleet to Quebec in 1648,
+the Iroquois made a sudden attack on Huronia and Father Daniel and his
+village of St. Joseph were slaughtered. Next spring they returned, put
+St. Ignace to the sword, took the village of St. Louis and stripped and
+bound to stakes the Fathers Brebeuf and Lalemant. The tortures to which
+these good men were put before they were killed can hardly be imagined
+and cannot be described, all of which they stood with amazing fortitude.
+Indeed, even the Indians, stolid as they were, could not help admiring
+the courage of these martyrs for they drank the blood of Brebeuf that
+they might be as brave as he.
+
+The spirit of these men can be understood in the description given us
+by Marjorie Pickthall, one of our own poets, of Father Lalemant, on a
+missionary journey:
+
+    “My hour of rest is done;
+      On the smooth ripple lifts the long canoe;
+    The hemlocks murmur sadly as the sun
+      Slants his dim arrows through.
+    Whither I go I know not, nor the way,
+      Dark with strange passions, vexed with heathen charms,
+    Holding I know not what of life or death;
+      Only be Thou beside me day by day,
+    Thy rod my guide and comfort, underneath
+      Thy everlasting arms.”
+
+And so the Iroquois went through Huronia burning and scalping until there
+was only a mass of ruins, and the remnant of the Hurons fled to St.
+Joseph, on Christian Island, in Georgian Bay. Here they built a fort, but
+soon realized that in such an isolated position they could be starved
+out. Part of the nation went to Quebec, where they were protected and
+given some land, and part went to Michillimackinac, and thence to Lake
+Superior, where Father Marquette found them. Driven out by fear of the
+Sioux they returned to Mackinac, and thence some of them settled near
+Detroit, where under the name of Wyandots, they took part in the rising
+against the English known as Pontiac’s war, just after the capture of
+Quebec by Wolfe.
+
+This story of Huronia has been told in some detail because it illustrates
+the work of the men of the Black Robe who shrank from no sacrifice, who
+knew no fear, and for whom there could be no earthly reward. Huronia was
+the greatest of the missions of the Jesuits, for there were twenty-five
+members of the Order working among these people.
+
+But there were other missions. That among the fickle and warlike
+Iroquois, with Jogues and Le Moyne, that at Ville Marie (Montreal),
+afterwards given over to Sulpicians, who to this day are an extremely
+powerful Order in this great city, and that at Sault Ste. Marie, where
+Allouez, Dablon and Marquette had a mission which exercised a powerful
+influence southwards to Michillimackinac and the country of the Illinois,
+and westwards to where Fort William, Duluth, and even Winnipeg, now
+stand. It was from this mission that Joliet, the Government official, and
+Marquette, the Black Robe, set out on their journey to discover the great
+Southern Sea, and which resulted in the discovery of the Mississippi.
+
+And so from Nova Scotia to the southern Mississippi and northwards to
+Hudsons Bay, wherever there were Indian settlements of importance there
+were Black Robes ministering to the wandering tribes, teaching methods
+of greater production and less waste in the more settled places, and
+everywhere endeavouring to show the benefits of law, order, and settled
+government. There were seven churches or missions of the Jesuits in
+New France—Acadia (Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Cape Breton);
+Tadoussac (lower St. Lawrence and Saguenay); Quebec, Montreal and Three
+Rivers as one; Huronia; to the Iroquois; the Ottawa or Sault Ste. Marie
+(Ojibways, Beaver, Crees, Ottawas, Menominees, Pottawatomies, Sacs,
+Foxes, Winnebagoes, Miamis, Illinois and refugee Hurons), Louisiana.
+
+What they have left to us is not material wealth, but something
+infinitely greater, the record of self devotion, self sacrifice, fearless
+zeal and unflinching bravery even to a lingering death in a cause which
+they put above all renown.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE IROQUOIS AND THE HURONS.
+
+    “Stripped to the waist, his copper-colored skin
+    Red from the smouldering heat of hate within,
+    Lean as a wolf in winter, fierce of mood—
+    As all wild things that hunt for foes, or food—
+    War paint adorning breast and thigh and face,
+    Armed with the ancient weapons of his race,
+    A slender ashen bow, deer sinew string,
+    And flint-tipped arrow each with poisoned tongue,—
+    Thus does the Red man stalk to death his foe,
+    And sighting him strings silently his bow,
+    Takes his unerring aim, and straight and true
+    The arrow cuts in flight the forest through,
+    A flint which never made for mark and missed,
+    And finds the heart of his antagonist.
+    Thus has he warred and won since time began,
+    Thus does the Indian bring to earth his man.”
+
+                        From the poem, “The Archer,” by the late Pauline
+                            Johnson, of the Mohawk tribe of the Iroquois.
+
+
+THE IROQUOIS AND THE HURONS.
+
+When Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence nearly four hundred years ago the
+Indians whom he met were of the Algonquin nation, one of the four great
+divisions of Indians east of the Rocky Mountains in North America. The
+others were the Iroquois, the Maskoki or Southern, and the Siouan of the
+West.
+
+The Algonquin country extended from Tennessee to Hudsons Bay and from
+the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and included the Delawares, Miamis,
+Ojibways, Ottawas, Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomies, and Illinois. They
+lived in wigwams covered with bark or skins and were a warlike nation,
+subsisting on hunting and fishing. There were probably 100,000 in number
+when at the height of their prosperity.
+
+The Iroquois occupied the territory now known as Pennsylvania, New York,
+the south shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and on the Upper St.
+Lawrence. They were known as the Five Nations, the Mohawks, Oneidas,
+Ononadagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, to which were added in 1715 the
+Tuscaroras, who came north from Carolina and whose speech even to this
+day differs much from the other Iroquois tongue. These made up what we
+know so well as the Six Nations. They never numbered more than 40,000,
+but they were mobile and made forays from their towns in New York,
+sweeping over the country like a scourge and returning to their villages
+for feasting. A Jesuit, describing the raids of the Iroquois, said “They
+approach like foxes, they attack like tigers, disappear like birds.”
+
+Algonquin was the general name for the tribes enumerated, but there was
+no bond of union except a likeness of language, while, on the other hand,
+the tribes of the Iroquois were in a real confederacy, which enabled them
+to join together against a common enemy. It was this power of organized
+and sustained warfare that made them so formidable. Even as early as the
+time of the coming of the white man they had reached a comparatively
+high stage of social development and government, so that they lived in
+villages, and the Long House or community dwelling in which many families
+lived under one roof, indeed in one room, was being displaced by the
+separate hut. In the centre of the village was the Council House, the
+place of meeting, of ceremonials and of trade, just as the Town Hall and
+Market are to-day in many a town.
+
+We are given an interesting picture of the Council in a Mohawk village in
+New York:
+
+“Sixty old men sat on a circle of mats smoking around the central fire.
+Before them stood the captives.... After passing the Council pipe from
+hand to hand in solemn silence, the Sachems prepared to give their views.
+One arose, and offering the smoke of incense to the four winds of
+heaven, to invoke witness to the justice of the trial, gave his opinion
+on the matter of life and death. Each of the chiefs in succession spoke.
+Without any warning whatever one chief rose and tomahawked three of the
+captives. That had been the sentence. The rest were driven to lifelong
+slavery.”
+
+When the palisaded or stockaded village life was abandoned for the freer,
+more independent life of the great village, the location was generally
+upon the banks of a stream so that there might be a plentiful supply of
+water, and in many cases easier transportation. While not an agricultural
+people they had always enough women and captives to provide the means of
+living, for the warriors and the hunters returning with game. Fields of
+corn, pumpkins, and squashes, orchards of plum and apple, and small herds
+of hogs and cattle were to be found in these villages; for the handling
+of the fruit and water, baskets and pots were made with great skill by
+the women.
+
+The Iroquois were great travellers, and a thousand mile journey was
+little to them if the object to be attained seemed worth while. They were
+intelligent in the making of trails so as to get the shortest and easiest
+route, an illustration of which may be seen to-day in the fact that the
+New York Central Railway from Lake Erie to the Hudson River follows an
+Iroquois trail.
+
+Their principal ceremonies were in honour of the season, the Maple Sugar
+Festival at the going of the snows of winter, and the Green Corn Dance,
+and the Harvest Home Festival of the autumn.
+
+The legend of Hiawatha, the most popular of all poems relating to Indian
+life, was told by Longfellow as if Hiawatha were an Ojibway, whereas it
+is likely that the story in its original form was from the Ononadaga
+nation of the Iroquois, and Hiawatha is the very wise man who formed a
+plan of universal peace among the nations of the Iroquois. However, it
+may have been because the Iroquois and the Ojibways were very friendly up
+to the middle of the seventeenth century, when the Ojibways sympathized
+with the Hurons whom the Iroquois had driven from Huronia on the Georgian
+Bay. They afterwards made peace and became as brothers. So much so
+indeed that when many, many years afterward the Mississagas, a band of
+the Ojibways, were forced to give up their reserved lands on the River
+Credit, near Toronto, the Iroquois on the Grand River Reservation took
+them in and gave them a tract of valuable land. Longfellow took many
+phases of the legend and grouped them so as to give the atmosphere of
+Indian life and interpret the meaning of its ceremonies. The leading
+thought in all the legends is:
+
+    “How he prayed and how he fasted,
+    How he lived, and toiled, and suffered.
+    That the tribes of men might prosper,
+    That he might advance his people!”
+
+This is the great legend of the Indians of New France told in every
+winter lodge, and told in a somewhat different form among different
+tribes. It gets local colour from the traditions of the particular tribe.
+
+How they became the unrelenting enemy of the French we are told in the
+story of Champlain, who joined the Hurons and Algonquins in 1609, when
+they were on an expedition against the Iroquois, who lived near Lake
+Champlain. It was in that battle the Iroquois first saw and experienced
+the effect of the death dealing musket of the white man, and they never
+forgot that it was used against them by the French.
+
+Each nation was divided into tribes or clans with names such as Wolf,
+Bear, or Turtle, and as the same tribes were in all the nations, the
+section in each nation was related to the corresponding section in all
+the other nations. So the Seneca Turtle was a brother to the Mohawk
+Turtle. The families belonging to the Turtles were the most respected and
+were accorded the highest honours.
+
+Each of the nations had its own government for local affairs and elected
+sachems to sit in the Great Council of all the Nations, where fifty
+sachems dealt with national affairs. It is not too much to say that the
+Iroquois were the most intelligent of the Indians of New France, for
+they were always ready, well organized, and watchful, and knew how to
+take defeat. When pressed back by the French and village after village
+destroyed by a great expedition organized to severely punish them, they
+retired in good order, and when things had calmed down they returned,
+rebuilt their villages, replanted their fields and planned revenge.
+
+The Hurons are said to have been relatives of the Iroquois, but if so
+they must in some earlier time have ceased to be even friendly, for we
+find them allied with the Algonquin, and from the time of Champlain on
+the side of the French in the great international conflict. They lived
+on the shores of the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, in what is called now
+the County of Simcoe. This district was known as Huronia, and at the
+height of their power there were about 30,000 inhabitants, almost as
+many as live in the corresponding district to-day. They traded with the
+French at Quebec by sending each year a fleet of canoes up the Bay and
+by the French River, Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa River to the St.
+Lawrence. This was the route by which Le Caron and Champlain entered this
+great northern country in 1615, and were the first white men to see the
+Great Lake, afterwards called Huron, the first of the Great Lakes to be
+discovered by the French. The route by the Great Lakes was unknown, and
+indeed all that southern country was dangerous because of the presence of
+the dreaded Iroquois.
+
+They were more of an agricultural nation than were the Iroquois. Possibly
+they were not better farmers, but they were poorer warriors and so
+remained on the land more than their fighting relations. They raised
+pumpkins, sunflowers and rye. The corn they planted in hills higher,
+larger, and much further apart than we do to-day.
+
+They lived in villages in the Long Houses or community dwellings which
+were to be found among the Iroquois in their early days. These were built
+by bending saplings and tying them together to form the frame, which they
+sheathed with bark. Down the centre were the fires, each of which was
+shared generally by two families. The smoke was supposed to go out by a
+hole in the roof. On either side of the fire and stretching from end to
+end were platforms on which the families slept, while underneath were the
+stores of clothing and provisions. No wonder the dogs, dirt and disease
+impressed the missionaries to these people, and made them plan for huts
+rather than a share in these dwellings.
+
+Some of the greater villages were palisaded for protection, but the
+smaller ones were not permanent, being moved about at the will of the
+people or because of the unsanitary condition of the land that had been
+occupied. The villages became large when the necessity for protection
+became greater and some had as many as 2,000 inhabitants. The favourite
+site for a village was on high ground near springs or an inland lake,
+so that there would be a good water supply. There was a village Council
+or Assembly, which dealt with local matters and a tribal assembly for
+matters of general importance but there was no union for offence and
+defence well organized and ready for action, as among the Iroquois.
+
+The Hurons were smaller in stature than the Iroquois, the largest men
+being about five feet eight inches in height. They had their feast
+days, which resembled those of other nations in being associated with
+the seasons, but their custom of burying the dead has a somewhat marked
+character. The body was wrapped and placed on a platform away from
+marauding animals and every ten years or thereabouts there was a great
+Feast and Dance for the Dead, when, after preparing a great pit, the
+bodies were placed in it sometimes in rows, sometimes in circles and
+sometimes in parcels of bones of those who had been long dead.
+
+Into the pit were cast pottery, implements of warfare and kettles which
+were first rendered useless so that the graves might not be desecrated.
+This is in contrast to some other nations of Indians who bury with the
+deceased the things which they think will be useful to him in the “happy
+hunting ground” to which he has gone. This pit is called an Ossuary, and
+to the excavation of these we owe much of our knowledge of this nation.
+This communal burial with the Hurons corresponded to the communal life
+which preceded the era of the individual burial and the individual wigwam.
+
+This Huronia county enjoyed great prosperity during the first half of
+the seventeenth century with constantly increasing immigration, growing
+villages, better implements for increased comfort in living, great
+production and skill in handicraft owing to the influence and example of
+the Jesuit mission. Into this peaceful country, unprepared for war, there
+came in the last decade of this first half of the century the Iroquois
+much as the Assyrian, “like the wolf on the fold.” In a series of well
+planned, vigorous attacks the Hurons were massacred or driven out of the
+country, the villages burned, the Jesuit missionaries slaughtered in the
+fight, or reserved for a death by torture.
+
+First on one of the Christian Islands off the shore they built a fort,
+but soon realized that the important question of food supply could not
+be met as long as the Iroquois remained on the mainland and intercepted
+all messengers. Part of the nation then set off for Quebec, and there
+threw themselves upon the kindness of their friends, the French, who
+gave them a grant of land and their protection. Others went north
+to Michillimackinac, and in their fear went even well up into Lake
+Superior, where they were ministered unto by Father Marquette. But they
+were not long there until the warlike Sioux became so great a menace
+that with their protector, the great Marquette, they went back again
+to Michillimackinac. Afterwards many of them went still further south
+and under the name of Wyandottes they settled near Sarnia and Windsor,
+opposite the present city of Detroit.
+
+[Illustration: TYPICAL IROQUOIS INDUSTRIES
+
+This group depicts a company of Oneida Indians gathered in a sheltered
+spot in their capital village on Nicols pond, township of Fenner, Madison
+county. This was the fort unsuccessfully stormed by Champlain in 1615.
+
+The arrow maker is telling an amusing tale while he chips his flints. To
+his right are a basket maker and a belt weaver. To his left are a wood
+carver, a moccasin maker and a potter, all engaged at their trades as
+they listen to the arrow maker’s tale.
+
+In aboriginal times among the Iroquois each person had an occupation and
+was by necessity industrious. Both men and women had their special forms
+of labor, which with the men was often arduous.
+
+The figures are casts of Oneida Indians made upon the New York and
+Canadian reservations.
+
+The purpose of this group is to show six typical Iroquois industries and
+to indicate the social nature of the workers. The Iroquois at home among
+his own folk is social in habits and full of humor. To the stranger he
+appears taciturn and diffident and oftentimes indolent.]
+
+These are typical nations of Indians of the days of New France, the
+crafty, strong, nomadic, warlike and well organized Iroquois on whom
+the missionaries could make little or no impression, the allies of the
+English and the most feared of all the nations; and the less intelligent
+and more domesticated, the traders and the canoemen, the hunter and
+fisher, the unorganized Hurons, who suffered the missionaries to settle
+among them and pretended to be converted because it did not interfere but
+rather increased their comfort, the allies of the French, with little
+initiative and no cohesion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE COUREUR DES BOIS AND THE VOYAGEUR.
+
+    “I have passed the warden cities at the Eastern watergate,
+      Where the hero and the martyr laid the cornerstone of State,
+    The habitant, coureurs-des-bois, and hardy voyageur,
+      Where lives a breed more strong at need to venture or endure.”
+
+                                                  SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+THE COUREUR DES BOIS AND THE VOYAGEUR.
+
+An island just where the Ottawa River joins the St. Lawrence always
+suggests to me in its name a Frenchman who, in the days following
+Champlain, penetrated beyond the Mer Douce (Lake Huron) and was one of
+the first white men to sail on Lake Superior. This was Perrot,[12] who,
+like Etienne Brulé with Champlain, was known as a coureur des bois, a
+runner of the woods, a trader, a guide, a hunter, a woodsman. Without him
+and his companion, the voyageur, the efforts of priest and noble alike
+to penetrate the great forests would have been all in vain.
+
+They followed the trails of the deer and other wild animals who were the
+ancient roadmakers, and took advantage of all the waterways in their
+light canoes. These journeys were not only full of danger, but were
+attended by much hardship. In one of the journals of a missionary priest
+from Quebec to the Huron Indians who lived on the south-eastern shore of
+Georgian Bay, we read:
+
+    “Of two difficulties regularly met with, the first is of rapids
+    and portages for these abound in every river throughout these
+    regions. When a person approaches such cataracts, or rapids,
+    he has to step ashore and carry on his back through forests
+    or over high, vexatious rocks not only his baggage, but also
+    the canoe. This is not accomplished without much labour, for
+    there are portages of one, two, and three leagues, each of
+    them requiring several journeys if one has ever so small a
+    number of packages. At some places where the rapids are not
+    less swift than at the portages, but of easier access, the
+    Indians, plunging into the water, drag their canoes and conduct
+    them with their hands with utmost difficulty and danger for
+    sometimes they are up to their necks in the current, so that
+    they have to let go their hold upon their canoes and save
+    themselves as best they can from the rapidity of the water
+    that snatches the canoe out of their hands and carries it off.
+    I have computed the number of portages and find that we carried
+    thirty-five times and dragged at least fifty times. The second
+    ordinary difficulty is that of food. A person is often obliged
+    to fast, especially if he happens to lose the places where he
+    stored away provisions on his down-river course. (Note.—The
+    familiar word to this day for such a hidden store is ‘cache.’)
+    Even when he finds them his appetite remains none the less
+    keen for having regaled himself with their contents, for the
+    usual repast is only a little corn broken between two stones,
+    and sometimes simply taken in fresh water, which is insipid
+    food. Sometimes he has fish, but this is mere chance unless he
+    happens to pass some tribe from whom he can buy it. Add to this
+    that a person must sleep upon the bare ground, perhaps on a
+    hard rock.”
+
+Such was the experience of the missionary, new and hard and very real to
+him, whom the voyageurs carried on his apostolic way. But the coureurs
+and the voyageurs were traders and explorers and, as one might infer,
+they were always young men and in the prime of life, because of the
+hardship they had to endure in making their long hazardous journeys
+through trackless forests. Father Tailhan gives a graphic description of
+their life. He says:
+
+    “As all Canada is only one vast forest without any roads
+    they could not travel by land; they make their journeys on
+    the rivers and the lakes in canoes that ordinarily contain
+    each three men. These canoes are made of sheets of birch-bark
+    smoothly stretched over very light and slender ribs of cedar
+    wood. They are divided into six or seven or eight sections
+    by light wooden bars which strengthen and hold together the
+    sides of the canoe.... As an entire canoe cannot be made with
+    a single sheet of bark the pieces which compose it are sewed
+    together with the roots of the spruce tree, which are more
+    flexible and white than the osier, and these seams are coated
+    with a gum which the savages obtain from the spruce.... The
+    savages, and especially their women, excel in the art of
+    making these canoes, but few Frenchmen excel in it.... The
+    coureurs des bois themselves propel their canoes with small
+    paddles of hard wood, very light and smooth; the man at the
+    rear of the canoe guides it, which is the part of their calling
+    which requires skill. The two other men paddle ahead. A canoe
+    properly manned can make more than fifteen leagues a day in
+    still water.... When they meet rapids or waterfalls which
+    cannot be passed they go ashore and unload the bales.... These,
+    as well as the canoe, are carried on their backs and shoulders
+    until they have passed the falls or rapids and find the river
+    suitable for again embarking on it; and this is called ‘making
+    portages.’... In such a canoe these three men embark at Quebec
+    or Montreal to go three hundred, four hundred, and even five
+    hundred leagues from the colony to procure beaver skins among
+    savages, whom very often they have never seen.”
+
+As the fur trade was supposed to be a monopoly controlled by the King of
+France and granted by him to a Trading Company, many of these coureurs
+were in the service of the company on a commission basis, but there
+were others who took the risk of disposing of their furs to a greater
+advantage, and so were known as “free traders.” If one were to make any
+distinction between the coureurs and the voyageurs he would speak of the
+former as the hunters and the latter as those who transported the furs by
+water, but in general there was not a distinct difference except in large
+trading companies where the work was highly organized.
+
+They were picturesque in their dress and fond of striking colours.
+A bright cotton shirt, cloth trousers, leather leggings, deer skin
+moccasins and a small scarlet cloak or capot made up their attire with
+a wide worsted belt with flowing ends (such as we see worn with the
+blanket suit of the snowshoers of to-day) a stout knife and a tobacco
+pouch. Cheerful, careless, heedless of danger and fond of adventure the
+hardy descendants of the Breton or Norman fishermen sang their chansons,
+keeping time with their paddles, the quickened notes for the dangerous
+places, the slower for the easy passage across the placid lake.
+
+One of the greatest of all these coureurs des bois and voyageurs was
+Nicholas Perrot who, at the age of sixteen, was the companion of the
+missionary priests on their journeys from Quebec to the Indian tribes,
+and thus gained for himself not only experience in woodcraft and
+knowledge of the country, but what was still more important he developed
+his natural aptitude for languages by close study of the Indian dialects,
+and thus made himself valuable, not only to himself but to his country.
+Many other coureurs had had similar opportunities but did not improve
+these opportunities and so remained mere coureurs des bois, and average
+ones at that, until the end of their days.
+
+This ambitious youth soon became an independent trader, but without the
+selfishness that was usually attached to that name. He was a man of some
+education and certainly of vision. He saw clearly that it was to the
+interests of New France that there should be united feeling and action
+among Indians and French against their common enemy, the Iroquois, and
+this was ever in his mind in the negotiations which at various times
+took him to the tribes of the Chippewas, the Foxes, the Hurons, the
+Dakotas, the Iowans, the Mascoutens, the Miamis, the Pottawatomies and
+the Sioux, as well as the Iroquois.
+
+To him was entrusted by the governor the arrangement and management of
+the great gathering of the Indian tribes at Sault Ste. Marie where, on
+the fourteenth of June, 1671, the tribes for a hundred leagues were
+gathered in a great council that the Deputy Governor might formally
+take possession of that country in the name of the King of France. In a
+spectacular manner—that it might impress the Indians by its grandeur—a
+cross was erected and the arms of France were raised on a great pole and
+Perrot, doubtless in a loud voice, acting as herald and interpreting to
+the Indians, proclaimed three times over that “in the name of the Most
+High, Most Powerful, and Most Redoubtable Monarch, Louis XIV. of name,
+most Christian King of France and Navarre, we take possession of said
+place Ste. Marie du Sault, as also of Lake Huron and Superior, the island
+of Manitoulin, and of all the lands, rivers, lakes and streams contiguous
+to and adjacent here as well, discovered as to be discovered, which are
+bounded on the one side by the seas of the North and on the other side
+by the seas of the South in its whole length and breadth,”—and at the
+end of each time of reading the proclamation he took up a sod of earth
+calling out “Vive le Roi,” which was repeated in a great shout by all
+the people. The demonstration was intended to offset the influence of
+Radisson and Chouart, who, at Hudsons Bay in the service of the English,
+were drawing the trade of the Indians beyond Lake Superior.
+
+Perrot was especially useful to Frontenac, the next great governor after
+Champlain, in that he acted as ambassador to the ever-restless tribes
+and maintained harmony and peace. He seems to have been a welcome man in
+every Indian village, and was the best informed man of his time in regard
+to the affairs of New France. He was in command at Green Bay and over the
+Mississippi Valley country in the winter of 1685-6, when he discovered
+the lead mines. In 1699 the King of France closed many of the western
+posts and Perrot retired and wrote his memoirs, which have proved of
+such great value to us in giving us knowledge of our own country during
+the latter half of the seventeenth century. He was a brave, loyal, and
+devoted man who gave much of his life to the public service and who
+deserves to be remembered among the heroes of New France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE SEIGNIOR AND THE HABITANT.
+
+    “The original tillers of the soil in Lower Canada, who first
+    assumed the title of ‘Habitants’ while holding their land
+    under feudal tenure, would not accept any designation such as
+    ‘censitaire’ which carried with it some sense of the servile
+    status of the feudal vassal in Old France, but preferred to be
+    called a Habitant or inhabitant of the country—a free man and
+    not a vassal.”
+
+                                                   —SIR LOMER GOUIN.
+
+
+THE SEIGNIOR AND THE HABITANT.
+
+The colony of New England was planted by men who protested against the
+kind of government under which they had lived and it was to be expected
+that customs of government in their new home would differ materially from
+those under which they had suffered. On the other hand the colony of New
+France was essentially a part of France subsidized and supported by the
+Government of that country. Hence we can understand how the customs of
+government of New France in practically all respects would be like the
+customs at home.
+
+It is hardly worth while to speak of government or social life in New
+France until after the restoration of Quebec and the return of Champlain
+in 1633. Valued at home merely as a possible revenue producer through
+the fur trade, the Home Government gave over the general direction of
+the affairs of New France into the hands of a company known generally as
+the Company of One Hundred Associates. In return for fulfilling certain
+obligations this Company was to have exclusive control of the fur trade
+and have power to govern, create trade, grant lands and bestow titles of
+nobility. The chief obligation laid upon it was to furnish to the colony
+each year at least two hundred settlers and give them support until they
+should get a fair start. In this way the Home Government thought the
+country would gradually have a number of people on the land who could be
+looked upon as permanent settlers in contrast to the wandering hunters
+and traders.
+
+This method of governing a colony by means of a chartered company was
+not unique. India was governed by the East India Company for many years,
+Java by a Dutch trading company, and the incident of the Jameson Raid
+illustrated some aspects of the great Company of South Africa.
+
+To further encourage settlement the Government recognized the title of
+seignior given to the man who, taking up a fair amount of land, undertook
+to settle persons upon it, live upon it himself, and thus develop an
+estate. In return for this social and political distinction he engaged to
+serve his country with his men about him in time of need. In other words,
+the idea of it was an adaptation of the feudal system of holding lands in
+return for national service.
+
+This system was more or less in operation for over a quarter of a
+century, but the company was so intent on making money out of the fur
+trade that they neglected their obligations in regard to settlement on
+their land, and there were less than 2,000 people and not more than 4,000
+acres of cultivated land in this great country.
+
+When this state of affairs was brought to the attention of King Louis
+XIV., who was genuinely interested in the colony, he cancelled the
+charter of the company, and in 1663 New France was made a crown colony
+under a governor who represented the dignity and military power of the
+Crown, an Intendant, who was something more than a Minister of the
+Crown and less than a Governor, and who looked after the details of
+government, and the Bishop who as head of the church shared the problems
+of government in this triumvirate.
+
+While much depended upon the Governor, much more to help or hinder
+progress was in the power of the Intendant, and the colony was very
+fortunate in the earliest years in having such a capable man as Talon,
+just as we shall find she was equally unfortunate in the last years in
+having Bigot, a corrupt holder of that office. It is interesting to
+notice that the two holders of this office who are of such prominence
+as to be remembered in anything other than name, were the first and the
+last, to the one the colony owing much of the stability of government, to
+the latter much that led to the loss to France of her greatest colony.
+
+Talon was the real organizer of the seigniorial system and was perhaps
+the most capable man who ever administered the affairs of the colony.
+On his own farm on the St. Charles River he gave this country the first
+scientific farming, rude as it was in that early time, and this was
+the first of the model farms which we think of as comparatively modern
+institutions. He encouraged ship-building at Quebec by actually building
+ships; he distributed looms in the farmhouses that the settler might
+be independent in the matter of clothing, a very important matter in a
+country with such a climate; and he built a tannery that the precious
+commodity of leather might be available for protection of men and
+equipment of beast.
+
+Under the Intendant in the actual working out of the Government came
+the seigniors, and hence the real social and political life of the
+colony. True, it was before the governor in the Chateau St. Louis in
+Quebec, seated upon the throne under the clustered white flags stamped
+with the golden lilies of France, the seignior appeared and on bended
+knee presented his homage and oath of allegiance, but it was with the
+Intendant that he transacted his business, and it was the report of the
+Intendant to the King of France which the neglectful seignior had cause
+to fear.
+
+The Home Government at once undertook to help emigration and the
+Council of New France gave seigniories with a lavish and not always
+discriminating hand. During this century of royal rule there were about
+three hundred seigniories granted. In size these differed greatly but
+practically nothing could be called by that name which had not at least a
+dozen square miles. This land the seignior was expected to have surveyed
+into farms and to place settlers upon them.
+
+As the St. Lawrence was the roadway of the colony and the means of
+communication, the seigniories were granted first along its shores and
+the farms were as close to the river as possible. The shape of a farm was
+that of a parallelogram with the short end fronting the river. Usually
+this frontage was nearly a quarter of a mile, and the depth from about
+a half to three miles with an orchard, meadow, grain and woods. So for
+purposes of protection, as well as access to fish and water supply,
+the shores of the St. Lawrence showed a row of whitewashed cottages in
+contact with the highway, even as it does to-day.
+
+This brought about a very interesting land problem, for when the habitant
+died, his property, according to the French law known as Custom of
+Paris, was divided into equal parts among his children. Each of these
+was anxious to have a part of the river front, so that soon some farms
+were divided into ribbons of perhaps fifty to sixty feet frontage. The
+habitant each year paid a small fee in money to his seignior and brought
+him some of the produce of the farm. It was generally on St. Martin’s Day
+in November and they gathered at the seigniory for a genuine harvest home
+with games and feasting.
+
+The seignior’s house, or the manor house, as it was often called, was the
+centre of his estate. It was generally built of stone, with four rooms
+and an attic. Behind the house was a great store room and root house.
+Nearby was the bake-oven built of stones, mortar and earth, into which
+the wood was thrust until the oven was heated sufficiently, when the
+ashes were pulled out and the bread pans inserted. Even to this day in
+some parts of the Province of Quebec one may see the bake-oven near the
+roadway and sometimes upon its roof the brown crusted loaves put out to
+cool. Sometimes there was an oven common to the village, so that even the
+idea of communal cooking, about which we hear so much these days, is a
+reversion to early practices in our country. Somewhere near was the grist
+mill to which all habitants must bring their grain to be ground, and of
+which the seignior took every fourteenth bushel as his pay.
+
+The habitant’s house followed the general plan of that of the seignior’s,
+long and narrow with projecting eaves and high peaked dormer windows,
+whitewashed each year, a red roof, and among the green trees it is
+decidedly picturesque even to this day. There were but few windows as
+glass was a rarity. The cooking as well as heating was by the open
+fireplace. The habitant was, and in some respects still is, a very
+independent person, for the family wove its own cloth, made its own shoes
+and the knitted toque of many colours, and grew its own tobacco, besides
+the general produce of the farm. Happy and contented in disposition, fond
+of music, especially that of the ballad and the dance, they enjoyed the
+long winter evenings.
+
+The other great man of the seigniory was the curé, or priest, for
+generally the parish and the seigniory had the same boundaries. The
+church was near the seignior’s manor house and often in the early days
+the curé and the seignior lived together. It was supported by a tax by
+which each habitant brought to the curé one-twenty-sixth of the grain he
+raised. In every way the church was the centre of the community life. In
+it all children were baptised, all marriages performed, and all burial
+services held. It was the source of all information on secular, as
+well as religious affairs, and the curé was the general counsellor of
+the parish as the seignior was the judge. Matters of local or national
+importance which could not be discussed in the church were explained
+after mass in front of the church, a custom which prevails to this day.
+
+The seigniory was sometimes held, not by one man, but by a church
+corporation such as the Order of the Jesuits, the Franciscans, or the
+Sulpicians. This reminds us of the feudal days in England when the Abbey
+was often as powerful a part of the man power of the army as was the
+Castle.
+
+There were but two seigniories granted outside of what is known as the
+Province of Quebec. One of these was that given to La Salle at Frontenac
+(Kingston) and one granted to Repentigny at Sault Ste. Marie, both French
+settlements of importance. Cadillac, who founded Detroit, asked to be
+granted one on Lake Erie along the banks of the Grand River, and to have
+conferred upon him the title of Marquis, but he was unsuccessful in both
+requests.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+STORIES WHICH ILLUSTRATE REFERENCES IN THIS BOOK
+
+Where possible the name of the publisher in England is given first, in
+America second.
+
+
+THE LIFE AND SPIRIT OF OLD ENGLAND AND OLD FRANCE DURING THESE TWO
+CENTURIES, AS TOLD IN STORY FORM:
+
+
+OLD ENGLAND:
+
+
+STRANG, HERBERT
+
+    With Drake on the Spanish Main.
+
+                                           (Frowde: Bobbs, Merrill.)
+
+
+BARNES, JAMES
+
+    “Drake and His Yeoman: a true account of the Character and
+    Adventures of Sir Francis Drake as told by Sir Matthew
+    Maunsell, his friend and follower.”
+
+                                                        (Macmillan.)
+
+
+BULLEN, FRANK T.
+
+    “Sea Puritans:” the romance of the life of Admiral Blake.
+
+                                                           (Hodder.)
+
+
+HAVENS, HERBERT
+
+    “For Rupert and the King.”
+
+                                                          (S.P.C.K.)
+
+
+MCCHESNEY, DORA G.
+
+    “Rupert, by the Grace of God.”
+
+                                                        (Macmillan.)
+
+
+KINGSLEY, CHARLES
+
+    “Westward Ho! or Voyages and Adventures of Sir Aymas Leigh.”
+
+                                                 (Dent, _Everyman_.)
+
+
+DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN
+
+    “Micah Clarke:” a rattling story of fights and adventures in
+    the time of James II. and the Monmouth Rebellion (1685).
+
+                                                         (Longmans.)
+
+
+HENTY, G. A.
+
+    “A Cornet of Horse:” a tale of Marlborough’s wars.
+
+                                                    (Low: Scribner.)
+
+
+STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS
+
+    “Treasure Island.” The nearest approach to a book for the youth
+    of every age. Time of action supposed to be just before the
+    fall of New France.
+
+                                               (Cassell: Scribners.)
+
+
+OLD FRANCE:
+
+
+DUMAS, ALEXANDRE
+
+    “Marguerite de Valois.”
+
+                                              (Dent: Little, Brown.)
+
+
+CROCKETT, S. R.
+
+    “The White Plumes of Navarre.”
+
+                                                       (Dodd, Mead.)
+
+
+JAMES, G. P. R.
+
+    “Richelieu: Or a Tale of France.”
+
+                                                 (Dent, _Everyman_.)
+
+
+WEYMAN, STANLEY
+
+    “A Gentleman of France.”
+
+                                                         (Longmans.)
+
+    “Under the Red Robe.”
+
+                                                         (Longmans.)
+
+
+SOME STORIES WHICH HELP TO MAKE THE LIFE OF THESE TWO HUNDRED YEARS IN
+CANADA MORE VIVID AND REAL:
+
+
+ALTSHELER, J. A.
+
+    “A Soldier of Manhattan.” Seven Years’ War, Royal American
+    Regiment of New York, and Wolfe’s Victory at Quebec.
+
+                                            (Smith Elder: Appleton.)
+
+
+AUBERT DE GASPÉ, PHILIPPE
+
+    “Canadians of Old.”
+
+                                                         (Appleton.)
+
+    “Cameron of Lochiel.” A good account of French Canadians,
+    translated by C. G. D. Roberts.
+
+                                                             (Page.)
+
+
+BESANT, SIR WALTER AND JAMES RICE
+
+    “Le Chien d’Or.” The same legend is in “The Golden Dog,” by
+    Kirby. It is in “’Twas in Trafalgar’s Bay; and other stories.”
+
+                                               (Chatto: Dodd, Mead.)
+
+
+BRERETON, CAPTAIN F. S.
+
+    “How Canada Was Won: A Tale of Wolfe and Quebec.”
+
+                                                          (Blackie.)
+
+
+BROWNE, G. W.
+
+    “With Rogers Rangers.” Seven Years’ War.
+
+                                                             (Page.)
+
+
+BURTON, J. E. BLOUNDELLE
+
+    “The Hispaniola Plate.” A treasure hunt in the West Indies by
+    Sir William Phips, afterwards governor of Massachussetts.
+
+                                                          (Cassell.)
+
+
+CANAVAN, M. J.
+
+    “Ben Comee: A Tale of Rogers Rangers.” Attack on Fort
+    Ticonderoga.
+
+                                                        (Macmillan.)
+
+
+CATHERWOOD, MRS.
+
+    “The Romance of Dollard.” Dollard, with his Hurons repulsing
+    the Iroquois.
+
+                                                   (Unwin: Century.)
+
+    “The White Islander.” A romance of the old Indian wars.
+
+                                                   (Unwin: Century.)
+
+    “The Chase of St. Castin.” Seven tales of French Indian and
+    English in the latter days of New France.
+
+                                                         (Houghton.)
+
+    “The Story of Tonty.”
+
+                                                          (McClurg.)
+
+    “The Lady of Fort St. John.” A story of Acadia.
+
+                                                    (Low: Houghton.)
+
+
+COOPER, J. FENIMORE
+
+    “The Deer Slayer.”
+
+    “The Path Finder.”
+
+    “The Last of the Mohicans.”
+
+    Famous romances noted for the wonderful description of forest,
+    lake and prairie.
+
+                                                 (Dent, _Everyman_.)
+
+
+CRADDOCK, C. E.
+
+    “A Sceptre of Power.” The struggles of the French and English
+    in the Mississippi Valley.
+
+                                                         (Houghton.)
+
+
+CROWLEY, MARY C.
+
+    “A Daughter of New France: With some Account of the Gallant
+    Sieur Cadillac and his Colony in Detroit.” Brilliant picture of
+    New France.
+
+                                                    (Little, Brown.)
+
+
+DICKSON, HARRIS
+
+    “The Black Wolf’s Breed: A Story of France in the Old World and
+    the New happening in the Reign of Louis XIV.” Principal scene
+    in Louisiana, and the main action is the capture by French and
+    Indians of Pensacola from the Spaniards.
+
+                                          (Methuen: Bobbs, Merrill.)
+
+
+DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN
+
+    “The Refugees: A Tale of Two Continents.” Of the time of Louis
+    XIV.
+
+                                                 (Longmans: Harper.)
+
+
+ELLIS, E. S.
+
+    “Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawas: A Tale of the Siege of Detroit.”
+
+                                                  (Cassell: Dutton.)
+
+
+FOOTE, MARY H.
+
+    “The Royal Americans.” Seven Years’ War.
+
+                                                         (Houghton.)
+
+
+FOX, ALICE WILSON
+
+    “A Regular Madam.” Two young ladies, one French, the other
+    English, on their way from Europe to Quebec during Seven Years’
+    War.
+
+                                                        (Macmillan.)
+
+
+GORDON, W. J.
+
+    “Englishman’s Haven: A Tale of Louisburg.”
+
+                                                  (Warne: Appleton.)
+
+
+GREEN, E. EVERETT
+
+    “The Young Pioneers: or with La Salle on the Mississippi.”
+
+                                                           (Nelson.)
+
+    “French and English.” Ticonderoga to capture of Quebec by Wolfe.
+
+                                                           (Nelson.)
+
+
+GROSVENOR, JOHNSTON
+
+    “Strange Stories of the Great River.” Stories of exploration on
+    the Mississippi by Marquette and La Salle.
+
+                                                           (Harper.)
+
+
+HENHAM, E. G.
+
+    “The Plowshare and the Sword: A Tale of Empire”. Quebec, New
+    England and Acadia.
+
+                                                          (Cassell.)
+
+
+HAWORTH, P. L.
+
+    “The Path of Glory.” Culminating with Wolfe’s victory.
+
+                                         (Ham Smith: Little, Brown.)
+
+
+HENTY, G. A.
+
+    “With Wolfe in Canada: Or the Winning of a Continent.”
+    Braddock’s defeat, to Quebec.
+
+                                                (Blackie: Scribner.)
+
+
+KALER, J. O.
+
+    “Boys of 1745 at the Capture of Louisburg.”
+
+                                                            (Estes.)
+
+
+KIRBY, WILLIAM
+
+    “The Golden Dog: A Romance of the Days of Louis Quatorze in
+    Quebec.” Historical romance rich in local colour.
+
+                                                 (Montreal News Co.)
+
+
+LAUT, AGNES C.
+
+    “Heralds of Empire; Being the Story of one Ramsay Stanhope,
+    Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade.”
+
+                                                         (Appleton.)
+
+
+LIGHTHALL, W. D.
+
+    “Master of Life.” An aboriginal romance, the early scene being
+    at Hochelaga, the great Indian town visited by Cartier. There
+    are no white men in the story. Later scenes are laid in the
+    Mohawk country and the origin of the League of Nations (five,
+    afterwards six) is developed in an interesting manner.
+
+                                                            (Musson)
+
+
+MACHAR, AGNES M., AND T. G. MARQUIS.
+
+    “Stories of New France.” Seventeen stories of historical
+    interest.
+
+                                                          (Lothrop.)
+
+
+MCLENNAN, WILLIAM AND JEAN N. MCILWRAITH
+
+    “The Span o’ Life.” 1745 Rebellion in Scotland; Louisbourg and
+    Quebec.
+
+                                                           (Harper.)
+
+
+MCPHAIL, ANDREW
+
+    “The Vine of Sibmah.” Romance of a Cromwellian captain in
+    Restoration times in quest of a London merchant’s daughter in
+    New England and New France.
+
+                                                        (Macmillan.)
+
+
+MERWIN, SAMUEL
+
+    “The Road to Frontenac.”
+
+                                                (Murray: Doubleday.)
+
+
+MOTT, LAWRENCE
+
+    “Jules of the Great Heart.” In the early days of the Hudson’s
+    Bay Company.
+
+                                                (Heineman: Century.)
+
+
+MUNROE, KIRK
+
+    “At War with Pontiac: A Tale of Redcoat and Redskin.”
+
+                                                (Blackie: Scribner.)
+
+
+OXLEY, J. MACDONALD
+
+    “Fife and Drum at Louisburg.”
+
+                                                    (Little, Brown.)
+
+
+PARKER, SIR GILBERT
+
+    “The Seats of the Mighty.” The memoirs of Captain Robert Moray,
+    some time an officer in the Virginia Regiment, and afterwards
+    of Amherst’s Regiment. Romance culminating in battle of Quebec.
+
+                          (Methuen: Appleton: Copp, Clark, Toronto.)
+
+
+PARKER, SIR GILBERT
+
+    “The Trail of the Sword.” Romance of struggle between French
+    and English, d’Iberville being central figure.
+
+                          (Methuen: Appleton: Copp, Clark, Toronto.)
+
+
+POLLARD, ELIZA F.
+
+    “Roger the Ranger: A story of Border Life among the Indians.”
+    Fort William Henry, to capture of Quebec (1759).
+
+                                                        (Partridge.)
+
+
+PARRISH, RANDALL
+
+    “A Sword of the Old Frontier: A Tale of Fort Chartres and
+    Detroit.”
+
+                                                  (Putnam: McClurg.)
+
+
+ROBERTS, C. G. D.
+
+    “The Forge in the Forest.” Acadia in the times of French and
+    English wars.
+
+                                                (Paul: Silver, N.Y.)
+
+    “A Sister to Evangeline: The Story of Yvonne de Lamourie.” At
+    the time of the expulsion of the Acadians.
+
+                                                (Lane: Silver, N.Y.)
+
+
+ROBERTS, THEODORE
+
+    “Brothers of Peril.” A story of Old Newfoundland.
+
+                                                       (Nash: Page.)
+
+
+RICHARDSON, MAJOR JOHN
+
+    “Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy.”
+
+                                         (McClurg: Musson, Toronto.)
+
+
+SEAWELL, MOLLY E.
+
+    “The Virginia Cavalier.” The youth of George Washington.
+
+                                                           (Harper.)
+
+
+SMITH, MRS. A. P.
+
+    “Montlivet.” He was a chivalrous Frenchman who rescued the
+    English heroine from the Indians in the days of Frontenac.
+
+                                              (Constable: Houghton.)
+
+
+STEVENSON, B. E.
+
+    “A Soldier of Virginia: A Story of Colonel Washington and
+    Braddock’s Defeat.” The defeat by the French at Fort Duquesne.
+
+                                              (Duckworth: Houghton.)
+
+
+STRANG, HERBERT, AND G. LAWRENCE
+
+    “Roger, the Scout.” England in the ’45 and New England and New
+    France during French wars.
+
+                                                           (Frowde.)
+
+
+STRANG, HERBERT
+
+    “Rob, the Ranger: A Story of the Fight for Canada.”
+
+                                           (Frowde: Bobbs, Merrill.)
+
+
+THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE
+
+    “The Virginians.” George Washington appears in this story.
+
+                                                 (Dent, _Everyman_.)
+
+
+TOMLINSON, E. T.
+
+    “A Soldier of the Wilderness.” The fall of Fort Frontenac.
+
+                                                    (Wilde, Boston.)
+
+
+VAN ZILE, E. S.
+
+    “With Sword and Crucifix.” Adventures of La Salle.
+
+                                                           (Harper.)
+
+
+WILSON, R. A.
+
+    “A Rose of Normandy.” La Salle and Tonty in Mississippi Valley.
+
+                                                    (Little, Brown.)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+POEMS WHICH ILLUSTRATE REFERENCES IN THIS BOOK
+
+NOTE.—The author, title and first lines of the poems are given, except in
+the case of “Richelieu.”
+
+
+MILLER, JOAQUIN
+
+COLUMBUS.
+
+    Behind him lay the gray Azores
+      Behind the Gates of Hercules,
+    Before him not the ghost of shores,
+      Before him only shoreless seas.
+    The good mate said, “Now must we pray,
+      For lo! the very stars are gone.
+    Brave admiral, speak, what shall I say?”
+      “Why, say ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’”
+
+
+MCGEE, HON. THOMAS D’ARCY
+
+JACQUES CARTIER.
+
+    “In the seaport of Saint Malo, ’twas a smiling morn in May,
+    When the Commodore Jacques Cartier to the westward sailed away;
+    In the crowded old Cathedral, all the town were on their knees
+    For the safe return of kinsmen from the undiscovered seas;
+    And every autumn blast that swept o’er pinnacle and pier
+    Filled manly hearts with sorrow, and gentle hearts with fear.”
+
+    Songs of the Great Dominion, edited by W. D. Lighthall. (Walter
+    Scott.)
+
+
+DRUMMOND, W. H.
+
+THE WRECK OF THE “JULIE PLANTE”.
+
+    On wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre
+      De win’ she blow, blow, blow,
+    An’ de crew of de wood-scow “Julie Plante,”
+      Got scar’t an’ run below.
+
+    The Habitant (Putnam.)
+
+
+KEATS, JOHN
+
+ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN’S HOMER.
+
+    Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
+      And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
+    Round many western islands have I been
+      Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
+    Oft, of one wide expanse had I been told
+      That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne:
+    Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
+      Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
+    Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
+      When a new planet swims into his ken;
+    Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
+      He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
+    Look’d at each other with a wild surmise
+      Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
+
+
+LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH
+
+EVANGELINE.
+
+    This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
+    Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
+    Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
+    Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
+
+
+CARMAN, BLISS (Mitchell Kennerley)
+
+CHAMPLAIN.
+
+    “When the sweet summer days
+    Come to New England, and the south wind plays
+    Over the forests, and the tall tulip trees
+    Lift up their chalices
+    Of delicate orange green
+    Against the blue serene,” etc.
+
+    The Rough Rider and other Poems.
+
+
+LYTTON, SIR EDWARD BULWER
+
+RICHELIEU.
+
+    Adrien de Mauprat, men have called me cruel,—
+    I am not; I am just! I found France rent asunder—
+    The rich men despots, and the poor, banditti;—
+    Sloth in the mart, and schism within the temple;
+    Brawls festering to Rebellion; and weak laws
+    Rotting away with rust in antique sheaths,—
+    I have re-created France; and, from the ashes
+    Of the old feudal and decrepit carcass,
+    Civilization on her luminous wings
+    Soars, phœnix-like to Jove!—What was my art.
+
+
+MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON
+
+THE BATTLE OF IVRY (1590)
+
+    Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!
+    And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Navarre!
+    Now let there be the merry sound of music and of dance,
+    Through thy corn fields green, and sunny vines,
+            oh, pleasant land of France!
+
+
+MOORE, THOMAS
+
+CANADIAN BOAT SONG.
+
+    Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
+    Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time,
+    Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
+    We’ll sing at St. Ann’s our parting hymn.
+      Row, brothers, row! the stream runs fast,
+      The rapids are near, and the daylight’s past.
+
+
+HEMANS, FELICIA
+
+THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS—(1620)
+
+    The breaking waves dashed high
+      On a stern and rock-bound coast,
+    And the woods, against a stormy sky
+      Their giant branches tossed,
+    And the heavy night hung dark
+      The hills and waters o’er,
+    When a band of exiles moored their bark
+      On the wild New England shore.
+
+
+BROWNING, R.
+
+HERVE RIEL (1692)
+
+    On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
+      Did the English fight the French—woe to France!
+    And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,
+      Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
+    Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,
+        With the English fleet in view.
+
+
+PICKTHALL, MARJORIE
+
+PERE LALEMANT.
+
+    I lift the Lord on high,
+      Under the murmuring hemlock boughs, and see
+    The small birds of the forest lingering by
+      And making melody.
+    These are mine acolytes and these my choir,
+      And this mine altar in the cool green shade.
+
+    The Drift of Pinions. (Lane.)
+
+
+SULLIVAN, ALAN
+
+BREBEUF AND LALEMANT.
+
+    Came Jean Brebeuf from Rennes in Normandy
+      To preach the written word in Sainte Marie—
+    The Ajax of the Jesuit enterprise,
+      Huge, dominant and bold—augustly wise.
+
+
+JOHNSON, PAULINE
+
+THE ARCHER.
+
+    Stripped to the waist, his copper coloured skin
+      Red from the smouldering heat of hate within,
+    Lean as a wolf in winter, fierce of mood—
+      As all wild things that hunt for foes, or food.
+
+    Flint and Feather (Musson, Toronto.)
+
+
+LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH
+
+THE SONG OF HIAWATHA.
+
+    Should you ask me whence these stories?
+    Whence these legends and traditions,
+    With the odors of the forest,
+    With the dew and damp of meadows,
+    With the curling smoke of wigwams,
+    With the rushing of great rivers,
+    With their frequent repetitions,
+    And their wild reverberations,
+    As of thunder in the mountains?
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[1] Colonel George Nasmith in his book, “On the Fringe of the Great
+Fight,” tells of the departure of this first contingent of the Canadian
+Expeditionary Force in the autumn of 1914 within six weeks of the
+outbreak of the Great War.
+
+“Imperceptibly the pier and the lights of the city receded and we steamed
+down the mighty St. Lawrence to our trysting place on the sea. The second
+morning afterwards we woke to find ourselves riding quietly at anchor
+in the sunny harbour of Gaspé with all the other transports about us,
+together with four long grey gunboats, our escort upon the road to our
+great adventure.... Never before had there been gathered together a fleet
+of transports of such magnitude—a fleet consisting of 33 transports
+carrying 33,000 men, 7,000 horses, and all the motors, wagons, and
+equipment necessary to place in the field not only a complete infantry
+division and a cavalry brigade, but in addition to provide for the
+necessary reserves.”
+
+[2] “The Wreck of the Julie Plante”:
+
+    “On wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre,” etc.
+
+[3] These are known to us as muskrats, the Algonquin name being
+mooskovesson, from which we get the name of the fur, musquash.
+
+[4] Keats: “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”
+
+[5] There is in the museum of the Chateau de Ramezay in Montreal a part
+of the rock that formed the key stone of the arch over the doorway (which
+is reproduced) of the house, in which it is said Champlain was born.
+This was presented by President J. H. Finley, of the University of the
+State of New York, who visited Brouage when writing his famous book, “The
+French in the Heart of America.”
+
+[6] Three hundred years afterwards this battle scene was reproduced on
+Lake Champlain by descendants of the Iroquois, and this illustration of
+the great matters which are kindled by little fires was portrayed by the
+Indians with a zest that drew great audiences and held them spellbound.
+
+[7]
+
+    “Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
+    Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time,
+    Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
+    We’ll sing at St. Ann’s our parting hymn.
+    Row, brothers, row! the stream runs fast,
+    The rapids are near, and the daylight’s past.”
+
+[8] When Quebec was taken in 1629 the white population in that city was
+only 60, and in the whole of Canada, less than 100, whereas the English
+colony of Virginia had more than 4,000 souls.
+
+[9] River of the Holy Ghost, Colbert, and finally Mississippi.
+
+[10] The pomp and splendour of the armies of Louis XIV. was worthy of a
+prince in a fairy tale. Every campaign ended in a sort of royal pageant;
+coaches of crystal and gold, horses draped in cloth of gold, courtiers
+and conquerors dazzling with diamonds, ladies all silks and plumes and
+laces.
+
+He built Versailles where two hundred years afterwards the Conference
+following the Great War of 1914-18 met to settle the terms of peace—“a
+palace such as the world had never seen, glittering with mirrors and
+gold, paved and lined with precious marbles, decorated with paintings
+representing the battles and triumphs of the great monarch and looking
+over an immense park peopled with bronze and marble statues and reflected
+in vast sheets of water where lovely fountains played.”—DUCLAUX.
+
+[11] Colbert had troubles of his own in trying to provide money for the
+extravagances of his king, Louis XIV. Colbert was the son of a merchant
+of Rheims, a hard-working, economical minister, a hater of waste and
+profusion. He was a marvellous administrator; in ten years he doubled
+the king’s revenues. But his factories and model farms, his canals and
+his colonies, his fleet, his finance could not bring money in as fast as
+Louis could spend it. Colbert was at once Chancellor of the Exchequer,
+Minister of Agriculture, Director of the Board of Trade, Chief Lord of
+the Admiralty, Home Secretary and Colonial Secretary. It was in this last
+capacity that he had special connection with New France.
+
+[12] As a matter of history the island is called after another Perrot
+much less distinguished.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78668 ***