CHAP. II.
THE DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF CANADA.
Having given, from the best authority, the condition and characteristics of the aboriginal tribes of America, we go on briefly to enumerate the prominent events in the first stage of discovery and civilization. Those who read the curious picture we have been enabled to present, in the foregoing pages, of a nation almost, we may say, recently sprung to light, and who now look into the singular events of the first civilized history of the land they possessed, will have materials for a comparison between these and the lovely pictures on the other pages of the work, such as, for force of contrast and interest, is not often presented.
The Italian adventurers, John, and his sons Sebastian, Louis, and Sanchez Cabot, who received a commission on the 5th of March, 1495, from Henry VII. of England, to discover what Columbus was in search of, a north-west passage to the East Indies or China, (or, as the latter named country was then called, Cathay,) claim the honour of having been the first discoverers of Canada. The adventurers sailed in 1497 with six ships, and early in June of the same year, discovered Newfoundland; whence continuing a westerly course, they reached the continent of North America, which the Cabots coasted (after exploring the gulf of St. Lawrence) as far north as 67° 50' N. lat. They returned to England in August, 1497, but although Sebastian subsequently performed three voyages to the New World, no settlement was effected on its shores.
Port Hope.
In 1500, Gaspar Cortereal, a Portuguese gentleman, visited the coast, and pursued the track of Sir John Cabot (who was knighted by our sovereign); but Cortereal and his brothers accomplished nothing further than the kidnapping of several of the natives, whom they employed and sold as slaves. In 1502 Hugh Elliot and Thomas Ashurst, merchants of Bristol, with two other gentlemen, obtained a patent from Henry VIII. to establish colonies in the countries lately discovered by Cabot: but the result of the permission granted is not known. In 1527 an expedition was fitted out by Henry VIII. by the advice of Robert Thorne, a merchant of Bristol, for the purpose of discovering a north-west passage to the East Indies; one of the ships attempting which was lost.
Francis I. of France, piqued at the discoveries of Spain and Portugal, and having his ambition roused by the monopolizing pretensions of these two powers to the possessions in the New World, authorized the fitting out of an expedition, the command of which he gave to Verrazzano, a Florentine, who on his second voyage discovered Florida, and thence sailing back along the American coast to the 50° of lat. took formal possession of it for his royal master, and called it La Nouvelle France. On Verrazzano’s return to Europe in 1525, without gold or silver or valuable merchandize, he was at first coldly received, but, it is said, subsequently sent out with more particular instructions and directions to open a communication with the natives; in endeavouring to fulfil which, he lost his life in a fray with the Indians. This, however, is denied; and it is asserted that the capture of Francis I. at the battle of Pavia in 1525, prevented him from further exploring the coast, and that he returned to his native country and died in obscurity.
When the government ceased to follow up the result of Verrazzano’s formal acquisition of Canada, the Frenchmen of St. Maloes commenced a successful fishery at Newfoundland, which so early as 1517 had fifty ships, belonging to the English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, employed in the cod-fishery on its banks. Jacques Cartier, a native of St. Maloes, engaged in the Newfoundland fishery, took the lead in exploring at his own risk the northern coasts of the new hemisphere.
This bold and experienced navigator at last received a commission from his sovereign, Francis I., and left St. Maloes on the 20th of April, 1534, with two vessels of sixty tons each; arrived at Newfoundland on the 10th of May, remained there ten days, and then sailed to the northward, passing through the straits of Bellisle; changed his course somewhat to the southward, traversed the great gulf of St. Lawrence, (already known to Europeans,) and, in the month of July, arrived in the Bay of Chaleurs, which he so named on account of its heat. On the 24th of July, Cartier was at Gaspé, where he erected a cross, surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, and on the 25th of July sailed for France with two native Indians.
The enterprising character of his royal master induced him to despatch Cartier in the following year with three larger vessels, and a number of young gentlemen as volunteers. The ships rendezvoused at Newfoundland, and in August sailed up the St. Lawrence, so called from its being discovered on the 10th day of that month, being the festival of the saint of that name.
Cartier anchored off Quebec, then called Stadaconna, and the abode of an Indian chief called Donnaconna. After leaving his ships secure, he pursued his route in the pinnace and two boats, until, on the third of October, he reached an island in the river, with a lofty mountain, which he named Mont Royal, now called Montreal. After losing many of his followers by scurvy, during his wintering at Stadaconna, which he named St. Croix, Cartier returned to France in 1536, carrying off by force Donnaconna, two other chiefs, and eight natives. The French court, finding there was no gold and silver to be had, paid no further attention to La Nouvelle France, or Canada, until the year 1540, when Cartier, after much exertion, succeeded in getting a royal expedition fitted out under the command of François de la Roque, Seigneur de Roberval, who was commissioned by Francis I. as viceroy and lieutenant-general in Canada, Hochelaga, or Montreal.
Roberval despatched Cartier to form a settlement, which he did at St. Croix harbour on the 23d of August, 1541, but suddenly left it early in the ensuing year. The viceroy himself arrived in Canada in July, 1542, where he built a fort, and wintered about four leagues above the Isle of Orleans (first called the Isle of Bacchus); but for want of any settled plans, in consequence of the scurvy, and the insurrections and deadly hostility of the Indians, owing to Cartier’s having carried off Donnaconna and his attendants (who had all perished in France), little was accomplished.[[2]]
Roberval’s attention was soon after called from Canada, to serve his sovereign in the struggle for power so long waged with Charles V. of Spain; and Jacques Cartier, ruined in health and fortune, died in France soon after his arrival there. Roberval on the death of Francis I. embarked again for Canada in 1549, with his gallant brother Achille, and a numerous train of enterprising young men; but having never afterwards been heard of, they are supposed to have perished at sea.
In 1576, Martin Frobisher was sent out by Queen Elizabeth with three ships on discovery, when Elizabeth’s Foreland, and the Straits which bear his own name, were discovered. Frobisher mistaking mica or talc for gold ore, brought quantities of it to England, and was despatched by some merchants with three ships in the following year, to seek for gold, and to explore the coast of Labrador and Greenland, with the view of discovering a north-west passage to India. He returned without any other success than 200 tons of the supposed gold ore, and an Indian man, woman, and child.
The Whirlpool on the Niagara.
In 1578 Martin Frobisher again sailed for the American continent with no fewer than fifteen ships in search of gold, to the ruin of many adventurers, who received nothing but mica instead of gold ore; the fact, however, shows the speculative avidity of mercantile adventurers at that period.
For fifty years France paid no attention to Canada, and the few settlers or their descendants left by Cartier or Roberval were unheeded and unsuccoured; but in 1598 the taste for colonial adventure revived, and Henry IV. appointed the Marquis de la Roche his lieutenant-general in Canada, with power to partition discovered lands into seigniories and fiefs, to be held under feudal tenure, and as a compensation for military services when required. La Roche fitted out but one vessel, and unfortunately reinforced his crew with forty malefactors from the prisons. It is sufficient here to state that Sable Island, a barren sand bank, and a rude part of Acadia (now called Nova Scotia), were first settled on and afterwards abandoned; and that to private enterprise, rather than to royal decree, the French nation were at last indebted for a permanent and profitable colonisation in Canada. M. Pontgrave, a merchant of St. Malo, who had distinguished himself by making several profitable fur voyages to Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay river, engaged as an associate M. Chauvin, a naval officer who obtained from Henry IV. in 1600 a commission, granting him an exclusive trade with Canada, and other privileges. Chauvin associated other persons with him in his enterprise, and made two successful trading voyages to Tadoussac, where the Indians gave the most valuable furs in exchange for mere trifles. Chauvin died in 1603, but Commander De Chatte, or De Chaste, governor of Dieppe, founded a company of merchants at Rouen, to carry on the fur trade on an extensive scale; an armament was equipped under Pontgrave, and a distinguished naval officer named Samuel Champlain, who sailed up the St. Lawrence as far as Sault St. Louis in 1603. On the death of Chauvin, which happened in the ensuing year, Pierre Dugast Sieur de Monts, a Calvinist and gentleman of the bedchamber to Henry IV. received a patent conferring on him the exclusive trade and government of the territories situate between 40° and 54° of lat.; and although of the reformed religion, the Sieur was enjoined to convert the native Indians to the Roman Catholic tenets. De Monts continued the Company founded by his predecessors, and fitted out an expedition in 1604 of four vessels, two of which were destined for Acadia, then an object of attraction. Suffice it to say, that trading ports were established at several places: the fur trade prosperously carried on; the Acadian colony neglected; and Quebec made the capital of the future New France, founded by Samuel Champlain on the 3d July, 1608. The various Indian tribes contiguous to the new settlement, namely, the Algonquins, the Hurons, &c. who were at war with the Iroquois, or Five Nations, solicited and obtained the aid of the French. Champlain taught them the use of fire-arms, which the Iroquois also acquired from their English friends in the adjacent territory; and hence began the ruinous wars, which have ended in the nearly total extermination of the Indians of the North American continent, wherever they have come in contact with the Europeans and their descendants. But little success attended the first colonization on the banks of the St. Lawrence; in 1622, fourteen years after its establishment, Quebec had not a population exceeding fifty souls.[[3]] The mischievous policy of making religion (and that of the Jesuit caste) a part of the colonial policy, long hampered the French settlers; and to remedy the distressed condition of the colony, the commerce of Canada, heretofore vested in the hands of one or two individuals, was transferred in 1627 to a powerful association, called the Company of a hundred Partners, composed of clergy and laity, under the special management of the celebrated Cardinal Richelieu. The primary object of the Company was the conversion of the Indians to the Catholic faith, by means of zealous Jesuits; the secondary, an extension of the fur trade, of commerce generally, and the discovery of a route to the Pacific Ocean and to China, through the great rivers and lakes of New France.
This Company held Canada or New France, with the extensive privileges of a feudal seigniory under the king, to whom were owing fealty and homage, and the presentation of a crown of gold at every new accession to the throne. With the right of soil, a monopoly of trade was granted, the king reserving for the benefit of all his subjects only the cod and whale fisheries in the gulf and coast of St. Lawrence; and to such colonists as might not be servants of the Company, was secured the right of trading with the Indians for peltries (skins), it being understood that on pain of confiscation they should bring all their beaver skins to the factors of the Company, who were bound to purchase them at 40 sous a-piece. Under the new system, “protestants and other heretics,” as well as Jews, were entirely excluded from the colony, and a Jesuit corps was to be supported by the Company. Thus monopoly and bigotry went hand in hand, and no auspicious Providence attended the efforts of such a selfish and fanatic project.
The very first vessels despatched by the new religio-commercial-company for Quebec, were captured by the English. In 1628, a squadron of English vessels, under the command of Sir David Kertk, a French refugee, visited Tadoussac, and destroyed the houses and cattle about Cape Tourmente; Kertk and his little band next proceeded to Gaspé bay, where he met M. de Roquemont, one of the hundred partners, commanding a squadron of vessels, freighted with emigrant families, and all kinds of provisions. Roquemont was provoked to a battle, and lost the whole of his fleet, provisions, &c.; and the last hope of the colony of Quebec was blasted by the shipwreck of two Jesuit missionaries, on the coast of Nova Scotia, in a vessel laden with provisions for the starving colonists, who were now reduced to an allowance of five ounces of bread per day. Kertk, reinforced by some more English vessels, commanded by his two brothers, sent them up the St. Lawrence, when they easily captured Quebec on the 20th July, 1629: and, on the 20th October, Champlain arrived at Plymouth, on his return to France, most of his countrymen having, however, remained in Canada. While Quebec was being captured by Kertk and his English squadron, peace was under ratification between England and France; and, in 1632, (the latter power having previously opened a negotiation with England,) Quebec, Acadia, (Nova Scotia,) and Isle Royal, (Cape Breton,) were ceded to France, and Champlain resumed the government of Canada. The Jesuits, with their accustomed zeal, commenced anew their efforts; and from this period to the final British conquest in 1760, a rivalship and growing hostility, partly religious and partly commercial, took place between the French and English settlers in North America, which were evinced by mutual aggressions, while profound peace existed between their respective sovereigns in Europe.
A minute detail of local occurrences would be out of place in a work of this nature; it may be sufficient to say, that from this period, (1674,) when the population, embracing converted Indians, did not exceed eight thousand, the French settlement in Canada continued to increase, and as it rose in power, and assumed offensive operations on the New England frontier, the jealousy of the British colonists became roused, and both parties, aided alternately by the Indians, carried on a destructive and harassing border warfare. And here it may not be amiss to observe, how much the progress of the British colonists in New York, New England, &c., and the prosperity of the French in Canada, were influenced during successive years by the strength and moral character of their respective sovereigns. I may allude, for instance, to the licentious reign of Louis XV., and the vigorous administration of William III., during whose governments the progress of their respective colonies was retarded or advanced by the example or stimulus afforded by the mother country; thus demonstrating how much, under a monarchy, the character and happiness of nations are influenced by the principles and habits of their rulers.
For many years the French in Canada made head against the assaults of their less skilful, but more persevering neighbours, owing to the active cooperation and support which the Canadians received from their Indian allies, whom the British were by nature less adapted for conciliating; but at length the latter, seeing the necessity for native cooperation, conciliated the favour of the aborigines, and turned the tide of success in their own favour. The hostilities waged by the Indians were dreadful. Setting little value on life, they fought with desperation, and gave no quarter; protected by the natural fastnesses of their country, they chose in security their own time for action, and when they had enclosed their enemies in a defile, or amidst the intricacies of the forest, the war-whoop of the victor and the death-shriek of the vanquished were almost simultaneously heard; and while the bodies of the slain served for food to the savage, the scalped head of the white man was a trophy of glory, and a booty of no inconsiderable value to its possessor. The Canadians themselves sometimes experienced the remorseless fury of their Indian forces. On the 26th of July, 1688, Le Rat, a chief of the Huron tribe, mortified by the attempt of the French commanders to negotiate a peace with the Iroquois, or Five Nations, without consulting the wishes of their Huron allies, urged his countrymen, and even stimulated the Iroquois, to aid him in an attack on Montreal. The colonists were taken by surprise, a thousand of them slain, and the houses, crops, and cattle on the island destroyed. Charlevais, in his history of La Nouvelle France, says of the Indians, “Ils ouvrirent le sein des femmes enceintes pour en arracher le fruit qu’elles portoient; ils mirent des enfans tous vivant à la broche, et contraignirent les mères de les tourner pour les faire rôtir!” The French, reinforced from Europe, sent a strong force in February, 1690, who massacred the greater part of the unresisting inhabitants of Shenectaday. According to Colden, (p. 78,) the Indians whom the French took prisoners in the battle at Shenectaday, were cut into pieces and boiled to make soups for the Indian allies who accompanied the French! Such were the desolating effects of European colonization on the continent of America, equalling, in fact, as regards the destruction of human life, the miseries inflicted by the Spaniards on the more peaceful and feeble Indians of the West India islands.
The massacre of the Indians at Shenectaday by the French had the effect of inducing the Iroquois and other nations to become more closely attached to the English, and the French were compelled to act on the defensive, and keep within their own territory. Our countrymen at Albany were at first so much alarmed at the determined hostility of the French, that they prepared to abandon the territory; but, at this crisis, the New England colonists came to an understanding, and formed a coalition for their mutual defence. Commissioners were sent to New York, and a mission despatched to London, explaining their views, and soliciting aid towards the successful completion of the naval and military expedition which was planned against the French settlements in Canada, in 1690.
Aylmer, Upper Canada.
What a signal change had taken place in the views and relative position of the parties, when, but a few years after, those very colonists sent to France, whose dominion in Canada they had been the chief instruments in annihilating, for succour and support in their war of independence against Great Britain!
The plan of attack on Canada by the New England colonists, which they fitted out at an expense of £150,000 (a heavy one to them at this period), was twofold—1st, by land, and inland navigation on the southern frontier of the French; and 2d, by a fleet, under Sir W. Phipps, with a small army on board, which was sent round by sea from Boston to attack Quebec. The force of the English was undisciplined; it consisted of colonists who were stimulated by deadly resentment to avenge the murder of their numerous relatives and friends, who had been slain by the French and their Indian allies. Quebec was formally summoned by Sir W. Phipps to surrender, and bravely defended by the Sieur de Frontenac, who compelled his foes to return to Boston with considerable loss in ships and men, owing to the delay and bad management of the commander, who, had he persevered in his efforts, would undoubtedly have starved out the garrison. The attack on Quebec by land had, without waiting for cooperating with the fleet, previously failed; so that the French were thus enabled to meet and defeat their enemies in detail, a policy which a good general, when assailed by superior numbers, will usually adopt.
The French, feeling secure in their dominions, pushed forward their outposts with vigour by means of the fur-traders, and more than ever alarmed the contiguous English colonists, who now became daily convinced of the impossibility of both nations remaining as rivals on the same continent; the French seeking dominion by military power and conquest, the English by an extension of the arts of peace, aided by a liberal spirit. The latter, therefore, resolved on using every possible means for the total expulsion of their Gallic neighbours from Canada, who refused the offer made to them to remain pacific while the mother countries were at war. The main object of Frontenac was to take possession of every point calculated to extend the dominion of France, to cut off the English from the fur-trade, and, finally, to hem them in between the Highlands of Nova Scotia and the Alleghany mountains. He began by checking the incursions of the Iroquois, whom he weakened so much by destructive warfare, and hemmed so closely in by a judicious distribution of military stations or forts, as to prevent them ever after from making an impression on Canada, such as they had been wont to produce. Frontenac’s next step was the preparation, in 1697, of a large armament to cooperate with a strong force from France, which was destined for the conquest of New York; but while the brave and active Canadian Governor was preparing to take the field, the news arrived of the treaty of peace between France and England, concluded at Ryswick, 11th of September, 1697, much to the dissatisfaction of Frontenac.
The renewal of the war between Great Britain and France in May, 1702, soon led to acrimony and hostility in America; and the cruel persecutions of the Protestants in France caused a religious animosity to be superadded to the hatred entertained by the New Englanders towards their neighbours, whose numbers had now increased to about 15,000. In 1708 the Marquis de Vandreuil carried his operations into the British frontier settlements, having previously negotiated for the neutrality of the Iroquois, who were flattered by being treated as an independent power; but the destruction of the village of Haverhill, and the massacre of some of its inhabitants, compelled the Canadians again to assume a defensive position. The New Englanders made every preparation for an attack on Montreal by land; but the English forces destined for the cooperation by the St. Lawrence river were required for Portugal, and thus the Marquis de Vandreuil had time to make better preparations for defence. The ensuing year (1709) was spent by the English in reducing Acadia, now Nova Scotia; and when the combined land and sea expedition against Canada took place in 1711, it was so ill-managed, and the British fleet, owing to tempestuous weather and ignorance of the coast, met with so many disasters,—losing by shipwreck in one day (the 22d of August) eight transports, 884 officers, soldiers, and seamen—that the expedition returned to Boston, and the restoration of peace between France and England by the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, left the former yet a little longer to harass and molest the British colonists along the Canadian frontier. The Marquis de Vandreuil availed himself of the peace to strengthen the fortifications of Quebec and Montreal; the training of the military, amounting to 5,000 in a population of 25,000, was carefully attended to; barracks were constructed; and a direct assessment levied on the inhabitants for the support of the troops and the erection of fortifications. During ten years of foreign and internal tranquillity, the trade and property of Canada made rapid progress: in 1723 nineteen vessels cleared from Quebec, laden with peltries, lumber, stones, tar, tobacco, flour, pease, pork, &c.; and six merchant ships and two men-of-war were built in the colony.
Long Sault Rapid, on the St. Lawrence.
The death of the Marquis de Vandreuil in October, 1725, was deservedly lamented by the Canadians. He was succeeded in 1726 by the Marquis de Beauharnois, (a natural son of Louis XIV.) whose ambitious administration excited yet more the alarm and jealousy of the English colonists of New York and New England; while the intrigues of the Jesuits with the Indians, contributed not a little to bring about the final struggle for dominion on the American continent, between the two most powerful nations of Europe. The war between Great Britain and France in 1745, led to the reduction in that year of Cape Breton, by a British naval and military force, combined with the provincial troops of the New England colonies; but the successful battle of Fontenoy roused the martial spirit of the Canadians to attempt the re-conquest of Nova Scotia in 1746 and 1747, in which they failed, and the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 suspended further hostilities. Commissioners were then appointed to settle a boundary line between the British and French territories in North America. The object of the French was to confine the English within the boundary of the Alleghany mountains, and prevent their approach to the Lakes, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, (where the former were now establishing themselves,) and their tributary streams. The Canadian Government, without any authority from home, and accompanied by a display of military pomp, calculated to impress on the minds of the Indians the idea that France would assert her territorial right to the limits marked, proceeded to survey the projected line of demarcation between the possessions of France and those which the Canadian Governor was pleased, in his liberality, to assign to England: leaden plates, bearing the royal arms of France, were sunk at proper distances, and the whole ceremony was concluded with much formality. Such an imprudent step, it may be imagined, seriously alarmed the Indians, as well as the English, and terminated in their active cooperation for the utter expulsion of the French from North America.
In pursuance of the line of policy marked out by the French consuls at home and in Canada, the Jesuits were employed to intrigue with the Acadians, or descendants of the early French inhabitants, with the view of prevailing on them to quit Nova Scotia, and resort to a military post now established beyond its frontier, on the Canada side, where a new colony was to be formed, in aid of which the royal sanction was granted for an appropriation of 800,000 livres. Cornwallis, the governor of Nova Scotia, soon convinced the French that he was aware of their proceedings; he caused a fort to be erected opposite the French, near the bay of Fundy, on the side of the river Beauhassin; and placed it under the command of Major Laurence, and caused to be captured at the mouth of the St. John river, a vessel laden with supplies for the French. While these measures were in progress, the French commenced enforcing their power along the line of demarcation they had marked out; three individuals, who had licenses to trade from their respective English governors, with the Indians on the Ohio, were seized by the French, and carried prisoners to Montreal, whence, after severe treatment and strict examination, they were at length liberated, with injunctions not to trespass on the French territories.
The intrigues of the Jesuits with the Iroquois, to detach them from the English, were so far successful, that the Indians permitted the French to erect the Fort La Presentation near their border; and but for the perseverance and extraordinary influence of Sir William Johnston, the wily character of the Canadians would have gone far to frustrate the confederacy forming between the English and the Indians, for the expulsion of the French; whose downfall was ultimately occasioned by the corruption that prevailed within the colony, and the scandalous jobs that the very highest authorities not only winked at, but profited by. The arrival of the Marquis du Quesne de Menneville, in 1752, as Governor of Canada, Louisiana, Cape Breton, St. John’s, and their dependencies, gave indications that hostilities might soon be expected in Europe; and the activity of the marquis was displayed in training and organizing the militia for internal defence: detachments of regulars, militia, and Indians, were despatched to the Ohio; Fort du Quesne (actually within the Virginian territory) and other posts were erected, with a view of keeping the English within the Apalachian or Alleghany mountains; and from Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Fort Niagara, the most ferocious attacks were made on the peaceable English settlers, notwithstanding the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748. The British, though still acting on the defensive, were not idle; a fort was built in the vicinity of Du Quesne, quaintly termed Necessity, and a garrison was despatched from Virginia, under the command of George Washington, whose name has since become so illustrious, and who then held a Lieutenant-colonel’s commission. Washington, on his march to assume the command of Fort Necessity, was met by a reconnoitring party from Du Quesne fort, under M. de Jumouville, who peremptorily forbad the English to proceed further. This mandate was answered by a burst of indignation, and a volley of musquetry, which killed Jumouville and several of his men. The French commandant at Du Quesne, Monsieur Contrecœur, quickly commenced offensive hostilities, invested Fort Necessity, and obliged Washington to capitulate. England at that time was preparing for an open war with France, which the ambition of Frederick of Prussia, and the state of Europe soon rendered general. A strong fleet, with troops and warlike munition, was despatched to reinforce Quebec; an English fleet pursued it, but succeeded in capturing only two frigates, with the engineers and troops on board, on the banks of Newfoundland.
Quebec,
from the opposite shore of the St. Lawrence.
In 1755, the Marquis du Quesne having resigned, he was succeeded, in July, by the last French governor in Canada, the Marquis de Vandreuil de Cavagnal, whose administration was auspiciously opened by the defeat of the brave but rash General Braddock, on the 29th July, 1755, in one of the defiles of the Alleghany mountains. Braddock, accustomed to European, rather than to Indian warfare, neglected every precaution of scouts and advanced posts, and refused to make any preparations against the French and their Indian allies, who, when the enemy had entered a gorge, where retreat was almost impossible, poured from their ambuscades on the devoted British a deadly fire, under which the soldiers of the unfortunate Braddock fell rapidly, without even the satisfaction of seeing or meeting their foes. The death of their leader was the signal that further advance was hopeless; and to the credit of George Washington, the second in command, he succeeded in rescuing the remainder of the British army, who were afterwards joined by 6,000 provincial troops, under General Johnston and Governor Shirley. Johnston, with the intention of investing Crown Point, joined General Lyman near Lake George, where they were attacked by 3,000 French, commanded by Baron Dieskau. After a battle of four hours’ duration, the French retreated to Crown Point, with the loss of 1,000 men, and the capture of their leader, who was severely wounded. This success restored the drooping spirits of the British army, and helped to train the provincials (who were brigaded along with the regular troops,) for those contests which they were soon to wage for their independence with the very men by whose side they now fought hand to hand against the French—their subsequent allies. Little did Washington then contemplate the destiny that awaited him.
The campaign of 1755 was closed in October, by the British retiring to Albany, after reinforcing the garrison of Oswego, but without any attack on Crown Point. France, fully aware of the importance of Canada, sent out early in the ensuing year a large body of chosen troops, under the command of the gallant and experienced Major-General the Marquis de Montcalm, who soon invested Fort Oswego, and compelled the garrison to surrender. In the next year’s campaign (1757), success still signalized the progress of the French arms; Fort George was invested and captured; and the English prisoners, amounting to nearly 2,000 regular troops of His Majesty’s service, were brutally massacred while on their march to Fort Edward, by the Indian allies of the French—the latter asserting, or pretending that they were, through inability or neglect, incapacitated from preventing the perpetration of this horrid slaughter. The feelings with which the news of this monstrous deed was received in England, and throughout British America, may well be conceived; it helped to hasten the downfall of the French dominion in Canada, the deepest abhorrence being excited against those who permitted or sanctioned such a diabolical act. The elder Pitt (afterwards Earl of Chatham) then at the head of affairs, and in the full blaze of his eloquence, infused a noble spirit into His Majesty’s counsels, and so wielded the resources and energies of the nation, that the effects were speedily felt in America.
France reinforced her Canadian garrisons; and England opened the campaign of 1759 with a plan of combined operations by sea and land, somewhat, if not mainly, formed on the plan adopted in 1690, and already detailed. The invasion of Canada was to take place at three different points, under three generals of high talent; that destined for Quebec being considered the chief. The forces for the latter place were under the command of the heroic General Wolfe, and amounted to about 8,000 men, chiefly drawn from the army which, under the same commander, had taken Fort Louisberg in Cape Breton, and subdued the whole island in the preceding year. Wolfe’s army was conveyed to the vicinity of Quebec by a fleet of vessels of war and transports, commanded by Admiral Saunders, and was landed in two divisions off the island of Orleans, 27th June, 1759. The Marquis de Montcalm made vigorous preparations for defending Quebec; his armed force consisted of about 13,000 men, of whom six battalions were regulars, and the remainder well disciplined Canadian militia, with some cavalry and Indians; and his army was ranged from the river St. Lawrence to the Falls of Montmorency, with the view of opposing the landing of the British forces. A few ships of war, including fire ships, assisted De Montcalm. The skilful disposition of the French commander was shown in the failure of the British attack on the intrenchments at Montmorency, where the British lost 182 killed and 450 wounded, including 11 officers killed and 46 wounded. In consequence of this repulse, Wolfe sent despatches to England, stating that he had doubts of being able to reduce Quebec during that campaign.
Montmorency Cove.
Monument to Wolfe and Montcalm
(near Quebec.)
Prudence and foresight are the characteristics of a good general, as well as of an able statesman. Wolfe called a council of war—he showed that the fire of his ships of war, which had passed and repassed Quebec, had done little damage to the citadel, though the lower town had been nearly destroyed—that further attacks on the Montmorency intrenchments were useless: it was therefore proposed, as the only hope of success, to gain the heights of Abraham behind and above the city, commanding the weakest point of the fortress. The council, composed of the principal naval and military commanders, acceded to this daring proposal; and their heroic leader, although suffering severely from sickness, commenced his operations on the memorable morning of the 13th of September, 1759, with an address, secrecy and silence, that have perhaps never been equalled; indeed, so difficult was the ascent of the narrow pass where the troops landed, that the soldiers had to climb the precipice, by the aid of the branches of shrubs and roots of trees growing among the rocks. De Montcalm found all his vigilance unavailing to guard this important pass—he lost his usual prudence and forbearance, and finding his opponent had gained so much by hazarding all, he, with an infatuation for which it is difficult to account, resolved to meet the British in battle array on the plains of Abraham. The French sallied forth from a strong fortress without field artillery—without even waiting for the return of a large force of 2,000 men, detached as a corps of observation under De Bougainville against the British fleet—and with a heat and precipitation as remarkable as were the coolness of the British. The eagle eye of Wolfe saw that to him retreat was almost impossible; but, while directing his main attention to the steady advance of his right division, he skilfully covered his flanks, and endeavoured to preserve their communication with the shore. Both armies may be said to have been without artillery, the French having only two guns, and the English a light cannon, which the sailors dragged up the heights with ropes; the sabre and the bayonet accordingly decided the day, and never was the nervous strength of the British arm better wielded. The agile Scotch Highlanders, with their stout claymores, served the purpose of cavalry, and the steady fire of the English fusileers compensated in some degree for the want of artillery. The French fought with a desperation heightened by the fanaticism to which their priests had excited them against the English heretics, while the heroism of De Montcalm was as conspicuous as that of his illustrious opponent; both headed their men—both rushed with eagerness wherever the battle raged most fiercely, and often by their personal prowess and example changed the fortune of the moment;—both were repeatedly wounded, but still fought with an enthusiasm which those only who have mixed in the heady current of battle can conceive; in fine, both those gallant commanders fell mortally wounded, while advancing on the last deadly charge, at the head of their respective columns. Wolfe, faint with the loss of blood, reeled, and leant against the shoulder of one of his officers—the purple stream of life was ebbing—the eye that but a few moments before beamed bright with glory, waxed dim, and he was sinking to the earth, when the cry of “They run!—they run!” arrested his fleeting spirit. “Who run?” exclaimed the dying hero. “The French,” returned his supporter. “Then I die contented!” were the last words of a Briton who expired in the arms of victory. The chivalrous Montcalm also perished—rejoicing in his last moments that he should not live to witness the surrender of Quebec—and both the conquerors and the conquered joined in deploring their national loss.
The battle may be said to have decided the fate of the French dominion in Canada; five days after, the citadel of Quebec was surrendered, and occupied by General Murray with a force of 5,000 men, and the British fleet sailed for England. The contemplated junction of the invading British forces took place at Montreal in September 1760; and by the treaty between France and England, in 1763, the former resigned all further pretensions to Canada and Nova Scotia,—thus losing at one blow every acre of her North American dominions.
The population of Canada, on its conquest by the British, was about 65,000, inhabiting a narrow strip of land on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and chiefly employed in agriculture. No people ever had juster cause of gratitude for the cession of the country to Great Britain than the Canadians. Bigot, the Intendant, or King’s financier, and his creatures, plundered the colonists in every direction; a paper currency, termed card-money, founded on the responsibility of the King of France, for the general support of the civil and military establishments of the colony, and which, from having been faithfully redeemed during a period of thirty years, enjoyed unlimited credit, enabled Bigot to conceal for a long time his waste and peculations; and while the British were capturing Canada by force of arms, the French monarch was destroying the commerce and prospects of his subjects by dishonouring the bills of exchange of the Intendant, to whom he had granted absolute power; thus involving in ruin not only the holders of 12,000 livres (£500,000 sterling) but also those who possessed any paper currency, which at the conquest amounted to £4,000,000 sterling, and the only compensation received for which was four per cent. on the original value.
Civil and religious liberty was granted to the Canadians; and in the words of the writer of the Political Annals of Canada, “previous history affords no example of such forbearance and generosity on the part of the conquerors towards the conquered—forming such a new era in civilized warfare, that an admiring world admitted the claim of Great Britain to the glory of conquering a people, less from views of ambition and the security of her other colonies, than from the hope of improving their situation, and endowing them with the privileges of freedom.”
After the more stirring and scientific discoveries of civilized navigators and adventurers, it will not be uninteresting to present the simple story of an Indian chief, who crossed the continent without compass or chart, and with no resources but his courage and native talent for expedient; and in this rude way, made discoveries which would thrill the bosom of the most romantic navigator. The story was told by the chief himself (through an interpreter), to the gentleman who reported it, in the following words, to the Historical Society of Quebec:—
“I had lost my wife, and all the children whom I had by her, when I undertook my journey towards the sun-rising. I set out from my village, contrary to the inclination of all my relations, and went first to the Chicasaws, our friends and neighbours. I continued among them several days, to inform myself whether they knew whence we all came,—they, who were our elders; since from them came the language of the country. As they could not inform me, I proceeded on my journey. I reached the country of the Chasuanous, and afterwards went up the Wabash, or Ohio, almost to its source, which is in the country of the Iroquois, or Five Nations. I left them, however, towards the north; and during the winter, which in that country is very severe, and very long, I lived in a village of the Abenaquis, where I contracted an acquaintance with a man somewhat older than myself, who promised to conduct me, the following spring, to the Great Water. Accordingly, when the snows were melted, and the weather was settled, we proceeded eastward; and, after several days’ journey, I at length saw the Great Water, which filled me with such joy and admiration that I could not speak. Night drawing on, we took up our lodging on a high bank above the water, which was sorely vexed by the wind, and made so great a noise that I could not sleep. Next day, the ebbing and flowing of the water filled me with great apprehension; but my companion quieted my fears, by assuring me that the water observed certain bounds, both in advancing and retiring. Having satisfied our curiosity in viewing the Great Water, we turned to the village of the Abenaquis, where I continued the following winter; and after the snows were melted, my companion and I went and viewed the great fall of the river St. Lawrence, at Niagara, which was distant from the village several days’ journey. The view of this great fall at first made my hair stand on end, and my heart almost leap out of its place; but afterwards, before I left it, I had the courage to walk under it. Next day we took the shortest road to the Ohio; and my companion and I cutting down a tree on the banks of the river, we formed it into a pettiauger, which served to conduct me down the Ohio and the Mississippi; after which, with much difficulty, I went up our small river, and at length arrived safe among my relations, who were rejoiced to see me in good health.
The Plains of Abraham, near Quebec.
(The spot where General Wolfe fell.)
“This journey, instead of satisfying, only served to excite my curiosity. Our old men, for several years, had told me that the ancient speech informed them that the Red-men of the north came originally much higher and much farther than the source of the river Missouri; and as I had longed to see, with my own eyes, the land from whence our first fathers came, I took my precautions for my journey westwards. Having provided a small quantity of corn, I proceeded up along the eastern bank of the river Mississippi, till I came to the Ohio. I went up along the bank of this last river, about the fourth part of a day’s journey, that I might be able to cross it without being carried into the Mississippi. There I formed a cayeux, or raft of canes, by the assistance of which I passed over the river; and next day meeting with a herd of buffaloes in the meadows, I killed a fat one, and took from it the fillets, the bunch, and the tongue. Soon after I arrived among the Tamaroos, a village of the nation of the Illinois, where I rested several days, and then proceeded northwards to the mouth of the Missouri, which, after it enters the great river, runs for a considerable time without intermixing its muddy waters with the clear stream of the other. Having crossed the Mississippi, I went up the Missouri, along its northern bank; and after several days journey, I arrived at the nation of the Missouris, where I staid a long time, to learn the language that is spoken beyond them. In going along the Missouri, I passed through meadows a whole day’s journey in length, which were quite covered with buffaloes.
“When the cold was past, and the snows were melted, I continued my journey up along the Missouri, till I came to the nation of the West, or the Canzas. Afterwards, in consequence of directions from them, I proceeded in the same course near thirty days; and at length I met with some of the nation of the Otters, who were hunting in that neighbourhood, and were surprised to see me alone. I continued with the hunters two or three days, and then accompanied one of them, and his wife, who was near her time of lying in, to their village, which lay far off, betwixt the north and west. We continued our journey along the Missouri for nine days, and then we marched directly northwards for five days more, through the country of the Otters, who received me with as much kindness as if I had been of their own nation. A few days after we came to the Fine River, which runs westward in a direction contrary to that of the Missouri. We proceeded down this river a whole day, and then arrived at the village. A party of the Otters were going to carry a calumet of peace to a nation beyond them, and we embarked in a pettiauger, and went down the river for eighteen days, landing now and then, to supply ourselves with provisions. When I arrived at the nation, who were at peace with the Otters, I staid with them till the cold was past, that I might learn their language, which was common to most of the nations that lived beyond them.
“The cold was hardly gone, when I again embarked on the Fine River; and in my course I met with several nations, with whom I generally staid but one night, till I arrived at the nation that is but one day’s journey from the Great Water on the West. This nation live in the woods, about the distance of a league from the river, from their apprehension of bearded men, who come upon their coasts in floating villages, and carry off their children to make slaves of them. These men were described to be white, with long black beards that came down to their breasts. They were thick and short, had large heads, which were covered with cloth;—they were always dressed, even in the greatest heats; their clothes fell down to the middle of their legs, which with their feet were covered with red or yellow stuff. Their arms made a great fire and a great noise; and when they saw themselves outnumbered by Red-men, they retired on board their large pettiauger—their number sometimes amounting to thirty, but never more.
“Those strangers came from the sun-setting, in search of a yellow stinking wood, which dyes a fine yellow colour; but the people of this nation, that they might not be tempted to visit them, had destroyed all those kind of trees. Two other nations in their neighbourhood, however, having no other wood, could not destroy the trees, and were still visited by the strangers; and being greatly incommoded by them, had invited their allies to assist them in making an attack upon them the next time they should return. The following summer I accordingly joined in this expedition; and after travelling five long days’ journey, we came to the place where the bearded men usually landed, where we waited seventeen days for their arrival. The Red-men, by my advice, placed themselves in ambuscade to surprise the strangers; and accordingly, when they landed to cut the wood, we were so successful as to kill eleven of them, the rest immediately escaping on board two large pettiaugers, and flying westward upon the Great Water.
“Upon examining those whom we had killed, we found them much smaller than ourselves, and very white: they had a large head, and in the middle of the crown the hair was very long. Their head was wrapped in a great many folds of stuff, and their clothes seemed to be made neither of wool nor silk: they were very soft, and of different colours. Two only, of the eleven who were slain, had fire arms, with powder and ball. I tried their pieces, and found that they were much heavier than ours, and did not kill at so great a distance.
“After this expedition I thought of nothing but proceeding on my journey, and with that design I let the Red-men return home, and joined myself to those who inhabited more westward on the coast, with whom I travelled along the shore of the Great Water, which bends directly betwixt the north and the sun-setting. When I arrived at the villages of my fellow-travellers, where I found the days very long, and the nights very short, I was advised by the old men to give over all thoughts of continuing my journey. They told me that the land extended still a long way in a direction between the north and sun-setting, after which it ran directly west, and at length was cut by the Great Water from north to south. One of them added, that when he was young, he knew a very old man who had seen that distant land before it was eat away by the Great Water, and that when the Great Water was low, many rocks still appeared in those parts. Finding it, therefore, impracticable to proceed much further on account of the severity of the climate, and the want of game, I returned by the same route by which I had set out; and reducing my whole travels westward to day’s journeys, I compute that they would have employed me thirty-six moons; but on account of my frequent delays, it was five years before I returned to my relations among the Yazous.”
The remarkable difference between the Natches, including in that name the nations whom they treat as brethren, and the other people of Louisiana, made me extremely desirous to know whence both of them might originally come. We had not then that full information which we have since received from the voyages and discoveries of M. De Lisle, in the eastern parts of the Russian empire. I therefore applied myself one day to put the keeper of the temple in good humour; and having succeeded in that without much difficulty, I then told him, that from the little resemblance I observed between the Natches and the neighbouring nations, I was inclined to believe that they were not originally from the same country which they then inhabited; and if the ancient speech taught him any thing on that subject, he would do me a great pleasure to inform me of it. At these words he leaned his head on his two hands, with which he covered his eyes; and having remained in that posture about a quarter of an hour, as if to recollect himself, he answered to the following effect:—
“Before we came into this land we lived yonder, under the sun, (pointing with his finger nearly south-west, by which I understood he meant Mexico); we lived in a fine country, where the earth is always pleasant; there our sons had their abode, and our nation maintained itself for a long time against the ancients of the country, who conquered some of our villages in the plains, but never could force us from the mountains. Our nation extended itself along the Great Water where this large river loses itself; but as our enemies were become very numerous, and very wicked, our Suns sent some of our subjects who live near this river, to examine whether we could retire into the country through which it flowed. The country on the east side of the river being found extremely pleasant, the Great Sun, upon the return of those who had examined it, ordered all his subjects who lived in the plains, and who still defended themselves against the ancients of the country, to remove into this land, here to build a temple, and to preserve the eternal fire.
“A great part of our nation accordingly settled here, where they lived in peace and abundance for several generations; the Great Sun, and those who had remained with him, never thought of joining us, being tempted to continue where they were by the pleasantness of the country, which was very warm, and by the weakness of their enemies, who had fallen into civil dissensions in consequence of the ambition of one of their chiefs, who wanted to raise himself from a state of equality with the other chiefs of the villages, and to treat all the people of his nation as slaves. During those discords among our enemies, some of them even entered into an alliance with the Great Sun, who still remained in our old country, that he might conveniently assist other brethren who had settled on the banks of the Great Water to the east of the large river, and extended themselves so far on the coast, and among the isles, that the Great Sun did not hear of them sometimes for five or six years together.
“It was not till after many generations that the Great Suns came and joined us in this country, when, from the fine climate and the peace we had enjoyed, we had multiplied like the leaves of the trees. Warriors of fire, who made the earth to tremble, had arrived in our old country, and having entered into an alliance with our brethren, conquered our ancient enemies; but attempting afterwards to make slaves of our sons, they, rather than submit to them, left our brethren, who refused to follow them, and came hither attended only by their slaves.”
Upon my asking him who those warriors of fire were, he replied, “that they were bearded white men, somewhat of a brownish colour, who carried arms that darted out fire with a great noise, and killed at a distance; that they had likewise heavy arms which killed a great many men at once, and like thunder made the earth tremble; and that they came from the sun-rising in floating villages.”
“The ancients of the country,” he said, “were very numerous, and inhabited from the western coast of the Great Water to the northern countries on this side the sun, and very far up on the same coast beyond the sun. They had a great number of large and small villages, which were all built of stone, and in which there were houses large enough to lodge a whole village. Their temples were built with great labour and art, and they made beautiful works of all kinds of materials.”
“But ye yourselves,” said I, “whence are ye come?” “The ancient speech,” he replied, “does not say from what land we came; all that we know is, that our fathers, to come hither, followed the sun, and came with him from the place where he rises; that they were a long time on their journey, were all on the point of perishing, and were brought into this country without seeking it.”
Les Marches Naturelles,
near Quebec.
Moncacht-apé, after giving me an account of his travels, spent four or five days visiting among the Natches, and then returned to take leave of me, when I made him a present of several wares of no great value, among which was a concave mirror, about two inches and a half diameter, which had cost me about three half-pence. As this magnified the face to four or five times the natural size, he was wonderfully delighted with it, and would not have exchanged it for the best mirror in France. After expressing his regret at parting with me, he returned highly satisfied to his own nation.
Moncacht-apé’s account of the junction of America with the eastern parts of Asia, seems confirmed by the following remarkable fact. “Some years ago the skeletons of two large elephants and two small ones were discovered in a marsh near the Ohio; and as they were not much consumed, it is supposed that the elephants came from Asia not many years before. If we also consider the form of government, and the manner of living among the northern nations of America, there will appear a great resemblance betwixt them and the Tartars in the north-east part of Asia.”
Indians who have never seen the ebbing and flowing of the tide are wonderfully struck with this phenomenon. Many of the inhabitants of Quebec must still remember that the great deputation of Indian chiefs, from the interior, and from the Mississippi, which came to Quebec during the administration of Sir George Prevost, and had in their company the sister of Tecumseh, were often to be seen sitting in a row upon a wharf in the Lower Town of Quebec, contemplating in silence, and evidently under the deepest impression of awe, the rising and falling of the waters of the St. Lawrence.
The white men here described correspond in every particular with the Chinese, who, there is reason to believe, held commercial intercourse with the south of Africa long before Vasco de Gama discovered and doubled the Cape of Good Hope. The Chinese are rather smaller than we are, and have the palest complexion indigenous to Asia. Their muskets are match-locks, and heavier than ours; their powder is inferior in quality.
The stinking wood mentioned by the Indian chief is probably fustic, yielding a yellow dye, which is the prevailing colour of the garments of the superior classes in China.
| [2] | The narrative of these proceedings must be received with due allowance, as there is considerable discrepancy between the different historians. The statements of Hakluyt are here generally followed. |
| [3] | The first child born in Quebec of French parents was the son of Abraham Martin and Margaret L'Angelois: it was christened Eustache on the 24th of October, 1621. |