CHAPTER IV.
ACADIA.
BY CHARLES C. SMITH,
Treasurer of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
ACADIA is the designation of a territory of uncertain and disputed extent. Though its sovereignty passed more than once from France to England, and from England to France, its limits were never exactly defined. But in this chapter it will be used to denote that part of America claimed by Great Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, as bounded on the south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by a line drawn due north from the mouth of the Penobscot River, on the north by the River St. Lawrence, and on the east by the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Strait of Canso. Within these bounds were minor divisions vaguely designated by French or Indian names; and the larger part of this region was also called by the English Nova Scotia, or New Scotland.
SIEUR DE MONTS.
[This follows a copy of a water-color drawing in the Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France, i. 441, called a portrait of De Monts from an original at Versailles. Mr. Parkman tells me that he was misled by this reference of Mr. Poore in stating that a portrait of De Monts existed at Versailles (Pioneers, p. 222); since a later examination has not revealed such a canvas, and the picture may be considered as displaying the costume of the gentleman of the period, if there is doubt concerning its connection with De Monts. There is another engraving of it in Drake’s Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast.—Ed.]
So large a tract of country naturally presents great varieties of soil and climate and of other physical characteristics; but for the most part it is fertile, and it abounds in mineral resources, the extent and value of which were long unsuspected even by such eager seekers for mines as the early voyagers. It was often the theatre of sanguinary conflicts on a small scale, and its early history, which is closely connected with that of the New England colonies, includes more than one episode of tragic interest. Yet it has never filled an important place in the history of civilization in America, and it was a mere make-weight in adjusting the balance of losses and acquisitions by the two great European powers which for a century and a half contended here for colonial supremacy.
Acadia seems to have been known to the French very soon after the voyages of Cabot, and to have been visited occasionally by Breton fishermen almost from the beginning of the sixteenth century. For nearly a hundred years these adventurous toilers of the sea prosecuted their dangerous calling on the Banks of Newfoundland and the near shores before any effective attempt at colonization was made. It was not until 1540 that a Picard gentleman, Jean François de Roberval, was appointed viceroy of Canada, and attempted to establish a colony within the St. Lawrence.[400]
Owing to the unexpected severity of the climate and the want of support from France, the enterprise failed, and, with the exception of the abortive efforts of De la Roche in 1584 and in 1598,[401] no new attempt at French colonization was made for more than half a century afterward, when the accession of Henry IV. gave a new impulse to the latent spirit of adventure. In 1603 Pierre de Guast, Sieur de Monts, was named lieutenant-general of Acadia, with powers extending over all the inhabitable shores of America north of the latitude of Philadelphia.[402] Vast as was this domain, his real authority was confined to very narrow limits. Setting sail from France in the early part of April, 1604, De Monts, accompanied by Champlain, came in sight of Sable Island on the 1st of May, and a week later made the mainland at Cape La Hêve.
ISLE DE SAINTE CROIX.
[This is a fac-simile of Champlain’s engraving in his edition of 1613. The key is as follows: A, Habitation. B, Gardens. C, Isles with cannon. D, Platform for cannon. E, Burial-place. F, Chapel. G, Rocky shoals. H, Islet. I, De Mont’s water-mill begun here. L, Place for making coal. M and N, Gardens. O, Mountains (Chamcook Hill, 627 feet high). P, River of the Etechemins (called later Schoodic River, till the name St. Croix was restored). Slafter describes the island as about 540 feet wide at the broadest part, and it contains now six or seven acres. Five small cannon-balls, two and one-quarter inches in diameter, were dug up at the southern end some years ago. Slafter’s edition, ii. 33.—Ed.]
Subsequently he doubled the southwestern point of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, and coasting along the shore of what is now known as the Bay of Fundy, he finally determined to effect a settlement on a little island[403] just within the mouth of the St. Croix River. Here several small buildings were erected, and the little company of seventy-nine in all prepared to pass the winter. Before spring nearly one half of their number died; and in the following summer, after the arrival of a small reinforcement, it was decided to abandon the place. The coast was carefully explored as far south as Cape Cod, but without finding any spot which satisfied their fastidious tastes;[404] and the settlement was then transferred to the other side of the bay, to what is now called Annapolis Basin, but which De Monts had designated the year before as Port Royal. Here a portion of the company was left to pass a second winter, while De Monts returned to France, to prevent, if possible, the withdrawal of any part of the monopoly granted him by the Crown.
Nearly a year elapsed before he again reached his settlement,—only to find it reduced to two individuals. After a winter of great suffering, Pontgravé, who had been left in command during the absence of De Monts, weary with waiting for succor, had determined to sail for France, leaving these two brave men to guard the buildings and other property. He had but just sailed when Jean de Poutrincourt, the lieutenant of De Monts, arrived with the long-expected help. Measures were immediately taken to recall Pontgravé, if he could be found on the coast, and these were fortunately successful. He was discovered at Cape Sable, and at once returned; but soon afterward he sailed again for France.[405] Another winter was passed at Port Royal, pleasantly enough according to the accounts of Champlain and Lescarbot; but in the early summer, orders to abandon the settlement were received from De Monts, whose monopoly of the trade with the Indians had been rescinded. The settlers reluctantly left their new home, and the greater part of them reached St. Malo, in Brittany, in October, 1607. The first attempt at French colonization in Acadia was as abortive as Popham’s English colony at the mouth of the Sagadahock in the following year.[406]
BUILDINGS ON ST. CROIX ISLAND.
[This cut follows Champlain’s in the 1613 edition. It represents,—A, De Monts’s house. B, Common building, for rainy days. C, Storehouse. D, Building for the guard. E, Blacksmith’s shop. F, Carpenter’s house. G, Well. H, Oven. I, Kitchen. L and M, Gardens. N, Open square. O, Palisade. P, Houses of D’Orville, Champlain, and Champdoré. Q, Houses of Boulay and artisans. R, houses of Genestou, Sourin, and artisans. T, Houses of Beaumont, la Motte Bourioli, and Fougeray. V, Curate’s house. X, Gardens. Y, River.—Ed.]
Three years later, Poutrincourt, to whom De Monts had granted Port Royal, set sail from Dieppe to found a new colony on the site of the abandoned settlement. The deserted houses were again occupied, and a brighter future seemed to await the new enterprise. But this expectation was doomed to a speedy disappointment.
PORT ROYAL, OR ANNAPOLIS BASIN (after Lescarbot).
After a few years of struggling existence, the English colonists determined to expel the French as intruders on the territory belonging to them. In 1613 an English ship, under the command of Captain Samuel Argall, appeared off Mount Desert, where a little company of the French, under the patronage of the Comtesse de Guercheville,[407] had established themselves for the conversion of the Indians.
PORT ROYAL (after Champlain).
[This is Champlain’s plan (edition of 1613) a little reduced. The letters can be thus interpreted: A, Our habitation. B, Champlain’s garden. C, Road made by Poutrincourt. D, Island. E, Entrance. F, Shoals, dry at low water. G, St. Antoine river. H, Wheat-field (Annapolis). I, Poutrincourt’s mill. L, Meadows under water at highest tides. M, Equille River. N, Coast (Bay of Fundy). O, Mountains. P, Island. Q, Rocky Brook. R, Brook. S, Mill River. T, Lake. V, Herring-fishing by the natives. X, Trout-brook. Y, Passage made by Champlain. Harrisse (nos. 245-246) cites two plans of Port Royal in the French Archives.—Ed.]
The French were too few to offer even a show of resistance, and the landing of the English was not disputed. By an unworthy trick, and without the knowledge of the French, Argall obtained possession of the royal commission; and then, dismissing half of his prisoners to seek in an open boat for succor from any fishing vessel of their own country they might chance to meet, he carried the others with him to Virginia. The same year Argall was sent back by the governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale, to finish the work of expelling the French. With three vessels he visited successively Mount Desert and St. Croix, where he destroyed the French buildings, and then, crossing to Port Royal, seized whatever he could carry away, killed the cattle, and burned the houses to the ground. Having done this, he sailed for Virginia, leaving the colonists to support themselves as they best could. Port Royal was not, however, abandoned by them, and it continued to drag out a precarious existence. Seventy-five years later, its entire population did not exceed six hundred, and in the whole peninsula there were not more than nine hundred inhabitants.[408]
Meanwhile, in 1621, Sir William Alexander, a Scotchman of some literary pretensions, had obtained from King James a charter (dated Sept. 10, 1621) for the lordship and barony of New Scotland, comprising the territory now known as the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Under this grant he made several unsuccessful attempts at colonization; and in 1625 he undertook to infuse fresh life into his enterprise by parcelling out the territory into baronetcies.[409] Nothing came of the scheme, and by the treaty of St. Germains, in 1632, Great Britain surrendered to France all the places occupied by the English within these limits. Two years before this, however, Alexander’s rights in a part of the territory had been purchased by Claude and Charles de la Tour;[410] and shortly after the peace, the Chevalier Razilly was appointed by Louis XIII. governor of the whole of Acadia.[411] He designated as his lieutenants Charles de la Tour for the portion east of the St. Croix, and Charles de Menou, Sieur d’Aulnay-Charnisé, for the portion west of that river.
The former established himself on the River St. John where the city of St. John now stands, and the latter at Castine, on the eastern shore of Penobscot Bay. Shortly after his appointment, La Tour attacked and drove away a small party of Plymouth men who had set up a trading-post at Machias; and in 1635 D’Aulnay treated another party of the Plymouth colonists in a similar way.[412]
MAP OF ABOUT 1610.
[This follows a fac-simile in the Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France, i. 345, where it is called “Carte pour servir à l’intelligence du mémoire sur la Pesche de moluës, par Jean Michel, en 1510. Copie de l’original (Dépôt des Cartes).” The date is clearly wrong, as copied. It cannot be earlier than Champlain’s time, a hundred years later than the date given.—Ed.]
In retaliation for this attack, Plymouth hired and despatched a vessel commanded by one Girling, in company with their own barque, with twenty men under Miles Standish, to dispossess the French; but the expedition failed to accomplish anything.
PORT ROYAL.
[This is Champlain’s drawing in his edition of 1613. Key: A, House of artisans. B, Platform for cannon. C, Storehouse. D, Pontgravé and Champlain. E, Blacksmith. F, Palisade. G, Bakery. H, Kitchen. I, Gardens. K, Burial-place. L, River. M, Moat. N, Dwelling, probably of De Monts and others. O, Storehouse for ships’ equipments, rebuilt and used as a dwelling by Boulay later. P, Gate. These buildings were at the present Lower Granville.—Ed.]
Subsequently the two French commanders quarrelled, and, engaging in active hostilities, made efforts (not altogether unsuccessful) to enlist Massachusetts in their quarrel. For this purpose La Tour visited Boston in person in the summer of 1643, and was hospitably entertained.[413] He was not able to secure the direct co-operation of Massachusetts, but he was permitted to hire four vessels and a pinnace to aid him in his attack on D’Aulnay.[414] The expedition was so far successful as to destroy a mill and some standing corn, belonging to his rival. In the following year La Tour made a second visit to Boston for further help; but he was able only to procure the writing of threatening letters from the Massachusetts authorities to D’Aulnay. Not long after La Tour’s departure from Boston, envoys from D’Aulnay arrived here; and after considerable delay a treaty was signed pledging the colonists to neutrality, which was ratified by the Commissioners of the United Colonies in the following year; but it was not until two years later that it was ratified by new envoys from the crafty Frenchman.[415]
In this interval D’Aulnay captured by assault La Tour’s fort at St. John, securing booty to a large amount; and a few weeks afterward Madame la Tour, who seems to have been of a not less warlike turn than her husband, and who had bravely defended the fort, died of shame and mortification. La Tour was reduced to the last extremities; but he finally made good his losses, and in 1653 he married the widow of his rival, who had died two or three years before.[416]
PENTAGÖET (CASTINE)
[The site of the old fort was on the shore, at a point just below the letter i in the name Castine on the peninsula. Harrisse (no. 198) cites a plan of 1670 in the French Archives.—Ed.]
In 1654, in accordance with secret instructions from Cromwell, the whole of Acadia was subjugated by an English force from Boston under the command of Major Robert Sedgwick, of Charlestown, and Captain John Leverett, of Boston. To the latter the temporary government of the country was intrusted. Ineffectual complaints of this aggression were made to the British Government; but by the treaty of Westminster in the following year England was left in possession, and the question of title was referred to commissioners. In 1656 it was made a province by Cromwell, who appointed Sir Thomas Temple governor, and granted the whole territory to Temple and to one William Crown and Stephen de la Tour, son of the late governor. The rights of the latter were purchased by the other two proprietors, and Acadia remained in possession of the English until the treaty of Breda, in 1667, when it was ceded to France with undefined limits.[417]
Very little was done by the French to settle and improve the country; and on the breaking out of war between France and England after the accession of William III., it was again conquered by an expedition fitted out at Boston under Sir William Phips. He sailed from Boston on the 28th of April, 1690, with a frigate of forty guns, two sloops, one of sixteen guns and the other of eight guns, and with four smaller vessels; and after reducing St. John, Port Royal, and other French settlements, and appointing an English governor, he returned, with a booty sufficient, it was thought, to defray the whole cost of the expedition.[418]
SIR WILLIAM PHIPS.
[This likeness is accepted, but lacks undoubted verification; cf. Mem. Hist. of Boston, ii. 36.—Ed.]
This result was a signal triumph for the New England colonies, and when Phips became, in 1692, the first royal governor of Massachusetts under the provincial charter, Acadia was made a part of the domain included in it. At a later day it was with no little indignation and mortification that New England saw the conquered territory relinquished to the French by the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697; but the story of the later period belongs to a subsequent volume.
ACADIE, 1663.
[In the Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France, ii. 147, is a fac-simile of a map, “Tabula Novæ Franciæ,” which is thus described by Mr. Poore: “A fac-simile of one in a manuscript atlas purchased by M. Estancelin at a book-stall in Paris soon after the destruction of the archbishop’s palace in 183-, the library of which contained several boxes of manuscripts labelled Canada, and probably sent from the missionaries there. The signs [church symbol] undoubtedly were used to denote Jesuit churches or missions; the [dotted lines] the English boundary; and the marks + the English settlements. The atlas is dated 1663.”—Ed.]
Acadia had been the home of civilized men for nearly a hundred years; but there was almost nothing to show as the fruits of this long occupation of a virgin soil. It had produced no men of marked character, and its history was little more than the record of feuds between petty chiefs, and of feeble resistance to the attacks of more powerful neighbors. Madame la Tour alone exhibits the courage and energy naturally to be looked for under the circumstances in which three generations of settlers were placed. At the end of a century there were only a few scattered settlements spread along the coast, passing tranquilly from allegiance to one European sovereign to allegiance to another of different speech and religion. A few hundred miles away, another colony founded sixteen years after the first venture of De Monts, and with scarcely a larger number of settlers, waged a successful war with sickness, poverty, and neglect, and made a slow and steady progress, until, with its own consent, it was united with a still more prosperous colony founded twenty-three years after the first settlement at Port Royal. There are few more suggestive contrasts than that which the history of Acadia presents when set side by side with the history of Plymouth and Massachusetts; and what is true of its early is not less true of its later history.
[CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.]
THE original authorities for the early history of the French settlements in Acadia[419] are the contemporaneous narratives of Samuel de Champlain and Marc Lescarbot. Though Champlain comes within our observation as a companion of De Monts, a separate chapter in this volume is given to his personal history and his writings.
Of the personal history of Marc Lescarbot we know much less than of that of Champlain. He was born at Vervins, probably between 1580 and 1590, and was a lawyer in Paris, where he had an extensive practice, and was the author of several works; only one, or rather a part of one, concerns our present inquiry.[420]
This was an account of the settlement of De Monts in Acadia, which was translated into English by a Protestant clergyman named Pierre Erondelle, and which gives a very vivid picture of the life at Port Royal.[421] He appears to have been a man of more than ordinary ability, with not a little of the French vivacity, and altogether well suited to be a pioneer in Western civilization. His narrative covers only a brief period, and after the failure of the colony under De Monts, he ceased to have any relations with Acadia. He is supposed to have died about 1630.
The advent of the Jesuits in 1611 introduces the Relations of their order as a source of the first importance; but a detailed account of these documents belongs to another chapter.[422] From the first of the series, by Father Biard, and from his letters in Carayon’s Première Mission des Jésuites au Canada, a collection published in Paris in 1864, and drawn from the archives of the Order at Rome, we have the sufferers’ side of the story of Argall’s incursion; while from the English marauder’s letters, published in Purchas, vol. iv., we get the other side.[423]
PART OF LESCARBOT’S MAP, 1609.
There is a modern reproduction of Lescarbot’s entire map in Faillon, Colonie Française, i. 85.
ACADIE.
[This is a section of La Hontan’s map, Carte Generale de Canada, which appeared in his La Haye edition, 1709, vol. ii. p. 5; and was re-engraved in the Mémoires, vol. iii. Amsterdam, 1741. La Hontan was in the country from 1683 till after 1690. The double-dotted line indicates the southern limits of the French claim.—Ed.]
Another of these early adventurers who has left a personal account of his long-continued but fruitless attempts at American colonization is Nicolas Denys, a native of Tours. So early as 1632 he was appointed by the French king governor of the territory between Cape Canso and Cape Rosier. Forty years later, when he must have been well advanced in life, though he had lost none of his early enthusiasm, he published an historical and geographical description of this part of North America.[424] The work shows that he was a careful and observant navigator; but in its historical part it is confused and perplexing. The second volume is largely devoted to an account of the cod-fishery, and treats generally of the natural history of the places with which he was familiar, and of the manners and life of the Indians. It has a different titlepage from the first volume.
Abundant details as to the quarrels of D’Aulnay and La Tour are in Winthrop’s History of New England; and many of the original documents, most of them in contemporaneous translations, are in the seventh volume of the third series of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. From the first of these sources Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts Bay, drew largely, as did Williamson in his History of Maine, both of whom devoted considerable space to Acadian affairs. For some of the later transactions Hutchinson is an original authority of unimpeachable weight.[425] The Massachusetts writers are also naturally the sources of most of our information regarding the expedition of 1654, though Denys and Charlevoix touch upon it, and the modern historians of Nova Scotia treat it in an episodical way. The articles of capitulation of Port Royal are in Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France, ii. 107.
Among the later French writers the pre-eminence belongs to the Jesuit Father, Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, who had access to contemporaneous materials, of which he made careful use; and his statements have great weight, though he wrote many years after the events he describes. His Histoire de la Nouvelle France follows the course of the French throughout the continent, and scattered through it are many notices of the course of events in Acadia, but its more particular characterization belongs to another chapter.
The papers drawn up by the French and English commissioners to determine the intent of the treaty of Utrecht have a controversial purpose, and on each side are colored and distorted to make out a case. In them are many statements of facts which need only to be disentangled from the arguments by which they are obscured to have a high value. No one, indeed, can have a thorough and accurate knowledge of Acadian history who does not make constant reference to these memorials and to the justificatory pieces cited on the one side or the other. They stand, when properly sifted and weighed, among the most important sources for tracing the history of the province.[426]
The episode of Sir William Alexander and his futile schemes of colonization is treated exhaustively by Mr. Slafter in a monograph on Sir William Alexander and American Colonization, which reproduces all the original charters and other documents bearing on his inquiry, and apparently leaves nothing for any future gleaner in that field.[427] But, like many other persons who have conducted similar investigations, it must be conceded that Mr. Slafter attaches more importance to Sir William Alexander’s somewhat visionary plans than they really merit. They were ill adapted to promote the great object of western colonization, and they left no permanent trace behind them.
Whipple’s brief account of Nova Scotia in his Geographical View of the District of Maine should not be overlooked; but it was written at a time when historical students were less exacting than they now are, and its details are meagre and unsatisfactory.[428]
Haliburton’s History of Nova Scotia is a work of conscientious and faithful labor, but in its preparation the author was under serious disadvantages from his inability to consult many of the books on which such a history must be based; and as he was not able to correct the proofs, his volumes are disfigured by the grossest typographical blunders. No one without some previous familiarity with the subject can safely read it; but such a reader will find in it much of value.[429]
SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER.
[Slafter, p. 124, gives an account of the engraving by Marshall, published in 1635, of which the above is a reproduction following Richardson’s engraving of 1795. It represents Alexander at fifty-seven.—Ed.]
A work of far higher authority, much fuller on the earlier periods, and one which is generally marked by great thoroughness and accuracy, is Murdoch’s History of Nova Scotia. Written in the form of annals, it lacks every grace of style; and in a few instances the author has overlooked important sources of information,—such as Winthrop’s History of New England,[430] which is not named in his list of authorities (p. 533), and which he seems to have known only at second-hand through the citations of Hutchinson and of Ferland; and the original papers connected with La Tour and D’Aulnay in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. On the other hand, he had access for the first time to very valuable manuscript materials, which greatly enlarge our knowledge on not a few points previously obscure.[431]
The Cours d’Histoire du Canada of the Abbé Ferland is mainly devoted to what is now known as Canada; but there are several chapters in it on Acadian affairs. By birth and choice a Canadian, “and above all a Catholic,” as he himself avows, his statements and inferences need to be scrutinized carefully. He had, however, gathered considerable new material, his narrative is clearly and compactly written, and his work must rank among the best of the modern compilations.[432]
The same, or nearly the same, may be said of Garneau’s Histoire du Canada. The chapters on Acadia are based on materials easily accessible, and they add no new facts to those given by the earlier writers; but his narrative is clear and exact, and not much colored by the writer’s point of view. He had not, however, so firm a grasp of his subject as had Ferland; and for the period covered by this inquiry the latter may be read with much greater pleasure and profit.[433]
An English translation of Garneau’s work was published some years after its first appearance, with omissions and alterations by the translator, who regarded the subject from an entirely different point of view, and who did not hesitate to modify occasionally the statements of the author, besides adding a great body of valuable notes.[434]
Another recent work which may be profitably consulted on the early history of Acadia is Henry Kirke’s First English Conquest of Canada.[435] This work deals mainly with the lives of Sir David Kirke and his brothers, and its chief value is biographical; but it comprises some hitherto unpublished documents from the Record Office, and throws considerable light on obscure portions of the early history of Canada and Acadia.
Among these more recent writers the highest place belongs to Francis Parkman. In his Pioneers of France in the New World[436] he has given an account of the first settlement of the French in Acadia which is not less accurate in its minutest details than it is picturesque in style and comprehensive in its grasp of the subject. Mr. Parkman needed only a story of wider relations and more continuous influence to secure for his book a foremost place among American histories. In his Frontenac[437] he has told with equal vividness the story of the marauding warfare which devastated the coast of Acadia and the contiguous English settlements from 1689 to 1697. No one of our historians has been more unwearied in research, as no one has been more skilful in handling his materials. Based in great part on original manuscripts from the French archives and on contemporaneous narratives, his volumes leave nothing to be desired for the period which they cover.
[EDITORIAL NOTES.]
A. A Commissioner of Public Records of Nova Scotia was appointed in 1857, and by his list, printed in 1864, it appears that but one of the two hundred and four volumes in which the archives were arranged had papers of a date earlier than 1700, and that this volume contained copies of copies from the archives in Paris made for the Canadian Government, and covered the years 1632-1699. The Library of Parliament Catalogue, p. 1538, shows that vol. i. of the third series of manuscripts (1654-1699) is devoted to Acadia. A Nova Scotia Historical Society, instituted a few years ago, has as yet published but one volume of Reports and Collections for 1878, but it contains contributions to a later period in the history of Acadia than that now under consideration.
B. The War in Maine and Acadia.—The revolution which deposed Andros in Boston was also the occasion of withdrawing the garrisons from the English posts toward Acadia; and this invited in turn the onsets of the enemy. It was calculated in 1690 that there were between Boston and Canso four thousand two hundred and ten Indians,—a census destined to be diminished, indeed, so that in 1726 the savages were only rated for the same territory at five hundred and six (N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1866, p. 9). But this diminution meant a process of appalling war. In the spring of 1689 came the catastrophe at Choceco (now Dover). Belknap, in his New Hampshire, gives a sufficient narrative; and Dr. Quint, in his notes to Pike’s Journal (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiv. 124), indicates the manuscript sources. For the capture of the stockade at Pemaquid, which quickly followed, we have the French side in the Relation of Father Thury, the priest of the mission to the Penobscot Indians, who was in the action, and La Motte-Cadillac’s Mémoire sur l’Acadie, 1692. Cf. the references in Shea’s Charlevoix, iv. 42. The English side can be gathered from Mather’s Magnalia; Andros Tracts, vol. iii.; 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. i.; Hough’s “Pemaquid Papers,” in Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. v.; Hubbard’s Indian Wars, and John Gyles’s Memoirs, Boston, 1736 (see Mem. Hist. Boston, ii. 336). The story, more or less colored, under new lights or local associations, is told in Hutchinson’s Massachusetts, Thornton’s Ancient Pemaquid, Johnston’s Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid (p. 170), and of course in Williamson and Parkman.
The Relation of Monseignat (N. Y. Col. Doc., vol. ix.) and La Potherie are the chief French accounts on the surprise at Salmon Falls, in March, 1690, and according to Parkman, “Charlevoix adds various embellishments not to be found in the original sources.” On the English side, it is still Mather’s Magnalia upon which we must depend, and, as a secondary authority, upon Belknap’s New Hampshire and Williamson’s Maine. Parkman points out the help which sundry papers in the Massachusetts Archives afford; and Dr. Quint, in his notes to Pike’s Journal (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiv. 125), has indicated other similar sources.
POSITION OF FORT LOYAL.
The attack on Fort Loyal (Portland), in May, 1690, is studied likewise from Monseignat, La Potherie, Mather, with some fresh light out of the “Declaration” of Sylvanus Davis, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., i. 101, and Bradstreet’s letter to Governor Leisler, in Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii. 259. Le Clercq gives the French view; cf. Shea’s Charlevoix, iv. 133, and Le Clercq, ii. 295; Willis’s Portland, p. 284, and N. Y. Col. Doc., ix. 472.
Meanwhile Phips had sailed from Boston in April to attack Port Royal. He anchored before its defences on the 10th of May. The place was quickly surrendered to Phips, on the 11th of May, by De Meneval, its governor, who did not escape the imputation of treachery at the time. Parkman (Frontenac, pp. 237,) and Shea (Charlevoix, iv. 155) give the authorities. Parkman says Charlevoix’s own narrative is erroneous; but on the French side we still have Monseignat and Potherie, though both are brief; the Relation de la prise du Port Royal par les Anglois de Baston, May 27, 1690; the official Lettre au Ministre of Meneval, and the Rapport de Champigny, of October, 1690. Cf. N. Y. Col. Doc., iii. 720; ix. 474, 475.
On the English side we have Governor Bradstreet’s instructions to Phips and an invoice of the plunder, in the Mass. Archives; a Journal of the Expedition from Boston to Port Royal, among George Chalmers’ papers in the Sparks Manuscripts at Harvard College, perhaps the document referred to by Hutchinson, in speaking of Phips, as “his Journal;” the unhistoric overflow of Cotton Mather’s Life of Phips, and sundry extracts embodied in Bowen’s Life of Phips. Murdoch, in his Nova Scotia, ch. xxii., gives a summarized account.
During Phips’s ill-starred expedition to Quebec in the autumn of the same year, Colonel Benjamin Church was ineffectually employed in creating diversions in Phips’s favor in this lower region. See Dr. Henry M. Dexter’s edition of Church’s History of the Expedition to the East, and additional letters of Church in Drake’s additions to Baylies’ Old Colony, pt. v.; and in 4 Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 271. Williamson (Maine, i. 624) summarizes the authorities.
Two years later the rapine began afresh. York in Maine was captured and burned in 1692 by the Abenakis, one of whose chiefs gave to Champigny the narrative which he sent to the Minister, Oct. 5, 1692, which Parkman calls the best French account. The Indians also gave Villebon the exaggerated story which he gives in his Journal de ce qui s’est passé à l’Acadie, 1691-1692. On the English side, we have the account in Mather’s Magnalia, and the later summaries of Williamson and of the general historians.
In June, Portneuf and St. Castin, with their savage followers, left Pentagöet to attack the frontier post of Wells, but they were foiled, and retreated. Villebon is here the principal French authority; and on the English side, to the more general accounts of Mather, Hutchinson, Williamson, and to the eclectic summary of Niles’s Indian and French Wars, we must add the local historian Bourne’s History of Wells.
PEMAQUID.
The reader can best follow Parkman (Frontenac, p. 357, etc.), who carefully notes the authorities for the way in which Frontenac was foiled in 1693 in an attempt to capture the English post at Pemaquid; and for the attack on Oyster River the next year (1694), Parkman’s references may be collated with Shea’s (Charlevoix, iv. 256). The expedition was under the conduct of Villieu and the Jesuit Thury, and what was then known as Oyster River is now Durham, about twenty miles from Portsmouth. Villieu’s own Journal is preserved: Relation du Voyage fait par le Sieur de Villieu ... pour faire la Guerre aux Anglois au printemps de l’an 1694, and Parkman says Champigny, Frontenac, and Callières in their reports adopt Villieu’s statements. Belknap’s New Hampshire has the best English account, which may be supplemented by various papers in the Provincial Records of New Hampshire, and the Journal of Pike in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiv. 128, with Dr. Quint’s notes. The Mass. Archives have depositions and letters.
In 1696 Iberville, in charge of two war-ships which had come from France, uniting with such forces and savage allies as Villebon, Villieu, St. Castin, and Thury could gather, appeared on the 14th of August before the English fort at Pemaquid, which quickly surrendered. Pemaquid is a peninsula on the Maine coast between the mouths of the Kennebec and Penobscot, and the fort was situated as shown in the accompanying sketch. It was the most easterly of the English posts in this debatable territory, as the French fort at Biguyduce (Pentagöet or Castine) was the most westerly of the enemy’s. The fort at Pemaquid had been rebuilt of stone by Phips in 1692. (Mather’s Magnalia, Johnston’s Bristol and Bremen.) Baudoin, an Acadian priest, accompanied the expedition, and wrote a Journal d’une voyage fait avec M. d’Iberville, and Parkman also cites as contemporary French authorities the Relation de ce qui s’est passé, etc., of 1695-1696, and Des Goutin’s letter to the Minister of Sept. 23, 1696; cf. N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. ix.
Mather and Hutchinson are still the chief writers on the English side, while everything of local interest is gathered in Johnston’s History of Bristol and Bremen, in Maine, including Pemaquid, Albany, 1873.
The immediate result of the capture of Pemaquid was to release D’Iberville for an attempt to drive the English from the east coast of Newfoundland in 1697. Parkman tells the story in his Frontenac, p. 391, and by him and by Shea in his Charlevoix, v. 46, the original sources are traced.
Mr. Parkman (Frontenac, p. 408) has an important note on the military insufficiency of the English colonies at this time.
C. Threatened French Attacks upon Boston.—Ever after the surrender of the region east of the Penobscot to the French in 1670, there were recurrent hopes of the French to make reprisals on the English by an attack on Boston, and emissaries of the French occasionally reported upon the condition of that town. Grandfontaine, on being empowered to receive the posts of Acadia from the English (Massachusetts Archives: Documents Collected in France, ii. 209, 211), had been instructed, March 5, 1670, to make Pentagöet his seat of government; and it was at Boston, July 7, 1670, that he and Temple concluded terms of peace; and we have (Ibid., ii. 227) a statement of the condition of the fort at Pentagöet when it was turned over. Talon (Ibid., ii. 247) shortly after informed the King of his intention to go to Acadia (Nov. 2, 1671), hoping for a conference with Temple, whom he reports as disgusted with the government at Boston, “which is more republican than monarchical;” and the Minister, in response, June 4, 1672 (Ibid., ii. 265), intimates that it might do to give naturalization papers and other favors to Temple, if he could be induced to come over to the French side. In 1678 new hopes were entertained, and under date of March 21, we find (Ibid., ii. 359) the French had procured a description of Boston and its shipping. Frontenac and Duchesneau were each representing to the Court the disadvantages Canada was under in relation to the trade of the eastern Indians, with Boston offering such rivalry (Ibid., ii. 363; iii. 12); and Duchesneau, Nov. 14, 1679, enlarges upon a description of Boston and its defenceless condition (Ibid., ii. 371). When the English made peace with the Abenakis in 1681, Frontenac reported it to the Court, with his grievances at the aggressions of the Boston people, to whom he had sent De la Vallière to demand redress (Ibid., iii. 29, 31); and to end the matter, Duchesneau, Nov. 13, 1681, proposed to the Minister the purchase of the English colonies. “It is true,” he says, “that Boston, which is an English town, does not acknowledge the sovereignty of the Duke of York at all, and very little the authority of the English King” (Ibid., iii. 35). The French meanwhile had assumed a right to Pemaquid, and Governor Dongan of New York had ordered them to withdraw (Ibid., iii. 81), while complications with the “Bastonnais” increased rapidly (Ibid., iii. 49). De Grosellier sent to the Minister new accounts of the Puritan town and its situation (Ibid., iii. 450); and the Bishop of Quebec remonstrated with the King for his permitting Huguenots to settle in Acadie, since they held communication with the people of Boston, and increased the danger (Ibid., iii. 95). The King in turn addressed himself rather to demanding of the Duke of York that he should see the English at Boston did not aid the savages of Acadia. In 1690 more active measures were proposed. On the day before Phips anchored at Port Royal, a “Projet” was drawn up at Versailles for an attack on Boston, in which its defenceless state was described:—
“La costé de Baston est peuplée, mais il n’y à aucun poste qui veille. Baston mesme est sans palissades à moins qu’on n’en ait mis depuis six mois. Il y a bien du peuple en cette colonie, mais assez difficile à rassembler. Monsieur Perrot connoist cette coste, et le Sieur de Villebon qui est à la Rochelle à present, avec le nommé La Motte,—tous le trois ont souvent esté à Baston et à Manat.... Par la carte suivante, on peut voir comme ce pays se trouve situé,” etc.
The capture of Pemaquid in 1696 revived hopes in the French of making a successful descent upon Boston, and even upon New York.
Several documents in reference to the scheme, and respecting in part Franquelin’s map of Boston, are in the Mass. Archives; Documents Collected in France, iv. 467, etc. This map is given in the Memorial History of Boston, vol. ii. p. li, from a copy made by Mr. Poore, and in Mr. Parkman’s manuscript collections. In the same place will be found accounts of earlier French maps of Boston (1692-1693), one of them by Franquelin, but both very inexact. The references on this projected inroad of the French are given by Parkman (Frontenac, p. 384), Shea (Charlevoix, v. 70), and Barry (Massachusetts, ii. 89, etc.).