SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER
Charles de La Tour with his Huguenots hides safely ensconced behind his slab palisades with the swarthy faces of half a hundred Indian retainers lighted up by the huge logs at blaze on the hearth. Charles de La Tour takes counsel with himself. English at Port Royal, English at Cape Breton, English on the mainland at Boston, English ships passing and repassing his lone lodge in the wilderness, he will be safer, will Charles de La Tour, with wider distance between himself and the foe; and he will take more peltries where there are fewer traders. Still keeping his fort in Nova Scotia, La Tour goes across Fundy Bay and builds him a second, stronger fort on St. John River, New Brunswick, near where Carleton town stands to-day.
Then two things happened that upset all plans.
The Hundred Associates are given all Canada—Quebec and Acadia. Founded by Cardinal Richelieu, the Hundred Associates are violently Catholic, violently anti-Protestant. Charles de La Tour need expect no favors, if indeed the grant that he holds from Biencourt be not assailed. Double reason for moving the most of his possessions across Fundy Bay to St. John River.
Then the Englishmen, under the Kirke brothers, capture Quebec. As luck or ill luck will have it, among the French captured from the French ships of the Hundred Associates down at Tadoussac, is Claude de La Tour, the father of Charles. Claude de La Tour was a Protestant. This and his courtly manner and his noble birth commended him to the English court. What had France done for Claude de La Tour? Placed him under the ban on account of his religion.
Claude de La Tour promptly became a British subject, received the title Baronet of Nova Scotia with enormous grants of land on St. John River, New Brunswick, married an English lady in waiting to the Queen, and sailed with three men-of-war for Nova Scotia to win over his son Charles. No writer like Marc Lescarbot was present to describe the meeting between father and son; but one can guess the stormy scene,—the war between love of country and love of father, the guns of the father's vessels pointing at the son's fort, the guns of the son's fort pointing at the father's vessels. The father's arguments were strong. What had France done for the La Tours? By siding with England they would receive safe asylum in case of persecution and enormous grants of land on St. John River. But the son's arguments were stronger. The father must know from his English bride—maid in waiting to the English Queen—that England had no intentions of keeping her newly captured possessions in Canada, but had already decided to trade them back to France for a dowry to the English Queen. If Canada were given back to France, what were English grants in New Brunswick worth? "If those who sent you think me capable of betraying my country even at the prayer of my father, they are mightily mistaken," thundered the young man, ordering his gunners to their places. "I don't purchase honors by crime! I don't undervalue the offer of England's King; but the King of France is just as able to reward me! The King of France has confided the defense of Acadia to me; and I'll defend it to my last breath."
Stung by his son's rebuke, the elder La Tour retired to his ship, wrote one more unavailing appeal, then landed his mariners to rush the fort. But the rough bush lopers inside the palisades were expert marksmen. Their raking cross fire kept the English at a distance, and the father could neither drive nor coax his men to the sticking point of courage to scale palisades in such an unnatural war. Claude de La Tour was now in an unenviable plight. He dare not go back to France a traitor. He could not go back to England, having failed to win the day. The son built him a dwelling outside the fort; and there this famous courtier of two great nations, with his noble wife, retired to pass the end of his days in a wildwood wilderness far enough from the gaudy tinsel of courts. The fate of both husband and wife is unknown.
