It has been stated, and stated many times without dispute, that when England sacrificed the interests of her colonies in boundary settlements, she did so because she was in honor bound to observe the terms of treaties. One is constrained to ask whose ignorance was responsible for the terms of those treaties.
Looking back on the record so far,—both of France and England,—which has spent the more both of substance and of life for defense; the mother countries or the colonies?
CHAPTER XI
FROM 1713 TO 1755
La Vérendrye's adventuring to the West—Adventurers reach Lake Winnipeg—From Assiniboine to Missouri—Intrigue with Indians—The building of Louisburg—The siege of the great fort—Jokes bandied by fighters—Quarrels left unsettled—Beyond the Alleghenies—Washington and Jumonville—Braddock's march—Defeat of Braddock—Abbé Le Loutre—The Acadians—Deportation of French—At Lake Champlain—Dieskau defeated
What with clandestine raids and open wars, it might be thought that the little nation of New France had vent enough for the buoyant energy of its youth. While the population of the English colonies was nearing the million mark, New France had not 60,000 inhabitants by 1759. Yet what had the little nation, whose mainspring was at Quebec, accomplished? Look at the map! Her bushrovers had gone overland to Hudson Bay far north as Nelson. Before 1700 Duluth had forts at Kaministiquia (near modern Fort Williams) on Lake Superior. Radisson, Marquette, Jolliet, and La Salle had blazed a trail to the Mississippi from what is now Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. By 1701 La Motte Cadillac had built what is now Detroit in order to stop the progress of the English traders up the lakes to Michilimackinac; and by 1727 the Company of the Sioux had forts far west as Lake Pepin. With Quebec as the hub of the wheel, draw spokes across the map of North America. Where do they reach? From Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, to the Missouri, to the Upper Mississippi, to Lake Superior, to Hudson Bay. Who blazed the way through these far pathless wilds? Nameless wanderers dressed in rags and tatters,—outcasts of society, forest rovers lured by the Unknown as by a siren, soldiers of fortune, penniless, in debt, heartbroken, slandered, persecuted, driven by the demon of their own genius to earth's ends,—and to ruin!
Spite of clandestine raids and open wars, New France was now setting herself to stretch the lines of her discoveries farther westward.
It will be remembered it was at Three Rivers that the Indians of the Up Country paused on their way down the St. Lawrence. From the days of Radisson in 1660 the passion for discovery had been in the very air of Three Rivers. In this little fort was born in 1686 Pierre Gaultier Varennes de La Vérendrye, son of a French officer. From childhood the boy's ear must have been accustomed to the uncouth babblings of the half-naked Indians, whose canoes came swarming down the river soon as ice broke up in spring. One can guess that in his play the boy many a time simulated Indian voyageur, bushrover, coming home clad in furs, the envy of the villagers. At fourteen young Pierre had decided that he would be a great explorer, but destiny for the time ruled otherwise. At eighteen he was among the bushraiders of New England. Nineteen found him fighting the English in Newfoundland. Then came the honor coveted by all Canadian boys,—an appointment to the King's army in Europe. Young La Vérendrye was among the French forces defeated by the great Marlborough; but the Peace of Utrecht sent him back to Canada, aged twenty-seven, to serve in the far northern fur post of Nepigon, eating his heart out with ambition.