Fort Nelson was a palisade work, garrisoned by traders and other civilians in the employ of the English fur company, and commanded by one of its agents, named Bailey. Though it had a considerable number of small cannon, it was incapable of defence against any thing but musketry; and the French bombs soon made it untenable. After being three times summoned, Bailey lowered his flag, though not till he had obtained honorable terms; and he and his men marched out with arms and baggage, drums beating and colors flying.
Iberville had triumphed over the storms, the icebergs, and the English. The north had seen his prowess, and another fame awaited him in the regions of the sun; for he became the father of Louisiana, and his brother Bienville founded New Orleans. [3]
[3] On the capture of Fort Nelson, Iberville au Ministre, 8 Nov., 1697; Jérémie, Relation de la Baye de Hudson; La Potherie, I. 85-109. All these writers were present at the attack.
These northern conflicts were but episodes. In Hudson's Bay, Newfoundland, and Acadia, the issues of the war were unimportant, compared with the momentous question whether France or England should be mistress of the west; that is to say, of the whole interior of the continent. There was a strange contrast in the attitude of the rival colonies towards this supreme prize: the one was inert, and seemingly indifferent; the other, intensely active. The reason is obvious enough. The English colonies were separate, jealous of the crown and of each other, and incapable as yet of acting in concert. Living by agriculture and trade, they could prosper within limited areas, and had no present need of spreading beyond the Alleghanies. Each of them was an aggregate of persons, busied with their own affairs, and giving little heed to matters which did not immediately concern them. Their rulers, whether chosen by themselves or appointed in England, could not compel them to become the instruments of enterprises in which the sacrifice was present, and the advantage remote. The neglect in which the English court left them, though wholesome in most respects, made them unfit for aggressive action; for they had neither troops, commanders, political union, military organization, nor military habits. In communities so busy, and governments so popular, much could not be done, in war, till the people were roused to the necessity of doing it; and that awakening was still far distant. Even New York, the only exposed colony, except Massachusetts and New Hampshire, regarded the war merely as a nuisance to be held at arm's length. [4]
[4] See note at the end of the chapter.
In Canada, all was different. Living by the fur trade, she needed free range and indefinite space. Her geographical position determined the nature of her pursuits; and her pursuits developed the roving and adventurous character of her people, who, living under a military rule, could be directed at will to such ends as their rulers saw fit. The grand French scheme of territorial extension was not born at court, but sprang from Canadian soil, and was developed by the chiefs of the colony, who, being on the ground, saw the possibilities and requirements of the situation, and generally had a personal interest in realizing them. The rival colonies had two different laws of growth. The one increased by slow extension, rooting firmly as it spread; the other shot offshoots, with few or no roots, far out into the wilderness. It was the nature of French colonization to seize upon detached strategic points, and hold them by the bayonet, forming no agricultural basis, but attracting the Indians by trade, and holding them by conversion. A musket, a rosary, and a pack of beaver skins may serve to represent it, and in fact it consisted of little else.
Whence came the numerical weakness of New France, and the real though latent strength of her rivals? Because, it is answered, the French were not an emigrating people; but, at the end of the seventeenth century, this was only half true. The French people were divided into two parts, one eager to emigrate, and the other reluctant. The one consisted of the persecuted Huguenots, the other of the favored Catholics. The government chose to construct its colonies, not of those who wished to go, but of those who wished to stay at home. From the hour when the edict of Nantes was revoked, hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen would have hailed as a boon the permission to transport themselves, their families, and their property to the New World. The permission was fiercely refused, and the persecuted sect was denied even a refuge in the wilderness. Had it been granted them, the valleys of the west would have swarmed with a laborious and virtuous population, trained in adversity, and possessing the essential qualities of self-government. Another France would have grown beyond the Alleghanies, strong with the same kind of strength that made the future greatness of the British colonies. British America was an asylum for the oppressed and the suffering of all creeds and nations, and population poured into her by the force of a natural tendency. France, like England, might have been great in two hemispheres, if she had placed herself in accord with this tendency, instead of opposing it; but despotism was consistent with itself, and a mighty opportunity was for ever lost.
As soon could the Ethiopian change his skin as the priest-ridden king change his fatal policy of exclusion. Canada must be bound to the papacy, even if it blasted her. The contest for the west must be waged by the means which Bourbon policy ordained, and which, it must be admitted, had some great advantages of their own, when controlled by a man like Frontenac. The result hung, for the present, on the relations of the French with the Iroquois and the tribes of the lakes, the Illinois, and the valley of the Ohio, but, above all, on their relations with the Iroquois; for, could they be conquered or won over, it would be easy to deal with the rest.
Frontenac was meditating a grand effort to inflict such castigation as would bring them to reason, when one of their chiefs, named Tareha, came to Quebec with overtures of peace. The Iroquois had lost many of their best warriors. The arrival of troops from France had discouraged them; the war had interrupted their hunting; and, having no furs to barter with the English, they were in want of arms, ammunition, and all the necessaries of life. Moreover, Father Milet, nominally a prisoner among them, but really an adopted chief, had used all his influence to bring about a peace; and the mission of Tareha was the result. Frontenac received him kindly. "My Iroquois children have been drunk; but I will give them an opportunity to repent. Let each of your five nations send me two deputies, and I will listen to what they have to say." They would not come, but sent him instead an invitation to meet them and their friends, the English, in a general council at Albany; a proposal which he rejected with contempt. Then they sent another deputation, partly to him and partly to their Christian countrymen of the Saut and the Mountain, inviting all alike to come and treat with them at Onondaga. Frontenac, adopting the Indian fashion, kicked away their wampum belts, rebuked them for tampering with the mission Indians, and told them that they were rebels, bribed by the English; adding that, if a suitable deputation should be sent to Quebec to treat squarely of peace, he still would listen, but that, if they came back with any more such proposals as they had just made, they should be roasted alive.
A few weeks later, the deputation appeared. It consisted of two chiefs of each nation, headed by the renowned orator Decanisora, or, as the French wrote the name, Tegannisorens. The council was held in the hall of the supreme council at Quebec. The dignitaries of the colony were present, with priests, Jesuits, Récollets, officers, and the Christian chiefs of the Saut and the Mountain. The appearance of the ambassadors bespoke their destitute plight; for they were all dressed in shabby deerskins and old blankets, except Decanisora, who was attired in a scarlet coat laced with gold, given him by the governor of New York. Colden, who knew him in his old age, describes him as a tall, well-formed man, with a face not unlike the busts of Cicero. "He spoke," says the French reporter, "with as perfect a grace as is vouchsafed to an uncivilized people;" buried the hatchet, covered the blood that had been spilled, opened the roads, and cleared the clouds from the sun. In other words, he offered peace; but he demanded at the same time that it should include the English. Frontenac replied, in substance: "My children are right to come submissive and repentant. I am ready to forgive the past, and hang up the hatchet; but the peace must include all my other children, far and near. Shut your ears to English poison. The war with the English has nothing to do with you, and only the great kings across the sea have power to stop it. You must give up all your prisoners, both French and Indian, without one exception. I will then return mine, and make peace with you, but not before." He then entertained them at his own table, gave them a feast described as "magnificent," and bestowed gifts so liberally, that the tattered ambassadors went home in embroidered coats, laced shirts, and plumed hats. They were pledged to return with the prisoners before the end of the season, and they left two hostages as security. [5]