By the Admiral's direction, Vetch was on board the Sapphire, the smallest of the frigates, with orders to pick out the safe channel for the rest of the fleet; and although but a landsman, he did his best to act as a pilot. All went well until they reached the wide mouth of the St. Lawrence. There, instead of depending upon one of the smaller ships to lead the way, the Admiral imprudently sailed with his flag-ship in the van. By a singular want of judgment, moreover, he chose to follow the channel north of the Island of Anticosti.
In the fairest of weathers this reef-strewn passage is full of peril, and a dense fog enveloped the fleet on that disastrous August evening. Although advised to anchor until the fog should lift, the Admiral scoffed at fear. Driven by a whistling wind, the ships of the line leaped forward, shaping a course north-north-west, until suddenly the sound of breakers burst upon them; and as if in relentless mockery, the rising moon lit up the angry reefs of Egg Island. Helms were put hard down, and the Admiral's vessel swung round to the wind; but eight of the tall battleships were too late to avoid their doom. Eight hundred and eighty-four persons were drowned, thirty-four of these being women.
A council of war was held three days later, but instead of pressing on up the river with the rest of the ships, Sir Hovenden Walker and Brigadier Hill, [22] the commander of the forces, decided to abandon the expedition. The Sapphire was despatched to Boston to recall the land force; and on the shores of Lake Champlain these inglorious orders overtook the sturdy Nicholson, who regretfully led his column back to Albany.
Meanwhile, Quebec had awaited this her third siege in a fever of anxiety. Vaudreuil had disposed a thousand men, under De Ramézay, at the new stone fort at Chambly to check the invasion by land, and strengthened the city with all available forces, regular and irregular. The habitants of the long Côte de Beaupré had hidden away their goods, and flocked within the walls of the city with all the provisions they could transport. Prayers for deliverance rose unceasingly from the altars of the churches and convents, while the nuns devoted themselves to a nine days' Mass at Notre Dame de Pitié.
Upon this anxiety came the tidings of the wreck at Egg Island. Once more Providence had intervened to save them, and Quebec was delirious with joy. Every belfry in New France pealed forth its hymn of thanksgiving. The little church on the Lower Town market-place changed its name from Notre Dame de la Victoire to Notre Dame des Victoires, and the citizens added a portico in token of their exultation and gratitude.
The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which brought the war of the Spanish succession to a close, deprived France of many of her American possessions. Chief of these were Acadia, Newfoundland, and the Hudson's Bay Territory, all of which were now ceded to England. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, France retained only the Isle Royale, Isle of St. John,[23] and the two tiny rocks of St. Pierre and Miquelon. New France was, however, unwilling to give up her hold on the Atlantic seaboard, and procured a grant of thirty million francs from the home government to build the fortress of Louisbourg at the entrance to the river St. Lawrence. Vauban, the great French engineer, drew the plans of that vast fortification on the rocky headland of Cape Breton, which was destined to play so important a part in the final storm then gathering over the American continent.
In the meantime New France had entered upon a season of unexpected peace—unexpected because for at least two generations the conflict with the English colonists had been so continuous that Quebec had almost come to regard warfare as her normal state. The respite following upon the Treaty of Utrecht was the more welcome; and in that breathing space of almost thirty years it seemed as if a real prosperity had at last visited the St. Lawrence. The cultivation of flax and hemp and the weaving of cloth, which had been but a feeble industry since the days of Talon, now assumed real importance. Furs were still the main resource of the colony; but grain, fish, oil, and leather also found their way to France in increasing quantities. Quebec became the centre of a considerable shipping trade, and sea-going vessels were launched from the stocks on the bank of the little St. Charles.
Moreover, the energies of the people presently found another and alluring field. In 1716 a missionary to the Sault Indians discovered the gensing root, which, as a medical drug, was quoted in European markets at its weight in silver. At first its price in Quebec was only forty sols per pound, but when the people saw its value rising to almost as many livres, the rush of searchers to the woods left all other industries at a standstill. Agriculture furnished a slow road to wealth by comparison with the hunt of the gensing plant, and Quebec passed through the fever of a modern gold-rush. Natural and economic conditions, however, had provided their own remedy; and in time the glut of the market and the extirpation of the gensing plant sent the feverish botanists back to their wonted pursuits. Then ensued a period of peace and quiet progress, of patriotic co-operation of the officials and the people for the good of the land.
In 1725 the long and beneficent rule of the first Vaudreuil came to an end, and the Marquis de Beauharnois succeeded to the governorship of Quebec. The features of this and the succeeding administrations were the further expansion westward of New France and the construction of that chain of forts by which she sought finally to fasten her grip upon the continent. One by one these fortresses rose up in the far wilderness to hem in the English between the sea and the Alleghanies, and one by one they were demolished, as England and her colonies slowly rolled down the curtain on the drama of French dominion in North America.