Sir William Alexander,27 a Scotch favourite of James I, had in the year 1621 obtained from the King a grant of Acadia, or, as it was styled in the patent, Nova Scotia. The patent was renewed by Charles I. When war broke out between Great Britain and France, Alexander combined with certain London merchants, styled 'Adventurers to Canada,' or 'Adventurers in the Company of Canada,' to strike a blow at the French in North America. Prominent among these merchants was George Kirke, a Derbyshire man, who had married the daughter of a merchant of Dieppe. Three ships were fitted out under the command of Kirke's three sons, David, Lewis, and Thomas, David Kirke being in charge of the expedition. The Kirkes were furnished with letters of marque from the King, authorizing them to attack French ships and French settlements in America; and, well armed and equipped, they sailed over the Atlantic, entering the St. Lawrence at the beginning of July, 1628.
27 A further account of Sir William Alexander is given [below].
| attacks the French on the St. Lawrence and destroys a French fleet. |
Below Quebec was the trading station at Tadoussac, and higher up than Tadoussac, less than thirty miles below Quebec, there was a small farming establishment—a 'petite ferme'—at Cape Tourmente, whence the garrison at Quebec drew supplies. Kirke took up his position at Tadoussac, and sent a small party up the river, who burnt and rifled the buildings at Cape Tourmente and killed the cattle. He then dispatched some of his prisoners to Quebec and called upon Champlain to surrender. The summons was rejected, though the garrison was in sore straits. The Iroquois had been of late on the warpath, and the inroads of Indians on the one hand and of English on the other, meant starvation to the handful of men on the rock of Quebec. Yet Richelieu had not been unmindful of Canada. While these events were happening, a French fleet of eighteen vessels had sailed from Dieppe, laden with arms and supplies, and bringing also some settlers with their families, and the inevitable accompaniment of priests. It was the first effort made by the newly formed French company, an earnest of their intention to give strength and permanence to New France. The expedition reached Gaspé Point, at the entrance of the St. Lawrence; but between them and Quebec were the Kirkes and their ships. Instead of moving up the river to attack Quebec, the English admiral went down the river to intercept the new-comers. The English ships were but three to eighteen; but the three ships were fitted and manned for war. The French vessels were transports only, freighted with stores and non-combatants, unable either to fight or to escape. On July 18, Kirke attacked them, and seventeen out of the eighteen ships fell into his hands. Ten vessels he emptied and burnt, the rest of his prizes, with all the cargo and prisoners, he carried off in triumph to Newfoundland.
| First English capture of Quebec. |
There was bitterness in France when the news came of this great disaster; there was distress and hopelessness at Quebec, where Champlain still held out through the following winter. Kirke had gone back to England; but when July came round again in 1629, he reappeared in the St. Lawrence, with a stronger fleet than before. The Frenchmen at Quebec were by this time starved out, they had no alternative but to surrender; and on July 22, 1629, the English flag was for the first time hoisted on the rocky citadel of Canada. There was little booty for the conquerors, nothing but beaver skins, which were subsequently sequestrated, and Canadian pines were cut down to freight the English ships. Kirke's ships carried back to England Champlain and his companions, who thence returned to their homes in France; and Quebec was left in charge of an English garrison.
| Convention of Susa and Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye. Canada given back to France. |
The Merchant Adventurers had done their work well. With little or no loss, unaided by the Government, they had driven the French from Canada and annexed New France. Had Queen Elizabeth been on the throne of England, she would have scolded and then approved; and would have kept for her country the fruits of English daring and English success. The bold freebooter, Kirke, would have found favour in her eyes; she would have honoured and rewarded him, as she honoured and rewarded Drake. But the Stuarts were cast in a different mould, and no English minister at the time was a match for Richelieu. Before Quebec had fallen, Charles of England and Louis of France had concluded the Convention of Susa, on April 24, 1629; and the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, signed nearly three years later, on March 29, 1632, definitely restored to France her possessions in North America.28 No consideration was embodied in the treaty for the surrender of Canada, but State Papers have made clear that the price was the unpaid half of Queen Henrietta Maria's marriage dowry. For this sum, already due and wrongly outstanding, Canada was sold. It was a pitiful proceeding, unworthy of an English King, but typical of a Stuart. It is noteworthy that early in the seventeenth century both the Cape and Canada might have become and remained British colonies. In 1620 two sea captains formally annexed the Cape, before any settlement had as yet been founded at Table Bay; but their action was never ratified by the Government at home.29 Nine years later Kirke took Quebec, and again the work was undone. So the Dutch in the one case, and the French in the other, made colonies where the English might have run their course; and generations afterwards, Great Britain took again, with toil and trouble, what her adventurers, with truer instinct than her rulers possessed, had claimed and would have kept in earlier days. It is noteworthy, too, that state policy was in great measure responsible for the earlier French loss of Canada, as it was mainly responsible for the later. It is true that Quebec was taken while the French Protestants were still to some extent tolerated, and that a Protestant, De Caen, was selected to receive it back again, when the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye was carried into effect. But there were Huguenots on board Kirke's ships, serving under a commander whose mother was of Huguenot blood; and the schism which had broken out in France and culminated for the time in the siege and fall of La Rochelle, left the best of the French traders and colonizers half-hearted servants of France. Canada was given back, but it was given back to the French Government rather than to the French people; and, as years went on, the St. Lawrence saw no more of the stubborn, strong heretics who had sung their Protestant hymns on its banks. Frenchmen, as gallant as they were, had afterwards the keeping of Canada; but, state-ridden and priest-ridden, they lacked initiative and commercial enterprise. Freedom was to be found in the backwoods among the coureurs de bois, but it was the freedom of lawlessness, unleavened by the steadfast sobriety which marked the Calvinists of France.
28 The Convention of Susa provided that all acts of hostility should cease, and that the articles and contracts as to the marriage of the English Queen should be confirmed. The Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, or rather one of two treaties signed on the same day, provided for the restitution to France of all places occupied by the English in New France, Acadia, and Canada. Instructions to make restitution were to be given to the commanders at Port Royal, Fort Quebec, and Cape Breton. General de Caen was named in the treaty as the French representative to arrange for the evacuation of the English. The places were to be restored in the same condition as they had been in at the time of capture, all arms taken were to be made good, and a sum was to be paid for the furs, &c., which had been carried off.
29 See vol. iv of this series, pt. 1, p. 19.