The term of his first government lasted for ten years, from 1672 to 1682. They were years of constant wrangling and worry. He was at daggers drawn with the Jesuits, and his quarrels with his colleagues on the Council, notably the Intendant, Duchesnau, were similar to the disputes between Warren Hastings and Francis at another time and place. The end of it was that both Frontenac and Duchesnau were recalled; but Frontenac had left his mark, and after seven years' interval, during which two governors failed, he was sent back at a critical time to Canada.
| His attempt to introduce political representation. Jealousy between Quebec and Montreal. |
Two incidents in his first administration may be picked out as illustrating the boldness of his character, and implying foresight and breadth of view unusual in a French Governor under Louis XIV. The first was his crude attempt, already noticed,8 to form a kind of Canadian parliament on the old French model, with the three estates of clergy, nobles, and people. It was a rash step to take immediately after his arrival, when he could not have known the conditions of the colony, and must have known well the wishes of the King. It brought upon him a severe reprimand from home, and his scheme came to nothing. But the step, if ill timed, was in the right direction. Some semblance of popular assembly would have done much for Canada, if only as tending to create a national sentiment and to allay local jealousies. For among the many elements of weakness in the colony in its early days was the semi-independence of Montreal. Montreal was the commercial dépôt for the upper St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, and the great lakes. It was the meeting-place of French and native fur-traders. In it centred the natural wealth of Canada, and to it resorted the most enterprising and the least settled part of the population. It was jealous of the older settlement of Quebec, which was the seat of government, the centre of law and order, and which, being nearer the sea, commanded the import and export trade with Europe. Under its feudal Seigniors, the Sulpician monks, Montreal claimed to have some voice in the appointment of the local Governor; and Perrot its Governor, in the early days of Frontenac's first administration, defied within the limits of his district the authority of the Governor-General, and imprisoned his officers.
8 See above [note].
| Founding of Fort Frontenac. |
The second event to be specially noted was the building of a fort on the northern bank of the St. Lawrence, at the point where it flows out of Lake Ontario. The place was known to the Indians as Cataraqui. It is now the site of the town of Kingston. The new fort, built in 1673, the year after Frontenac came to Canada, was named after him, Fort Frontenac. Its building marked the onward movement of the French. Hitherto their main concern had been to secure mastery of the central St. Lawrence between Quebec and Montreal, together with the command of the Richelieu river. Among the Iroquois, they had fought chiefly with the Mohawks, the easternmost and nearest of the Five Nations. But before Frontenac came, and long before the central St. Lawrence was wholly safe, traders and missionaries had gained knowledge of the western lakes, and Fort Frontenac was built to be at once a new outpost of the colony, guarding the upper reaches of the St. Lawrence, and a starting-point for further exploiting the trade routes of the west. By building it, the Frenchmen made good their claim to the river of Canada for its whole length from the lakes to the sea, and planted themselves at the entrance of a new and vast system of waterways.
As the St. Lawrence on its upward course broadens into Lake Ontario, so, as the French went further west, the story of Canada widens out. From the tale of two or three river settlements it slowly grows into the history of a continent. The struggle becomes more and more a struggle not so much for bare existence as for supremacy. The Iroquois were a deadly danger still, but the danger largely consisted in the fact that behind them was a strong and, as a rule to them, a friendly European colony—the English State of New York. Every year intensified the rivalry between French and English. Every year showed that both sought to control the trade of the west. The main practical issue, for the time being, was whether the furs from the lake region should come down the St. Lawrence to Montreal and Quebec, or be diverted to Albany through the country of the Five Nations. The Iroquois held the key of the position, and they knew it. Unless they could be taught either to fear or to love the French, there was little hope for Canada.
| The French come into contact with the Senecas. |
As the French moved up the St. Lawrence, and along Lake Ontario, they passed along the line of the Five Nations, and came directly into conflict with the furthermost and the strongest of the five, the Senecas. After Tracy's successful expedition against the Mohawks in 1666, the Iroquois gave comparatively little trouble for some years. They knew well the difference between a strong and a weak Onontio, as they styled the Governor of Canada, and for Courcelles, and his successor Frontenac, they had a wholesome respect. When Frontenac was recalled, in 1682, there was a different tale to tell.
| Frontenac recalled and succeeded by La Barre. |