CHAMPLAIN’S ROUTE, 1615.
[This sketch-map follows one given by Mr. O. H. Marshall in connection with a paper on “Champlain’s Expedition of 1615” in the Mag. of Amer. Hist., August, 1878. It shows the route believed by Mr. Marshall to be that of Champlain from Quinté Bay, and the route suggested by General John S. Clark, which is in the main accepted by Dr. Shea.
The route of Champlain and the site of the fort attacked by him has occasioned a diversity of views. Champlain’s own narrative, besides making part of the English translation of his works, is also translated in the Doc. Hist. of New York, vol. iii., and in the Mag. of Amer. Hist., September, 1877, p. 561. Fac-similes of the print of the fort, besides being in the works, are also in the Doc. Hist. of New York, iii. 9; Shea’s Le Clercq, i. 104; Mag. of Amer. Hist., September, 1877; Watson’s History of Essex County, N. Y., p. 22.
Mr. Marshall began the discussion of these questions as early as 1849 in the New York Hist. Soc. Proc. for March of the same year, p. 96; but gave the riper results of his study in the Mag. of Amer. Hist., vol. i., January, 1877, with a fac-simile of Champlain’s 1632 map. His views here were controverted in the same, September, 1877, by George Geddes, who placed the fort on Onondaga Creek, and by Dr. J. G. Shea in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History, ii. 103, who substantially agreed with an address by General J. S. Clark, which has not yet been printed, but whose views are shared by Mr. L. W. Ledyard, who in an address, Jan. 9, 1883, at Cazenovia, N. Y., tells the story of his own and General Clark’s investigation of the site of the fort, and places it near Perryville, N. Y. Dr. Shea, in his Le Clercq, i. 100, has since gone over the authorities. It was in reply to Geddes, Shea, and Clark that Mr. Marshall wrote the paper from which the above sketch-map is taken. Dr. O’Callaghan, in his Documentary History of New York, iii. 16, had advanced the theory that the fort was on Lake Canandaigua: and to this view Mr. Parkman guardedly assented in his Pioneers, and so marked the fort on his map. Brodhead, History of New York, i. 69, and Clark in his History of Onondaga, placed it on Onondaga Lake. Cf. the Transactions of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, New Series, part ii., and the notes in the Quebec and Prince Society editions of Champlain’s Voyages.—Ed.]
But it offered an opportunity for exploring unknown regions which Champlain could not bring himself to decline. Accordingly, on the 9th of July, 1615, Champlain embarked with an interpreter, a French servant, and ten savages, in two birch-bark canoes. They ascended the Ottawa, entered the Mattawan, and by other waters reached Lake Nipissing. Crossing this lake and following the channel of French River, they entered Lake Huron, or the Georgian Bay, and coasted along until they reached the present county of Simcoe. Here they found the missionary Le Caron, who had preceded them. Eight Frenchmen belonging to his company joined that of Champlain. The mustering hosts of the savage warriors came in from every direction. At length, crossing Lake Simcoe, by rivers and lakes and frequent portages they reached Lake Ontario just as it merges into the River St. Lawrence, and passing over to the New York side, they concealed their canoes in a thicket near the shore, and proceeded by land; striking inland, crossing the stream now known as Oneida River, they finally, on the 10th of October, reached the great Iroquois fortress, situated a few miles south of the eastern end of Oneida Lake. This fort was hexagonal in form, constructed of four rows of palisades thirty feet in height, with a gallery near the top, and water-spouts for the extinguishing of fire. It inclosed several acres, and was a strong work of its kind. The attack of the allies was fierce and desultory, without plan or system, notwithstanding Champlain’s efforts to direct it. A considerable number of the Iroquois were killed by the French firearms, and many were wounded; but no effective impression was made upon the fortress. After lingering before the fort some days, the allies began their retreat. Champlain, having been wounded, was transported in a basket made for the purpose. Returning to the other side of Lake Ontario, to a famous hunting-ground,—probably north of the present town of Kingston,—they remained several weeks, capturing a large number of deer. When the frosts of December had sealed up the ground, the streams, and lakes, they returned to the home of the Hurons in Simcoe, dragging with incredible labor their stores of venison through bog and fen and pathless forest. Here Champlain passed the winter, making excursions to neighboring Indian tribes, and studying their habits and character from his personal observation, and writing out the results with great minuteness and detail. As soon as the season was sufficiently advanced, Champlain began his journey homeward by the circuitous route of his advance, and arrived safely after an absence of nearly a year. Having put in execution plans for the repair and enlargement of the buildings at Quebec, he returned to France.
For several years the trade in furs was conducted as usual, with occasional changes both in the Company in France and in local management. These, however, were of no very essential importance, and the details must be passed by in this brief narrative. The ceaseless struggle for large dividends and small expenditures on the part of the company of merchants did not permit any considerable enlargement of the colony, or any improvements which did not promise immediate returns. Repairs upon the buildings and a new fort constructed on the brow of the precipice in the rear of the settlement were carried forward tardily and grudgingly.[382] As a mere trading-post it had undoubtedly been successful. The average number of beaver skins annually purchased of the Indians and transported to France was probably not far from fifteen or twenty thousand, and it sometimes reached twenty-two thousand. The annual dividend of forty per cent on the investment, as intimated by Champlain, must have been highly satisfactory to the Company. The settlement maintained the character of a trading-post, but hardly that of a colonial plantation. After the lapse of nearly twenty years, the average number of colonists did not exceed much more than fifty. This progress was not satisfactory to Champlain, to the Viceroy, or to the Council of State. In 1627 a change became inevitable. Cardinal de Richelieu had become grand master and chief of the navigation and commerce of France. He saw the importance of rendering this colony worthy of the fame and greatness of the nation under whose authority it had been planted. Acting with characteristic promptness and decision, he dissolved the old Company and instituted a new one, denominated La Compagnie de la Nouvelle France, consisting of a hundred or more members, and commonly known as the Company of the Hundred Associates. The constitution of this society possessed several important features, which seemed to assure the solid growth of the colony. Richelieu was its constituted head. Its authority was to extend over the whole territory of New France and Florida. Its capital was three hundred thousand livres. It proposed to send to Canada in 1628 from two hundred to three hundred artisans of all classes, and within the space of fifteen years to transport four thousand colonists to New France. These were to be wholly supported by the Company for three years, and after that they were to have assigned to them as much land as was needed for cultivation. The settlers were to be natives of France and exclusively of the Catholic faith, and no Huguenot was to be allowed to enter the country. The Company was to have exclusive control of trade, and all goods manufactured in New France were to be free of imposts on exportation. Such were the more general and prominent features of the association. In the spring of 1628 the Company, thus organized, despatched four armed vessels to convoy a fleet of eighteen transports, laden with emigrants and stores, together with one hundred and thirty-five pieces of ordnance to fortify the settlement at Quebec.
War existing at that time between England and France, an English fleet was already on its way to destroy the French colony at Quebec. The transports and convoy sent out by the Company of the Hundred Associates were intercepted on their way, carried into England, and confiscated. On the arrival of the English at Tadoussac, David Kirke, the commander, sent up a summons to Champlain at Quebec, demanding the surrender of the town; this Champlain declined to do with such an air of assurance that the English commander did not attempt to enforce his demand. The supplies for the settlement having thus been cut off by the English, before the next spring the colony was on the point of perishing by starvation. Half of them had been billeted on Indian tribes to escape impending death. On the 19th of July, 1629, three English vessels appeared before Quebec, and again demanded its surrender. Destitute of provisions and of all means of defence, with only a handful of famishing men, Champlain delivered up the post without hesitation. All the movable property belonging to the Company at Quebec was surrendered. The whole colony, with the exception of such as preferred to remain, were transported to France by way of England. On their arrival at Plymouth, it was ascertained that the war between the two countries had come to an end, and that the articles of peace provided that all conquests made subsequent to the 24th of April, 1629, were to be restored; and consequently Quebec, and the peltry and other property taken after that date, must be remanded to their former owners. Notwithstanding this, Champlain was taken to London and held as a prisoner of war for several weeks, during which time the base attempt was made to compel him to pay a ransom for his freedom. Such illegal and unjust artifices practised upon a man like Champlain of course came to nothing, except to place upon the pages of history a fresh example of what the avarice of men will lead them to do. After having been detained a month, Champlain was permitted to depart for France.
