Citadel in Winter
In the midst of it all, death was slowly creeping upon the central figure of so many stormy scenes. The treaty concluded at Ryswick in 1697, and proclaimed in Canada, improved the position of theFrench in America, encouraging them to new aspirations of conquest. Already on the brink of the grave, the indomitable Frontenac cast his challenge in the teeth of New England, claiming the Iroquois as the recalcitrant subjects of Louis XIV. The gage was duly taken, and although the challenger could not await the issue, his visor remained closed till the end. Even in death Count Frontenac set his face against the Jesuits, for he was buried in the Récollet Chapel. When he was laid to rest the province was stricken with genuine grief, for all men felt that the best bulwark of New France had been laid in mortal ruin.
Frontenac's best legacy to Quebec and to Canada was the pacification of the Indian tribes. Under his stern rule the prestige of France had been restored, and to the new Governor, De Callières, was left the duty of arranging the formalities of peace with the ancient enemy, the Iroquois. A treaty, however, was only concluded in the face of strenuous opposition from New England, which now beheld with grave concern the changed front of the "Five Nations," who, for the space of a hundred years, had been the sharpest thorn in the side of New France, and whose territory had been as armour-plate about their own settlements.
In opportune time the Treaty of Ryswick had nominally settled all points of contention between France and England in both hemispheres, and it was soon followed by the cessation of hostilities between the whites and Indians. The Governor of New France summoned deputies from all the tribes to agrand council, at which, after many days of debate, he skilfully persuaded them to bury the hatchet and submit their internecine differences to Quebec for arbitration. Belts of wampum were exchanged, and the calumet of peace was passed forthwith between the followers and colleagues of De Callières and the painted chiefs of a dozen tribes.
The conclusion of this treaty was a fortunate stroke of French diplomacy, as not many months were to pass before Europe became once more involved in a war, into which the colonies of the rival powers were naturally drawn. Apart from the recognition of the English Pretender in France, the immediate cause of war in Europe was the question of the Spanish succession; for while Louis XIV. claimed the throne for his grandson, Philip of Anjou, England, on the other hand, recognised that this union of France and Spain would upset the balance of power on both sides of the Atlantic, and that her American possessions would be exposed to a cross fire from both north and south.
The great battles of Blenheim, Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet of the European conflict had their counterpart in thepetite guerrewhich was waged by the opposing colonies in America. French privateers issuing from Port Royal swept along the coast of New England, the settlements of Acadia suffering reprisals in kind. At last the ruthlessdestruction of the little village of Haverhill on the Merrimac by a Canadian war-party roused the English colonists to fury, and they loudly demanded the conquest of Canada. The authorities were already predisposed to this large undertaking by the arguments of one Samuel Vetch, whom the Governor of Massachusetts had formerly despatched on a special mission to Canada. Vetch soon perceived that the defences of Quebec and Montreal were not too formidable to be overcome by a well-devised assault; and proceeding to England he made representations to the advisers of Queen Anne, who, in 1709, sent him back to Boston with command to contrive an expedition against the fortress of Canada. A land force from New England was to proceed northward by way of the Richelieu, and to co-operate with an English fleet on the St. Lawrence.
Once more, however, fortune intervened to save Quebec. England long delayed in sending the promised fleet, and it was already late autumn before the colonial forces were ready to set out. While Colonel Nicholson, its leader, perceived the hopelessness of so unseasonable an assault upon the city, he was yet unwilling to remain inactive. Moreover, Acadia lay close by, and the stronghold of Port Royal challenged his arms. He determined on its subjection. The brave high-spiritedSubercase[21]was commandant of the town, and although his garrison was ill-provisioned and almost destitute of ammunition, the fort was defended with the utmost boldness against the overwhelming force of the besiegers. Subercase saw the hopelessness of his situation from the first, but in the end his invincible courage secured an honourable capitulation, and, with a pomp and circumstance contrasting strangely with their starved faces and ragged uniforms, the little garrison of Port Royal marched proudly out of the fort. Nicholson took possession of the stronghold and changed its name to Annapolis in honour of the British sovereign. So fell the first of these fortresses, which were the counters in that long game played on the chess-board of a continent.
The capture of Port Royal strengthened the determination of the English colonists to drive the French out of Canada by destroying their grim stronghold upon the St. Lawrence. The home government fell in readily with the project, and despatched seven regiments of the line, fresh from Marlborough's campaigns, together with a fleet of fifteen warships under Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker. This powerful auxiliary to the strength of the colonies arrived duly at Boston, where the detailsof the invasion of Canada were arranged; and when at length all was ready, the English admiral sailed from Boston for the St. Lawrence, Nicholson at the same time setting out overland for Montreal with a force of twelve thousand men.
In the meanwhile Vaudreuil had succeeded De Callières as Governor at Quebec, a post which long military experience in Canada fitted him to hold in the warfare now enveloping New France. At this time the total population of the country was not much more than fifteen thousand souls, and of fighting men—those whose ages ranged from fifteen years to sixty—Montreal possessed twelve hundred, Three Rivers four hundred, and the district of Quebec twenty-two hundred. On the other hand, the population of the New England colonies was something over one hundred thousand, the colony of New York alone twice outnumbering New France.
Such disparity in the populations of the warring colonies was, however, somewhat discounted by another consideration; for while the power of New France was well organised and capable of skilful direction, the English colonists could carry out no enterprise with the undisciplined soldiery at their disposal. This explains why the French were able to survive for more than half a century the attacks of antagonists richer, more numerous, and not less valorous than themselves. It further shows why,throughout their continuous border warfare, the more audacious and better-trained soldiery of New France triumphed so often over the raw levies of Connecticut and New York.
Sir Hovenden Walker's armada set sail from Boston harbour on the 30th of July, 1711, fore-doomed, through the incapacity of its leader, to the most ignominious failure yet befalling any expedition against Quebec. By reason of his former mission to Canada, Colonel Vetch had been commanded to accompany the fleet, and hisJournal of a Voyage Designed to Quebecfurnishes the mournful details of this ill-fated enterprise.
By the Admiral's direction, Vetch was on board theSapphire, 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 advisedto 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. TheSapphirewas 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. Thehabitantsof the long Côte deBeaupré 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 fromNotre Dame de la VictoiretoNotre 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 governmentto 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 quotedin 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 manylivres, 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.
Nearer home, also, that is to say, nearer to Quebec, French enterprise had taken the form of building and manning forts; and as the fate of these scattered strongholds closely affects the story of Quebec, a brief outline of their location is here given.
Port Royal had passed for ever out of French hands, and to take its place the giant bastions of Louisbourg had risen on a ridge of rock which made one arm of Gabarus Bay. On the river Missaguash, which the French claimed to mark the northern boundary of English Acadia, stood Fort Beauséjour. Chambly, Sorel, and St. Thérèse, on the Richelieu, were Indian forts of old foundation; and as a further defence against the English, Beauharnois built Crown Point at the narrows of Lake Champlain. The stronghold of Carillon was situated a few miles beyond. On the Alleghany river, Forts Venango and Le Bœuf barred the westward growth of Pennsylvania; and Fort Duquesne, begun as an English fort by the Ohio Company, guarded the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela. Fort Niagara, near one end of Lake Ontario, and Fort Frontenac at the other, were also to figure in the closing stages of the conflict.
The exploit of the Sieur de la Vérendrye, which marked this period, was perhaps the most picturesque achievement Quebec had witnessed since the days of La Salle. In the spring of 1731, La Vérendrye,with his three sons and a handful of adventurouscoureurs de bois, set off from the trading post of Michillimackinac to take possession of the West. By a long succession of paddles and portages. La Vérendrye came to the Lake of the Woods. Then, threading his way through its myriad islands, he found and followed a wild stream which bore him down to Lake Winnipeg. From here he passed into the Red River, and at its junction with the Assiniboine built Fort Rouge. From this base the bold explorers made their way as far north as the forks of the Saskatchewan; and by 1743 the distant peaks of the Rocky Mountains had rewarded the vision of a younger La Vérendrye. To no avail: for this wide dominion was destined to pass to hands firmer to hold, if slower to acquire.
The growing power of England, on the sea, in America, and in India, was only equalled by the increasing jealousy of the Catholic nations of Europe, and especially of her ancient rival France. The question of the Austrian succession, in which these two conspicuous opposites stood for and against Maria Theresa, supplied a pretext for war; yet it hardly concealed the real purpose of each power to destroy the other; and the battles of Fontenoy, Nollwitz, and Dettingen, though fought in the heart of Europe, were as decisive for an Eastern and a Western empire as was the warfare on the frontiers of India, or the sullen conflict in the Ohio valley.
Across the Atlantic, France, as usual, dealt the first blow. With a thousand soldiers from Louisbourg, Du Vivier assailed Annapolis Royal; but neither by investment nor assault could the French overcome the small but indomitable garrison; and at length, after weeks of useless cannonade, thebesiegers stole back to their stronghold in Cape Breton. This gallant repulse of a desperate attempt to regain Acadia prompted New England to an expedition against the strong fortress of Louisbourg—the standing menace to peaceful colonial development. Were it but reduced, the English seaboard would be henceforth free from all danger of French attack.
Such large considerations fired the English colonists with an enthusiasm which took little thought for the grave dangers attending such an enterprise. Excepting the citadel of Quebec itself, there was no fortress on the American continent to compare in strength with Louisbourg. Built on a narrow rocky cape which projected out into the Atlantic, the ocean girded it on three sides, and on the fourth side a morass made it difficult of approach. A powerful fortification, known as the Island Battery, protected the mouth of the harbour, and the guns of Grand Battery frowned over the inner basin. The French garrison numbered thirteen hundred chosen men. Such was the fortress which Governor Shirley of Massachusetts planned to destroy, and against which the daring Pepperell presently threw the ill-trained levies of New England.
One night, when the citadel of Louisbourg was brilliant with festivity, the colonists dancing and all unconscious of danger, a hundred transportsfrom New England entered Gabarus Bay. The citizens would have held it a foolish dream that any attempt could be made to capture Louisbourg, but there, in the early morning of April 30th, 1745, Pepperell's army was disembarking before their eyes, and in the offing Commodore Warren, with four British battleships, stood blockading the harbour. The bells of the martial little town rang madly in alarm, and the booming of cannon at once brought the dismayed citizens to the ramparts.
Lieut. General Sir William Pepperell, Bart.
Without loss of time Pepperell began to make his way across the marshes lying between his camp and Louisbourg, erecting batteries as he went to answer the cannonade of the garrison. Each morning saw the intrepid besiegers closer to the walls, havingadvanced their intrenchments under cover of the darkness. A daring assault had meanwhile carried the grand battery, and from a salient post on Light-house Point Pepperell's guns were soon able to silence the island redoubt at the mouth of the harbour. The battle swayed from side to side as the desperate garrison made a sortie, or the besiegers impetuously rushed to the attack. But even the walls of Louisbourg could not for long withstand that furious and ceaseless cannonade, which shattered the heaviest bastions; and when the gallant fort could hold out no longer, a white flag fluttered from the broken ramparts, and the brave Duchambon, his veteran garrison decimated, marched out with the honours of war.
The loss of Louisbourg was the severest blow yet sustained by New France, and without delay a powerful expedition was organised to recapture the fortress and take revenge upon the enemy. No such formidable and menacing armada had ever left the shores of France as now sailed out of Rochelle, under command of the Duc d'Anville. Thirty-nine ships of the line convoyed transports bearing a veteran army westward; and the English colonists trembled for its coming. However, the advance tidings of this terrible flotilla were all that reached the New World; for hardly had D'Anville lost sight of the French coast before two of his ships fell a preyto British gunboats, and a succession of storms scattered the rest in all directions.
At length, after weeks of delay, the surviving vessels struggled one by one into the harbour of Chedabucto. In deadly dejection, D'Anville had succumbed to apoplexy; moreover, his successor, the Admiral D'Estournelle, had committed suicide; and the new commander was La Jonquière, a distinguished naval officer, then on his way to Quebec to assume the office of Governor-General. His sorry fleet notwithstanding, La Jonquière decided to strike a blow at Annapolis. Thither he shaped his course; but again a violent storm overtook them on the way, and the ships, unable to weather the tempest, steered straight for France once more.
Even in the face of these dark disasters France was unwilling to abandon Louisbourg, and in 1747 another powerful naval force under La Jonquière set out for Acadia. Like its magnificent but hapless predecessor, this fleet had hardly cleared the Bay of Biscay before it came to grief. Falling in with a British squadron under Admiral Anson off Cape Finisterre, it was almost totally destroyed.
In other quarters, however, France had received amends from fortune, and in the following year the European powers signed the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louisbourg being restored to France in exchange for the Indian province of Madras, whichhad passed from English hands during the war. To New England, whose blood and valour had achieved the demolition of the frowning fortress, this restitution was a sorrowful blow. But only ten years were to pass before this menace was removed for ever.
La Jonquière, Governor-designate of Quebec, had been taken prisoner at the naval battle of Finisterre; and, pending his release, the Marquis de la Galissonière presided over the fortunes, or misfortunes, of New France. The indefiniteness of the western boundary between French and English territory was perhaps the chief source of his perplexity; and to put an end to persistent English encroachments in the valley of the Ohio, Galissonière sent Céloron de Bienville, a colonial captain, to establish a formal boundary line. This expedition nominally accomplished its purpose; but, judging from the report submitted to the Governor of Quebec, its chief result was a painful revelation. It was shown that, in spite of an expensive chain of fortified posts, the great West was fast slipping from the martial grasp of New France, and passing under the stronger influence of English trade. The huge, unwieldy empire was clearly falling to pieces, and La Jonquière's arrival in Quebec brought no improvement to the situation. Of high merit as a naval officer, the new Governor had less distinction in morals, and he had frankly come to Canada to mend his fortune. His administrationmarks the advent of that official robbery which disgraced Quebec and sapped the remaining vitality of the country. Though the country had prospered materially under Vaudreuil, the subsequent war had stopped all progress, and the people were dreaming of empire when they needed bread.
Bienville
To-day, walking down Palace Hill and turning near the bottom into the Rue St. Vallier, you will find yourself close to the site of the ancient intendancy, where the official ruin of New France began. Here it was that François Bigot, the evil genius of Quebec, held corrupt sway in the guise of a royal minister. Here stood, in mordant comment, the Palais de Justice, so wickedly profaned by the last of the intendants. Through several fires and two sieges of later generations parts of this ancient structure persisted in surviving. Only a few years ago the heavier timber still hanging together was called "The King's Wood-yard." But nothing now remains of it, and imagination only summons the haunting spirit of this creature of La Pompadour, whose mischievous influence lost Louis XV his colonial empire, and whose infamies sealed the fate of the Bourbons.
François Bigot arrived at Quebec in 1748, a year in which the fortunes of New France had reached so low an ebb that nothing but the most loyal administration might now save her. Even then a stronghonest man might possibly have weathered the storm already lowering over this New World dominion; but, with pitiable perverseness, every trait in Bigot's character helped it on to ruin. In private life vain, selfish, heartless, extravagant to the point of folly; in public life mercenary and venal beyond shame—such were the characteristics of the man whom Louis's favourite chose to be civil administrator at Quebec, where the patriotic faith and labour of a gallant and high-hearted people were rewarded by plunder, mis-rule, and that neglect which gave them at last into the hands of the conqueror.
On his arrival, the Intendant speedily surrounded himself by sycophants and knaves who joined him in the reckless pursuit of pleasure, and became ready instruments to further his darker designs. A man of ability, adroitness, and culture, Bigot might have won public favour, but his habits instantly estranged the better people of the colony. Thehonnêtes gens, a party which included the great Montcalm, the brave Bougainville, La Corne de St. Luc, M. de Lévis, and M. de Saint-Ours, would have nothing to do with him, and he was left in the hands of servile flatterers, ready enough to serve him. Deschenaux, hisfidus Achates, was a cobbler's son, whom experience alone had educated and fate and unscrupulousness had advanced. Cadet, his commissary-general, was the gross son of a butcher, and had spent hisdissatisfied youth in the pasture-fields of Charlesbourg. Hughes Péan was the town major of Quebec, but his chief hold on Bigot lay in the beauty of his wife, the charming Angélique des Meloises. This woman, whose beauty, wit, anddiablerieare a subject of popular tradition, possessed a fascination which gave her an influence at the intendancy analogous to that exerted at Versailles by her notorious contemporary, La Pompadour.
de Bougainville
Ruled by this coterie of dark spirits, Quebec became the scene of a profligacy unparalleled in her history. The Palace, instead of being a hall of justice, was the abode of debauchery and gambling; and the mad revellers, whom a cynical fate had placed at the head of affairs, allowed the ship of state to drift upon the rocks. Even the fine palace within the city gave too little scope for the diversion of the Intendant and his confederates, and, accordingly, a rustic château was built near the high hill of Charlesbourg. Here they paused when tired of the chase, and the revels of the mysteriousMaison de la Montagneadded sad but vivid colouring to the closing decade of French rule. To-day there is an air of pathetic interest about the picturesque ruin of Château Bigot. The high walls are covered with ivy, and its graded walks and beds of flowers have disappeared long since. The immense thickness of the walls has enabled "Beaumanoir" to eludedestroying Time, but only enough now remains to suggest the hapless revels of a bygone day.
These things, however, are of the private sins of Bigot and hisentourage. Their public malefactions were more flagrant. The Intendant's salary could by no means meet his appalling extravagances, and he therefore robbed the country and the King by falsifying official accounts as they passed through his hands. As Intendant it was his duty to supply the needs of those chains of forts by which France held her vast dominion; but while he shamelessly neglected these outposts, he did not fail to debit the royal treasury for supplies which were never forwarded. In this way he and his intriguing friends enriched themselves. They presently adopted another and more contemptible device. Constant hostility towards the British had deprived the farms of their cultivators, and the supply of wheat was greatly reduced throughout the colony. Every day the land grew more distressed, and it was not difficult to foresee a time of famine. Not far fromLe Palaisstood a huge building which went by the name of the King's Storehouse, and the Intendant resolved to fill this with wheat. He had an ancient precedent in Egyptian history, but his motive was not that of provident Joseph. Fixing the price of grain by an edict, and imposing penalties on those who refused to sell, his agents went through the country gatheringup maize and wheat; and when famine came at length, the starving people flocked to the warehouse in Lower Town, and were compelled to buy back their grain at exorbitant prices. They called this warehouseLa Friponne—the Cheat—and they cursed the name of Bigot who had so deceived them.
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The interesting legend ofLe Chien d'Orhas its origin in the mercenary practices of this last Intendant of Quebec. Among the merchants of the city was one Nicholas Jaquin,ditPhilibert, whose warehouse stood at the top of Mountain Hill, on the site of the present Post-Office. Philibert was one of thehonnêtes gens, and he devoted his wealth and energy to a commercial battle withLa Friponne, determined to supply the people with food at low prices. The enmity between Philibert and the Intendant wascommon talk, and over his doorway the merchant had hung, beneath the figure of a dog in bas-relief, the following whimsical quatrain:—
le chien d'or
"Je suis un chien qui ronge l'os,
En le rongeant je prends mon repos;
Un jour viendra, qui n'est pas venu,
Que je mordrai qui m'aura mordu."
The bitter conflict continued until Philibert was murdered in the street. The escape of the assassin was well contrived; but there was no avoiding the vengeance of Philibert's son, who, after years of searching, struck down his father's slayer in far-off Pondicherry.
Meanwhile the walls and bastions of Louisbourgwere rising stronger than ever upon their old foundations, and the French Acadians, relying upon the Cape Breton stronghold and the nearer fortress of Beauséjour, grew more and more restless beneath the English yoke. By founding Halifax in 1749, England had taken faster hold upon the peninsula, and through every possible means she had endeavoured to secure the true allegiance of her Acadian subjects. In spite of all these efforts, however, Acadia was sown with treason, and when at last disloyalty became intolerable and dangerous, the innocent as well as the guilty must reap the harvest of tears and bitterness. There could only be one end to it all; and however hard the fate, the land of Acadia now ceased to be the home of its makers, who had been goaded and inveigled into covert rebellion and treason.
"This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath itLeaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for ever departed!Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of OctoberSeize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean—Nought but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand Pré."
"This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath itLeaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for ever departed!Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of OctoberSeize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean—Nought but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand Pré."
So sang Longfellow in his sorrowful tale ofEvangeline; and the cold page of history is hardly less mournful.
The 5th of September, 1755, was a day memorable alike to the Acadians and to those whose bitter duty it was to carry out King George's orders for their expulsion from the peninsula. At three o'clock in the afternoon the peasants of Grand Pré, Piziquid, Chipody, and the other parishes assembled in their chapels to listen to a royal proclamation declaring their lands and houses forfeited to the Crown, and themselves condemned to exile. The scenes following this unexpected order wrung the hearts of the rugged soldiers who were sent to execute the sentence. Reluctantly and forbearingly they carried out the royal command, and soon six thousand Acadians, who had persistently refused allegiance to the English in the vain belief that New France would regain the peninsula, found themselves transported to the English colonies farther south. Those who swore allegiance were left undisturbed; while many, escaping both deportation and the oath of subjection, fled to Quebec. These were doomed, however, to misery far greater than that of their comrades whowere set down as strangers among the English colonists. Quebec, which had fomented and abetted their treason, now declined to share the burden of their misfortune.
The years of Bigot'srégimewere the lean years of the city, and this influx of a thousand new starvelings was a most unwelcome addition to the population. Yet even the unfavourable circumstances of the time cannot justify the official neglect and the cruel inhospitality with which the miserable exiles were received in the capital of New France. "In vain," says a chronicler, "they asked that the promises they had received should be kept, and they pleaded the sacrifices they had made for France. All was useless. The former necessity for their services had passed away. They were looked upon as a troublesome people, and if they received assistance they were made to feel that it was only granted out of pity. They were almost reduced to die of famine. The little food they obtained, its bad quality, their natural want of cleanliness, their grief, and their idleness caused the death of many. They were forced to eat boiled leather during the greater part of the winter, and to wait for spring in the hope that their condition would be bettered. On this point they were deceived."[24]
"To supplement a miserable daily ration of four ounces of bread and horseflesh," says another writer,"they were obliged to seek scraps in the gutters; and those who survived starvation were brought low with a virulent smallpox, which carried off whole families in its loathsome tumbril."
In the meantime, a series of events had happened in the Ohio valley which set the New World on fire. Céloron de Bienville had indeed staked out his boundary line, but the new Governor of Quebec, the Marquis Duquesne, saw clearly that a line of bayonets was the only limit which English expansionists would respect. Accordingly, a strong French force marched into the troublesome valley, and established themselves at a new post called Fort Le Bœuf.
The report of this incursion was evil news for Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, the most diligent and watchful of the thirteen governors of the English colonies. Having never ceased to regard Lake Erie as a northern boundary of British territory, this latest invasion on the part of the French was to him beyond endurance, and he forthwith despatched the Adjutant-General of the Virginia Militia to deliver England's protest to the French commander. The messenger was a tall handsome youth of twenty-one, and the message was the first important commission of George Washington.
Plan of the City of Quebec 1759
Major-General Sir Isaac Barre
In spite of the studied courtesy of his reception by Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, the English envoysaw the hopelessness of his errand, and hastened back to Williamsburg with his report. Dinwiddie thereupon resolved to meet force with force. Although he scarcely persuaded the disunited colonies to take a serious view of the French invasion, he was presently able to send George Washington back again into the Ohio valley at the head of a company ofregulars and three hundred soldiers of the Old Dominion.
Meanwhile the French had seized an English trading-post at the junction of the Ohio and Monongahela rivers, and named it Fort Duquesne. This post was Washington's immediate objective, and as he approached it his advance-guard met a French reconnoitring party under Jumonville, sent, it is alleged, by the commandant of Fort Duquesne to warn the Virginians off French soil. The precise purpose served by this handful of Frenchmen has never, however, been fully determined. Jumonville's movements are certainly hard to reconcile with the theory of a peaceful mission, and to Major Washington they certainly appeared hostile. In the sharp fight which followed, Jumonville and nine others were killed, while of the remaining twenty-three only one escaped. By the English, the affair was described as a successful skirmish, by the French as the "Assassinat de Jumonville"; for all it meant precipitation of the death-struggle for North America.
Anticipating the French attack, Washington fell back upon Great Meadows, and the hasty and inadequate intrenchments which he there threw up received the name of Fort Necessity. Here he awaited an assault with a short supply of ammunition and almost no provisions. Nor was his patience longtried; for nine hundred Frenchmen under Coulon de Villiers, brother of the unfortunate Jumonville, were already marching against him through the woods. Wishing to entice them to an immediate attack, Washington had arrayed his men on the open meadow before the fort; but as his opponent declined to be drawn from the cover of the surrounding hills, the Virginians also took shelter in their shallow intrenchments. A blind fusillade now began in torrents of rain and was maintained for nine hours, punctuated by the booming of a few light swivel guns upon the ramparts.
At nightfall, however, the French proposed a parley, and having weighed the chances of his little army against such overwhelming numbers, Washington agreed to capitulate. Next day the English marched out of Fort Necessity with beating drums and flying colours; but heart-sick and weary they toiled back over the mountains to Virginia, leaving the valley of the Ohio in the full possession of the enemy. Moreover, the defeat at Fort Necessity was a double blow, for it threw the fickle Indians back into the arms of the French, a consideration of great weight in border warfare.
In Europe the rival powers were still maintaining the semblance of peace, while yet secretly abetting the open enmity of their American colonies. The despatch of Major-General Braddock with tworegiments of the line, although accounted for by the lips of diplomacy, was, with equally pacific assurances, promptly checkmated by France. Eighteen ships of war, carrying the six battalions of La Reine, Bourgogne, Languedoc, Guienne, Artois, and Béarn, and convoyed by an auxiliary squadron of nine battleships, were hurried off to New France under the joint command of Baron Dieskau and the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the new Governor of Quebec. As in the case of former expeditions on so large a scale, some of the vessels failed to reach their destination, and two frigates fell into the hands of Admiral Boscawen, who had secret orders to intercept this French flotilla.
Braddock and his thousand regulars were now regarded as the salvation of the English colonies, whose representatives had at last agreed upon a scheme for defending their frontiers. The English general, it was decided, should destroy Fort Duquesne, Governor Shirley attacking the French fort of Niagara; while Colonel William Johnson, a settler of the Upper Hudson, and chiefly remarkable for his influence with the Mohawks, was to proceed against Crown Point. None of these intentions was fulfilled in its entirety, although Johnson, in the course of his operations in the district of Lake Champlain, was able to inflict a crushing defeat upon the French under Dieskau,and on the scene of his triumph to erect Fort William Henry.