CHAPTER IX

[204]Words of Stoughton, Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts.

[205]Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1677-1680, p. 529.

[206]New England Historical and Genealogical Register(1870), xxiv. p. 62.

[207]Adam Smith,Wealth of Nations(ed. 1845), p. 254.

[208]Ibid., p. 240.

[209]Calendar of State Papers,Colonial, 1661-1668, No. 50.

[210]Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1677-1680, p. 529.

[211]History of New England, II. (1720) ch. xiv.

[212]New Hampshire Historical Society,Collections, i. p. 228.

[213]Morley, J., Walpole,Twelve English Statesmen(1896), p. 168.

[214]1 Green, W., William Pitt,Heroes of the Nations(1901), p. 258.

[215]Smith, A.,Wealth of Nations(ed. 1845), pp. 245 and 249.

[216]O'Callaghan,Documents relative to Colonial History of State of New York(1855), v. p. 738.

[217]Winthrop,History of New England(ed. 1853), i., Nov. 1633.

[218]Doyle,The English in America, vol. ii. p. 64.

[219]Ibid., p. 506.

[220]Knight,Journal(1825), p. 40.

[221]Quoted by Thwaites,The Colonies, 1492-1750 (1891), p. 189.

[222]O'Callaghan,ut supra, vii. 348.

[223]See p. 93.

[224]Clap,The Annals or History of Yale College(1766), p. 22.

[225]Doyle,Cambridge Modern History(1905), vol. vii. p. 60.

[226]Mass. Hist. Coll., Series II. vol. x. p. 183.

[227]Quoted by Doyle,Colonies under the House of Hanover(1907), p. 13.

The southern colonies in their geographical formation, their soil and climate, were of a uniform character; nor were there any decidedly marked religious differences. In the middle colonies this was by no means the case, but even here the style of life in such states as Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey had many points of resemblance. In all the colonies except Maryland and Virginia there was a heterogeneous population of English, Irish, Scots, Dutch, Huguenots, and Germans, but in New York State mixed nationalities were most apparent.

The distinction between the grades of society was well-marked in both the southern and middle colonies. In South Carolina in early times there was practically no middle class, but at the end of the seventeenth century a few Ulster Protestants settled in the colony as small farmers and remained in spite of economic conditions. In Maryland there were yeomen farmers and tradesmen, who were for the most part rude and uneducated. A professional middle class was unknown until the eighteenth century; doctors, forexample, were not licensed in New York till 1760. In New Jersey there was a tendency to insist on democratic principles, though there is every reason to think that the gentleman farmer was treated with the same respect accorded to the Quaker squire of Pennsylvania, or the Dutch patroon of New York. In the South the upper classes resembled their contemporaries in England. Some were indolent, haughty, and vain, showing the greatest contempt for honest toil; many were confirmed gamblers and horse-racers. The bottle and the dice were the household deities of not a few; but they were nevertheless bountiful, generous, and patriotic, and proved themselves good specimens of England's manhood in time of peril.

Below these classes were the indentured servants and negro slaves. The former were composed of paupers and criminals sent out from England, the earliest instance being in 1618, when Ambrose Smythe, a felon, was transported to America, as a servant bound for a limited period. The life in Virginia on the tobacco plantations must have been of the hardest, but it was evidently preferable to that in the West Indian islands, as Penruddock, the conspirator against Cromwell, petitioned in 1656 to be sent to Virginia rather than to the Barbadoes. The evil of the system of indentured servants lay for the most part in the ease with whichinconvenientpeople were got rid of, and in the kidnapping of harmless children. Fugitives from justice, guilty husbands or wives, the felon and the innocent were all to be found on those ships that sailed from Bristol. The scandal increased from year to year, so that in 1661the new Colonial Board was obliged to make an effort to regulate indentured servants, while three years later a commission under the Duke of York was appointed to look into the whole matter. The outcome of this was a most salutary enactment by which kidnapping was made a capital offence. The inquisitorial system necessary for the proper enforcement of this Act soon came to be burdensome, as proved by a complaint of the merchants in 1682, concerning vexatious prosecutions; but that it was absolutely essential is shown by a fresh Order in Council, four years later, against kidnappers. The one great advantage possessed by the indentured servant over the negro slave was that no hereditary disqualification attached to the children of such servants, whereas in the case of the blacks the stigma of slavery passed from the parents to their offspring.

The system of binding servants for so many years tended to check the growth of slavery; but there is little doubt that during the first hundred years of American colonisation the influx of negro slaves reached alarming proportions. In 1620 a Dutch ship landed twenty negroes from the Guinea coast at the recently established Jamestown. From this small beginning the cursed traffic grew, and so rapidly that in 1637, and on many later occasions, enactments were passed to check all intercourse between whites and blacks. Within twenty years of the introduction of slavery there were in Virginia about three hundred blacks, while twelve years later the number had reached one thousand. It is not to be wondered at that the growth was so rapid, for the trade was alucrative one,[228]and it was difficult to check when the first in the land participated in its spoils. Thus in 1662 the Royal African Company was founded with James, Duke of York, at its head, and with his brother Charles II. as a large shareholder. The negroes were in theory regarded as mere chattels, and to check risings such as those of 1678, 1712, and 1741, barbarous laws were passed against them. On the other hand, as individuals they were as a general rule comfortably clothed, fed, and housed; they had many amusements, and their work was not as arduous as has so often been described. At one time it was an understood thing in the colonies that the lord had thejus vitae necisqueover his slaves, but at the beginning of the eighteenth century the Crown made the murder of a negro a capital offence, a decision vigorously upheld by Governor Spotswood. The number of slaves on each plantation varied very much; the average may, perhaps, be placed at thirty. But the largest owner in Virginia possessed 900; while in Maryland this was easily beaten by an owner with 1300. In the eighteenth century the negroes far outnumbered the whites in South Carolina; but in New York they only formed about one-sixth the total population. In Maryland and Virginia they were as one to three, while in the middle colonies it is calculated that a ratio of one to seven would give a rough estimate of their numbers.

Figures and statistics with regard to the white population can only be surmised. In 1650, Virginia, as theoldest of the colonies, may possibly have had 15,000 inhabitants. Stuyvesant's calculation for New York fourteen years later was probably exaggerated when he placed that cosmopolitan people at 10,000. At the time of the Revolution the total population of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas was about 90,000; but the two first colonies had by far the largest proportion, for although Shaftesbury and Locke had worked so hard, the Carolinas had only 4000 settlers all told. The population of East Jersey at the beginning of the eighteenth century was, according to Governor Lewis Morris, "about eight thousand souls";[229]while that of Pennsylvania and Delaware may have been 20,000, at least one-half of whom were English Quakers. Later in the century more exact figures are ascertainable. Virginia in 1724 was still the largest with 65,000; Maryland ran it close with 53,000. Pennsylvania and Delaware had steadily increased owing to immigration to 32,000; and New York, which in 1705 had had 25,000 people, had by 1724 increased to 30,000. New Jersey came next with 26,000, while North and South Carolina lagged behind with 14,000 and 9000 respectively.

With so large a population it is only natural that there were various kinds of trade. Tobacco was the staple of Virginia and of Maryland; but by 1701 Virginia tobacco was acknowledged as far superior to that from the Baltimore plantations. South Carolina for the first ninety years of its history relied mainly upon rice, the export of which was encouraged by Sir Robert Walpole in 1730. The colony was now allowed to export rice to any port in Europe, southof Finisterre, provided it was sent in British ships, manned by British seamen. "The result was that the rice of the American plantations beat the rice of Egypt and Northern Italy out of the markets of Europe."[230]After 1741 or 1742, indigo planting became an important industry in the colony, for the seed which was then introduced was found to flourish in the swamps of the South. Iron was worked in Virginia to a small extent. Its value was pointed out by the Company in defence of their charter in 1623: "during these 4 last years that hath been expended in setting up of iron works (the oar whereof is there in great plenty and excellent) above five thousand pounds, which work being brought in a manner to perfection was greatly interrupted by the late massacre."[231]The industry continued throughout the century, but never on a large scale. In Philadelphia a more profitable iron industry existed, while in Maryland in 1749 seventeen iron furnaces were regularly employed. New Jersey made some slight profit from working her minerals, such as iron and copper, but her chief exports were cattle and tanned hides. The exports of Pennsylvania were even more varied, consisting of horses, pipe staves, salted pork and beef, bread-flour, peas, beans, tobacco, potashes and wax; while from Germantown in particular there was paper, glass, and coarse cloth. New York carried on a small linen and woollen manufacture, but the chief industry, until checked by the policy of Andros, was tanning. After the revolution New York was famous for its fur trade, particularly that in beaver.Busy as most of the settlers were, yet almost every necessary of life was brought from England, including such common articles as wooden bowls. In a list of the imports of Pennsylvania at the end of the seventeenth century we find rum, sugar, molasses, silver, salt, wine, linen, household goods, and negroes. In 1733, to the annoyance of the colonists, a heavy duty was imposed on all molasses imported from foreign countries. Tobacco, at the same time, was not allowed to be exported to any European ports, save those of Great Britain. This, however, was easily evaded, for the numerous rivers and private landing-stages in the southern colonies made effective supervision impossible.

As in the case of the New England colonies, the main check to commerce lay in the serious want of money. The steady influx of coin was prevented by the lack of retail trade, and also by the fact that the planter was nearly always in debt to the merchant. In Virginia and Maryland the scarcity of specie was overcome by the use of tobacco, which, "as the staple product of the country, established itself as the accepted medium of exchange."[232]But even in these colonies a desire for good money was shown on various occasions. The Virginia Assembly, in 1645, tried to fix the legal value of the Spanish coins which were in common use, and also proposed a copper coinage of their own. Cecil Calvert, as a careful proprietor, attempted to assist his Maryland settlers by establishing a coinage, but nothing came of it. In the eighteenth century, therefore, most of the southern and middle colonies fell under thefascinating influence of paper money; New York and Virginia being the only two to escape this economic evil.

Brief reference has been made to the educational indifference of the southern settlers. As has already been shown, Governor Berkeley thanked God that there were no schools in Virginia.[233]To the rich planter this was not so disastrous, as his sons were either provided with a tutor or sent to England. But this absence of schools for the small freeholders presented a great difficulty. Certainly in the Carolinas the lack of education was not so marked, for there, as society was more urban, the opportunities of a school training were more numerous. "Their cohabiting in a town has drawn to them ingenious people of most sciences, whereby they have tutors amongst them that educate their youthà la mode."[234]South Carolina was particularly famous for its educational advantages, and in one year there were no fewer than four hundred educational advertisements in theSouth Carolina Gazette. Although William and Mary College in Virginia was founded by Blair at the end of the seventeenth century, it remained for many years nothing more than a rather superior boarding school. In Philadelphia there was some attempt to instruct the young, not only in several German and Moravian seminaries, but also, after 1698, in the Penn Charter School. New York had its first Church of England School in 1704, but it was not until fifty years later that King's College, afterwards Columbia College, was established. A college was founded in New Jersey in 1746, but two years later Governor Belchercomplained that "they are a very rustical people and deficient in learning."[235]Owing to the energies of the indefatigable Benjamin Franklin an academy was built in Philadelphia in 1750 in which the Quaker youth of the colony had the greater part of their training.

There can be no doubt that the lack of education in the southern and middle colonies was reflected in the absence of any vigorous literary development. Virginia is easily first in its possession of three writers of repute: Robert Beverley, who wrote the history of his own colony; or the Rev. William Stith, whose work though fragmentary is never dull, and "might have been produced by a learned, leisurely, and somewhat pompous English clergyman";[236]or finally, Colonel William Byrd, a man of education and wealth, who has left on record a witty and interesting account of his travels. New York was not without two famous names, those of William Smith, author ofThe History of New York, and Cadwallader Colden, who has left to posterity a chronicle of the Five Nations, filled with picturesque descriptions. Pennsylvania, unlike the other colonies, has to revere the name, not of an historian, but a poet and tragedian, in Thomas Godfrey, whose short life lasted only from 1736 to 1763.

The religion of the southern and middle colonies was not of the harsh character of the northerners. The Church of England had more power than in the Puritan settlements, though its position was a peculiar one. In New York and New Jersey up to1693 it was supported owing to orders from the Crown. From that date its preponderance over other sects was due to the habit of the governors to appoint Church of England clergymen. In Maryland and Virginia the Church was established by acts of the colonial legislature; while in the Carolinas it owed its position to the Proprietary Charter. In the southern colonies the clergy for the most part shared the vices of the planters, and "drunkenness is the common vice"[237]is not an unusual complaint. In North Carolina the people seem to have been at first utterly indifferent; they were a lawless population and cared for none of these things. In 1703 there was no episcopalian minister, nor was there a church until 1705. Six years later Governor Spotswood reported that there was only one clergyman in the whole colony. Nor did South Carolina evince a more ardent religious spirit, for at the beginning of the eighteenth century there were only two Episcopalian churches, the one at Charlestown, the other at Goose Creek. Virginia and Maryland seem to have been better than this, for from quite early times the clergy were readily supported and paid in so many pounds of tobacco. In Virginia George Whitefield's preaching had some little effect, but on the whole he failed to arouse any great religious enthusiasm in the other southern colonies. Maryland and Pennsylvania were the most tolerant of all the colonies. In the first Roman Catholics and Protestants had lived together, though not always peaceably, since its foundation; while in the latter colony there were Quakers, Lutherans, and Presbyterians tolerating each other. After the capture of New York by Nicolls, everyone was supposed toconform to the Church of England; each township was commanded to maintain its own church and minister. At first the New York authorities were strongly against Jesuits and Popish priests, but as the eighteenth century grew in years, there is every reason to believe that within this state there were Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, and Lutherans living happy lives and seeing much that was good in their religious antagonists.

Church life was in no way connected with town life as in New England, for the simple reason that towns were very uncommon, having "no place in the social and industrial economy of the south."[238]They consisted for the most part of scattered houses, an inn, a gaol, and a court-house. They were visited by the planters nominally for business, but mostly for pleasure, and the tavern, which was in some cases enforced by law, became the meeting-place for gossip. Jamestown and Williamsburg in Virginia, St Mary's and Annapolis in Maryland, are not worth considering as busy centres of trade. They were rather the meeting-places of pleasure parties who came for balls and horse races, and when these gaieties were over they slumbered until again roused for the next joyous gathering. Charlestown in South Carolina had always been somewhat different; from its foundation it had taken upon itself the position of the most important town in the south, and it proved that it was ready to progress with the times by being the first town to possess a theatre, which was built in 1735. In the middle colonies the towns played a very considerablepart in the social and economic life of the settlers, and in this way resembled the northern corporate communities. New York and Philadelphia were both good towns with wide streets lined with trees; along the edge were the orchards and gardens surrounding stone or brick houses with overhanging gables. The two other towns of importance were Germantown which was very busy, and Newport which is described as ill-built.

Such in brief were the towns, industries, and style of living of the southern and middle colonists. The English-born planter depended upon slave labour or indentured servants; he lived upon a large estate in a magnificent and often too lavish manner. But they were men of as much grit as the New Englanders; certainly they were descended from a different stock, and they looked upon the present life and the future with very different eyes, but that was all. The settlers of the middle colonies plunged with readiness into the intricacies of trade, and the merchant and tradesman were far more conspicuous figures in daily life than in either Virginia or Maryland. The colonists were, too, far more cosmopolitan than in the north. In the Carolinas there were a few Huguenots, Swiss, and German Palatines, but in Virginia and Maryland there was little trace of any foreign element. But in the middle colonies there were regular waves of aliens from Germany and Switzerland intermixed with the earlier Dutch and English settlers. They all helped to play their little parts in the world's history, and they all came to look upon England as the home country. Then by the middle of the eighteenth century they were called upon to resist the aggressionsof France; and during those years of struggle they partly learnt their power. United at last, English settler and foreigner, Northern Puritan and Southern planter, they made the one supreme effort, throwing off the yoke of England, and became no longer colonists, but Americans.

[228]So lucrative did the slave trade become that, even after the Abolition Act of 1807, slave dealers realised an enormous profit if one ship out of three with its living cargo reached an American port.

[229]New Jersey Historical Society,Proceedings(1850), iv. p. 118.

[230]Morley, Walpole,Twelve English Statesmen(1896), p. 168.

[231]A Declaration of the Present State of Virginia, etc.

[232]Doyle,The English in America, Virginia, etc.(1882), p. 525.

[233]See p. 46.

[234]Lawson, p. 3.

[235]Quoted by Thwaites,op. cit., p. 221.

[236]Doyle,Colonies under the House of Hanover(1907), p. 289.

[237]Meade,Old Churches of Virginia(1861), i. p. 385.

[238]Doyle,The Colonies under the House of Hanover(1907), pp. 42-43.

"The French empire in the New World has vanished, leaving behind it ineffaceable monuments of the grand political conception of which it formed part."[239]Frenchmen were amongst the earliest to be roused by the discoveries of Columbus, Cabot, and Vasco da Gama; but it was not until the sixth year of the sixteenth century that any real attempt at discovery was made. In that year, 1506, Denys of Harfleur sailed across the Atlantic, hoping to reach the East, but finding instead the great Gulf of St Lawrence. He was not the only adventurer, for Aubert of Dieppe followed two years later and astonished his countrymen by bringing to France some natives of North America. Baron de Léry was the first to see the advantages of colonisation, and long before Sir Walter Raleigh was born the quick-witted Frenchman had planned within his fertile brain a new France beyond the sea. He attempted to carry out his purpose in 1518, but it was bound to fail, for the time was not yet ripe for a French colony, since France itself was still unsettled and imperfectly concentrated. Francis I., realising the advantages gained by his rival Charles V. from the rich mines of Peru, employed Verrazano, a Venetian, to "discovernew lands by the ocean." He sailed in January 1524, and first reached that part of America now known as the Carolinas, and then coasted as far north as Newfoundland. "Sayling northeast for the space of 150 leagues," Verrazano writes, "we approached to the land that in times past was discovered by the Britons, which is in fiftie degrees. Having now spent all our provision and victuals, and having discovered about 700 leagues and more of new countries, and being furnished with water and wood, we concluded to return into France."[240]

QUEBEC FROM POINT LEVY IN 1761QUEBEC FROM POINT LEVY IN 1761FROM AN ENGRAVING BY R. SHORT.

QUEBEC FROM POINT LEVY IN 1761FROM AN ENGRAVING BY R. SHORT.

The year 1534 is the most memorable of all concerning those early French voyages; it is a year of the very greatest importance in the history of both France and North America; from this time may be dated the beginning of New France, for now Jacques Cartier made his first voyage to the St Lawrence. He found that the people had "great store of Mushe-milions, Pompions, Gourds, Cucumbers, Peasen and Beanes of every colour.... There groweth also a certaine kind of herbe, whereof in Sommer they make great provision for all the yeere, ... and onely men use it, and first they cause it to be dried in the sunne, then weare it about their neckes wrapped in a little beast's skinne made like a little bagge, with a hollow peece of stone or wood like a pipe: then when they please they make pouder of it, and then put it in one of the ends of the said Cornet or pipe, and laying a cole of fire upon it, at the other ende sucke so long, that they fill their bodies full of Smoke, till that it commeth out of their mouth and nostrils, even as out of the Tonnell of a chimney.... We our selves have tryed the same smoke and having put it in ourmouthes, it seemed almost as hot as Pepper."[241]On his return to St Malo, Cartier brought with him some Indian children as a proof of the success of his enterprise. He was not content with this voyage, and in the following year sailed again to this land of promise. On this occasion he penetrated still further up the St Lawrence, bringing his ship to anchor beneath the cliffs where now stands the city of Quebec. "It is called," he writes, "Stadacona, ... & beyond, is as faire and plaine as ever was seen."[242]This second voyage was marked by the naming of his discoveries, and it is recorded that the new found lands were by him called New France. Six years later Cartier sailed again to the West, associated with a royal officer of the name of De Roberval. Cartier started first and was met by his superior when returning in disgust. De Roberval, with the title of Lord of Norumbega, proceeded as he was bound to establish a colony, but by 1542 he proved unsuccessful owing to the insufficiency of supplies and his own brutal despotism. There can be little doubt that all concerned in De Roberval's venture were deeply disappointed with its disastrous failure; its chief interest lies in the fact that it marks the end of the prologue of this drama of discovery, and the curtain was rung down not to rise again for half a century.

In the year celebrated for the Edict of Nantes, the Treaty of Vervins and the death of Philip II., the French once again started their attempts to colonise Canada. In that year, 1598, the Marquis de la Roche established a small settlement of convicts on Sable Island, which lies off the coast of Nova Scotia.The settlers, however, were incapable, the callous nobleman sailed away to sunny France, and the unhappy survivors were left to quarrel among themselves, till eleven only of the original forty remained alive to be rescued after five long years of misery and starvation. The spirit of adventure was not crushed, and in 1599 Chauvin, a sea captain, and Pontgravé, a St Malo merchant, obtained a patent to colonise Canada, and so established a settlement at Tadoussac. Their object was to monopolise the lucrative fur trade, rather than to establish any permanent colony. Four years later De Chastes, a grey-haired veteran of the civil wars, associated himself with Pontgravé, and they were fortunate in obtaining the services of Samuel Champlain, whose name is the greatest in the history of French colonisation. Almost immediately the small association of Chastes was amalgamated with another under De Monts, a Huguenot nobleman of the King's household, and together in 1604 they entered the Bay of Fundy. In the next year Port Royal was established in Nova Scotia on Annapolis Basin, and the fur traders passed the winter there under the leadership of Champlain. Supplies were brought out in 1606 by an expedition, which was accompanied by Lescarbot the historian, but, as De Monts' patent was cancelled in 1607, Port Royal was abandoned.

The French colonies differed in many respects from the British, but in one particular most essentially. The story of the British settlements which has already been told is the story of the progress of communities; in the case of the French colonies the history is really composed of a long series of entrancing biographies. The record of Canada from 1608 to 1635 is in factthe biography of Samuel Champlain. His first exploit was the erection of ahabitationat Quebec in 1608, his two main objects being to support exploration and encourage missionary work. He thus established the French nation in Canada less than twelve months after the settlement of the British in Virginia; the two rival nations, therefore, started their great work of colonisation at practically the same moment. The progress and results of their settlements resembled each other in no single item. Not content with founding Quebec, the adventurous Frenchmen left Pontgravé to encourage commerce and pushed up the St Lawrence. In 1609 he discovered the Lake that still bears his name; and for the first time came into direct hostile contact with the warriors of the Five Nations, whom he defeated at Ticonderoga. In the same year he returned to France, but re-sailed to Canada in 1610, leaving a few months afterwards for his native country. On landing in France he was dismayed to find that his patron, Henry of Navarre, had been assassinated by the fanatic Ravaillac in the streets of Paris. The year 1611 found the intrepid voyager once again in Canada preparing the way for a French settlement at Montreal.

The great change in France, and indeed throughout Europe, caused by Henry IV.'s untimely end, was felt with almost equal intensity in the far-distant region of Canada. A new system was immediately inaugurated, and that most unsatisfactory Regent, Marie de Medici, appointed the Count de Soissons as supreme Governor of New France. Before the Count could take over his unaccustomed duties, he died, and the Prince de Condé was nominated in his place. Champlain was at once created his deputy, with the main work ofregulating the fur-trade and keeping some semblance of order amongst the turbulent French backwoodsmen. Champlain's objects, however, were neither commercial nor pecuniary. His ambition soared above the merely lucrative, and he looked to the increase of French possessions, and if possible by means of the great waterways to the discovery of a short route to China and the East. It was for this latter reason that he was persuaded by Nicholas Vignau, one of his companions who had passed the previous winter among the northern Indians, to explore toilfully the waters of the upper Ottawa in 1613; Vignau having concocted a story about an outlet to the east, a fabrication which, when discovered after many hardships, nearly cost him his life.

It is an interesting fact that behind all these adventurous expeditions undertaken by either the English or the French, there was always something of the missionary spirit. The first French attempt to convert the Indians was in 1615, when the Recollet branch of the Franciscan Order sent out a few brethren to undertake the hazardous task of instructing the savages in the doctrines of the Christian faith. The chief of this worthy band was Le Caron, who, taking his life in his hands, penetrated far into the dangerous Huron country. Ten years had still to elapse before the Jesuits embarked on a duty which, though in many ways erroneously carried out, has rightly received the admiration of the world. It so happened, in 1625, that the Viceroy of Canada, the Duc de Ventadour, was closely connected with the Jesuit order; and he celebrated the beginning of his term of office by introducing Jesuit priests and supporting them from his private purse. The differencebetween the newcomers and the Franciscans, who had already bought their experience, was very marked. The Franciscans, although devoted missionaries, were not bigots, and they claimed no religious monopoly; the Jesuits, on the contrary, imported religious despotism. The coming of the Jesuit fathers had two effects which may perhaps seem contradictory. They stimulated in many ways the progress of Canada and did much for her advance; but equally they retarded the true evolution of the young nation. They were brave men who were ready to sacrifice themselves for the cause; no body of men have ever shown to the savages such tactfulness and diplomacy as these members of the Society of Jesus. As map-makers and discoverers they were pre-eminent. On the other hand they were the upholders of exclusiveness and the bitterest enemies of freedom; they formulated a rigid system which was necessarily inimical to the expansion of a youthful community. Above all, deeming the Huguenots to be heretics, they excluded from Canada the very people who might have made the French in Canada a great nation. In supporting the Jesuits in this action the French Government did itself a double injury, for by debarring the best artizans of France from French colonies, it turned them in after years to the British settlements, and they thus helped to advance those very colonies which were the inveterate foes of their native land.

Between the years 1620 and 1627 the government of Canada passed through numerous hands, including those of the Duc de Montmorenci and the already mentioned Duc de Ventadour; but had it not been for the striking qualities of Champlain, all must havefailed. These years were troubled by continuous squabbles, and it was only Champlain's steadfastness that saved the colony. At last in 1627 affairs began to improve. Richelieu had now become a power in France, and for the better regulation of Canada he formed the "Company of the One Hundred Associates." Even now the difficulties of Champlain appeared overwhelming, not the least being the war between England and France. Richelieu had successfully defeated the Huguenots and their English allies, and the "weathercock fancy" of Buckingham had been incapable of devising any further scheme for the protection of La Rochelle. The war, however, lingered on, and although it was extremely languid in Europe, it was waged with more smartness in the New World. David Kirke, nominally a captain in the British service, but really little more than a pirate, with his three sons entered the St Lawrence in July 1628; they attacked the French trading station of Tadoussac, and in the following year starved Champlain into surrender at Quebec. The victory proved a barren one, for before it had actually been accomplished, Richelieu had brought about a treaty with Charles I. at St Germain-en-Laye, by which the newly conquered Canada was restored to the French in 1632.

Champlain returned to his adopted country in May 1633, and for the next two years he controlled the affairs of the French Company until his death on Christmas Day, 1635. New France then lost the man to whom she owed her all, and the French nation was deprived of one who has been fitly called "the Father of French Colonisation." From thirty-six years of age to the time of his death, Champlain hadgiven up the whole of his energies to increase the power of his native country and to encourage the welfare and prosperity of New France. He was a hardy explorer, an excellent administrator, and one of the most trustworthy writers of his time. His ambitions were lofty, his foresight keen and intelligent, while the whole of his life was pure and resolute. His biography is one of the most interesting among the many entrancing stories of colonial founders, and his memory receives the lasting respect and honour which his great works naturally demand, not only from the Frenchman or French Canadian, but from posterity throughout the civilised world.

Champlain was succeeded by Monsieur de Montmagny, who arrived at Quebec in 1636. Six years later the first permanent settlement was established at Montreal, which was at first entirely of a religious character; this was soon to be followed by another at Fort Richelieu at the point where the Richelieu River joins the St Lawrence. These new settlements may be taken as an indication of the progress and general advance of the French Empire in the West. But as a matter of fact up to the year 1663 the government of Canada was far from being satisfactory, for the "Company of One Hundred Associates" had been continually checked by Indian wars, and was by no means capable of creating a great nation. Colbert, the successor of Mazarin, and chief minister of Louis XIV., realised the incapacity of the Company, and in 1663 deprived it of all rights. It is not surprising that the minister should take this action if a colony's prosperity is to be judged by its population. It has already been shown howremarkably the English settlements increased in number; but the French colony starting at practically the same time had in 1663 a meagre population of 2500. Father Christian le Clercq, writing at that time, says, "The colony far from increasing began to diminish. Some returned to France, others were taken and killed by the Indians. Many died of misery; the clearing and cultivation of lands advanced but little, and they were obliged to expect all from France."[243]The Jesuits were to a certain extent to be blamed for this lack of population; they had for some years been expending their energies upon the spiritual needs of Canada, but what Canada wanted, as a new colony, was what the English settlements had got, married men and women who willingly found new homes, whose children grew up around them, and whose aims were to create no temporary but permanent abiding-places. The Jesuits supplied rather both by teaching and example martyrs and virgins, whose history is filled with heroic records, but whose actual value to a new colony was extremely slight. The mission of Le Moyne to the Iroquois in 1653 and the establishment of those from St Sulpice under Maisonneuve at Montreal, are both fine examples of reckless devotion and self-sacrifice, but the outlook on life of these religious enthusiasts was an erroneous one.

The clear-sighted judgment and the financial genius of Colbert was needed to remedy the mistakes in the work which had been started so rashly by Richelieu. As Le Clercq recorded, the progress of New France required "a more powerful arm thanthat of the gentlemen of the Company."[244]Colbert, in 1663, supplied the "more powerful arm" by making Canada a royal province, and in the following year creating the "Company of the West." The members of the Company claimed to be the Seigniors of New France, with the right of nominating the Council for the government of Canada. The Crown, however, insisted on retaining the privileges of appointing the Governor and the Intendant. As soon as Canada became a Crown Colony with such a splendid guide as Colbert the progress and prosperity of the settlers were assured.

The government of Canada was purely despotic under the all-powerful Governor, Intendant, and Supreme Council, and the settlers were never allowed the political freedom exercised by the English colonists in New England or the Southern States. The law was the customary law of Paris, added to which were certain ordinances and, on occasions, royal edicts which received the ratification of the Council. This body had both legislative and judicial functions, and for the better maintenance of peace and order minor law-courts were established at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal. In addition to these courts the seigniors had in some cases the right to try crimes that were committed on their estates, and nominally to pass the extreme penalty of death upon their vassals. The Governor controlled the armed forces, and was in continual conflict with the Intendant, for each was jealous of the other. The latter was the King's steward, a civilian, and usually a member of the legal profession; he was President of the Council,and by controlling the sinews of war was often more powerful than the Governor. The Bishop sat in Council with these two, and was spiritually supreme in name and fact. The great defects of Canada's political system were over-centralisation and lack of popular representation. The feudal system had been transferred to Canadian territory, and by its means the seigniors attempted to tie the peasant to the soil. The whole scheme was that of a benevolent despot exercising power over a closely restricted people; and yet the system itself, which was purely artificial, proved the skill of its originators, for under it the peasants of Canada lived happy and contented lives for almost a hundred years after they had passed under British rule.

This scheme of government as devised by Colbert and Louis XIV. was put into execution by the Marquis de Tracy, who arrived at Quebec in 1665 as Lieutenant-General of all the French forces in America. His coadjutors were Courcelles, the Governor, and Talon, the Intendant. These men made numerous expeditions against the Indians, and in particular against the Iroquois; but their work was completely overshadowed by that of the next Governor. The name of Count Frontenac has been ever dear to the French Canadian from the moment that he came to administer New France in 1672. He is one of those great figures in history who are perhaps particularly human; he was not a cold image, but composed of warm flesh and blood; he was neither a villain nor a saint. His great merits are to a certain extent balanced by his great defects; his temper was most violent, his manner haughty, pretentious, and arrogant. It is said with some truth that he was not altogetherclean-handed in the methods he employed in repairing his fortunes; but grave as his faults were, they were weighed down on the other side not so much by his kindness, his firm alliance with those he regarded as his friends, but because his heart warmed to the land and the people of the land to whom he had been sent as a guide and governor. Frontenac's memory remains a happy one, because, like Champlain, he believed in the great future of the Daughter of the Snows. Canada was unknown to him when he was fifty years of age; when he was appointed Governor for the second time he was twenty years older; but this long roll of years did not prevent him from adapting himself to his surroundings, and with such excellent effect that at the time of his death in 1698 he left Canada on the highroad to prosperity and greatness. In particular he must be praised for ridding Canada of murdering savages, as a means towards which he established, in 1673, an outpost at Fort Frontenac.[245]His return to France, however, emboldened the Seneca Indians, the most numerous of the Five Nations, to make frequent raids until his restoration to office in 1689. Five years later Frontenac began his great work of suppression, which was marked by an act of ferocious brutality in 1695, which has deeply stained the old man's reputation. In the same year he retook Fort Frontenac, which had been lost, and twelve months later was so successful against the Iroquois that he not only humbled their pride but actually won their respect. Ruthless he may have been; brutal in a time when brutality was common; but whatever his faults, he came to Canada when Canada cried aloud for such a man,and had the future governors been of the character and possessed the daring spirit of Frontenac, the Great Dominion might still have been the New France in the West.

Meantime, brave, devoted adventurers and Jesuits had been endeavouring to extend the French dominions west and south-west. It has already been mentioned that Champlain, in 1613, had been tempted to make an arduous journey to discover by means of the numerous waterways some route to China. The Great Lakes were first explored; but it was found that none of these vast sheets of water contained the tantalising secret that was interesting and engaging the attention of so many European seamen. From Lake Michigan, then called the Lake of Illinois, the discoverers moved to the narrows of Lake Huron and onward to the Fox River, following the course of which they came to Lake Winnebago. Moving still farther south, they found that a narrow strip of land divided them from another waterway, the Wisconsin, and that in turn they were destined to discover was a tributary of the mighty Mississippi. But some adventurers were more daring than their brethren, and instead of clinging to their canoes and following the course of streams, boldly skirted the territory of the dreaded Five Nations and found the "Beautiful" River, or Ohio.

As early as 1635 Jean Nicollet had reached Lake Michigan, and so successful was he in his explorations of the rivers and lakes that it has been supposed that he was the original white discoverer of the Mississippi. Plausible as this would seem, historians have conclusively disproved his claims; and that honour must be divided between the two famous explorers Jolietand Marquette.[246]Louis Joliet was a layman, though connected by early training with the Jesuits; he was a Canadian born, and had been employed by the Intendant Talon to discover copper in the neighbourhood of Lake Superior. His companion, Jacques Marquette, was a Jesuit in priest's orders; he was a man of pure and saintly life, and within his delicate body there burnt a fiery spirit of endeavour to convert, a spirit which consumed him, as it were, so that his life was but a brief one in labouring for his faith. He landed in Canada in 1666; two years later he was sent forward into the almost unknown wilds and established himself on Lake Superior, teaching both the Hurons and the Illinois. It was indeed from the latter that he first heard of the Mississippi. Being forced by the savages to retire from this outpost, he and his little following took refuge in 1670 at the mission station of St Ignace, now known as Mackinaw. It was here that Marquette determined to make an expedition for the discovery of the great river of which he had heard. He has left an account of his journeyings written from memory, as unfortunately he lost his papers on his return. "I embarked with M. Joliet, who had been chosen to conduct this enterprise, on the 13th May 1673, with five other Frenchmen, in two bark canoes. We laid in some Indian corn and smoked beef for our voyage. We first took care, however, to draw from the Indians all the information we could concerning the countries through which we had designed to travel, and drew up a map, on which we marked down the rivers, nations, and points of the compass to guide us in ourjourney."[247]The discoverers followed the route laid down by others as far as Lake Winnebago, but no white man had up to that time crossed over to the river Wisconsin. Canoeing down that stream, hardly realising where fortune was leading them, the plucky Jesuit and his companions were carried out on the face of the broad waters of the Mississippi on 17th June 1673. "We met from time to time monstrous fish, which struck so violently against our canoes that at first we took them to be large trees, which threatened to upset us. We saw also a hideous monster; his head was like that of a tiger, his nose was sharp and somewhat resembled a wild cat; his beard was long; his ears stood upright; the colour of his head was grey, and his neck black."[248]But even this terrible apparition did not discourage them, and they still pushed on, hoping at first that the great river would bear them into the Gulf of California. They passed the mouths of the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Ohio, and came to the Arkansas; here they learnt their mistake. "We judged by the compass that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Gulf of Mexico. It would, however, have been more agreeable if it had discharged into the South Sea or Gulf of California."[249]They turned back, therefore, having found out what they wanted to know, and "we considered that the advantage of our travels would be altogether lost to our nation if we fell into the hands of the Spaniards, from whom we could expect no other treatment than death or slavery."[250]Neither Marquette nor Joliet reaped any great advantage during their lifetime for their plucky endeavour, but they have had and will have the respectof those who come after them. Marquette made one more voyage on the stream that was his own. His burning zeal for the faith made him set out in the winter of 1674-5 to carry the Christian religion to the Indians of the Illinois River. He returned to Lake Michigan in the May of 1675, but he was a dying man. Death came suddenly, and his companions rapidly interred him far away from his friends; but so great was the love inspired by this faithful priest amongst the savages that they fetched his bones and laid them, with every sign of affection, respect, and grief, in the little mission-chapel where he had laboured for the faith.

Marquette was followed by a man whose name is even better known, but who was cast in a different mould. Réné Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was born at Rouen and had landed in Canada in the same year as Marquette. His object was to discover a route to the East, and the name that he gave to his seignory, La Chine, testifies to this desire. He began his work of discovery in 1669, and in the next two years he passed from Lakes Ontario and Erie right through the Illinois country, finally discovering the Ohio. In 1675 he took up his seignory on the Cataraqui River at Fort Frontenac. He was only thirty-two years of age, but he had already made himself famous. He was a man of strong character, and as such had many enemies amongst his fellow French Canadians; his want of sympathy turned men against him, and his want of tact wounded their feelings. To the Jesuits he was most unwelcome, for they recognised in him a rival discoverer; with the merchants and traders he was no less unpopular, a fact which was possibly intensified by his seignorybeing one of the best positions in New France for pecuniary gain. He was in every way an austere man, solitary and self-communing; and as his mind was filled with ambitions and even statesmanlike conceptions for New France, it is not surprising that the trading element and even his own followers failed to understand him. From 1675 to 1677 this man of extraordinary energy employed himself in commerce with the Indians by means of vessels of his own construction on Lake Ontario; but such work was too petty for La Salle. He therefore, in 1678, obtained from Louis XIV. permission "to labour at the discovery of the Western parts of New France through which to all appearance a way may be found to Mexico,"[251]in addition to which La Salle was strengthened in his possession of Fort Frontenac and was granted the privilege of constructing forts if necessary on his expeditions. On his enterprises he was accompanied by Henri de Tonty, an Italian officer and ever faithful to La Salle, and by Father Hennepin, a brave Flemish friar, whose overwhelming vanity tempted him in later years to try to rob his leader of the honour of first reaching the sea by the Mississippi River.

The early efforts of La Salle were unsatisfactory. He built a fort at Niagara and constructed a vessel called theGriffin, which foundered on Lake Michigan and left him in a hostile country swarming with savages, without supplies, and with mutinous followers. Nevertheless he kept on and descended the Illinois River, determined to reach the Gulf of Mexico. In 1680 his men began to desert, but Tonty and a faithful few assisted him to construct Fort Crèvecœur on theIllinois. Here the discoverer left his lieutenant for a time while he returned to Canada for supplies. The men mutinied, abandoned the fort, and followed La Salle with the intention of murdering him. Meantime he had sent out an expedition under Father Hennepin which had been captured by the Sioux Indians on the Upper Mississippi in what is now Minnesota. The Flemish friar and his followers were rescued by a Canadian backwoodsman, Du Luth, and Hennepin returned to France to write his account of the Mississippi.

Father Membré has left a record of La Salle's great expedition. "M. La Salle having arrived safely at Miamies on the 3rd of November 1681, began with his ordinary activity and vast mind to make all preparations for his departure.... The whole party consisted of about fifty-four persons, including the Sieur de Tonty and the Sieur Dautray, the son of the late Sieur Bourdon."[252]The expedition safely passed the mouths of the Missouri and Ohio; after building a fort, the adventurers reached the Arkansas, where they were welcomed by the Indians, who knew nothing of white men. "The Sieur de la Salle took possession of this country with great ceremony. He planted a cross and set up the king's arms, at which the Indians showed a great joy.... On our return from the sea we found that they had surrounded the cross with a palisade."[253]Passing still farther south, "we arrived on the 6th of April at a point where the river divides into three channels. The Sieur de la Salle divided his party the next day into three bands, to go and explore them. He took the western, the SieurDautray the southern, the Sieur Tonty ... the middle one."[254]On the 9th of April the three parties met on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. This success was marked by the ceremony of planting the cross and raising the arms of France. La Salle took possession of the river and all the country round in the name of the king, and amidst a volley of muskets a leaden plate inscribed with the action and the names of the discoverers was deposited in the ground. Such was the foundation of the French in Louisiana. La Salle and his party returned to the North, but he was not the man to rest upon his laurels, for in the autumn of 1682 and the spring of 1683 he is to be found busily establishing a French colony on the Illinois. Fort Louis was built on a rocky summit and promised to be a most important station in the future, always on the one condition that the connection with Canada was in no way broken, or even threatened.

Perpetual envy and jealousy tended to keep Canada weak and the French in the West powerless. When La Salle returned he found himself surrounded by enemies, and without his friend and supporter, Count Frontenac, who had retired to France. Seeing no chance of accomplishing anything in Canada, La Salle sailed to Europe to put his version of the story before King Louis. He reached Versailles at exactly the right moment for his fortunes. France and Spain in 1683 were again on the verge of war; and even before La Salle's arrival, Seignelay, the son of the late grim Colbert, had proposed to Louis a scheme for the seizure of some port on the Gulf of Mexico so as to discomfit Spain. La Salle was heard with respect and attention, and was, in fact, welcomed as the veryman required to carry out the prearranged plans of the king and his minister. All La Salle's possessions in Canada were restored, and he was commissioned to conduct a party for the purpose of colonising some strip of territory upon the Mexican Gulf. The scheme was from the outset hopeless. La Salle may have seen that it was the last toss of the dice, fortune or ruin. He may have been blinded by his successful discovery; but it is impossible to imagine that a man who had always kept his ends clearly in view, and who had accurately measured the means to attain them, should now have embarked blindly upon so hazardous a task. Whatever his private opinions were, he readily undertook the leadership in conjunction with Admiral Beaujeu. The party embarked in four vessels, and sailed from La Rochelle on July 24, 1684. At the very outset their troubles began. One of the most important of the vessels carrying their supplies was captured by a Spanish buccaneer. The other three ships managed to reach San Domingo, where the little band of soldiers, artizans, and women were kept in idleness for two months owing to their leaders being stricken with fever. At last on January 1, 1685, La Salle brought the expedition to the shores of Texas, where the colony was settled within a palisade at a point called Fort St Louis. The distress of the settlement was terrible, and still further intensified by the realisation of their distance from Canada. In October, La Salle, driven to despair, set out to discover a way to the outposts of the northern colony. In March 1686 he was back again, but unsuccessful. Having rested for a month, he once more started for Canada, but after wandering until October he returned to the settlement utterly baffled.What was worse still was that he found a heavy mortality amongst the colonists; out of one hundred and eighty who had originally started he now had but forty-five followers, and very few of these he could really trust. All his ships were lost, escape to France was impossible, starvation stared them in the face. The only thing to do was to try to cut a way through to Canada. On January 7, 1687, La Salle, his brother, two of his nephews, and half his party set out; mutiny was evident from the beginning, and on March 19th, ambushed by his own men, the daring explorer was murdered. His brother, one of his nephews, and Jontel, who told the tale, escaped, and succeeded after terrible suffering in reaching Canada.

Louis XIV. and his ministers were far too busy at home to care about the death of one who had dared so much for France. The insane idea of Louis' European policy blinded him to the prospects of an empire in the West, which La Salle might, had he been properly supported, have made so great. The people in authority in Canada were equally oblivious to the loss of one of Canada's greatest sons. They were too envious of this remarkable man who had done so much. One man, however, remembered his old master. Henri de Tonty, the faithful friend, had set out in 1686 to find this man whom he regarded with such affection. When he discovered that La Salle had been murdered, he did what he knew his great leader would have done and turned his attention to the rescue of the remnant at Fort St Louis. His efforts were unavailing, for the Spaniards had learnt, and from them Tonty heard, that the few who had remained on the shores of Texas had been annihilatedby the Indians. Thus the grandiose schemes of La Salle appeared to end in failure, mystery, and death; but like his forerunner Marquette, his name still lives in Canada, where the names of his detractors have long since been forgotten. La Salle will be remembered as one of the boldest explorers, as a man who, even above any Englishman of his day, really grasped the imperial idea of a New France beyond the sea. He was the first to realise the great conception of uniting the French settlement from the snow-clad plains of Canada to the sunny shores of Mexico; and he it was who saw that should this dream be turned to reality, the Anglo-Saxon people would be confined to the narrow strip along the coast, and the illimitable expanses of the North American continent, with the enormous wealth of the West, would be the inheritance of the Gallic race.

There were, however, a few Frenchmen who had glimmerings of the dream of La Salle. As early as 1686 a party under Du Luth established a French outpost between Lakes Huron and Erie. Eight years later La Mothe Cadillac urged upon the French government the importance of holding this post, which in fact controlled the outlet of the two lakes. The consent of those in authority having been obtained, the French began in 1701 the erection of the city of Detroit. The Iroquois at last realised what was happening; they saw that, just as Fort Frontenac some years before had very seriously curtailed their rights of hunting and had indeed endangered their power, so now that they might again be trapped. To prevent this, on July 19, 1701, they ceded their hunting grounds to the King of England, retaining the right of free hunting. They were notversed in European politics; nor did they know that the magnificent Louis was gradually being ruined by William III. and Marlborough. The war of the Spanish Succession, fought for the most part in the Netherlands and Spain, had a vital effect upon those Iroquois nations of the Western prairies. The victories of Marlborough brought to England many possessions, and amongst them those lands which had been so trustingly conceded in 1701.

The Treaty of Utrecht, although it brought peace after a long and expensive war, may be said to mark a new epoch in the stories of both British and French colonial expansion. This epoch is not one of peace in the true sense; the actual fighting, when it occurred, was not always sanctioned by the home government; but the period was one of aggression on the part of the French in Canada and resistance on the part of the British colonists along the Eastern seaboard.

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