[3] On October 26, 1678, a meeting of the leading inhabitants of Canada was held by royal order at Quebec to consider the rights and wrongs of the brandy question. A large majority of those present were opposed to prohibition.



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CHAPTER V

FRONTENAC'S PUBLIC POLICY

As was said long ago, every one has the defects of his qualities. Yet, in justice to a man of strong character and patriotic aim, the chronicler should take care that constructive work is given its due place, for only those who do nothing make no mistakes.

During his first term of office Frontenac had many enemies in the higher circles of society. His quarrel with Laval was a cause of scandal to the devout. His deadlock with Duchesneau dislocated the routine of government. There was no one who did not feel the force of his will. Yet to friends and foes alike his recall at sixty-two must have seemed the definite, humiliating close of a career. It was not the moment to view in due perspective what he had accomplished. His shortcomings were on the lips of every one. His strength had been revealed, but was for the time forgotten. When he left Quebec in 1682 he must {72} have thought that he would never see it again. Yet when need came he was remembered. This fact is a useful comment on his first term, extenuating much that had seemed ground for censure in less troubled days.

Let us now regard Frontenac's policy from his own point of view, and attempt to estimate what he had accomplished down to the date of his recall.

However closely Laval and Duchesneau might seek to narrow Frontenac's sphere of action, there was one power they could not deny him. As commander of the king's troops in Canada he controlled all matters relating to colonial defence. If his domestic administration was full of trouble, it must also be remembered that during his first term of office there was no war. This happy result was due less to accident than to his own gifts and character. It is true that the friendship of Louis XIV and Charles II assured peace between New France and New England. But Canada could thank Frontenac for keeping the Iroquois at arm's length.

We have seen how he built the stronghold at Cataraqui, which was named Fort Frontenac. The vigour and the tact that he displayed on this occasion give the keynote to {73} all his relations with the Indians. Towards them he displayed the three qualities which a governor of Canada most needed—firmness, sympathy, and fair dealing. His arrogance, so conspicuous in his intercourse with equals or with refractory subordinates, disappears wholly when he comes into contact with the savages. Theatrical he may be, but in the forest he is never intolerant or narrow-minded. And behind his pageants there is always power.

Thus Frontenac should receive personal credit for the great success of his Indian policy. He kept the peace by moral ascendancy, and to see that this was no light task one need only compare the events of his regime with those which marked the period of his successors, La Barre and Denonville. This we shall do in the next chapter. For the present it is enough to say that throughout the full ten years 1672-82 Canada was free from fear of the Iroquois. Just at the close of Frontenac's first term (1680-82) the Senecas were showing signs of restlessness by attacking tribes allied to the French, but there is abundant reason to suppose that had Frontenac remained in office he could have kept these inter-tribal wars under control.

{74}

Bound up with the success of Frontenac's Indian policy is the exploration of the West—an achievement which adds to this period its chief lustre. Here La Salle is the outstanding figure and the laurels are chiefly his. None the less, Frontenac deserves the credit of having encouraged all endeavours to solve the problem of the Mississippi. Like La Salle he had large ideas and was not afraid. They co-operated in perfect harmony, sharing profits, perhaps, but sincerely bent on gaining for France a new, vast realm. The whole history of colonial enterprise shows how fortunate the French have been in the co-operation of their explorers with their provincial governors. The relations of La Salle with La Barre form a striking exception, but the statement holds true in the main, and with reference to Algiers as well as to Canada.

La Salle was a frank partisan of Frontenac throughout the quarrel with Perrot and Fenelon. On one occasion he made a scene in church at Montreal. It was during the Easter service of 1674. When Fenelon decried magistrates who show no respect to the clergy and who use their deputed power for their own advantage, La Salle stood up and called the attention of the leading citizens to {75} these words. Frontenac, who was always a loyal ally, showed that he appreciated La Salle's efforts on his behalf by giving him a letter of recommendation to the court in which La Salle is styled 'a man of intelligence and ability, more capable than any one else I know here to accomplish every kind of enterprise and discovery which may be entrusted to him.'

The result of La Salle's visit to Versailles (1674) was that he gained privileges which made him one of the most important men in Canada, and a degree of power which brought down on him many enemies. He received the seigneury of Fort Frontenac, he was made local governor at that post, and, in recognition of services already performed, he gained a grant of nobility. It is clear that La Salle's forceful personality made a strong impression at court, and the favours which he received enabled him, in turn, to secure financial aid from his wealthy relatives at Rouen.

What followed was the most brilliant, the most exciting, and the most tragic chapter in the French exploration of America. La Salle fulfilled all the conditions upon which he had received the seigneury at Fort Frontenac, and found financial profit in maintaining the post. {76} The original wooden structure was replaced by stone, good barracks were built for the troops, there were bastions upon which nine cannon announced a warning to the Iroquois, a settlement with well-tilled land sprang up around the fort, schooners were built with a draught of forty tons. But for La Salle this was not enough. He was a pathfinder, not a trader. Returning to France after two years of labour and success at Fort Frontenac, he secured a royal patent authorizing him to explore the whole continent from the Great Lakes to Mexico, with the right to build forts therein and to enjoy a monopoly of the trade in buffalo skins. The expenses of the undertaking were, of course, to be borne by La Salle and his associates, for the king never invested money in these enterprises. However, the persuasiveness which enabled La Salle to secure his patent enabled him to borrow the necessary funds. At the close of 1678 he was once more at Fort Frontenac and ready for the great adventure.

How La Salle explored the country of the Illinois in company with his valiant friend, Henri de Tonty 'of the iron hand,' and how these two heroic leaders traversed the continent to the very mouth of the Mississippi, {77} is not to be told here. But with its risks, its hardships, its tragedies, and its triumphs, this episode, which belongs to the period of Frontenac's administration, will always remain a classic in the records of discovery. The Jesuits, who did not love La Salle, were no less brave than he, and the lustre of his achievements must not be made to dim theirs. Yet they had all the force of a mighty organization at their back, while La Salle, standing alone, braved ruin, obloquy, and death in order to win an empire for France. Sometimes he may have thought of fame, but he possessed that driving power which goes straight for the object, even if it means sacrifice of self. His haughtiness, his daring, his self-centred determination, well fitted him to be the friend and trusted agent of Frontenac.

Another leading figure of the period in western discovery was Daniel Greysolon du Lhut. Duchesneau calls him the leader of the coureurs de bois. There can be no doubt that he had reached this eminence among the French of the forest. He was a gentleman by birth and a soldier by early training. In many ways he resembled La Salle, for both stood high above the common coureurs de {78} bois in station, as in talent. Du Lhut has to his credit no single exploit which equals La Salle's descent of the Mississippi, but in native sagacity he was the superior. With a temperament less intense and experiences less tragic, he will never hold the place which La Salle securely occupies in the annals of adventure. But few Frenchmen equalled him in knowledge of the wilderness, and none displayed greater force of character in dealing with the Indians.

What the mouth of the Mississippi was to La Salle the country of the Sioux became to Du Lhut—a goal to be reached at all hazards. Not only did he reach it, but the story of how he rescued Father Hennepin from the Sioux (1680) is among the liveliest tales to be found in the literature of the wilderness. The only regrettable circumstance is that the story should have been told by Hennepin instead of by Du Lhut—or rather, that we should not have also Du Lhut's detailed version instead of the brief account which he has left. Above all, Du Lhut made himself the guardian of French interests at Michilimackinac, the chief French post of the Far West—the rendezvous of more tribes than came together at any other point. The finest tale of his courage {79} and good judgment belongs to the period of La Barre's government—when, in 1684, at the head of forty-two French, he executed sentence of death on an Indian convicted of murder. Four hundred savages, who had assembled in mutinous mood, witnessed this act of summary justice. But they respected Du Lhut for the manner in which he had conducted the trial, and admired the firmness with which he executed a fair sentence.

Du Lhut's exploits and character make him the outstanding figure of the war which Duchesneau waged against the coureurs de bois. The intendant certainly had the letter of the law on his side in seeking to clear the woods of those rovers who at the risk of their own lives and without expense to the government were gaining for France an unequalled knowledge of the interior. Not only had the king decreed that no one should be permitted to enter the forest without express permission, but an edict of 1676 denied even the governor the right to issue a trading pass at his unrestrained discretion. Frontenac, who believed that the colony would draw great profit from exploration, softened the effect of this measure by issuing licences to hunt. It was also within his power to dispatch messengers to the tribes {80} of the Great Lakes. Duchesneau reported that Frontenac evaded the edict in order to favour his own partners or agents among the coureurs de bois, and that when he went to Montreal on the pretext of negotiating with the Iroquois, his real purpose was to take up merchandise and bring back furs. These charges Frontenac denied with his usual vigour, but without silencing Duchesneau. In 1679 the altercation on this point was brought to an issue by the arrest, at the intendant's instance [Transcriber's note: insistence?], of La Toupine, a retainer of Du Lhut. An accusation of disobeying the edict was no trifle, for the penalty might mean a sentence to the galleys. After a bitter contest over La Toupine the matter was settled on a basis not unfavourable to Frontenac. In 1681 a fresh edict declared that all coureurs de bois who came back to the colony should receive the benefit of an amnesty. At the same time the governor was empowered to grant twenty-five trading licences in each year, the period to be limited to one year.



The splendid services of Du Lhut, covering a period of thirty years, are the best vindication of Frontenac's policy towards him and his associates. Had Duchesneau succeeded in his efforts, Du Lhut would have been {81} severely punished, and probably excluded from the West for the remainder of his life. Thanks to Frontenac's support, he became the mainstay of French interests from Lake Ontario to the Mississippi. Setting out as an adventurer with a strong taste for exploration, he ended as commandant of the most important posts—Lachine, Cataraqui, and Michilimackinac. He served the colony nobly in the war against the Iroquois. He has left reports of his discoveries which disclose marked literary talent. From the early years of Frontenac's regime he made himself useful, not only to Frontenac but to each succeeding governor, until, crippled by gout and age, he died, still in harness. The letter in which the governor Vaudreuil announces Du Lhut's death (1710) to the Colonial Office at Paris is a useful comment upon the accusations of Duchesneau. 'He was,' says Vaudreuil, 'a very honest man.' In these words will be found an indirect commendation of Frontenac, who discovered Du Lhut, supported him through bitter opposition, and placed him where his talents and energy could be used for the good of his country.

It will be remembered that Frontenac received orders from Colbert (April 7, 1672) to {82} prevent the Jesuits from becoming too powerful. In carrying out these instructions he soon found himself embroiled at Quebec, and the same discord made itself felt throughout the wilderness.

Frontenac favoured the establishment of trading-posts and government forts along the great waterways, from Cataraqui to Crevecoeur.[1] He sincerely believed that these were the best guarantees of the king's power on the Great Lakes and in the valley of the Mississippi. The Jesuits saw in each post a centre of debauchery and feared that their religious work would be undone by the scandalous example of the coureurs de bois. What for Frontenac was a question of political expediency loomed large to the Jesuits as a vital issue of morals. It was a delicate question at best, though probably a peaceable solution could have been arranged, but for the mutual agreement of Frontenac and the Jesuits that they must be antagonists. War having once been declared, Frontenac proved a poor controversialist. He could have defended his forest policy without alleging that the Jesuits maintained their missions as a source of {83} profit, which was a slander upon heroes and upon martyrs. Moreover, he exposed himself to a flank attack, for it could be pointed out with much force that he had private motives in advocating the erection of forts. Frontenac was intelligent and would have recommended the establishment of posts whether he expected profit from them or not, but he weakened his case by attacking the Jesuits on wrong grounds.

During Frontenac's first term the settled part of Canada was limited to the shores of the St Lawrence from Lachine downward, with a cluster of seigneuries along the lower Richelieu. In this region the governor was hampered by the rights of the intendant and the influence of the bishop. Westward of Lachine stretched the wilderness, against whose dusky denizens the governor must guard the colony. The problems of the forest embraced both trade and war; and where trade was concerned the intendant held sway. But the safety of the flock came first, and as Frontenac had the power of the sword he could execute his plans most freely in the region which lay beyond the fringe of settlement. It was here that he achieved his greatest success and by his acts won a strong place in the confidence {84} of the settlers. This was much, and to this extent his first term of office was not a failure.

As Canada was then so sparsely settled, the growth of population filled a large place in the shaping of public policy. With this matter, however, Duchesneau had more to do than Frontenac, for it was the intendant's duty to create prosperity. During the decade 1673-83 the population of Canada increased from 6705 to 10,251. In percentage the advance shows to better advantage than in totals, but the king had hardened his heart to the demand for colonists. Thenceforth the population of Canada was to be recruited almost altogether from births.

On the whole, the growth of the population during this period compares favourably with the growth of trade. In 1664 a general monopoly of Canadian trade had been conceded to the West India Company, on terms which gave every promise of success. But the trading companies of France proved a series of melancholy failures, and at this point Colbert fared no better than Richelieu. When Frontenac reached Canada the West India Company was hopelessly bankrupt, and in 1674 the king acquired its rights. This change produced little or no improvement. Like France, {85} Canada suffered greatly through the war with Holland, and not till after the Peace of Nimwegen (1678) did the commercial horizon begin to clear. Even then it was impossible to note any real progress in Canadian trade, except in a slight enlargement of relations with the West Indies. During his last year at Quebec Duchesneau gives a very gloomy report on commercial conditions.

For this want of prosperity Frontenac was in no way responsible, unless his troubles with Laval and Duchesneau may be thought to have damped the colonizing ardour of Louis XIV. It is much more probable that the king withheld his bounty from Canada because his attention was concentrated on the costly war against Holland. Campaigns at home meant economy in Canada, and the colony was far from having reached the stage where it could flourish without constant financial support from the motherland.

In general, Frontenac's policy was as vigorous as he could make it. Over commerce, taxes, and religion he had no control. By training and temper he was a war governor, who during his first administration fell upon a time of peace. So long as peace prevailed he lacked the powers and the opportunity to {86} enable him to reveal his true strength; and his energy, without sufficient vent, broke forth in quarrels at the council board.

With wider authority, Frontenac might have proved a successful governor even in time of peace, for he was very intelligent and had at heart the welfare of the colony. As it was, his restrictions chafed and goaded him until wrathfulness took the place of reason. But we shall err if we conclude that when he left Canada in discomfiture he had not earned her thanks. Through pride and faults of temper he had impaired his usefulness and marred his record. Even so there was that which rescued his work from the stigma of failure. He had guarded his people from the tomahawk and the scalping-knife. With prescient eye he had foreseen the imperial greatness of the West. Whatever his shortcomings, they had not been those of meanness or timidity.



[1] Fort Crevecoeur was La Salle's post in the heart of the Illinois country.



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CHAPTER VI

THE LURID INTERVAL

We have seen that during Frontenac's first term of office no urgent danger menaced the colony on the frontier. The missionary and the explorer were steadily pressing forward to the head of the Great Lakes and into the valley of the Mississippi, enlarging the sphere of French influence and rendering the interior tributary to the commerce of Quebec. But this peaceful and silent expansion had not passed unnoticed by those in whose minds it aroused both rivalry and dread. Untroubled from without as New France had been under Frontenac, there were always two lurking perils—the Iroquois and the English.

The Five Nations owed their leadership among the Indian tribes not only to superior discipline and method but also to their geographical situation. The valley of the St Lawrence lay within easy reach, either through Lake Champlain or Lake Ontario. On the {88} east at their very door lay the valley of the Mohawk and the Hudson. From the western fringe of their territory they could advance quickly to Lake Erie, or descend the Ohio into the valley of the Mississippi. It was doubtless due to their prowess rather than to accident that they originally came into possession of this central and favoured position; however, they could now make their force felt throughout the whole north-eastern portion of the continent.

Over seventy years had now passed since Champlain's attack upon the Iroquois in 1609; but lapse of time had not altered the nature of the savage, nor were the causes of mutual hostility less real than at first. A ferocious lust for war remained the deepest passion of the Iroquois, to be satisfied at convenient intervals. It was unfortunate, in their view, that they could not always be at war; but they recognized that there must be breathing times and that it was important to choose the right moment for massacre and pillage. Daring but sagacious, they followed an opportunist policy. At times their warriors delighted to lurk in the outskirts of Montreal with tomahawk and scalping-knife and to organize great war-parties, such as that {89} which was arrested by Dollard and his heroic companions at the Long Sault in 1660. At other times they held fair speech with the governor and permitted the Jesuits to live in their villages, for the French had weapons and means of fighting which inspired respect.

The appearance of the Dutch on the Hudson in 1614 was an event of great importance to the Five Nations. The Dutch were quite as ready as the French to trade in furs, and it was thus that the Iroquois first procured the firearms which they used in their raids on the French settlements. That the Iroquois rejoiced at having a European colony on the Hudson may be doubted, but as they were unable to prevent it, they drew what profit they could by putting the French and Dutch in competition, both for their alliance and their neutrality.

But, though the Dutch were heretics and rivals, it was a bad day for New France when the English seized New Amsterdam (1664) and began to establish themselves from Manhattan to Albany. The inevitable conflict was first foreshadowed in the activities of Sir Edmund Andros, which followed his appointment as governor of New York in 1674. He visited the Mohawks in their own villages, {90} organized a board of Indian commissioners at Albany, and sought to cement an alliance with the whole confederacy of the Five Nations. In opposition to this France made the formal claim (1677) that by actual residence in the Iroquois country the Jesuits had brought the Iroquois under French sovereignty.

Iroquois, French, and English thus formed the points of a political triangle. Home politics, however—the friendship of Stuart and Bourbon—tended to postpone the day of reckoning between the English and French in America. England and France were not only at peace but in alliance. The Treaty of Dover had been signed in 1670, and two years later, just as Frontenac had set out for Quebec, Charles II had sent a force of six thousand English to aid Louis XIV against the Dutch. It was in this war that John Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, won his spurs—fighting on the French side!

None the less, there were premonitions of trouble in America, especially after Thomas Dongan became governor of New York in 1683. Andros had shown good judgment in his dealings with the Iroquois, and his successor, inheriting a sound policy, went even further on the same course. Dongan, an {91} Irishman of high birth and a Catholic, strenuously opposed the pretensions of the French to sovereignty over the Iroquois. When it was urged that religion required the presence of the Jesuits among them, he denied the allegation, stating that he would provide English priests to take their place. A New England Calvinist could not have shown more firmness in upholding the English position. Indeed, no governor of Puritan New England had ever equalled Dongan in hostility to Catholic New France.

Frontenac's successor, Lefebvre de la Barre, who had served with distinction in the West Indies, arrived at Quebec in September 1682. By the same ship came the new intendant, Meulles. They found the Lower Town of Quebec in ruins, for a devastating fire had just swept through it. Hardly anything remained standing save the buildings on the cliff.

La Barre and Meulles were soon at loggerheads. It appears that, instead of striving to repair the effects of the fire, the new governor busied himself to accumulate a fortune. He had indeed promised the king that, unlike his predecessors, he would seek no profit from private trading, and had on this ground requested an increase of salary. {92} Meulles presently reported that, far from keeping this promise, La Barre and his agents had shared ten or twelve thousand crowns of profit, and that unless checked the governor's revenues would soon exceed those of the king. Meulles also accuses La Barre of sending home deceitful reports regarding the success of his Indian policy. We need not dwell longer on these reports. They disclose with great clearness the opinion of the intendant as to the governor's fitness for his office.

La Barre stands condemned not by the innuendoes of Meulles, but by his own failure to cope with the Iroquois.

The presence of the Dutch and English had stimulated the Five Nations to enlarge their operations in the fur trade and multiply their profits. The French, from being earliest in the field, had established friendly relations with all the tribes to the north of the Great Lakes, including those who dwelt in the valley of the Ottawa; and La Salle and Tonty had recently penetrated to the Mississippi and extended French trade to the country of the Illinois Indians. The furs from this region were being carried up the Mississippi and forwarded to Quebec by the Lakes and the St Lawrence. This brought the Illinois within {93} the circle of tribes commercially dependent on Quebec. At the same time the Iroquois, through the English on the Hudson, now possessed facilities greater than ever for disposing of all the furs they could acquire; and they wanted this trade for themselves.

The wholesome respect which the Iroquois entertained for Frontenac kept them from attacking the tribes under the protection of the French on the Great Lakes; but the remote Illinois were thought to be a safe prey. During the autumn of 1680 a war-party of more than six hundred Iroquois invaded the country of the Illinois. La Salle was then in Montreal, but Tonty met the invaders and did all he could to save the Illinois from their clutches. His efforts were in vain. The Illinois suffered all that had befallen the Hurons in 1649.[1] The Iroquois, however, were careful not to harm the French, and to demand from Tonty a letter to show Frontenac as proof that he and his companions had been respected.

Obviously this raid was a symptom of danger, and in 1681 Frontenac asked the king to send him five or six hundred troops. A further disturbing incident occurred at the {94} Jesuit mission of Sault Ste Marie, where an Illinois Indian murdered a Seneca chieftain. That Frontenac intended to act with firmness towards the Iroquois, while giving them satisfaction for the murder of their chief, is clear from his acts in 1681 no less than from his general record. But his forces were small and he had received particular instructions to reduce expenditure. And, with Duchesneau at hand to place a sinister interpretation upon his every act, the conditions were not favourable for immediate action. Then in 1682 he was recalled.

Such, in general, were the conditions which confronted La Barre, and in fairness it must be admitted that they were the most serious thus far in the history of Canada. From the first the Iroquois had been a pest and a menace, but now, with the English to flatter and encourage them, they became a grave peril. The total population of the colony was now about ten thousand, of whom many were women and children. The regular troops were very few; and, though the disbanded Carignan soldiers furnished the groundwork of a valiant militia, the habitants and their seigneurs alone could not be expected to defend such a territory against such a foe.

{95}

Above all else the situation demanded strong leadership; and this was precisely what La Barre failed to supply. He was preoccupied with the profits of the fur trade, ignorant of Indian character, and past his physical prime; and his policy towards the Iroquois was a continuous series of blunders. Through the great personal influence of Charles Le Moyne the Five Nations were induced, in 1683, to send representatives to Montreal, where La Barre met them and gave them lavish presents. The Iroquois, always good judges of character, did not take long to discover in the new governor a very different Onontio from the imposing personage who had held conference with them at Fort Frontenac ten years earlier.

The feebleness of La Barre's effort to maintain French sovereignty over the Iroquois is reflected in his request that they should ask his permission before attacking tribes friendly to the French. When he asked them why they had attacked the Illinois, they gave this ominous answer: 'Because they deserved to die.' La Barre could effect nothing by a display of authority, and even with the help of gifts he could only postpone war against the tribes of the Great Lakes. The Iroquois intimated that for the present they would be {96} content to finish the destruction of the Illinois—a work which would involve the destruction of the French posts in the valley of the Mississippi. La Barre's chief purpose was to protect his own interests as a trader, and, so far from wishing to strengthen La Salle's position on the Mississippi, he looked upon that illustrious explorer as a competitor whom it was legitimate to destroy by craft. By an act of poetic justice the Iroquois a few months later plundered a convoy of canoes which La Barre himself had sent out to the Mississippi for trading purposes.

The season of 1684 proved even less prosperous for the French. Not only Dongan was doing his best to make the Iroquois allies of the English; Lord Howard of Effingham, the governor of Virginia, was busy to the same end. For some time past certain tribes of the Five Nations, though not the confederacy as a whole, had been making forays upon the English settlers in Maryland and even in Virginia. To adjust this matter Lord Howard came to Albany in person, held a council which was attended by representatives of all the tribes, and succeeded in effecting a peace. Amid the customary ceremonies the Five Nations buried the hatchet with the English, {97} and stood ready to concentrate their war-parties upon the French.

It must not be inferred that by an act of reconciliation these subtle savages threw themselves into the arms of the English, exchanging a new suzerainty for an old. They always did the best they could for their own hand, seeking to play one white man against the other for their own advantage. It was a situation where, on the part of French and English, individual skill and knowledge of Indian character counted for much. On the one hand, Dongan showed great intelligence and activity in making the most of the fact that Albany was nearer to the land of the Five Nations than Quebec, or even Montreal. On the other, the French had envoys who stood high in the esteem of the Iroquois—notably Charles Le Moyne, of Longueuil, and Lamberville, the Jesuit missionary.

But for the moment the French were heavily burdened by the venality of La Barre, who subordinated public policy to his own gains. We have now to record his most egregious blunder—an attempt to overawe the Iroquois with an insufficient force—an attempt which Meulles declared was a mere piece of acting—not designed for real war on behalf of the colony, {98} but to assist the governor's private interests as a trader. From whatever side the incident is viewed it illustrates a complete incapacity.

On July 10, 1684, La Barre left Quebec with a body of two hundred troops. In ascending the river they were reinforced by recruits from the Canadian militia and several hundred Indian allies. After much hardship in the rapids the little army reached Fort Frontenac. Here the sanitary conditions proved bad and many died from malarial fever. All thought of attack soon vanished, and La Barre altered his plans and decided to invite the Iroquois to a council. The degree of his weakness may be seen from the fact that he began with a concession regarding the place of meeting. An embassy from the Onondagas finally condescended to meet him, but not at Fort Frontenac. La Barre, with a force such as he could muster, crossed to the south side of Lake Ontario and met the delegates from the Iroquois at La Famine, at the mouth of the Salmon River, not far from the point where Champlain and the Hurons had left their canoes when they had invaded the Onondaga country in 1615.

The council which ensued was a ghastly joke. La Barre began his speech by {99} enumerating the wrongs which the French and their dependent tribes had recently suffered from the Iroquois. Among these he included the raid upon the Illinois, the machinations with the English, and the spoliation of French traders. For offences so heinous satisfaction must be given. Otherwise Onontio would declare a war in which the English would join him. These were brave words, but unfortunately the Iroquois had excellent reason to believe that the statement regarding the English was untrue, and could see for themselves the weakness of La Barre's forces.

This conference has been picturesquely described by Baron La Hontan, who was present and records the speeches. The chief orator of the Onondagas was a remarkable person, who either for his eloquence or aspect is called by La Hontan, Grangula, or Big Mouth. Having listened to La Barre's bellicose words and their interpretation, 'he rose, took five or six turns in the ring that the French and the savages formed, and returned to his place. Then standing upright he spoke after the following manner to the General La Barre, who sat in his chair of state:

Onontio, I honour you, and all the warriors that accompany me do the same. Your interpreter has {100} made an end of his discourse, and now I come to begin mine. My voice glides to your ear. Pray listen to my words.

Onontio, in setting out from Quebec, you must have fancied that the scorching beams of the sun had burnt down the forests which render our country inaccessible to the French; or else that the inundations of the lake had surrounded our cottages and confined us as prisoners. This certainly was your thought; and it could be nothing else but the curiosity of seeing a burnt or drowned country that moved you to undertake a journey hither. But now you have an opportunity of being undeceived, for I and my warriors come to assure you that the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks are not yet destroyed. I return you thanks in their name for bringing into their country the calumet of peace, which your predecessor received from their hands. At the same time I congratulate you on having left under ground the tomahawk which has so often been dyed with the blood of the French. I must tell you, Onontio, that I am not asleep. My eyes are open, and the sun which vouchsafes the light gives me a clear view of a great captain at the head of a troop of soldiers, who speaks as if he were asleep. He pretends that he does not approach this lake with any other view than to smoke the calumet with the Onondagas. But Grangula knows better. He sees plainly that Onontio meant to knock them on the head if the French arms had not been so much weakened....

You must know, Onontio, that we have robbed no {101} Frenchman, save those who supplied the Illinois and the Miamis (our enemies) with muskets, powder, and ball.... We have conducted the English to our lakes in order to trade with the Ottawas and the Hurons; just as the Algonquins conducted the French to our five cantons, in order to carry on a commerce that the English lay claim to as their right. We are born freemen and have no dependence either upon the Onontio or the Corlaer [the English governor]. We have power to go where we please, to conduct whom we will to the places we resort to, and to buy and sell where we think fit.... We fell upon the Illinois and the Miamis because they cut down the trees of peace that served for boundaries and came to hunt beavers upon our lands.... We have done less than the English and French, who without any right have usurped the lands they are now possessed of.

I give you to know, Onontio, that my voice is the voice of the five Iroquois cantons. This is their answer. Pray incline your ear and listen to what they represent.

The Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks declare that they buried the tomahawk in the presence of your predecessor, in the very centre of the fort, and planted the Tree of Peace in the same place. It was then stipulated that the fort should be used as a place of retreat for merchants and not a refuge for soldiers. Be it known to you, Onontio, that so great a number of soldiers, being shut up in so small a fort, do not stifle and choke the Tree of Peace. Since it took root so easily it would be evil {102} to stop its growth and hinder it from shading both your country and ours with its leaves. I assure you, in the name of the five nations, that our warriors will dance the calumet dance under its branches and will never dig up the axe to cut it down—till such time as the Onontio and the Corlaer do separately or together invade the country which the Great Spirit gave to our ancestors.'[2]

When Le Moyne and the Jesuits had interpreted this speech La Barre 'retired to his tent and stormed and blustered.' But Grangula favoured the spectators with an Iroquois dance, after which he entertained several of the Frenchmen at a banquet. 'Two days later,' writes La Hontan, 'he and his warriors returned to their own country, and our army set out for Montreal. As soon as the General was on board, together with the few healthy men that remained, the canoes were dispersed, for the militia straggled here and there, and every one made the best of his way home.'

With this ignominious adventure the career of La Barre ends. The reports which Meulles sent to France produced a speedy effect in {103} securing his dismissal from office. 'I have been informed,' politely writes the king, 'that your years do not permit you to support the fatigues inseparable from your office of governor and lieutenant-general in Canada.'

La Barre's successor, the Marquis de Denonville, arrived at Quebec in August 1685. Like La Barre, he was a soldier; like Frontenac, he was an aristocrat as well. From both these predecessors, however, he differed in being free from the reproach of using his office to secure personal profits through the fur trade. No governor in all the annals of New France was on better terms with the bishop and the Jesuits. He possessed great bravery. There is much to show that he was energetic. None the less he failed, and his failure was more glaring than that of La Barre. He could not hold his ground against the Iroquois and the English.

It has been pointed out already that when La Barre assumed office the problems arising from these two sources were more difficult than at any previous date; but the situation which was serious in 1682 and had become critical by 1685 grew desperate in the four years of Denonville's sway. The one {104} over-shadowing question of this period was the Iroquois peril, rendered more and more acute by the policy of the English.

The greatest mistake which Denonville made in his dealings with the Iroquois was to act deceitfully. The savages could be perfidious themselves, but they were not without a conception of honour and felt genuine respect for a white man whose word they could trust. Denonville, who in his private life displayed many virtues, seemed to consider that he was justified in acting towards the savages as the exigency of the moment prompted. Apart from all considerations of morality this was bad judgment.

In his dealings with the English Denonville had little more success than in his dealings with the Indians. Dongan was a thorn in his side from the first, although their correspondence opened, on both sides, with the language of compliment. A few months later its tone changed, particularly after Dongan heard that Denonville intended to build a fort at Niagara. Against a project so unfriendly Dongan protested with emphasis. In reply Denonville disclaimed the intention, at the same time alleging that Dongan was giving shelter at Albany to French deserters. A {105} little later they reach the point of sarcasm. Denonville taxes Dongan with selling rum to the Indians. Dongan retorts that at least English rum is less unwholesome than French brandy. Beneath these epistolary compliments there lies the broad fact that Dongan stood firm by his principle that the extension of French rule to the south of Lake Ontario should not be tolerated. He ridicules the basis of French pretensions, saying that Denonville might as well claim China because there are Jesuits at the Chinese court. The French, he adds, have no more right to the country because its streams flow into Lake Ontario than they have to the lands of those who drink claret or brandy. It is clear that Dongan fretted under the restrictions which were imposed upon him by the friendship between England and France. He would have welcomed an order to support his arguments by force. Denonville, on his side, with like feelings, could not give up the claim to suzerainty over the land of the Iroquois.

The domain of the Five Nations was not the only part of America where French and English clashed. The presence of the English in Hudson Bay excited deep resentment at {106} Quebec and Montreal. Here Denonville ventured to break the peace as Dongan had not dared to do. With Denonville's consent and approval, a band of Canadians left Montreal in the spring of 1686, fell upon three of the English posts—Fort Hayes, Fort Rupert, Fort Albany—and with some bloodshed dispossessed their garrisons. Well satisfied with this exploit, Denonville in 1687 turned his attention to the chastisement of the Iroquois.

The forces which he brought together for this task were greatly superior to any that had been mustered in Canada before. Not only were they adequate in numbers, but they comprised an important band of coureurs de bois, headed by La Durantaye, Tonty, Du Lhut, and Nicolas Perrot—men who equalled the Indians in woodcraft and surpassed them in character. The epitaph of Denonville as a governor is written in the failure of this great expedition to accomplish its purpose.

The first blunder occurred at Fort Frontenac before mobilization had been completed. There were on the north shore of Lake Ontario two Iroquois villages, whose inhabitants had been in part baptized by the Sulpicians and {107} were on excellent terms with the garrison of the fort. In a moment of insane stupidity Denonville decided that the men of these settlements should be captured and sent to France as galley slaves. Through the ruse of a banquet they were brought together and easily seized. By dint of a little further effort two hundred Iroquois of all ages and both sexes were collected at Fort Frontenac as prisoners—and some at least perished by torture. But, when executing this dastardly plot, Denonville did not succeed in catching all the friendly Iroquois who lived in the neighbourhood of his fort. Enough escaped to carry the authentic tale to the Five Nations, and after that there could be no peace till there had been revenge. Worst of all, the French stood convicted of treachery and falseness.

Having thus blighted his cause at the outset, Denonville proceeded with his more serious task of smiting the Iroquois in their own country. Considering the extent and expense of his preparations, he should have planned a complete destruction of their power. Instead of this he attempted no more than an attack upon the Senecas, whose operations against the Illinois and in other quarters had made {108} them especially objectionable. The composite army of French and Indians assembled at Irondequoit Bay on July 12—a force brought together at infinite pains and under circumstances which might never occur again. Marching southwards they fought a trivial battle with the Senecas, in which half a dozen on the French side were killed, while the Senecas are said to have lost about a hundred in killed and wounded. The rest of the tribe took to the woods. As a result of this easy victory the triumphant allies destroyed an Iroquois village and all the corn which it contained, but the political results of the expedition were worse than nothing. Denonville made no attempt to destroy the other nations of the confederacy. Returning to Lake Ontario he built a fort at Niagara, which he had promised Dongan he would not do, and then returned to Montreal. The net results of this portentous effort were a broken promise to the English, an act of perfidy towards the Iroquois, and an insignificant success in battle.

In 1688 Denonville's decision to abandon Fort Niagara slightly changed the situation. The garrison had suffered severe losses through illness and the post proved too remote for {109} successful defence. So this matter settled itself. The same season saw the recall of Dongan through the consolidation of New England, New York, and New Jersey under Sir Edmund Andros. But in essentials there was no change. Andros continued Dongan's policy, of which, in fact, he himself had been the author. And, even though no longer threatened by the French from Niagara, the savages had reason enough to hate and distrust Denonville.

Yet despite these untoward circumstances all hope of peace between the French and the Five Nations had not been destroyed. The Iroquois loved their revenge and were willing to wait for it, but caution warned them that it would not be advantageous to destroy the French for the benefit of the English. Moreover, in the long course of their relations with the French they had, as already mentioned, formed a high opinion of men like Le Moyne and Lamberville, while they viewed with respect the exploits of Tonty, La Durantaye, and Du Lhut.

Moved by these considerations and a love of presents, Grangula, of the Onondagas, was in the midst of negotiations for peace with the French, which might have ended happily but {110} for the stratagem of the Huron chief Kondiaronk, called 'The Rat.' The remnant of Hurons and the other tribes centring at Michilimackinac did not desire a peace of the French and Iroquois which would not include themselves, for this would mean their own certain destruction. The Iroquois, freed of the French, would surely fall on the Hurons. All the Indians distrusted Denonville, and Kondiaronk suspected, with good reason, that the Hurons were about to be sacrificed. Denonville, however, had assured Kondiaronk that there was to be war to the death against the Iroquois, and on this understanding he went with a band of warriors to Fort Frontenac. There he learned that peace would be concluded between Onontio and the Onondagas—in other words, that the Iroquois would soon be free to attack the Hurons and their allies. To avert this threatened destruction of his own people, he set out with his warriors and lay in ambush for a party of Onondaga chiefs who were on their way to Montreal. Having killed one and captured almost all the rest, he announced to his Iroquois prisoners that he had received orders from Denonville to destroy them. When they explained that they were ambassadors, he {111} feigned surprise and said he could no longer be an accomplice to the wickedness of the French. Then he released them all save one, in order that they might carry home this tale of Denonville's second treachery. The one Iroquois Kondiaronk retained on the plea that he wished to adopt him. Arrived at Michilimackinac, he handed over the captive to the French there, who, having heard nothing of the peace, promptly shot him. An Iroquois prisoner, whom Kondiaronk secretly released for the purpose, conveyed to the Five Nations word of this further atrocity.

The Iroquois prepared to deliver a hard blow. On August 5, 1689, they fell in overwhelming force upon the French settlement at Lachine. Those who died by the tomahawk were the most fortunate. Charlevoix gives the number of victims at two hundred killed and one hundred and twenty taken prisoner. Girouard's examination of parish registers results in a lower estimate—namely, twenty-four killed at Lachine and forty-two at La Chesnaye, a short time afterwards. Whatever the number, it was the most dreadful catastrophe which the colony had yet suffered.

{112}

Such were the events which, in seven years, had brought New France to the brink of ruin. But she was not to perish from the Iroquois. In October 1689 Frontenac returned to take Denonville's place.



[1] See The Jesuit Missions in this Series, chap. vi.

[2] Grangula's speech is an example in part of Indian eloquence, and in part of the eloquence of Baron La Hontan, who contributes many striking passages to our knowledge of Frontenac's period.



{113}

CHAPTER VII

THE GREAT STRUGGLE

During the period which separates his two terms of office Frontenac's life is almost a blank. His relations with his wife seem to have been amicable, but they did not live together. His great friend was the Marechal de Bellefonds, from whom he received many favours of hospitality. In 1685 the king gave him a pension of thirty-five hundred livres, though without assigning him any post of dignity. Already a veteran, his record could hardly be called successful. His merits were known to the people of Canada; they believed him to be a tower of strength against the Iroquois. At Versailles the fact stood out most plainly that through infirmities of temper he had lost his post. His pension might save him from penury. It was far too small to give him real independence.

Had either La Barre or Denonville proved equal to the government of Canada, it is almost {114} certain that Frontenac would have ended his days ingloriously at Versailles, ascending the stairs of others with all the grief which is the portion of disappointed old age. Their failure was his opportunity, and from the dreary antechambers of a court he mounts to sudden glory as the saviour of New France.

There is some doubt, as we have seen, concerning the causes which gave Frontenac his appointment in 1672. At that time court favour may have operated on his behalf, or it may have seemed desirable that he should reside for a season out of France. But in 1689 graver considerations came into play. At the moment when the Iroquois were preparing to ravage Canada, the expulsion of James II from his throne had broken the peace between France and England. The government of New France was now no post for a court favourite. Louis XIV had expended much money and effort on the colony. Through the mismanagement of La Barre and Denonville everything appeared to be on the verge of ruin. It is inconceivable that Frontenac, then in his seventieth year, should have been renominated for any other cause than merit. Times and conditions had changed. The task now was not to work peaceably with bishop {115} and intendant, but to destroy the foe. Father Goyer, the Recollet who delivered Frontenac's funeral oration, states that the king said when renewing his commission: 'I send you back to Canada, where I expect you will serve me as well as you did before; I ask for nothing more.' This is a bit of too gorgeous rhetoric, which none the less conveys the truth. The king was not reappointing Frontenac because he was, on the whole, satisfied with what he had done before; he was reappointing him because during his former term of office and throughout his career he had displayed the qualities which were called for at the present crisis.

Thus Frontenac returned to Quebec in the autumn of 1689, just after the Iroquois massacred the people of Lachine and just before they descended upon those of La Chesnaye. The universal mood was one of terror and despair. If ever Canada needed a Moses this was the hour.

It will be seen from the dates that Denonville's recall was not due to the Lachine massacre and the other raids of the Iroquois in 1689, for these only occurred after Frontenac had been appointed. Denonville's dismissal was justified by the general results of {116} his administration down to the close of 1688. Before Frontenac left France a plan of campaign had been agreed upon which it was now his duty to execute. The outlines of this plan were suggested by Callieres, the governor of Montreal,[1] who had been sent home by Denonville to expound the needs of the colony in person and to ask for fresh aid. The idea was to wage vigorous offensive warfare against the English from Albany to New York. Success would depend upon swiftness and audacity, both of which Frontenac possessed in full measure, despite his years. Two French warships were to be sent direct to New York in the autumn of 1689, while a raiding party from Canada should set out for the Hudson as soon as Frontenac could organize it.

In its original form this plan of campaign was never carried out, for on account of head winds Frontenac reached Quebec too late in the autumn. However, the central idea remained in full view and suggested the three war-parties which were sent out during the winter of 1690 to attack the English colonies.

{117}

Louis XIV had given Denonville important reinforcements, and with war clouds gathering in Europe he was unwilling or unable to detach more troops for the defence of Canada. Hence, in warring against the Iroquois and the English Frontenac had no greater resources than those at the disposal of Denonville when he attacked the Senecas. In fact, since 1687 there had been some wastage in the number of the regulars from disease. The result was that Frontenac could not hope for any solid success unless he received support from the Canadian militia.

In this crisis the habitants and their seigneurs accepted with courage the duties laid upon them. In the narrower sense they were fighting for their homes, but the spirit which they displayed under Frontenac's leadership is not merely that which one associates with a war of defence. The French soldier, in all ages, loved to strike the quick, sharp blow, and it was now necessary for the salvation of Canada that it should be struck. The Iroquois had come to believe that Onontio was losing his power. The English colonies were far more populous than New France. In short, the only hope lay in a swift, spectacular campaign which would disorganize {118} the English and regain the respect of the Iroquois.

The issue depended on the courage and capacity of the Canadians. It is to their honour and to the credit of Frontenac that they rose to the demand of the hour. The Canadians were a robust, prolific race, trained from infancy to woodcraft and all the hardships of the wilderness. Many families contained from eight to fourteen sons who had used the musket and paddle from early boyhood, and could endure the long tramps of winter like the Indians themselves. The frontiersman is, and must be, a fighter, but nowhere in the past can one find a braver breed of warriors than mustered to the call of Frontenac. Francois Hertel and Hertel de Rouville, Le Moyne d'Iberville with his brothers Bienville and Sainte-Helene, D'Aillebout de Mantet and Repentigny de Montesson, are but a few representatives of the militiamen who sped forth at the call of Frontenac to destroy the settlements of the English.



What followed was war in its worst form, including the massacre of women and children. The three bands organized by Frontenac at the beginning of 1690 set out on snowshoes from Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec. {119} The largest party contained a hundred and fourteen French and ninety-six Indians. It marched from Montreal against Schenectady, commanded by D'Aillebout de Mantet and Le Moyne de Sainte-Helene. The second party, proceeding from Three Rivers and numbering twenty-six French and twenty-nine Indians under the command of Francois Hertel, aimed at Dover, Pemaquid, and other settlements of Maine and New Hampshire. The Quebec party, under Portneuf, comprised fifty French and sixty Indians. Its objective was the English colony on Casco Bay, where the city of Portland now stands. All three were successful in accomplishing what they aimed at, namely the destruction of English settlements amid fire and carnage. All three employed Indians, who were suffered, either willingly or unwillingly, to commit barbarities.

It is much more the business of history to explain than to condemn or to extenuate. How could a man like Francois Hertel lead one of these raids without sinking to the moral level of his Indian followers? Some such question may, not unnaturally, rise to the lips of a modern reader who for the first time comes upon the story of Dover and Salmon {120} Falls. But fuller knowledge breeds respect for Francois Hertel. When eighteen years old he was captured by the Mohawks and put to the torture. One of his fingers they burned off in the bowl of a pipe. The thumb of the other hand they cut off. In the letter which he wrote on birch-bark to his mother after this dreadful experience there is not a word of his sufferings. He simply sends her his love and asks for her prayers, signing himself by his childish nickname, 'Your poor Fanchon.' As he grew up he won from an admiring community the name of 'The Hero.' He was not only brave but religious. In his view it was all legitimate warfare. If he slew others, he ran a thousand risks and endured terrible privations for his king and the home he was defending. His stand at the bridge over the Wooster river, sword in hand, when pressed on his retreat by an overwhelming force of English, holding the pass till all his men are over, is worthy of an epic. He was forty-seven years old at the time. The three eldest of his nine sons were with him in that little band of twenty-six Frenchmen, and two of his nephews. 'To the New England of old,' says Parkman, 'Francois Hertel was the abhorred chief of Popish {121} malignants and murdering savages. The New England of to-day will be more just to the brave defender of his country and his faith.'

The atrocities committed by the French and Indians are enough to make one shudder even at this distance of time. As Frontenac adopted the plan and sent forth the war-parties, the moral responsibility in large part rests with him. There are, however, some facts to consider before judgment is passed as to the degree of his culpability. The modern distinction between combatants and non-combatants had little meaning in the wilds of America at this period. When France and England were at open war, every settler was a soldier, and as such each man's duty was to keep on his guard. If caught napping he must take the consequences. Thus, to fall upon an unsuspecting hamlet and slay its men-folk with the tomahawk, while brutal, was hardly more brutal than under such circumstances we could fairly expect war to be.

The massacre of women and children is another matter, not to be excused on any grounds, even though Schenectady and Salmon Falls are paralleled by recent acts of the Germans in Belgium. Still, we should not forget that European warfare in the age of {122} Frontenac abounded with just such atrocities as were committed at Schenectady, Dover, Pemaquid, Salmon Falls, and Casco Bay. The sack of Magdeburg, the wasting of the Palatinate, and, perhaps, the storming of Drogheda will match whatever was done by the Indian allies of Frontenac. These were unspeakable, but the savage was little worse than his European contemporary. Those killed were in almost all cases killed outright, and the slaughter was not indiscriminate. At Schenectady John Sander Glen, with his whole family and all his relations, were spared because he and his wife had shown kindness to French prisoners taken by the Mohawks. Altogether sixty people were killed at Schenectady (February 9, 1690), thirty-eight men, ten women, and twelve children. Nearly ninety were carried captive to Canada. Sixty old men, women, and children were left unharmed. It is not worth while to take up the details of the other raids. They were of much the same sort—no better and no worse. Where a garrison surrendered under promise that it would be spared, the promise was observed so far as the Indians could be controlled; but English and French alike when they used Indian allies knew well that their {123} excesses could not be prevented, though they might be moderated. The captives as a rule were treated with kindness and clemency when once the northward march was at an end.

Meanwhile, Frontenac had little time to reflect upon the probable attitude of posterity towards his political morals. The three war-parties had accomplished their purpose and in the spring of 1690 the colony was aglow with fresh hope. But the English were not slow to retaliate. That summer New York and Massachusetts decided on an invasion of Canada. It was planned that a fleet from Boston under Sir William Phips should attack Quebec, while a force of militia from New York in command of John Schuyler should advance through Lake Champlain against Montreal. Thus by sea and land Canada soon found herself on the defensive.

Of Schuyler's raid nothing need be said except that he reached Laprairie, opposite Montreal, where he killed a few men and destroyed the crops (August 23, 1690). It was a small achievement and produced no result save the disappointment of New York that an undertaking upon which much money and effort had been expended should terminate so ingloriously. But the siege of Quebec by {124} Phips, though it likewise ended in failure, is a much more famous event, and deserves to be described in some detail.

The colony of Massachusetts mustered its forces for a great and unusual exploit. Earlier in the same year a raid upon the coasts of Acadia had yielded gratifying results. The surrender of Port Royal without resistance (May 11, 1690) kindled the Puritan hope that a single summer might see the pestiferous Romanists of New France driven from all their strongholds. Thus encouraged, Boston put forth its best energies and did not shrink from incurring a debt of L50,000, which in the circumstances of Massachusetts was an enormous sum. Help was expected from England, but none came, and the fleet sailed without it, in full confidence that Quebec would fall before the assault of the colonists alone.

The fleet, which sailed in August, numbered thirty-four ships, carrying twenty-three hundred men and a considerable equipment. Sir William Phips, the leader of the expedition, was not an Englishman by birth, but a New Englander of very humble origin who owed his advancement to a robust physique and unlimited assurance. He was unfitted for his command, both because he lacked experience {125} in fighting such foes as he was about to encounter, and because he was completely ignorant of the technical difficulties involved in conducting a large, miscellaneous fleet through the tortuous channels of the lower St Lawrence. This ignorance resulted in such loss of time that he arrived before Quebec amid the tokens of approaching winter. It was the 16th of October when he rounded the island of Orleans and brought his ships to anchor under the citadel. Victory could only be secured by sudden success. The state of the season forbade siege operations which contemplated starvation of the garrison.

Hopeful that the mere sight of his armada would compel surrender, Phips first sent an envoy to Frontenac under protection of the white flag. This messenger after being blindfolded was led to the Chateau and brought before the governor, who had staged for his reception one of the impressive spectacles he loved to prepare. Surrounding Frontenac, as Louis XIV might have been surrounded by the grandees of France, were grouped the aristocracy of New France—the officers of the French regulars and the Canadian militia. Nothing had been omitted which could create an impression of dignity and strength. {126} Costume, demeanour, and display were all employed to overwhelm the envoy with the insulted majesty of the king of France. Led into this high presence the messenger delivered his letter, which, when duly interpreted, was found to convey a summary ultimatum. Phips began by stating that the war between France and England would have amply warranted this expedition even 'without the destruction made by the French and Indians, under your command and encouragement, upon the persons and estates of their Majesties' subjects of New England, without provocation on their part.' Indeed, 'the cruelties and barbarities used against them by the French and Indians might, upon the present opportunity, prompt unto a severe revenge.' But seeking to avoid all inhumane and unchristian-like actions, Phips announces that he will be content with 'a present surrender of your forts and castles, undemolished, and the King's and other stores, unimbezzled, with a seasonable delivery of all captives; together with a surrender of all your persons and estates to my dispose; upon the doing whereof, you may expect mercy from me, as a Christian, according to what shall be found for their Majesties' service and the subjects' security. Which, {127} if you refuse forthwith to do, I am come provided and am resolved, by the help of God in whom I trust, by force of arms to revenge all wrongs and injuries offered, and bring you under subjection to the Crown of England, and, when too late, make you wish you had accepted of the favour tendered. Your answer positive in an hour, returned by your own trumpet, with the return of mine, is required upon the peril that will ensue.'

To this challenge Frontenac at once returned the answer which comported with his character. When Phips's envoy took out his watch to register the hour permitted by the ultimatum, Frontenac rejoined that he required no time for deliberation, but would return his answer by the mouth of the cannon. The ground which he assigned for the invasion of New England was that its people had rebelled against their lawful prince, the ally of France. Other more personal observations were directed towards the manner in which Phips had behaved at Port Royal. No word in writing would Frontenac send. The envoy (who was only a subaltern) received his conge, was blindfolded and led back to his boat.

Compliments having been thus exchanged, it remained for Phips to make good his {128} challenge. If we compare the four English and American sieges of Quebec, the attack by Phips will be seen to have little in common with those of Kirke and Montgomery, but to resemble rather strikingly the attack by Wolfe. Without fighting, Kirke swooped down upon a garrison which was exhausted by starvation. Arnold and Montgomery operated without a fleet. But while Phips's attempt is unlike Wolfe's in that it ended in failure, the presence of the fleet and the attempt to effect a landing below the mouth of the St Charles present features of real similarity. It is clear that Phips received intelligence from prisoners of a possible landing above the town, at the spot where Wolfe carried out his daring and desperate coup de main. But, anticipating Wolfe in another quarter, he chose to make his first attack on the flats rather than on the heights.

The troops ordinarily stationed at Quebec were increased just after Phips's arrival by a force of seven hundred regulars and militiamen under Callieres, who had come down from Montreal with all possible haste. So agile were the French and so proficient in irregular warfare that Phips found it difficult to land any considerable detachment in good order. Thirteen hundred of the English did succeed {129} in forming on the Beauport Flats, after wading through a long stretch of mud. There followed a preliminary skirmish in which three hundred French were driven back with no great loss, after inflicting considerable damage on the invaders. But though the English reached the east bank of the St Charles they could do no more. Phips wasted his ammunition on a fruitless and ill-timed bombardment, which was answered with much spirit from the cliffs. Meanwhile the musketeers on the bank of the St Charles were unable to advance alone and received no proper supply of stores from the ships. Harassed by the Canadians, wet, cold, and starving, they took to the boats, leaving behind them five cannon. After this nothing happened, save deliberations on the part of Phips and his officers as to whether there remained anything that could be done other than to sail for home, beaten and humiliated, with a heavy burden of debt to hang round the neck of a too ambitious Massachusetts. Thus ended the second siege of Quebec (October 23, 1690).

Frontenac had lost two of his best soldiers—Sainte-Helene, of the fighting Le Moynes, and the Chevalier de Clermont; but, this notwithstanding, the victory was felt to be complete. {130} The most precious trophy was the flag of Phips's ship, which a shot from the ramparts had knocked into the river, whence it was rescued and brought ashore in triumph. Best of all, the siege had been too short to bring famine in its train. The loss of life was inconsiderable, and in prestige the soldiery of New France now stood on a pinnacle which they had never before attained. When we consider the paucity of the forces engaged, this repulse of the English from Quebec may not seem an imposing military achievement. But Canada had put forth her whole strength and had succeeded where failure would have been fatal. In the shouts of rejoicing which followed Phips's withdrawal we hear the cry of a people reborn.

The siege of Quebec and Schuyler's raid on Laprairie open up a subject of large and vital moment—the historical antagonism of New France and New England. Whoever wishes to understand the deeper problems of Canada in the age of Frontenac should read John Fiske's volumes on the English colonies. In the rise of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts one sees the certain doom which was {131} impending over New France. It may be too much to say that Richelieu by conquering Alsace threw away America. Even had the population of Canada been increased to the extent called for by the obligations of Richelieu's company in 1627, the English might have nevertheless prevailed. But the preoccupation of France with the war against Austria prevented her from giving due attention to the colonial question at the critical moment when colonists should have been sent out in large numbers. And it is certain that by nothing short of a great emigration could France have saved Canada. As it was, the English were bound to prevail by weight of population. When the conflict reached its climax in the days of Montcalm and Wolfe, two and a half million English Americans confronted sixty-five thousand French Canadians. On such terms the result of the contest could not be doubtful. Even in Frontenac's time the French were protected chiefly by the intervening wilderness and the need of the English colonists to develop their own immediate resources. The English were not yet ready for a serious offensive war. In fact they, too, had their own Indian question.

It is a matter of some interest to observe {132} how the conquest of Canada was postponed by the lack of cohesion among the English colonies. Selfishness and mutual jealousy prevented them from combining against the common foe. Save for this disunion and fancied conflict of interest, New France must have succumbed long before the time of Montcalm. But the vital significance of the conflict between New England and New France lies in the contrast of their spirit and institutions. The English race has extended itself through the world because it possessed the genius of emigration. The French colonist did his work magnificently in the new home. But the conditions in the old home were unfavourable to emigration. The Huguenots, the one class of the population with a strong motive for emigrating, were excluded from Canada in the interest of orthodoxy. The dangers of the Atlantic and the hardships of life in a wintry wilderness might well deter the ordinary French peasant; moreover, it by no means rested with him to say whether he would go or stay. But, whatever their nature, the French race lost a wonderful opportunity through the causes which prevented a healthy, steady exodus to America.

England profited by having classes of people {133} sufficiently well educated to form independent opinions and strong enough to carry out the programme dictated by these opinions. While each of the English colonies sprang from a different motive, all had in common the purpose to form an effective settlement. The fur trade did France more harm than good. It deflected her attention from the middle to the northern latitudes and lured her colonists from the land in search of quick profits. It was the enemy to the home. On the other hand, the English came to America primarily in search of a home. Profits they sought, like other people, but they sought them chiefly from the soil.

Thus English ideas took root in America, gained new vitality, and assumed an importance they had not possessed in England for many centuries. And, while for the moment the organization of the English colonies was not well suited to offensive war, as we may judge from the abortive efforts of Phips and Schuyler, this defect could be corrected. Arising, as it did arise, from a lack of unity among the colonies, it was even indicative of latent strength. From one angle, localism seems selfishness and weakness; from another, it shows the vigorous life of separate {134} communities, each self-centred and jealous of its authority because the local instinct is so vitally active. It only needed time to broaden the outlook and give the English colonies a sense of their common interest. Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts, by striking their roots each year more deeply into the soil of America, became more and more self-supporting states in everything save name and political allegiance; while New France, which with its austere climate would have developed more slowly in any case, remained dependent on the king's court.

Thus Frontenac's task was quite hopeless, if we define it as the effort to overthrow English power in America. But neither he nor any one of that age defined his duties so widely. In 1689 Canada was in extremes, with the Iroquois at Lachine and Dongan threatening an attack from New York. Frontenac's policy was defensive. If he struck first, it was because he considered audacity to be his best safeguard. No one knew better than Frontenac that a successful raid does not mean conquest.



[1] Louis Hector de Callieres-Bonnevue was a captain of the French army who became governor of Montreal in 1684, and succeeded Frontenac as governor of Canada in 1698. He received the Cross of St Louis for distinguished service against the Iroquois. Frontenac could not have had a better lieutenant.



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CHAPTER VIII

FRONTENAC'S LAST DAYS

Though the English might withdraw from Quebec, New France always had the Iroquois with her. We must now pursue the thread of Frontenac's dealings with the savages from the moment when he replaced Denonville.

It requires no flight of the imagination to appreciate the rage Frontenac must have felt when, on returning to Canada, he saw before his eyes the effects of La Barre's rapacity and Denonville's perfidy, of which the massacres of Lachine and La Chesnaye furnished the most ghastly proofs. But in these two cases the element of tragedy was so strong as to efface the mood of exasperation. There remained a third incident which must have provoked pure rage. This was the destruction of Fort Frontenac, blown up, at Denonville's order, by the French themselves (October 1689). The erection and maintenance of this post had been a cardinal point in Frontenac's {136} Indian policy; and, more particularly to aggravate the offence, there was the humiliating fact that Denonville had ordered it demolished to comply with a demand from the Iroquois. This shameful concession had been made shortly before Frontenac reached Canada. It was Denonville's last important act in the colony. On the chance that something might have occurred to delay execution of the order, Frontenac at once countermanded it and sent forward an expedition of three hundred men. But they were too late. His beloved fortress was gone. The only comfort which Frontenac could derive from the incident was that the work of destruction had been carried out imperfectly. There remained a portion of the works which could still be used.

Thus with regard to the Iroquois the situation was far worse in 1689 than it had been when Frontenac came to Canada in 1672. Everything which he had done to conciliate the Five Nations had been undone; and Dongan's intelligent activities, coinciding with this long series of French mistakes, had helped to make matters worse. Nor was it now merely a question of the Iroquois. The whole Indian world had been convulsed by the {137} renewal of strife between Onontio and the Five Nations. Tribes long friendly to the French and in constant trade with them were being alienated. The Indian problem as Frontenac saw it in 1690 resolved itself to this: either peace with the Iroquois on terms which would prove impressive to the Hurons, the Ottawas, and even to the savages of the Mississippi; or else uncompromising war. For under no circumstances could the French afford to lose their hold upon the tribes from whom they derived their furs.

Obviously an honourable peace would be preferable to the horrors of a forest war, and Frontenac did his best to secure it. To undo, as far as possible, Denonville's treachery at Fort Frontenac and elsewhere, he had brought back with him to Quebec the Iroquois who had been sent to France—or such of them as were still alive. First among these was a Cayuga chief of great influence named Ourehaoue, whose friendship Frontenac assiduously cultivated and completely won. Towards the close of January 1690 an embassy of three released Iroquois carried to Onondaga a message from Ourehaoue that the real Onontio had returned and peace must be made with him if the Five Nations wished to live. A great {138} council was then held at which the English, by invitation, were represented, while the French interest found its spokesman in a Christian Iroquois named Cut Nose. Any chance of success was destroyed by the implacable enmity of the Senecas, who remembered the attempt of the French to check their raids upon the Illinois and the invasion of their own country by Denonville. Cannehoot, a Seneca chieftain, rose and stated that the tribes of Michilimackinac were ready to join the English and the Iroquois for the destruction of New France; and the assembly decided to enter this triple alliance. Frontenac's envoys returned to Quebec alive, but with nothing to show for their pains. A later effort by Frontenac was even less successful. The Iroquois, it was clear, could not be brought back to friendship by fair words.

War to the knife being inevitable, Frontenac promptly took steps to confirm his position with the hitherto friendly savages of the Ottawa and the Great Lakes. When Cannehoot had said that the tribes of Michilimackinac were ready to turn against the French, he was not drawing wholly upon his imagination. This statement was confirmed by the report of Nicolas Perrot, who knew the {139} Indians of the West as no one else knew them—save perhaps Du Lhut and Carheil.[1] The French were now playing a desperate game in the vast region beyond Lake Erie, which they had been the first of Europeans to explore. The Ottawas and the Hurons, while alike the hereditary foes of the Iroquois, were filled with mutual jealousy which must be composed. The successes of the Iroquois in their raids on the French settlements must be explained and minimized. 'The Rat' Kondiaronk, the cleverest of the western chieftains, must be conciliated. And to compass all these ends, Perrot found his reliance in the word that Frontenac had returned and would lead his children against the common foe. Meanwhile, the Iroquois had their own advocates among the more timid and suspicious members of these western tribes. During the winter of 1689-90 the French and the Iroquois had about an even chance of winning the {140} Indians who centred at Michilimackinac. But the odds were against the French to this extent—they were working against a time limit. Unless Frontenac could quickly show evidence of strength, the tribes of the West would range with the Iroquois.

In the spring of 1690 Frontenac dispatched a force of a hundred and fifty men to reinforce the garrison at Michilimackinac. On their way westward these troops encountered a band of Iroquois and fortunately killed a number of them. The scalps were an ocular proof of success; and Perrot, who was of the party, knew how to turn the victory to its best use by encouraging the Ottawas to torture an Iroquois prisoner. The breach thus made between the Ottawas and the Five Nations distinctly widened as soon as word came that the French had destroyed Schenectady. Thus this dreadful raid against the English did not fail of its psychological effect, as may be gathered from one of the immediate consequences. Early in August there appeared on Lake St Louis a vast flotilla of canoes, which at first caused the afflicted habitants to fear that the Iroquois were upon them again. Instead of this it was a great band of friendly savages from the West, drawn from all the {141} trading tribes and bringing a cargo of furs of far more than the usual value. Frontenac himself chanced to be in Montreal at this fortunate moment. The market was held and concluded to mutual satisfaction, but the crowning event of the meeting was a council, at which, after an exchange of harangues, Frontenac entered into the festivities of the savages as though he were one of themselves (August 1690). The governor's example was followed by his leading officers. Amid the chanting of the war-song and the swinging of the tomahawk the French renewed their alliance with the Indians of the West. All were to fight until the Iroquois were destroyed. Even the Ottawas, who had been coquetting with the Senecas, now came out squarely and said that they would stand by Onontio.

Here, at last, was a real answer to the Lachine massacre. The challenge had been fairly given, and now it was not a Denonville who made the reply. There followed three years of incessant warfare between the Iroquois and the French, which furnished a fair test of the strength that each side could muster when fighting at its best. The Five Nations had made up their minds. The cares of diplomacy they threw to the winds. They {142} were on the war-path, united and determined. The French, on their side, had Frontenac for leader and many outrages to avenge. It was war of the wilderness in its most unrelenting form, with no mercy expected or asked. The general result can be quickly stated. The Iroquois got their fill of war, and Frontenac destroyed their power as a central, dominating, terrorizing confederacy.

The measure of this achievement is to be sought in the difficulties which were overcome. Despite the eighty years of its existence the colony was still so poor that regularity in the arrival of supplies from France was a matter of vital importance. From the moment war began English cruisers hovered about the mouth of the St Lawrence, ready to pounce upon the supply-ships as they came up the river. Sometimes the French boats escaped; sometimes they were captured; but from this interruption of peaceful oversea traffic Canada suffered grievously. Another source of weakness was the interruption of agriculture which followed in the train of war. As a rule the Iroquois spent the winter in hunting deer, but just as the ground was ready for its crop they began to show themselves in the parishes near Montreal, picking off the habitants in their {143} farms on the edge of the forest, or driving them to the shelter of the stockade. These forays made it difficult and dangerous to till the soil, with a corresponding shrinkage in the volume of the crop. Almost every winter famine was imminent in some part of the colony, and though spring was welcome for its own sake, it invariably brought the Iroquois. A third calamity was the interruption of the fur trade. Ordinarily the great cargoes descended the Ottawa in fleets of from one hundred to two hundred canoes. But the savages of the West well knew that when they embarked with their precious bales upon a route which was infested by the Iroquois, they gave hostages to fortune. In case of a battle the cargo was a handicap, since they must protect it as well as themselves. In case they were forced to flee for their lives, they lost the goods which it had cost so much effort to collect. In these circumstances the tribes of Michilimackinac would not bring down their furs unless they felt certain that the whole course of the Ottawa was free from danger. In seasons when they failed to come, the colony had nothing to export and penury became extreme. At best the returns from the fur trade were precarious. In 1690 and 1693 {144} there were good markets; in 1691 and 1692 there were none at all.

From time to time Frontenac received from France both money and troops, but neither in sufficient quantity to place him where he could deal the Iroquois one final blow. Thus one year after another saw a war of skirmishes and minor raids, sufficiently harassing and weakening to both sides, but with results which were disappointing because inconclusive. The hero of this border warfare is the Canadian habitant, whose farm becomes a fort and whose gun is never out of reach. Nor did the men of the colony display more courage than their wives and daughters. The heroine of New France is the woman who rears from twelve to twenty children, works in the fields and cooks by day, and makes garments and teaches the catechism in the evening. It was a community which approved of early marriage—a community where boys and girls assumed their responsibilities very young. Youths of sixteen shouldered the musket. Madeleine de Vercheres was only fourteen when she defended her father's fort against the Iroquois with a garrison of five, which included two boys and a man of eighty (October 1692).

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A detailed chronicle of these raids and counter-raids would be both long and complicated, but in addition to the incidents which have been mentioned there remain three which deserve separate comment—Peter Schuyler's invasion of Canada in 1691, the activities of the Abnakis against New England, and Frontenac's invasion of the Onondaga country in 1696.

We have already seen that in 1690 an attempt was made by John Schuyler to avenge the massacre at Schenectady. The results of this effort were insignificant, but its purpose was not forgotten; and in 1691 the Anglo-Dutch of the Hudson attempted once more to make their strength felt on the banks of the St Lawrence. This time the leader was Peter Schuyler, whose force included a hundred and twenty English and Dutch, as against the forty who had attacked Canada in the previous summer. The number of Indian allies was also larger than on the former occasion, including both Mohawks and Mohegans. Apart from its superior numbers and much harder fighting, the second expedition of the English was similar to the first. Both followed Lake Champlain and the Richelieu; both reached Laprairie, opposite Montreal; both were {146} forced to retreat without doing any great damage to their enemies. There is this notable difference, however, that the French were in a much better state of preparation than they had been during the previous summer. The garrison at Laprairie now numbered above seven hundred, while a flying squadron of more than three hundred stood ready to attack the English on their retreat to the Richelieu. On the whole, Schuyler was fortunate to escape as lightly as he did. Forty of his party were killed in a hot battle, but he made his retreat in good order after inflicting some losses on the French (August 1, 1691). Although Schuyler's retreat was skilfully conducted, his original object had been far more ambitious than to save his men from extermination. The French missed a chance to injure their foe more seriously than they had done at Schenectady. At the same time, this second English invasion was so far from successful that the New France of Frontenac suffered no further attack from the side of Albany.

While Callieres and Valrennes were repulsing Peter Schuyler from Laprairie, the French in another part of Frontenac's jurisdiction were preparing for the offensive. The centre {147} of this activity was the western part of Acadia—that is, the large and rugged region which is watered by the Penobscot and the Kennebec. Here dwelt the Abnakis, a tribe of Algonquin origin, among whom the Jesuits had established a mission and made many converts. Throughout Acadia the French had established friendly relations with the Indians, and as the English settlements began to creep from New Hampshire to the mouth of the Kennebec, the interval between the rival zones of occupation became so narrow as to admit of raiding. Phips's capture of Port Royal had alarmed some of the Abnakis, but most of them held fast to the French connection and were amenable to presents. It soon proved that all they needed was leadership, which was amply furnished by the Baron de Saint-Castin and Father Thury.

Saint-Castin was a very energetic French trader, of noble birth, who had established himself at Pentegoet on Penobscot Bay—a point which, after him, is now called Castine. Father Thury was the chief of the mission priests in the western part of Acadia, but though an ecclesiastic he seems to have exalted patriotism above religion. That he did his best to incite his converts against the {148} English is beyond question. Urged on by him and Saint-Castin, the savages of the Penobscot and the Kennebec proceeded with enthusiasm to destroy the English settlements which lay within their reach. In the course of successive raids which extended from 1692 to 1694 they descended upon York, Wells, and Oyster Bay, always with the stealth and swiftness which marked joint operations of the French and Indians. The settlements of the English were sacked, the inhabitants were either massacred or carried into captivity, and all those scenes were re-enacted which had marked the success of Frontenac's three war-parties in 1690. Thus New England was exposed to attack from the side of Acadia no less than from that of Canada. Incidentally Canada and Acadia were drawn into closer connection by the vigour which Frontenac communicated to the war throughout all parts of his government.

But the most vivid event of Frontenac's life after the defence of Quebec against Phips was the great expedition which he led in person against the Onondagas. It was an exploit which resembles Denonville's attack upon the Senecas, with the added interest that Frontenac was in his seventy-seventh year when {149} he thus carried the war into the heart of the enemy's country. As a physical tour de force this campaign was splendid, and it enables us, better than any other event, to appreciate the magnificent energy which Frontenac threw into the fulfilment of his task. With over two thousand men, and an equipment that included cannon and mortars, he advanced from the south shore of Lake Ontario against the chief stronghold of the Iroquois. At the portage the Indians would not permit their aged, indomitable Onontio to walk, but insisted that he should remain seated in his canoe, while they carried it from the pool below the fall to the dead water above. All the French saw of the stronghold they had come to attack was the flame which consumed it. Following the example of the Senecas, the Onondagas, when they saw that the invader was at hand, set fire to their palisade and wigwams, gathered up what property was portable, and took to the woods. Pursuit was impossible. All that could be done was to destroy the corn and proceed against the settlement of the Oneidas. After this, with its maize, had been consumed, Frontenac considered whether he should attack the Cayugas, but he decided against this {150} extension of the campaign. Unlike Denonville, he was at war with the English as well as with the Iroquois, and may have thought it imprudent to risk surprise at a point so far from his base. While it was disappointing that the Onondagas did not wait to be destroyed by the cannon which with so much effort had been brought against them, this expedition was a useful proof of strength and produced a good moral effect throughout the colony as well as among the western tribes.

The events of 'William and Mary's War,' as it was known in New England, show how wide the French zone in North America had come to be. Frontenac's province extended from Newfoundland to the Mississippi, from Onondaga to Hudson Bay. The rarest quality of a ruler is the power to select good subordinates and fill them with his own high spirit. Judged by this standard Frontenac deserves great praise, for he never lacked capable and loyal lieutenants. With Callieres at Montreal, Tonty on the Mississippi, Perrot and Du Lhut at Michilimackinac, Villebon and Saint-Castin in Acadia, Sainte-Helene at the siege of Quebec, and Iberville at Hudson Bay, he was well supported by his staff. At this critical moment the shortcomings of the {151} French in America were certainly not due to lack of purpose or driving power. The system under which they worked was faulty, and in their extremity they resorted to harsh expedients. But there were heroes in New France, if courage and self-sacrifice are the essence of heroism.

The Peace of Ryswick, which was signed in the year after Frontenac's campaign against the Onondagas, came as a happy release to Canada (1697). For nine years the colony had been hard pressed, and a breathing space was needed. The Iroquois still remained a peril, but proportionately their losses since 1689 had been far heavier than those of the French and English. Left to carry on the war by themselves, they soon saw the hopelessness of their project to drive the French from the St Lawrence. The English were ready to give them defensive assistance, even after word came from Europe that peace had been signed. In 1698 the Earl of Bellomont, then governor of New York, wrote Frontenac that he would arm every man in his province to aid the Iroquois if the French made good their threat to invade once more the land of the Five Nations. Frontenac, then almost on his death-bed, sent back the characteristic reply {152} that this kind of language would only encourage him to attack the Iroquois with the more vigour. The sequel shows that the English at Albany overplayed their part. The reward of their protection was to be suzerainty, and at this price protection proved unacceptable to the Iroquois, whose safety lay in the equipoise of power between the rival whites. Three years later the Five Nations renewed peace with Onontio; and, though Frontenac did not live to see the day, he it was who had brought it to pass. His daring and energy had broken the spirit of the red man. In 1701 Callieres, then governor of New France, held a great council at Montreal, which was attended by representatives from all the Indian tribes of the West as well as from the Iroquois. There, amid all the ceremonies of the wilderness, the calumet was smoked and the hatchet was interred.