Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries https://archive.org/details/sirfrederickhaldOOmcil SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND “W hat was he then? Whence, how? And what did he achieve and suffer in the World?” — Carlyle. THE MAKERS OF CANADA SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND BY JEAN N. McIL WRAITH C B» S TORONTO MORANG & CO., LIMITED 1909 Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year 190b, by Morang & Co., Limited , in the Department of Agriculture ^9368 CONTENTS CHAPTER I Page A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 1 CHAPTER II WITH THE ROYAL AMERICANS 11 CHAPTER III HALDIMAND GOES TO CANADA 31 CHAPTER IV MILITARY RULE AT THREE RIVERS 41 CHAPTER V SIX YEARS IN FLORIDA 63 CHAPTER VI COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF AT NEW YORK .... 83 CHAPTER VII FROM NEW TO OLD ENGLAND 101 CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII THE GENERAL CHAPTER IX THE UPPER POSTS CHAPTER X THE GOVERNOR CHAPTER XI THE VERMONT AFFAIR . CHAPTER XII AUTRES TEMPS, AUTRES MCEURS . CHAPTER XIII THE LOYALISTS CHAPTER XIV HIS EXCELLENCY’S ENEMIES CHAPTER XV HIS FRIENDS . CHAPTER XVI HIS RELICS INDEX , Page 121 145 173 197 219 249 273 293 319 349 CHAPTER 1 A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE O NE hundred and ten years ago there died in Switzerland a gentleman who had been born there some seventy odd years before, and who had come back to end a life more varied and eventful than most, within sight of the lakes and mountains of his native land. This was Sir Frederick Hal- dimand, sometime lieutenant-colonel in the Royal American regiment, military governor of Three Rivers, commander of the southern district in North America, commander-in-chief at New York, and governor-general of Canada. To have an ancestor with the prefix Honnete to his name is no mean distinction, for the soubri- quets 44 prudent,” 44 learned,” 44 magnificent,” 44 very honourable,” “generous,” 44 much feared,” etc., so plentifully besprinkled throughout European no- menclature of the eighteenth century had generally some foundation in fact. That Frederick Haldi- mand’s grandfather should be known as 44 straight- forward” bespeaks for himself a patient hearing. He may be prolix, he will never be untrue. There is a tradition that the family was originally French Huguenot, driven into Switzerland by religious persecution; but of certainty it is known 1 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND only that Honnete Gaspard Haldimand migrated from Thun, and on April 1st, 1671, took up his abode at Yverdun, a tiny town directly north of Lausanne, at the southwestern corner of Lake Neuchatel. He was charged fifteen florins a year merely as resident, and not at once admitted to the full dignity of citizenship. Swiss communities then, as now, did not bestow their municipal privileges excepting upon those able to pay for them, with the further requirement that applicants be of good character. After a residence of twenty- three years, Honnete Gaspard having demonstrated his right to his name, paid down two thousand florins and wine, was received as a citizen, and his descendants inherited the distinction without question, wherever they might live or die. He had four sons, Fran^ois-Lois, the father of our Sir Frederick, Barthelemi, Jean-Lois and Gas- pard, junior. We may say adieu to Frederick’s uncles, as he did himself at an early age, remarking only that Lieutenant Barthelemi was a bachelor and a philanthropic fighting Calvinist, while Sieur Gaspard travelled in foreign lands and was a person of importance, or his lady wife would not have been given “the pew which she desired in the church near the clock tower, in which to sit with her daughters.” To Fran^ois-Lois Haldimand and Marie Made- laine de Trytorrens, his wife, there were born four sons. Emmanuel, Frederick, Jean- Abraham, Fran- 2 A SWISS TOWN (jois-Louis, and one daughter, Justine. Frederick was born on August 11th, 1718, in the Canton of Neuchatel, and by the time he was ten years old, his father, a notary, was justice of the peace in Yverdun, and continued in that position till 1737. Vaud in the eighteenth century was not an independent canton, but subject to Berne and the Vaudois gentry, and thus shut out from the civil ser- vice, cultivated science, art and literature. Lausanne became a centre for savants, a peaceful cosmopolitan resort where men like Gibbon, Fox, Raynal and Voltaire, inspired by the glorious scenery, could evolve ideas destined to move the world. Yverdun was but a small place of two thousand inhabitants and about three hundred houses, but its upper classes exhibited the culture, hospitality and refined manners characteristic of the canton, and doubtless many distinguished foreigners found their way there in Frederick’s boyhood. The French language and French fashions prevailed, but he had no love for the French nation, and was never found fighting under its banner. Neuchatel, his native canton, had been forced to place herself beneath the protection of Prussia as a defence against the encroachment of Louis XIV., and the early an- tagonism thus instilled may have been one reason that Frederick was drawn into the army of his royal namesake. The Haldimand family must have been of good standing or the youth could not have obtained 3 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND a commission in any European army. There would be no other career open to him at that time and in that country, unless he chose to follow the example of his cousin Samuel, Jean-Lois’ son, a student at Leyden, who died in Paris while on his way home from the university. But Frederick preferred an active life. With an elder brother to leave at home, w r hy should he not launch out upon the unknown ? He must have had the early education and training of a gentleman, for such is not to be gained in camps, though frequently forgotten there. Is it an ignoble thing to embrace the military profession from any other motive than love of one’s own country ? The Swiss and the Scotch High- landers, rivals in patriotism, have not thought so. Kilted regiments of the British army have left their mark upon every quarter of the globe, while Swiss mercenaries in the eighteenth century formed a vital auxiliary to almost every army in Europe. Switzerland showed wisdom in permitting and encouraging her sons to take service with her powerful neighbours, and thus gain military experi- ence at their expense. There she was, hemmed in on one side by France, on the other by Austria, with Sardinia on the south, and on her northern borders those restless German states, not yet dream- ing of consolidation into an empire. The central parts of Europe were being moved about like chessmen in the hands of royal players. Who could tell when Switzerland’s turn for dismemberment 4 EARLY MILITARY SERVICE would come ? When it should arrive she could recall her wandering soldiers to her standard, not rustics from the plough, but veterans, trained by the best masters of the time. Frederick Haldimand was fifteen years of age when, after comparative tranquillity for a generation, the continent began to seethe with the wars that continued throughout his life, the peace of 1748 being only a truce. There is no evidence to show in what military service he first engaged, but it is generally supposed he entered as a cadet into the army of Charles Emmanuel, king of Sardinia, whose Italian possessions lay directly to the south of Switzerland. Like his fellow-countryman and life-long friend, Henry Bouquet, it is possible he enlisted with the States General of Holland, and passed thence into the Sardinian service. “ An adventurous, fighting kind of man,” Carlyle calls Charles Emmanuel, but he was also a man of ability, and successfully directed the operations of the fine army left him by his father, bringing it into a further state of efficiency, and turning its face this way or that, according as Sardinian inter- ests dictated. In the war of the Polish succession, he began by siding with the Bourbons against Austria, but when he feared Spain was growing too powerful in Italy and he was likely to be left at her mercy and that of France, he adroitly turned his back on his allies and joined Maria Theresa in her fight for her kingdom. The “door-keeper of the 5 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND Alps,” he was called, and who more fitted to serve under him than Swiss mountaineers ? Henry Bouquet was a year younger than Fred- erick Haldimand, and they would likely be lads of seventeen and eighteen when they began their military career ; the latter mentions that he was an officer at twenty-one. Henry went from Sardinia back to Holland, but his friend is next heard of in the army of Frederick the Great. Young Haldimand was present at the battle of Mollwitz in 1741, an eye witness to the terrific onslaught of thirty squadrons of Austrian horse upon Frederick’s ten, and of the resulting panic and retreat of the Prussian right wing. He would see the day, that was seemingly lost, won for the king of Prussia by the infantry his father had trained for him, standing like a stone wall to receive the Austrian fire, and the “ bottled whirlwind ” of their cavalry charge, giving back five shots for one. Subalterns are not prone to enter deeply into the right or wrong of the struggles in which they engage, and Haldimand would not be likely to criticize the ethics of Frederick’s Silesian campaign; but he had a great admiration for him, both as monarch and man, and to the end of his life spoke affectionately of the king of Prussia as “ my old master.” He may have been with him from his accession till the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, by which time Prussia had emerged from obscurity into the position of a first-class power whose army 6 EARLY MANHOOD was looked upon as the best fighting machine in Europe. Sardinia too had lost nothing but gained much during her protracted contest, and from both his royal teachers the young soldier would learn that the end often justifies the means and that an amiable despot is an altogether admirable sort of ruler. His early manhood fell upon a time when old things were rapidly passing away and all things were becoming new. The voice of the people, then beginning to be heard, was to grow in volume and fierceness till it became the wild scream of the French revolution. Kings were turned reformers and for their chief support they looked past the aristocratic classes to the army, and the army was drawn from the masses. While Frederick the Great was adding Silesia to his domains, Holland was having internal troubles which terminated in 1747 with a revolution that overthrew the aristocratic party and placed William of Orange at the head of affairs. The new Stadtholder never rested till he had secured the succession to his son ; and with the view of protecting himself from the republicans, should occasion arise, he incorporated a regiment of Swiss Guards. “Why Swiss, instead of your own nationality?” we may ask of the Prince of Orange, as of King Louis in the French revolution. The answer comes from the mercenaries who defended the Tuileries in 1792, and after the escape of their royal master 7 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND were massacred to a man: — “We are Swiss, and the Swiss never surrender their arms but with their lives.” 1 Steadfast, trustworthy, npt to be caught on the wave of any sudden revolution, small blame to the Stadtholder, with uneasy seat on his throne, who wanted Swiss guards at the Hague. This was the corps in which both Haldimand and Bouquet were registered in 1750, as captains commandant, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and they may have joined at its formation, two years before. A change it would be from the stirring marches and counter marches with the Great Frederick, from the high countries to the low ; and Haldimand was a nature-lover. Did he ever tire of the flat fields, the canals and windmills of Holland and sigh for his mountains, or did he lead the ordinary life of a gay young officer at the Dutch court? Who shall tell us ? Certainly not Bouquet, up to his eyes in the study of mathematics and all that pertained to the science of warfare. What Henry is 1 Haldimand’s diary. May 29th, 1790 : — “ Met Sir Henry Clinton with whom I took a walk. He told me that the Duke of Gloucester was much inclined that England should take Swiss troops into its service. I showed him the inconvenience which would arise from the capitula- tion of Swiss troops, which he did not know, etc. ” May 16th, 1787. “The Count de Linden .... wished to convince me that Duke Louis was an enemy to the Swiss and wanted to persuade the members of the republic to dismiss them in order to take German troops in their place as they would be cheaper, but that the Dutch had too much confidence in the Swiss to give in to these ideas, which would fill Holland with German princes and counts.” 8 THE ROYAL AMERICANS known to have done, it is probable his friend Fred- erick did also, and neither would be likely to lose any opportunity for adding to his professional knowledge. Just before the beginning of the Seven Years’ war, when England was preparing for her final struggle with the Bourbons for colonial and com- mercial supremacy, the attention of her ministers was directed to the number of Swiss and German Protestants who had taken up lands in her colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland. They had not mixed with their neighbours, nor even learned the English language, but numbered many strong, hardy young fellows, admirably adapted by hered- itary feeling for fighting the French. A fine regi- ment they would make, and though the colonel must be a natural born subject of Great Britain, the subordinate officers should be foreign Protes- tants of tried metal, familiar with the German language. The Duke of Cumberland was interested in the scheme, and to him his former aide-de-camp, Sir Joseph Yorke, then British minister at the Hague, recommended as the best men he knew for com- mands in the new Royal American regiment, Lieu- tenant-Colonels Frederick Haldimand and Henry Bouquet. The two hesitated about accepting the offered positions, as the colonel under whom they were asked to serve in America held lower rank than their own in Europe, but the representations SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND of Sir Joseph Yorke, that they would be placed on an equality with the colonel commandant, carried the day. In 1754, the two Swiss soldiers of fortune were transferred from the service of the Prince of Orange to that of his father-in-law and ally, George the Second. They induced subordinate officers to ac- company them and set sail for America, buoyed up by the hope of getting once more into active ser- vice after the stagnation at the Hague, and of seeing for themselves that wonderland of the west, full of possibilities for active and ambitious men. 10 CHAPTER II WITH THE ROYAL AMERICANS I T is recorded that upon June 15th, 1756, there were forty German officers landed at New York to take commissions in Lord Loudoun’s regiment of Royal Americans, which it was pro- posed should number 4,000 men, divided into four battalions. Colonel Haldimand’s command was at Philadelphia, a town already showing symptoms of the spirit which was to reach its height a score of years later. The colony of Pennsylvania was nearer than her neighbours to independence, dis- posing of her public monies as she saw fit, grudging the support of her royal governor, and refusing to establish militia or to vote funds for the proper maintenance of frontier garrisons. Loudoun’s letter to Pitt is ominous: “The majority of the assembly is composed of Quakers ; whilst that is the case they will always oppose every measure of government, and support that independence which is deep- rooted everywhere in this country. The taxes which the people pay are really so trifling that they do not deserve the name ; so that if some method is not found by laying on a tax for the support of a war in America by a British act of parliament, it appears to me that you will continue to have 11 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND no assistance from them in money, and will have little in men if they are wanted.” A marvellous sect these “trembleurs” must have seemed to our soldiers of fortune. Monks shut up in a monastery they could understand, but not men who could go about their daily business, declining to take up arms for the government which sheltered their homes, and refusing to provide a shelter for those who wxre hired to do the duty for them. It was a herculean task to recruit for the Royal American, or any regiment in which the soldiers were regarded as no better than negroes, and their officers treated as fair game for extortion. Lord Loudoun did not mend matters by demanding with a high hand winter quarters for the troops, and to his subordinates fell the disagreeable task of securing them. It was Haldimand’s first experience of a people who dared to object to anything a military com- mander should propose to do. Bouquet wrote that he would rather make two campaigns than quarter his soldiers in any of the American towns, but what else could be done when the assemblies refused to build barracks for them or to pay for their keep ? The chief cause of ill feeling between the inhabi- tants and the British troops was the order which the military had received to keep settlers off the lands secured to the Indians by the Treaty of 1763. Pennsylvania’s foreigners not being numerous enough to complete the muster roll of the Royal 12 FIRST DUTY IN AMERICA Americans, Haldimand was ordered to Albany in September to continue his recruiting, and thence to Georgia and the Carolinas on the same errand. Bouquet was meanwhile in command at Charles- ton, having his own troubles with the assembly, which had decreed that no soldier should ever be billeted among the people. The governor’s veto had no effect, and only the good temper and tact of the colonel prevented the whole province from rising in revolt. The country had not yet recovered from the panic of Braddock’s defeat, and the assembly of Pennsylvania was moved to the point of voting £50,000 for military purposes. It was all needed, as the failure to take Fort Duquesne from the French had emboldened their Indian allies in harassing the British, and the protection of the frontiers from their raids was the first duty the regiment of Royal Americans was called upon to perform. Haldimand’s work lay in Pennsylvania, Bouquet’s in Carolina. The size of these colonies bordering on the Atlantic and stretching out into No Man’s Land would make the European countries they had left appear insignificant in size, and how to protect an ill- defined frontier with an insufficient number of troops, and a sparse population from which to recruit, was the problem that engaged their at- tention. Of the progress made by Haldimand and his second battalion there is little evidence, but the 13 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAKD letter-book of Colonel Bouquet throws many side lights upon the state of affairs at the time. Princi- pally has he to complain of the ill will shown to his men by private citizens, whose “ genteel proceed- ings” have cured him of any inclination towards falling in love with South Carolina. Half the soldiers lost through sickness and desertion would have been saved had the inhabitants taken them in, which he thinks they could have done with little trouble. The assembly voted £1,000 for barracks for 1,000 men, but would give nothing towards bedding, and they charged duty on provisions for troops that were there solely for the defence of the province. In one of Bouquet’s letters there is a request that his correspondent will “ tell the people living near Loudoun who refused to help the sick soldiers at a time when they themselves were in want of protection from those very troops they have so inhumanly used, that if they want assist- ance they shall be the last of His Majesty’s servants to receive it, as they have made themselves un- worthy of any favours by acting more like savages than Christians.” To Governor Ellis he writes on December 10th, 1757, that he has had enough of America and if he could once get away from it nothing would induce him to return. But he had already taken stakes in the country and must have felt more at home in it than Haldimand, through his better knowledge of English. All Bouquet’s letters are written in that 14 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS language, while those of his friend, until he employs a secretary, are in French, and his superior officer uses the same in writing to him, for a considerable time, so that Haldimand could not have had any great command of English when he came to America. Both the friends were endowed with the na- tional thriftiness and had saved money at the Hague, which they now invested in real estate in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, and also in Mary- land. They were already highly esteemed by their seniors, as well as the juniors with whom they were brought in contact, and never wanted for warm friends in their own profession. Both had the thorough German genius for details, and it ere long became known that any programme entrusted to either would be faithfully carried out. Haldimand’s face in the picture that has come down to us, has a decided suggestion of his con- temporary, George Washington, in the high square forehead, the shape of the nose and the arrange- ment of the hair, but the mouth is quite different, being small and thin -lipped, with a prim and some- what severe expression that is belied by the genial kindliness of most beautiful brown eyes. Bouquet does not look nearly so distinguished, but shows an honest, good-humoured, double-chinned face that might pass for a Dutchman’s. The two colonels, as well as the younger officers they had brought with them from Holland proved to be splendidly adapted to the service required of them. 15 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND In the records of Cumberland county it is stated that in September, 1757, Colonel Haldeman, to whose name the German settlers gave their own spelling, inspected the camp of his regiment at Carlisle and reported upon its lack of ammunition and other necessaries. Different indeed from Euro- pean warfare was this following up of elusive bands of savages who rarely attacked the forts but de- vastated remote farmhouses or lay in wait for their occupants going to and from their work in the fields. There was no marching to meet the enemy with unbroken front and glittering arms as at the battle of Mollwitz. The Royal Americans must endeavour to hide their red coats behind the trees, and George Washington wrote to Bouquet suggest- ing that he and his men adopt the Indian costume. Savage methods would have to be used in fighting savages, as European commanders had learned from General Braddock. “We shall know better how to deal with them another time,” he had said on his death-bed, and that other time came within the ken of Henry Bouquet, who, as second in command to the invalid General Forbes, took the long, road-build- ing march with his troops over the mountains and triumphantly made a Fort Pitt out of Fort Duquesne. While the plan of campaign for 1758 was still in abeyance, it was proposed to place Haldimand in command of the Ohio district, and there was 16 AN EXCHANGE further talk of his sailing for Louisbourg to take part in Lord Loudoun’s *' 6 cabbage-planting” expedition, but in the meantime he was ordered to make up for the neglect of the Maryland assembly by keep- ing a watchful eye on Fort Cumberland, to see that it was not left unprotected through the pro- vincial troops going home. Eventually he received a letter from General Abercromby, who had probably crossed the Atlantic on the same ship with him, say- ing that though he would not be offended at a refusal he would be highly pleased to have Haldimand in command of one of his battalions for the expedition into Canada by way of Crown Point. The offer was accepted and the colonel exchanged from the second to the fourth battalion of the Royal Americans. Before he had been two years in the country a nephew and namesake from Switzerland had joined him, a boy about fourteen years of age. Abercromby remarked on his small size when bestowing upon him a commission as ensign, at his uncle’s request. This little Frederick was the second of the seven sons of Jean- Abraham Haldimand, the colonel’s younger brother. By the month of June, Haldimand was at Sara- toga busied with setting in motion the lumbering teams of oxen with their loads of provisions des- tined for Fort Miller. As protection must be secured for them there, Abercromby directed his colonel to superintend the building of a block-house 17 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND and stockade and to employ the provincials who would work at it like giants. Every preparation was being made for the con- quest of Canada which was confidently expected that summer, since fifteen thousand men, the largest army that had yet undertaken the task, were now marching to its completion. How General Mont- calm stopped them at Carillon, is best told in a couple of letters written by an eye witness from Lake George, dated July 10th, 1758: “The 5th inst. the whole Army Embarqued on board Battoes and the 6th in the morning Landed without opposition at the French advance guard. The same day in the afternoon as our Army was advancing to Ticonderoga our Advanced Guard was attacked by 350 of the Enemy, few of whom escaped to carry intelligence back. 140 of the party was killed on the spot and 152 was taken prisoners. Our loss in this attack did not exceed 30. Un- fortunately the Brave Lord Howe was killed in the beginning of this Brush. Our Army got dispersed in the woods in the pursuit, therefore it was thought proper to return to the place where we first Landed. There we was all right. Next morning, the 7th, at Day Light the whole army Marched and in the afternoon took possession without Opposition of the French Second Advance guard or Mills. The morn- ing of the fatal eighth, Broadstreet with an engineer was sent to reconoitre the French lines. They soon returned with the following Acct. That the Enemy 18 CARILLON was Encamp’d on rising ground about half a mile from the F ort but not fortified, only a few Logs laid one on another as a breast work. Upon this intelli- gence it was thought proper to attempt storming the enemy’s lines without loss of time and immedi- ately the whole Army Marched and began the Attack about 9 a.m. I have not time to give you the order of Battle, therefore let it suffice that our Army was repulsed thrice and as often returned to the Charge in the space of four hours. They were obliged to retreat at last with the loss of 2,000 of our best men and officers. This is only my own opinion, no return being made as yet. Our Intelligence was bad for the French had a regular Entrenchment faced with Logs. Their Trench 20 foot broad and Parapet in Proportion. No Regt. has suffered so much as the Highlanders, part of which got upon the top of the french Lines every time an Attack was made and drove the french from where they entered. As a return is not made I am not able to give you a list of the officers killed and Wounded only that every officer of Distinction except the two Generals and Gage are either Killed or Wounded.” The same writer continues two days later : — “ 1 just arrived at the Army time enough to have a share in the misfortune of the 9th. Oh what a glorious prospect on the morning of that day after we had beat all their Out Posts and taken so many prisoners we had nothing in view but Glory and 19 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND Victory with sight of the French Fort, and yet by experience, I, to my Grief, find how little depen- dance one must make on all worldly Expectations, in short is all a Chimera, by Attacking a French intrenchment without Cannon, we lost all our fine views, however I hope we will soon have at them again. Never was there in the world Troops behaved with greater coolness and resolution than ours in spite of all their disadvantages nor never was there in the world such a piece of ground to fight on. It was so very bad that after we were within gunshot the enemy might easily fire ten Rounds before we got up to the length of their intrenchments and that in the face of such a fire of smallarms, wall pieces and musquets as I never saw before (and I think I have seen the smartest that happened all last war) but also after we came to the trenches we found them above six foot high without a possibility of getting in and we had the same fire to stand in coming back. 44 This work might have lasted about four hours during which time the six regular regiments lost 1,526 Men besides 97 of our best officers Killed and Wounded. I am far from being surprised that we lost so few for such a damnable fire no man in this army ever saw before, the provincials lost very few except the York Regt. who lost some. True indeed the provincials were never Engaged. They came up to sustain us but they began to fire at such a distance they killed several of our men. 20 CARILLON Yet upon the whole they behaved extremely well. Our principal officers lost are Ld. Howe, Coll. Beaver, Coin. Donaldson, Major Rutherford, Major Proby. W ell we are beat but I hope we’ll soon have at them again. Ld. Howe’s death was a bad affair but he exposed himself too much. We’ll wait here at the Lake till there are some officers made, the destruction of them is so great that we have no officers to do duty in the line. Another have at the dogs again. The Engineer Clark is in a dying condition. The first Brigade is most terribly shat- tered as you may see from Ld. John Murray’s highlanders who were the first Regt. of that Brigade. The Indians we had with us who viewed the affair at a distance, allowed us more bravery than the French, but say we are not half so cunning. We breathe nothing but revenge. A flag of Truce going tomorrow to Ticonderoga.” Lists of the officers killed and wounded are enclosed and the first name upon the latter is “Coll. Haldiman,” of whom another account says: “Major Proby who was killed commanded the pickets who made the first attack, supported by the Grenadiers commanded by Colonel Haldimand (slightly wounded).” Abercromby was recalled at the end of the season and his place supplied by General Amherst who also became colonel commanding the Royal American Regiment. To Colonel Haldimand he wrote a polite note in French, announcing the fact, 21 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND and the subsequent letters that passed between them indicate mutual friendliness. The Swiss col- onel was also by this time in correspondence with General Gage, long his superior officer, whose first letter had reached Haldimand in the early spring at Half-Way Brook, so-called from its position be- tween Fort Edward on the Hudson and the new Fort George which Amherst caused to be built on the site of F ort William Henry. Gage writes: “I am very sorry we are so far separated this winter as not to be able to cultivate the acquaintance began last Summer, which I shall take every opportunity of doing, and hope next Campain will furnish me with the means of estab- lishing a Friendship with a person for whom I have a great esteem.” The intercourse between the two continued by correspondence and in due time Haldimand knew English well enough to appreciate the reading matter Gage sent him, as well as his letters, to which, however, he always replied in French. The winter of 1758-9 Colonel Haldimand was in command at Fort Edward, a dangerous post, for what was to hinder the victorious French from pushing their way onward even to Albany? Only the fact that Montcalm was without the men or the means for such an undertaking. His Indian allies, confirmed in their allegiance, prowled about the British post, eager for the scalps of hunters and wood-cutters. 22 AT FORT EDWARD The colonel was constantly called upon to settle disputes between regulars and rangers. The latter had no real army rank but were as touchy as Indians and required to be humoured since they were indispensable for scouting duty. There were not enough of them, so Haldimand drilled about two hundred of his own men to go out in parties with the rangers and learn their methods. These silent-stepping scouts on snow-shoes explored the neighbourhood of Ticonderoga, even to the moun- tain on the east side, which Gage regretted had not been done before — and with reason. Had Broad- street and his engineer inspected that height which commanded the fort, the slaughter of July 9th would have been averted. The New York climate was much more severe than that of the central colonies from which most of the Royal Americans had been drawn and they suffered greatly from the cold, getting their feet frozen and being obliged to cut up their blankets in which to wrap them. Haldimand’s nearest neighbour, as well as his commanding officer, was General Gage at Albany, who sent him instructions con- cerning the storehouses and other works that were to be constructed at Fort Edward in the spring, which seemed desperately long in coming. By way of consolation Gage wrote February 15th, 1759, in quite a facetious tone : — “Nature is ever indulgent to the necessitous, and tho’ she offers you nothing but Ice and snow upon 23 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND her surface she will supply you with brick-clay underneath the snow which I have seen used in many villages of Europe. Tho’ Fort Edward should be most ungrateful, Lake George, however, will be more kind and furnish you both stone and lime besides the bricks of the many chimneys that were built there, and I think with such materials your men may rub thro ’ the Winter as well as their pre- decessors or even those that pass it a cote desjolies femmes” He had been apprehensive about the sup- ply of hay and provisions at Fort Edward but says to Haldimand, “You have managed so dextrously with both that my fears are over I have some old magazines scarce worth reading. They are at present lent out but I will send them to you by some other opportunity.” Why did he not name these periodicals and thus gratify a present-day public, curious to know exactly what were the well-thumbed pages sent from post to post to beguile the tedium of a lonely winter? There would be the Gentleman’s Magazine of course, and perhaps the London, Westminster, Scots or Universal ; perchance one of the more solid quarterly reviews, Dr. Johnson’s Rambler, or another literary journal. With no illustrations, little current news and many a high-flown treatise, they would yet receive a welcome which no modern magazine can gain from the satiated readers of to-day. The long-looked-for summer came with a leap at 24 ON THE MARCH last and the garrison at Fort Edward gladly re- ceived its marching orders — to advance by way of the Mohawk river, Oneida lake and Oswego river to the shore of Lake Ontario. The first view of a fresh-water sea stretching to the horizon would be another astonishment to the Swiss colonel whose ideal of lakes had been formed from those wherein the Alpine ranges were reflected. These sandy shores, relieved in places by low bluffs were not his model of the picturesque, but the voyage to the mouth of the Oswego river had not been under- taken in search of scenery. The fortress there, for years an important stronghold of the British, had been destroyed by Montcalm in 1756, but General Amherst wished it rebuilt and this was the duty that fell to the lot of Colonel Haldimand. Further to the westward was Fort Niagara, held for the French by a garrison in command of Captain Pouchot of the regiment of Bearn. It was during this summer that Wolfe was besieging Quebec, and Amherst building forts and fleets on Lake Champlain, instead of hastening to his assistance. To General Prideaux’s army had been entrusted the task of clearing the enemy from Lake Ontario, and Niagara was the chief point to be attacked. Captain Pouchot called for help from the western posts and it came — nearly twelve hundred colonial regulars, coureurs de bois, and Indians, from Presqu’ile, on Lake Erie, Forts Le Boeuf and Venango where they had been mustering with the 25 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND design of transforming Fort Pitt once more into Fort Duquesne. As the need of Niagara was greater they responded to Pouchot’s appeal but never reached him, being met by the British in overwhelming numbers and defeated. After a siege of seventeen days Niagara surrend- ered and the proud man to take possession of the fort was Sir William Johnson, as General Prideaux had been killed by accident at the very beginning of the attack. Haldimand’s brother officers regretted that the honour had not fallen to him, but he had been left behind at Oswego with 500 or 600 men, and was given a lesser chance to distinguish him- self there. Before the British had time to entrench them- selves on the site of Fort Ontario, they were attacked by a large body of Canadians and Indians under the partisan officer, La Corne de St. Luc. Colonel Haldimand, though taken by surprise, promptly ordered his men to shelter themselves be- hind the barrels of flour and pork, of which a suffi- cient supply had been brought to provision the whole expedition. The loss of this fort would have entailed the abandonment of Niagara also, but the British fire came so fiercely from behind the impromptu barricade that the French retired in chagrin and the colonel could congratulate himself on having held his important post with a loss of but two killed and eleven wounded. M. Douville, in charge at Toronto, heard the cannonading at Niagara and 26 SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON evacuated his post, so that the British gained their end in having possession of Lake Ontario. Upon the death of General Prideaux the com- mand devolved upon Haldimand as next in rank, but to the dismay of the subordinates, Sir William Johnson arrogated it to himself, and sent orders to the colonel to join him at Niagara. Haldimand came and claimed the leadership, but Sir William refused to yield it, and the other was too much of a gentleman to quarrel with him, though he could see for himself that he had not been misinformed regarding the confusion that reigned in the camp. Haldimand wrote to Amherst saying he would serve under Johnson temporarily sooner than make trouble, and the general in reply praised him for his prudent conduct, saying how essential it was not to offend Sir William, the only man capable of keeping the Six Nations faithful to the British, who could not carry on the campaign without them. An entry in Sir William Johnson’s diary reads : “August 1st, 1759, I went to see Niagara Falls with Colonel Haldimand, Mr. Ogilvie, and several officers, escorted by three companies of light in- fantry. Arrived there about 11 o’clock.” No doubt the sublimity of the scene, unmarred at that time by the hand of man, would help to soothe Haldimand’s irritation, and the next day his party returned to Oswego in two whale-boats, primed with minute directions from Sir William as to what 27 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND was to be accomplished before his own arrival two days later. On the 16 th General Gage came to take the chief command, showing orders from General Amherst that included an attack upon the French post at La Galette (Ogdensburg) on the St. Lawrence. If General Wolfe should be defeated at Quebec, which seemed not unlikely, the French, freed from the siege of their capital, would swarm up the river and they must at any cost be kept from regaining their foothold on Lake Ontario. Gage and his subordinates had frequent discus- sions as to whether or not it was practicable to attempt the expedition. Haldimand voted against it, but Johnson was keen for it, if only to give employment to his Indians who had gathered about Oswego in large numbers, and who, if not started on the war-path, would go home in disgust and be un- willing to turn out the next time they were wanted. Sir William pleaded that it was at least possible to capture and destroy La Galette ; but Haldimand’s more conservative counsels prevailed and the baro- net had to content himself with humouring his Indians by fitting out various scalping parties for the neighbourhood of the French post. The news reached Oswego that Amherst was building a large five-sided fort at Crown Point with five redoubts, which it would take him the rest of the season to complete, and his subordinate officers criticized without reserve the slowness of 23 WINTER QUARTERS his procedure. Why should they be in haste to reach Quebec if he was not ? They employed them- selves with the re-erection of Fort Ontario, varied by a little fishing and duck-shooting. Johnson’s journal tells us he dines with the general on a Michaelmas goose, and that on October 4th he had Gage, Haldimand and other officers to dinner with him in his tent. On the 8th one of his scouting parties returned with “the agreeable news” that Quebec had surrendered, and the next week Sir William dismissed his Indians and went home. By November Gage too withdrew into winter quarters at Albany, and Haldimand was left with the 4th Battalion of the Royal Americans in com- mand of the new F ort Ontario. \ CHAPTER III HALDIMAND GOES TO CANADA O SWEGO is an Indian word meaning “rapid water,” while Ontario signifies “pretty lake,” and neither term is a misnomer. The river, rein- forced by the waters of inland lakes to the south and east, came rushing downward in swift full- heartedness to its desired haven, the union with Ontario. That blue, boundless lake lost its summer prettiness in winter-time, taking on a deeper, colder tint, and the ice-bound river-mouth made a bridge for the travellers to and from the post upon its eastern bank. The snow settled down about Fort Ontario, the lake froze out from the shore and the garrisons, there and at Niagara, sickened with scurvy of a sort prevalent among seamen, for which the damp air was blamed. Lime juice, vinegar, cider and other refreshments were sent as alleviations and there was some jealousy between the two posts as to which was entitled to the bulk of these supplies. Far removed from the rest of the world, the officers would be thankful for the magazines Gage continued to send — the last he had received from England, which he hoped would make amends for his own sterility of amusing matter. He had given written instructions to Haldimand regarding one 31 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND part of his duty: — “You will protect all Indian traders who produce proper passes provided they trade in a fair and honest way; such as shall be convicted of Frauds and Impositions, or, contrary to your orders, sell Rum to Soldiers or Indians whereby the good order and discipline necessary to be kept up in your Garrison shall be interrupted you will banish immediately from your Fort giving notice thereof to the Posts above that they may be sent back to the Inhabited country and not suffered to remain on the communication. The Indians may carry away any quantitys of Rum but the traders must not retail it here.” Haldimand had block-houses built to protect the righteous traders and also the boat-landing, as Amherst’s orders were to begin the construction of ten or twelve galleys as soon as navigation opened. He was to use his best endeavours also to preserve the Mississauga , almost the only schooner on Lake Ontario, for which purpose sailors and ship car- penters no longer needed on Lake Champlain were sent him ; but eventually only the rigging was pre- served. The smaller craft too had suffered much damage. Evidently old Ontario was not to be trifled with. So much sickness and so many deaths among the soldiers under his care made the colonel ardently long for the planting- time when he could sow the seeds sent him, in the large gardens he had caused to be prepared at both Niagara and Oswego. 32 SPRINGTIME, 1760 He knew the value of outdoor employment for his men, besides the benefit to be derived in their enfeebled condition from a diet of fresh vegetables. Having lived in Holland, the headquarters of scien- tific floriculture, it was probably there that he ac- quired the tastes which have caused him to be remembered as one of the earliest experimental gardeners on this continent. The mid-season between summer and winter, one cannot call it spring, Haldimand would find the most trying. For a few weeks, while the sun was warm overhead, the melting snow would render the roads impassable and the ice still lingered on the lake borders. On March 9th Gage wrote : — “The snow went off before I could send you the molasses which must now go up by water when the Rivers and Lakes are navigable. Your men will get better of their distemper when fresh herbs spring up.” The air grew balmy overhead and the evenings bright with the bonfires of burning brush that had to be cleared away from the front of the fort. The sick soldiers crept out to bask in the strong sun- shine and by the middle of April the lake had shaken herself free from her icy bondage. There was much activity both within and without Fort Ontario that spring of 1760, for the commander-in- chief was expected to bring his main army there by way of the Mohawk and Oswego rivers, to carry out the campaign arranged the year before. 33 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND General Wolfe alone had fulfilled his part of it, and died in the doing. General Murray, who had manfully held Quebec with a handful of soldiers through the winter, ventured without its gates and was defeated by General Levis at Ste. Foye, on April 28th. This was the news brought by the Onondaga Indians who had been sent out from Oswego on purpose to capture some intelligent prisoner, so that the fate of the capital might be ascertained. “I am apprehensive,” wrote Amherst, “that un- less our fleet arrive soon, Mr. Murray may be obliged to retreat to the island of Orleans, which is his intention in case it does not.” The ships came in time to secure possession of Canada’s capital, but till the last remaining French post was captured and the whole country subjugated, Amherst’s work was not done. General Levis and the survivors of his gallant troops of the line still held out at Montreal, and there the British decided to descend upon him from three directions: Mur- ray was to bring one army up from Quebec, Haviland another by way of Lake Champlain and the Richelieu, while Amherst himself was to come with the largest force down the St. Lawrence from Lake Ontario. He arrived at Oswego on July 9th and thoroughly approved of the work that Haldimand had accom- plished there. It was fully a month before the whole army was assembled, though it is written that the 34 OPERATIONS AGAINST FORT DE LEVIS general reviewed the troops on the third of August. He was a deliberate sort of man, anxious to do his duty but without the genius of Wolfe to enable him to “seize the moment flying.” The journal of Sergeant John Johnson contains some contemporary information worthy of note : — “General Amherst’s army being assembled at Os- wego and joined by a body of Indians under the command of General Sir William Johnson, he detached Colonel Haldimand with the Light In- fantry, Grenadiers, and Montgomery’s regiment of Highlanders, to take post at the bottom of the lake to assist the armed vessels in finding a passage to La Galette, as also in pursuance of his plan he had ordered two armed vessels to cruise on the Lake Ontario.” These would be the Onondaga and the Mohawk , classed as “snows,” a kind of craft unknown to modern navigators but in common use for merchant service upon the lakes before and after revolutionary times. They had two masts like the main and foremast of a ship, and a third, smaller, near the stern, which carried a try-sail. An officer and thirty men were put on board of each and directed to sail across the lake to Frontenac, where they could challenge the French ships in harbour to come out and give battle. Haldimand’s command sailed safely through the island-blocked mouth of the St. Lawrence and by August 18th was ordered to row down close to the river’s southern shore and take up a position 35 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND opposite the French fort, but out of range of its fire. Captain Pouchot, the brave defender of Niagara, was there, and some of his former antagonists gave him a cheer in passing. He had left the mainland and established himself upon an island in the river with respectable entrenchments which he called Fort de Levis. There with undaunted front he watched the arrival of the whale-boats and batteaux — over eight hundred of them — containing his foes, to whom he gave a hot reception with his well- aimed cannon. But Pouchot knew he could not ultimately prevail against such numbers with artil- lery in proportion ; all he hoped to achieve was the delay of Amherst’s army in its descent upon Mont- real, so that Governor Vaudreuil and General Levis might gain time to deal with Murray and Haviland separately. Amherst’s own division had dropped further down the river than Haldimand’s, but the latter was instructed to join him through the night. His battery was ready for action before the gen- eral’s, but by the 23rd all were prepared and the desultory cannonading of the three previous days became a steady roar. The French captain, having succeeded in diverting the enemy’s attention for a whole week, saw that his tiny island fortress would soon be battered to bits, and surrendered. But there were worse foes than Pouchot and his three hundred to be met and vanquished before Amherst could join forces with his generals around Montreal. The great river of Canada seemed herself 36 RUNNING THE RAPIDS to have taken up arms in defence of the nation whose voyageurs had been wrestling with her rocks and currents for more than a century. What did the invading British know of steering through swirling eddies, of marking by its colour where the deep water ran; of the swift turn of a paddle in a steady hand that could bring a boat in safety through one after another of the rapids of the St. Lawrence? Pilots had been found among the sur- rendered Canadians, but it was impossible to have one in each boat, and though they tried to follow one another, there were not enough cool heads and quick eyes, capable of controlling the craft when actually caught in the maddening whirl of tossing waters. The smaller rapids were passed in safety, but in the Long Sault, four soldiers, three of them Highlanders, lost their lives. That was on Septem- ber 1st, and on the 4th, during the passage of the Cedars and Cascades, forty-six boats were totally wrecked, many others damaged, and eighty-four men were drowned. With ardour damped by this disaster, the army disembarked at Lachine, marching thence to Mont- real, three leagues distant, where they found Havi- land facing the town upon the southern mainland, and Murray encamped on the east of the island itself. The time for the final capitulation of Canada had come. L£vis with but 2,200 regulars could not hope to hold out behind slim walls, against a 37 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND united army of 18,000 men. He asked that his soldiers who had made so good a fight for Canada might be allowed to march out with the honours of war, carrying their arms, but to this request General Amherst replied : — “ I am fully resolved, for the infamous part the troops of France have acted in exciting the savages to perpetrate the most horrid and unheard-of barbarities in the whole progress of the war, and for other open treacheries and flagrant breaches of faith, to manifest to all the world by this capitulation my detestation of such practices.” How much this refusal meant to troops of the line civilians cannot estimate. From Levis down, every French officer bitterly resented the indignity put upon him, but Amherst was firm and the capitulation was signed on September 8th. To Governor Vaudreuil he wrote: — “I have just sent to your Excellency, by Major Abercrombie, a duplicate of the capitulation w r hich you have signed this morning; and in conformity thereto, and to the letters which have passed between us, I likewise send Colonel Haldimand to take possession of one of the gates of the town, in order to enforce the observation of good order, and prevent differences on both sides. I flatter myself that you will have room to be fully satisfied with my choice of the said colonel on this occasion.” The defeated gov- ernor was fully satisfied, since no one could have discharged the delicate duty entrusted to him with 38 MONTREAL CAPITULATES more tact than the chosen emissary — courteous in his bearing, and speaking French as his native tongue. With a corps of grenadiers, light infantry and a twelve-pounder, Colonel Haldimand took posses- sion of the city of Montreal, and his orders were to let no person pass out or in except the guards and civil servants of whom he was given a list. Accord- ing to established custom, he demanded the restor- ation of any British flags captured during the war, as well as the surrender of the colours of the French regiments. These last were not forthcoming, though they had been recently seen, and Amherst directed Haldimand to tell Vaudreuil they must be pro- duced or all baggage would be searched. It was whispered ere long that Levis had caused the flags to be burned in order that they might not fall into the hands of the English, but he denied the charge, although all the standards never came forth to clear him. He and his troops laid down their arms, agreeing not to serve again during the war and were sent home to France. Amherst assured the French officers that every arrangement would be made for their comfort, and as the surest means to that end he placed the provisioning and embarka- tion in the hands of Colonel Haldimand. But no man can make bricks without straw, and the scarcity of vessels to convey so large a number of persons across the seas made the problem of shipping the military, and the noblesse with their families who 39 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND desired to go with them, difficult of solution. Since enough good ships were pot available, Amherst chartered some that proved unseaworthy, notably the Auguste , which was wrecked in the gulf. Of the 150 souls aboard but six were saved, includ- ing Haldimand’s old opponent at Oswego, La Corne de St. Luc. General Amherst, as commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, took up his head- quarters in New York, but Haldimand remained for nearly two years in Montreal, under General Gage, who had been appointed governor of the town and district. The soldiers in his care, fac- ing a wintry climate more severe than any they had yet experienced, must have been in want of many comforts and even necessaries. A charitable society in London took cognizance of the fact and Colonel Haldimand was charged with the distri- bution of its timely gifts. That the Swiss soldier of fortune was favourably impressed with Canada is evident from a letter written from Montreal to Colonel Bouquet, now stationed at Fort Pitt, wherein he described himself as being thoroughly satisfied with his position and advised his friend not to leave the service. 40 CHAPTER IV MILITARY RULE AT THREE RIVERS H OW to govern a newly conquered country, of different laws and language from their own, is a problem that has faced several European lands, and England’s solution, though not entirely satis- factory, has never yet been improved upon. A certain amount of discontent among the new sub- jects is inevitable, and different experiments may be made before the best course is discovered, but patience and a convincing desire to benefit the governed will ultimately have their reward. For four years after the conquest Canada was under martial law, which sounds like despotism, but was not so in this case. To upset the customs and traditions of an ignorant people by forcing new regulations upon them at the outset would have been cruel and unwise, and as few changes as possible were made. The rulers were told to adapt themselves to the people, who grew to feel that they were being freed from bondage instead of coming under it. Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander- in-chief at New York, was also the nominal gover- nor of Canada, but the actual duties fell upon his lieutenant-governors, James Murray at Quebec, Thomas Gage at Montreal, and Ralph Burton at 41 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND Three Rivers, and these were men whose personal character inclined them to the prescribed policy of conciliation. Not while they were military gover- nors would the French Canadians be subjected to annoyance or ill treatment either from British sol- diers or from the unprincipled pack that began to come in from the other colonies. Governor Murray described these immigrants as being of low birth, uneducated, and the most immoral men he ever knew, while the Canadians were frugal, industrious and moral. The best of feeling existed between the habitants and their seigniors, while the priests, though illiterate, were highly respected by parish- ioners still more unlearned. England at this time was at war with Spain, and Governor Burton being called upon to join his regiment in the projected siege of Havana, the Cuban capital of the Spanish West Indies, Colonel Haldimand was ordered to Three Rivers to govern that district in his absence. He went in May, and in June there came to him a welcome letter from Sir Jeffrey Amherst: — “By this Packett I have received a list of officers who are Promoted to the Rank of Colonel in the army, and it gives me pleas- ure to find your name amongst them.” Hitherto he had held that position in America only, and he now took steps to become also a British subject, since an act had been passed naturalizing all foreign officers who had served in the Seven Years’ War. Three Rivers, his new scene of action, named 42 AT THREE RIVERS from the triple outlet of the River St. Maurice into the St. Lawrence, was founded by Laviolette in 1634 . It had been a famous trading post for the Hurons and the Algonquins, among whom the Jesuits laboured for twenty years ( 1640 - 1660 ), until the Iroquois scattered their flock. At the conquest the population was 6 , 612 , with an auxiliary of five hundred christianized Abenaquis and Algonquins settled in the villages of Becancour, St. Francis and Point du Lac. Haldimand divided the govern- ment into four districts, Champlain and Riviere du Loup on the north shore, St. Francois and Gentilly on the south. There was in each of these a “ cham- ber of audience,” wherein was stationed a corps of militia officers, presided over by a captain, and to them were brought for settlement all civil cases, which were judged according to the long estab- lished laws of the country. Thieves, murderers, criminals of any kind, alone were tried by court martial. As there was still some danger from the French, peace having not yet been declared, Murray had war sloops cruising in the river, while he trusted to Haldimand for reinforcements should they be re- quired. The latter held five companies in readiness to march to Jacques Cartier and Deschambault, but he believed the enemy’s manoeuvres in the St. Lawrence were only a feint to cover their real designs upon Newfoundland, whereon they hoped to obtain a foothold which would enable them to 43 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND claim fishing rights in the approaching treaty of peace. He proved a true prophet, and when the news came of the taking of St. John’s he was pleased to remark that it had no disturbing effect upon the people of his government. On the con- trary, he was firmly convinced that a return of the French would fill the inhabitants with despair, as they valued their increase of liberty, and desired only to be let alone to get in their harvest. Some restriction had to be placed upon their disposal of grain, for they were inclined to seek the larger prices of the larger markets now to be had in the English colonies. To ship it all out of the country would be to court famine at home. Exportation was therefore forbidden in the winter time, except in seasons when the price of wheat in Quebec was less than three shillings and four pence a minot . There was a fire in Three Rivers that summer, and one the next; both large, considering the size of the town, for we read that five whole houses were burned at once. The soldiers worked hard as firemen, a role which taxed their energies to the utmost, as the houses were all of wood and there were no fire-engines, even of the most primi- tive description. The governor issued a proclama- tion, calling for aid to be given to the burnt-out families as a thank offering from those who had escaped, and he appointed certain priests to receive the donations. Those who could not give money were asked to contribute planks, beams, or other 44 HIS PROCLAMATIONS material suitable for rebuilding, and he authorized a lottery for the same purpose. On October 2nd he issued a special notice on the subject of fires and how to prevent them, as the inhabitants took no precautions, having scarcely even a ladder available. Now there was to be one in every house. Haldimand’s official proclamations would interest the seeker after local colour. The public is warned to be on the look-out for two German servants who have deserted from Montreal ; anyone harbouring a certain individual under arrest will be subjected to corporal punishment ; cattle are to be kept fenced in, and it is forbidden to buy pickaxes or shovels from the soldiers, as these are His Majesty’s prop- erty. The primitive character of the local govern- ment is indicated in the placard announcing that the administration of justice will be suspended from August 7th till September 15th, to allow the administrators to go home and attend to their crops. The governor was invited to a horse race in Quebec, and perhaps he went and perhaps it was then he made up his mind that before the winter set in the king’s highway must be improved. At any rate in the autumn he proclaimed that the road between Montreal and Quebec in certain places within the government of Three Rivers was so narrow that couriers and voyageurs were retarded whenever several carriages met, while lakes and sloughs were formed by heavy falls of rain or snow. It was therefore ordered that “ le grand chemin de 45 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND Roy” leading from Montreal to Quebec should be made thirty feet wide between the enclosures or the woods, and that in order to drain the waters there should be a ditch at all necessary places, three feet wide and two and a half feet deep, in digging which the earth was to be thrown into the middle of the road proper, so as to give it a gentle slope towards the ditch. A writer of the time describes this highway: — “The road from Quebec to Mont- real is almost a continued street, the villages being numerous and so extended along the banks of the River St. Lawrence as to leave scarce a space with- out houses in view; except where here or there a river, a wood or a mountain intervenes, as if to give a more pleasing variety to the scene.” The journey between the two towns was gener- ally made by boat in the summer time, a three days’ excursion, with a nightly landing to dance at the houses of the seigniors, if there were ladies in the party. The very first proclamation issued by the new governor of Three Rivers had reference to the prohibition of persons hunting upon the seigniory of St. Maurice, three leagues from the town, or around the forges there, without permission. The existence of these mines, which were considered of sufficient importance to claim a special clause in the capitulation of Canada, was first made known to Intendant Talon in 1666. He sent a couple of engineers to investigate them, but it was 1730-36 46 THE ST. MAURICE FORGES before they were worked by a private company, and King Louis reclaimed their ownership in 1743. The St. Maurice forges would be the first thing to attract Colonel Haldimand’s attention when he assumed the governorship, and on May 24th he sent General Amherst an estimate of the probable expense of smelting a quantity of worn-out guns and bombs that were in store. The commander-in- chief was pleased to approve his scheme for “con- verting all the old cast-iron into bars of serviceable and good iron,” “as well as getting the room that all that useless stuff takes up.” If Three Rivers iron could come into use for the navy, Haldimand undertook to keep up the supply. Thirty-three thousand pounds of pig iron were smelted in one month, and before the end of August he had three million pounds of good iron in bars. Montreal and Quebec both sent their old metal to be worked over, and the profits of the year amounted to $1,770.84. This was not a large amount according to modern ideas, but the ruinous state of the forges must be taken into account, as well as the deficiency of tools and skilled mechanics. The colonel had to keep a close eye upon the works himself with but little encouragement from the inhabitants, who were not sufficiently far-seeing to consider what a mighty difference the success of the forges would make in the development of their district. Why this energetic governor should wish to rebuild them and should advance money out of 47 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND his own pocket to keep them going was what they could not understand. Ore was collected and the work went on under the direction of a Swede called Nordberg, who knew his business. Why should he not ? When Pierre Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, visited the forges in 1749, he observed that they were worked upon the system employed in his country and was curious to account for the fact. The reason reached back to the time of the French minister Colbert, who in 1674 had sent artisans to learn their trade in Sweden, and they had taught the workmen who afterwards came to Canada. Dr. Laterriere who was inspector of the forges from 1775 to 1780, reports them making a profit of fifty louis a day at that time and employing 400 to 800 persons . 1 It was during his first term at Three Rivers that Haldimand made the acquaintance of that erratic priest, Pere Roubaud. The Recollet Fathers had been recommended to him .by General Gage as honest, obedient men of simple manners, with no desire to stir up ill-will by mixing in cabals or intrigue. But this man was a Jesuit. When he went to Quebec without a passport, the Father Superior agreed to hold him fast and shut him up in the seminary as his conduct was a disgrace to the 1 Of the district he says : — “ Le pais est plat, le terrain (un sol jaiine et sablonneux) est plein de savanes et de brules, ou se trouve la mine par veines, que l’on appelle mine en grains ou en galets, de coul- eur bleue; quoique le mineral contienne du soufre et des matieres terreuses, il rend en ge'neral 33 pour 100 de pur et excellent fer.” 48 PERE ROUBAUD order; but he was not easily restrained. Amherst wrote that Pere Roubaud was not to be allowed to rove about, but on his return to Three Rivers he asked leave to go with some Indians in search of new mines, and Haldimand let him depart, though he had small faith in the result of his travels. The French might not be very good farmers, but as explorers they had not left anything of moment unmarked. The unworthy Father came back destitute, and Haldimand supplied his wants, giving him also some writing to do. He was a clever scamp, this Roubaud, and the spurious letter of Montcalm, predicting far too circumstantially the revolt of the British colonies, has been attributed to him. At his final appearance during Haldimand’s regime at Three Rivers, he was suffering from an attack of tertian fever and it was a month before he was well enough to be removed to the care of his brethren in Quebec. When the colonel assumed his new command, there had appeared to be danger of friction between him and Governor Murray, whom he credited with a desire to assert the supremacy of Quebec over Three Rivers, which caused Haldimand to insist upon the independence of his government. The two ultimately became good friends and General Mur- ray exerted himself to further the advancement in the army of his colleague’s nephew. Frederick Haldimand, junior, had been with his 49 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND uncle in the 4th battalion, Royal Americans, at Montreal, but now he was put upon surveying duty. Besides drawing sectional maps of the pro- vince he was required to send in historical accounts of the towns and governments of Three Rivers and Montreal. He had also to collect contemporary details of administration, no easy task, as the col- onel explained to General Murray, whom he ran the risk of offending through the excuses he made for his young relative. He had wished his nephew to serve as an en- gineer for nothing save experience, but Murray gave him a year’s pay and suggested that he settle his debts therewith. The lieutenant 44 seemed so un- easy” at this proposal that the general told him he had better place himself under his uncle’s protection. The boy had no vices, it appeared, but some very expensive tastes which his guardian was not rich enough to gratify. He hoped the tradesmen would teach Frederick a lesson by pressing him hard, as they were to blame for having given him credit. That the colonel was much attached to his young namesake there is abundant evidence. It was with a view to settling him upon it that he bought, in 1765, the seigniory of Grand Pabos, a part of the Gaspe peninsula on the north side of the Chaleur Bay, where now is a township of the same name. It was not a popular part of the country among farmers, who preferred the banks of the great river, or of the Richelieu. German settlers 50 AN EXPENSIVE POST were tried, but they lacked experience and needed too much assistance, difficult to give in such a remote quarter; so Haldimand was advised to trans- port some of the expatriated Acadians who would in all probability gladly accede to the liberal con- ditions offered. He had property too in Shipody, Nova Scotia, but the first cost of land anywhere was little in comparison with the amount that had to be ex- pended in getting it cleared and settled. Three Rivers was proving an expensive government for an honest man, and Haldimand would gladly have resigned it at the end of six months. The twenty shillings a day allowed him was not sufficient to maintain his position, and he had even to furnish money for the needed repairs to government house. Colonel Burton had left his family at Three Rivers in charge of Colonel Haldimand, and he was expected back by the end of October, but it was December ere he arrived in New York, and he remained there for some time in order that the transition from the Cuban summer to the rigorous climate of Canada might not be too sudden. Al- ways looking for his return, the substitute made the best of things as they were, and even tried to better them. He found the Canadians at Three Rivers, as elsewhere, a litigious lot, and endeavoured to the best of his ability to persuade them to settle their differences by amiable arbitration, instead of by perpetual lawsuits. • 51 SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND The most troublesome class with whom he had to deal were the wearers of that coveted decoration, the Cross of St. Louis, who lived upon the glamour of their past exploits, chiefly in “the little war” with savage allies. Poor and proud, there were not more than a dozen of them left in Canada, but some who had gone to France returned, embittered by their reception in the mother country, and by their losses through the paper money of M. Bigot, for the repose of whose soul, Haldimand judged, there would be a lack of masses. Gage wrote him upon this subject : “I am glad to hear that your Croix de St. Louis talk so loudly against the French, tho’ I don’t believe their treatment in France was so bad as they represent; they were put upon the same footing as all the other French troops, but these gentlemen expected to be put upon an extraordinary footing. I hope they will behave with that decency and obedience to their new monarch under whose protection they enjoy their liberty and estates which becomes their situa- tion. They are of a busy temper and hardly to be restrained from meddling in all affairs .” 1 The clergy and noblesse refused to believe that Canada would ever be ceded to England, and when the Treaty of Paris placed the country finally under British rule, a second exodus took place, though 1 L’abbe Raynal is quite of this opinion —