a roa | roe hal sian | 9 +a OG — Cornell Muiversity Library Ithara, New York FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLE CTED BY BENNO LOEWY 18541919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Date Due | Cornell University Library E195 .F54 1904a New Trance and New England / ww AU AU | "3 1924 032 746 293 |. ofin ae, eas Overs ( \ \ “al | Large Paper Crition NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND BY JOHN FISKE ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS MAPS FACSIMILES CONTEMPORARY VIEWS PRINTS AND OTHER HIS- TORICAL MATERIALS - NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND BY JOHN FISKE CAMBRIDGE Printed at Che Kiverside Press MDCCCCIV COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY ABBY M. FISKE, EXECUTRIX - COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Ee 45 F5t 190 4 ar A 76682.% Cw Hundred and Fifty Copies Printed WVo. a siete PREFACE ie alee the illustrations for the series of which this is the last volume to be issued, nothing has been admitted for the mere purpose of embellishment; but the historical societies, libraries, and private collections in this country and Europe have been searched for contemporary material in the form of historical pictures, portraits, original manu- scripts, maps, and other documents, much of which has never before been published. The attempt has been made to use only those illustrations the source and authenticity of which have been established beyond doubt. This infor- mation is given in the notes on the illustrations, but special thanks are due to Wilbetforce Eames of the New York Public Library for his unfailing courtesy, as well as to the librarians of most of the important histori¢al societies and libraries in the country, and to numerous gentlemen already mentioned in the other volumes. Among the private collections to which credit has been given, that of Charles P. Greenough of Boston deserves particular mention in connection with the rare manuscripts and autographs used in this volume. Boston, October, 1904. PUBLISHERS’ NOTE Tue place of the present volume in the series of Mr. Fiske’s books on American history may best be indicated by a few words from his preface to “ The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America.” That work, it will be remembered, comes next in order after “ The Beginnings of New Eng- land,”’ and in describing its scope Mr. Fiske remarks: “ It is my purpose, in my next book, to deal with the rise and fall of New France, and the development of the English colonies as influenced by the prolonged struggle with that troublesome and dangerous neighbour. With this end in view, the history of New England must be taken up where the earlier book dropped it, and the history of New York resumed at about the same time, while by degrees we shall find the histories of Pennsylvania and the colonies to the south of it swept into the main stream of Continental his- tory. That book will come down to the year 1765, which witnessed the ringing out of the old and the ringing in of the new, — the one with Pontiac’s War, the other with the Stamp Act. I hope to have it ready in about two years from now.” This preface bears the date of Mayday, 1899. It will be seen that “New France and New England” completes the story of the settlement and development of the colonies up to the point where Mr. Fiske’s “ American Rev- olution” has already taken up the narrative. It therefore vi PUBLISHERS’ NOTE gives a final unity to the sequence of remarkable volumes which he has devoted to American history. The lamented death of the brilliant author prevented him from giving the final touches to his work. Most of the ma- terial for it was delivered as lectures before the Lowell Institute during the last winter of his life; but only the first two chapters received his definite revision for the press. The third chapter was unfinished, but has been completed by a few pages, enclosed in brackets, and prepared in ac- cordance with Mr. Fiske’s own memoranda indicating what incidents he proposed to include in the remaining para- graphs. The other chapters were in the form of carefully prepared lectures, but were not equipped with the side-notes and annotations calling attention to authorities, such as Mr. Fiske supplied freely in his “ Discovery of America” and other volumes. From the third chapter onward, it has been thought best to provide such topical notes and references as may prove helpful to the reader. These notes are en- closed in brackets. The text of all the chapters has been printed as it left his hand. Though he doubtless would have touched it here and there either for adornment or for a more exact precision of detail, it will on that account possess no less interest for the readers of that notable series of historical writings to which this volume now gives the desired continuity and unity. 4 PARK STREET, Boston, Autumn, 1902. CONTENTS CHAPTER I FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN Norman sailors On the coast of Africa Breton ships on the Banks. Alleged discovery of the Gulf of St. Lawrente The Portuguese voyages to North America Verrazano Francis I. and the demecatran ae Verrazano’s purpose The Sea of Verrazano Death of Verrazano Jacques Cartier 2 A The exploration of the St. iawrenee The name “ Canada” Hochelaga An Indian trick 3 Cartier arrives at Hochelaga Hochelaga a typical Iroquois town . The name “ Montreal ” Distresses of the winter . Indian tales . Roberval . Cartier’s voyage, 1541 . Jean Allefonsce tries to explore the Sex of Verrazano Errors in regard to the voyage of Allefonsce The true direction of Allefonsce’s voyage Allefonsce visits the Hudson The character of Roberval The romance of Roberval’s niece Suspension of French exploration Ribaut in Florida Importance of Dieppe in fhe traffic of the sea PAGE OO ONN ALRWDN = NNN NN NNNND SS ee me ee ee ee WOO ON AFP NH NH FOO NUO WDoOUNNMA HNN O viii CONTENTS CHAPTER II THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC Voyage of the Marquis de la Roche Pontgravé and Chauvin secure a monopoly of the furdtrade ; De Chastes succeeds Chauvin The early life of Champlain Champlain in the West Indies Champlain’s first voyage to Canada The disappearance of the Iroquois village of Hochelaga The Iroquois displaced by the Algonquins. The Iroquois Confederacy . . Outlying tribes of Iroquois Designs of the Sieur de Monts Homeric quarrels Occupation of Acadia . Founding of Port Royal, later Annapolis Champlain explores the New England coast A second exploration of the Massachusetts coast . A picturesque welcome ‘ The Knightly Order of Good Times Collapse of de Monts’ monopoly . Champlain turns his attention to Canada The expedition of 1608 Quebec founded Treachery foiled The first winter at Quebec Friendship with the Indians the gondition of successful exploration This condition determines the subsequent French policy Character of the Indians of Canada . Champlain allies himself to the Ottawas and Huiors ; A war party 5 : Consultation of departed heroes : Lake Champlain War dances . The Mohawks panic- -stricken by firearms ‘ The first battle of Ticonderoga sows the seed of deadly hostility between the French and the Iroquois . : oe Te Se ee ee eS ee ee Se ee y CONTENTS CHAPTER III THE LORDS OF ACADIA.— LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN Poutrincourt returns to Port Royal, 1610 Remoter consequences of the death of Henry IV. The far-reaching plans of the Jesuits They secure an interest in Acadia ‘ Madame de Guercheville obtains from Louis XIII. a grant of the coast from Acadia to Florida : z La Saussaye in Frenchman’s Bay The French captured by Argall Argall’s trick Argall returns and burns Port Royal ; Champlain helps in the destruction of an attacking party of Iroquois Beginnings of Montreal . ‘ 5 The Count of Soissons and the Prince af Condé succeed Monts A traveller’s tale Champlain among the Oitadas: 161 4 Vignau’s imposture discovered . Champlain returns from France with the Récullets Le Caron reaches Lake Huron The attack on the Iroquois . Champlain’s military engines . Rivalry of interests The coming of the Jesuits The One Hundred Associates Religious uniformity ‘ The capture of Quebec by the English Champlain’s last days : é James I. grants Acadia to Sir William Alexander Claude and Charles de la Tour Legend of La Tour’s fidelity to France La Tour and D’Aunay ; Death of D’Aunay La Tour gives place to Sir Thomas Temple CHAPTER IV WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE Jean Nicollet ‘ Nicollet explores Lake ‘Vlichipan Father Jogues near Lake Superior . ix 65 66 66 69 70 70 71 72 72 74 75 76 76 77 78 79 79 79 80 82 83 83 83 84 86 86 86 87 88 88 go gl 9! 93 2 CONTENTS Radisson and Groseilliers Accession of Louis XIV. His changes in Canadian admminisnation Two expeditions against the Iroquois, 1666 Contrasts between New France and New England The French trading route to the Northwest The coureurs de bois Father Allouez on the aiseonain - The French take possession of the N orthwest : . Father Allouez depicts the greatness of Louis XIV. Early lifeof LaSalle . . .« «.« . . La Salle comes to Canada . . . La Salle hears of the Ohio and resolves to explore ie His expedition combined with a mission exploration of the Sulpi- cians. ei. fe The way lodked by the Senecas . Meeting with Joliet . . - F . La Salle parts from the Sulpicians 7 ‘ : . La Salle explores the Ohio. ‘i 3 : a * . Frontenac succeeds Courcelles Character of Frontenac Joliet chosen to explore the AM istesippi Marquette Joliet and Marquette reach the Mississippi They pass the mouth of the Missouri The return La Salle’s great designs : The Mississippi valley to be Secpied.; Difficulty of carrying out so vast a plan La Salle’s privileges arouse opposition Fort Frontenac granted to La Salle La Salle builds the Griffin Henri de Tonty Louis Hennepin 3 The voyage of the Griffin La Salle’s terrible winter mune Fresh disasters La Salle goes to rescue Tonty Destruction of the Illinois village by he Iroquois ; La Salle’s winter voyage down the Mississippi . . La Salle returns to France. . . Failure of the Mississippi expedition ‘ i - La Salle’s death : : é 3 < ‘ ; . 114 93 94 94 95 96 97 97 99 .« 100 IoL . IOI 102 » 102 103 - 103 104 . 104 105 . 105 106 . 106 106 . 107 108 . 108 II!I . 112 114 IIS . 11S 115 . 116 117 + 118 118 . 119 11g .« 120 120 » 120 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER V WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE Louis XIV. commutes the sentence of death imposed upon al leged witches 121 The parliament of Nirmandy protests. . 120 The belief in witchcraft universal 123 Vitality of the belief... . 124 Cause of the final decay of the ‘halied 3 - 124 Rise of physical science . - 126 An English witch trial before Sir Matthew Hale 126 Grotesque evidence . ; 6 4 » 126 Indications of shamming ignored 128 Sir Matthew Hale affirms the reality of witclicpatt - 128 Revival of witchcraft superstition . . 129 The Hammer of Witches . . 129 King James on the reality of witchcraft 130 The delusion increases with the rise of the Puritan party to power 130 Last executions for witchcraft + 130 Primitive America regarded as a domain of the Devil . 131 The first victim of the witchcraft delusion in New England - 131 The case of Mrs. Hibbins 132 A victim of malice ae through aiiperstitin - 134 A sensible jury ‘ - 134 The Goodwin children ‘ . . 135 Cotton Mather © 135 His character . 135 His courage in advocating sapcalation - 136 Views of Calef and Upham - 136 Mr. W.F. Poole . : » 137 Cotton Mather and the Gacdeins case #137 Cotton Mather and the Goodwin girl . 138 Tests of bewitchment - 138 Mather publishes an account of thts case 140 Cotton Mather’s book and the Salem troubles - 140 Gloomy outlook in 1692 ‘ : é i 3 ‘i : . I41 Salem Village . 5 ‘ : : : : 2 é + 141 Samuel Parris, the pastor 142 Parish troubles in Salem Village - 142 Mr. Parris’s coloured servants . 5 : A 144 The “afflicted children” . ; ‘ é 3 ‘ ‘ . - 144 Mistress Ann Putnam . - 144 Beginnings of the troubles - 145 xii CONTENTS Physicians and clergymen called in - 146 The trial of Sarah Good . - 146 The accusation of Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse . 148 Character of Martha Corey - 148 Rebecca Nurse 150 A village feud . : . 150 The examination of Rebecca Nurse 150 Deodat Lawson ; . 152 The spread of the delidien i . 152 Case of personal malice . » 153 The Rev. George Burroughs 154 The special court erected - 154 The advice of the ministers . . 156 Spectral evidence : . 158 The jury acquit Rebecca Nurse . 159 The court sends them back - 160 The case of Mary Easty 160 Mary Easty torn from her home at mldnickt i . 162 Doubt perilous 3 ‘ : : 164 Peine forte et dure . - 164 The Rev. Mr. Noyes - 165 The petition of Mary Easty . 165 Her warning. . 166 Sudden collapse of the trials . 168 Reaction follows the intense strain . 168 The accusers aim too high. A . . 168 Accusers threatened with.a suit for mages . 169 The Court of Oyer and Terminer abolished . 169 Cotton Mather r ; 2 170 Explanation of Mather’s svecdh . 170 Judge Sewell’s public acknowledgment of wrong. oo 78 Ann Putnam’s confession ; - 173 Were the accusers misled or shateaiing ? - 175 Evidences of collusion 175 Was there a deliberate conspiracy ? > . 176 Contagion of hysterical emotion - 176 Psychology of hallucinations . 176 Playing with fire . 177 The evils of publicity in the examinations . » 497 Explanation of Mrs. Putnam’s part . : . 178 She exercised hypnotic control over the children 178 The case of Salem Village helps one to realize the terrors sot the witchcraft delusion in the past - 179 CONTENTS CHAPTER VI THE GREAT AWAKENING The reaction from the witchcraft delusion Rise of secular opposition to the theocracy The Halfway Covenant... The South Church . The opposition to the theocracy lays the eindation of Toryism The new charter of Massachusetts . The Brattle Church founded 1698 Relaxation of conditions of membership . Cotton Mather’s alarm . The theocracy helpless under the new hater The new church finally recognized ; The effort to get a new charter for Harvard . Governor Bellomont vetoes a test act for college officers Rise of liberalism in the college 2 President Increase Mather displaced . : 3 : Cotton Mather’s indignation Governor Dudley . The new charter for Haiyard a subabuntial rédndebnent of that of 1650 Conditions in Connecticut New Haven annexed to Connecticut ; Comparison of Massachusetts and Connecticut . Causes of Connecticut conservatism The tendency in organizations to become eid oun mechanical , The instance of the Cambridge Platform, 1648 Lack of a party of opposition in Connecticut The Saybrook Platform - The platform tends to assimilate Conpreswilonaliam to Presbyte- rianism ; ee Massachusetts and Connecticut change places The founding of Yale College . The conservative tendencies of Connecticut eetatoveed by the col- lege : State of religion eatly i in n the ‘eighteenth canta Rise of commercial interests ; s “Stoddardeanism” . Jonathan Edwards Edward’s vein of mysticism His emphasis on conversion Revivals . 188 . 191 - 193 - 194 xiii . 181 182 - 183 183 184 - 184 186 * 187 187 188 . 188 190 . 190 19I 191 » 192 192 193 194 » 194 196 . 196 . 197 198 - 198 200 - 200 201 » 201 202 + 202 203 . 203 xiv CONTENTS The Revival of 1734 George Whitefield invited to New England ‘ Gilbert Tennent : - : James Davenport Comparison with the Avititdminns Whitefield’s return to New England Davenport arrested for public disturbance . Last days of Edwards Results of the Awakening CHAPTER VII NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG The “irrepressible conflict” between France and England in America : Acadia finally pandas to Gaveniy The French view of the limits of Acadia The Abenaki tribes Sebastian Rale. The Norridgewock village The country between the Piscataqua and the jeainebee The Indian view of selling land The Indians and the French ‘ Conference between Governor Shute and the Indians Baxter and Rale . The Indians instigated to attack the Engtish Border warfare . Conflicts between the governor and ‘the Assembly _ Shute succeeded by Dummer . Expeditions against the Indians . The death of Father Rale Extermination of the Norridgewock tribe Captain Lovewell Lovewell’s fight ‘ . 5 - : ‘ The death of Frye . ee Ss ‘ : . ‘ . Louisburg ; ; 3 . ‘ The project to capture Lewisburg: : : ° The New England colonies undertake the attack The naval force The French surprised . A A a The Grand Battery abandoned in parte : : : . Capture of a French line-of-battle ship Louisburg surrendered June 17, 1745 A relic of Louisburg 204 + 204 206 - 206 206 - 208 209 - 210 212 . 213 213 . 214 214 . 215 215 . 216 216 . 217 217 . 217 218 . 218 220 220 221 » 221 221 +» 222 224 » 224 225 . 226 227 . 228 230 . 232 232 - 233 233 CONTENTS xv CHAPTER VIII BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle . . 234 The spread of the English westward + 234 The Scotch-Irish , - 235 The pioneers pass the Alleghanies s 235 This advance of the English a menace to ihe French: + 236 The French influence with the Indians declines . - 236 The founding of Oswego . . 237 Sir William Johnson 237 English traders in the Ohio valley ‘ . 238 Céloron takes possession of the Ohio ee for Louis XV,, I 749, 240 Céloron among the Miamis » 240 The Miamis under English ifltietice : 242 The French destroy the Miami Soa village » 242 The Marquis Duquesne : 5 243 The French expedition of 1753 - 243 The Indians between two fires 243 A chance meeting - 244 Major George Washington sont to warn the French ; 244 The French boast of their plans ‘ . 246 Governor Dinwiddie resolves to occupy the Gateway of the West 246 Duquesne anticipates the English 7 247 The Virginia expedition to Fort Duquesne . 248 Washington surprises a French force . 248 Fort Necessity . : » 249 The battle of Fort N' beaeaily 249 The English retreat . ‘ . 250 Niggardliness of the Provincial Reveniblies 250 The defence of the colonies dependent on the governors » 251 The need of a union of the colonies 252 The Albany Congress es ‘i . 252 Franklin’s plan of union rejected. : : ‘ 254 England and France send troops to America, 17 5 5. - 255 Capture of two French ships ae bel RS ORL” ee SO General Braddock . . : : . . ‘ 7 ° - 256 Indian mode of fighting , 3 ‘ 5 - 257 English regulars ill prepared for ace fanitee - 257 Braddock’s difficulties . . - 258 Braddock should have landed at Philadelphia. . 258 The march , - : 260 A detachment sent on in advance . 260 xvi CONTENTS Beaujeu sets out to waylay the English .. ~ ee 261 Braddock’s precautions . “ A z : ‘ ‘ : . 261 The battle. ; . ‘ 3 f : . 262 The English fall beter. unseen tees @ ‘ : : i - 262 Bravery of Braddock and Washington , : : : . 264 Braddock’s death. ‘ 7 5 ‘ ; F : 3 « 264 Dunbar’s culpable retreat. 3 . a 5 ‘ - 264, 265 CHAPTER IX CROWN POINT, FORT WILLIAM HENRY, AND TICONDEROGA Governor Shirley’s plan of campaign. : ‘ . ‘ - 266 William Johnson to attack Crown Point. . 4 ‘ . 268 Character of Johnson’s army . : : : si : ; . 268 Johnson names Lake George ‘ , . fous . » 269 Dieskau’s approach . ; i ‘ ; : : . 269 The Indians prefer to attack the cau ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ : 270 The English scouting party routed . : . . : : » 270 Dieskau repulsed and captured . : ‘ ‘ - . 271 Shirley’s expedition against Niagara a failure ‘ 2 a s 292 Desolation on the frontier . : ‘ 5 : 5 : ~ 273 Opening of the Seven Years’ War . : : s 5 » 273 England and Prussia join forces. ; ‘ : : . » 273 Montcalm. ji : a ‘ . 274 Montcalm’s account of the eee to Canada 5 , : - 274 Vaudreuil not gratified by Montcalm’s arrival. is j 275 Shirley superseded . ‘ ‘ . 5 ‘ . . ‘ . 276 The Earl of Loudoun . ‘ is ‘ é ‘ . 276 Loudoun plans to attack Ticonderoga F . é ; e - 277 Fall of Oswego. ; : . 278 Montcalm’s capture of Oswego i impresses the Indians . - «279 Loudoun’s expedition against Louisburg. . : 5 + 280 Montcalm’s expedition against Fort William Henry. » « 280 Ferocity of Montcalm’s Indian allies . : - 280 The English force at Fort William Henry and Fort Edward 5 - 281 Montcalm invests Fort William Henry A 7 - 282 Surrender of the forces at Fort William Hengy: ‘ A a . 282 The Indians uncontrollable . ‘i , : z 3 , + 283 The massacre of prisoners . 7 7 . . . - 283 William Pitt : : : : ji . c - 283 Pitt’s hold on popular golifidene: ; : ‘ 5 , ° . 284 Pitt recalls Loudoun. 7 ‘ : ‘ : ‘ . . «285 Lord Howe 5 : ‘ 3 : : F i 3 : . 286 CONTENTS xvii The expedition against Ticonderoga . 286 Lord Howe’s adaptability . 287 The English scouting party lost in the woods . 288 Death of Lord Howe . 289 Montcalm’s defences ; . 290 Alternatives open to Abercrombie : » 293 Montcalm saved by Abercrombie’s stupidity . 293 An assault ordered . ‘ : ; . 294 All assaults repulsed . 204 Abercrombie ridiculed . 295 CHAPTER X LOUISBURG, FORT DUQUESNE, AND THE FALL OF QUEBEC Strategic points in the contest 296 Louisburg - 297 The English expedition against gaicbure - 298 General Wolfe effects a landing . 298 The harbour batteries secured or eeduced by the English . 300 Gradual destruction of the French fleet . ‘ : » 300 Surrender of Louisburg 300 Wolfe returns to England . + 301 Bradstreet’s expedition against Fort F ronteiae : 302 Fort Frontenac taken, August 27 ‘i . 302 The loss of Fort Frontenac weakens Fort Diuauesne + 303 General John Forbes ; 3 A . : ‘ R » 304 The expedition against Fort Tiuguesne 304 The choice of routes » 305 Forbes’s method of advance 306 The slow progress of the march fsvourable i success « 306 Major Grant’s disastrous reconnoissance + 308 Christian Frederic Post wins over the Indians + 309 The French evacuate Fort Duquesne . ‘ 309 Pitt resolved to drive the French from Canada « 310 Preparations for the campaign of 1759 310 Weak points of eighteenth century strategy - 310 General Amherst’s plan of campaign . 311 General Prideaux’s expedition against Fort Ni eae + 311 Fall of Fort Niagara. . 312 General Amherst marches dreatvst ieonderoga «314 Ticonderoga deserted and blown up. é i Fi p + 314 Amherst’s ineffective activity . és . ‘5 j . + 315 Quebec 4s : ; ¥ . . : . ‘i 316 xviii CONTENTS The position of the French forces . é : : ? + 316-318 The difficulties which confronted Wolfe . ‘ é : » 318 His illness. - ‘ - ‘ . 7 ‘ - 318 Wolfe plans to scale the heights ; % ee 8 » oe wo Sig Final preparations ‘ al Pet. rah Ge . < «© 321 The start . 5 ‘ ‘i 4 i , ‘ 5 . é + 321 The ascent . i . . a : ‘i » 322 Complete surprise of the Frewk, ; . F ‘i 7 5 1323 The battle. és ‘ . ‘ if a 3 - 324 Death of Wolfe 3 . 5 : i s é . : - 324 Death of Montcalm . ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ 3 . ‘ - 326 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS James WOLFE (fhotogravure) . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece From the original painting in the National Portrait Gallery. Page PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL ..........+ 4+ 2 Surnamed the navigator, From Major’s The Discoveries of Prince Henry, the Navigator. FRANGIS: Digs se oa “Gi he 2 ee Pete ao Se Se we Sl Be aw OB From the original painting by Titian in the Louvre. AUTOGRAPH OF VERRAZANO .. . . 1. 1 1 ee ee ee 7 From Winsor’s America. CaRTIER’Ss MANOR HOUSE... .... +... . 4. FE From Felation originale du voyage de Jacques Cartier au Canada en 1534. JACQUES CARTIER (fhotogravure) . . . . .. . « facing 12 From the original painting in St. Malo, France. Autograph from Win- sor’s America. FACSIMILE TITLE OF CARTIER’S “ A SHORTE AND BRIEFE NARRA- PRION gs ak 64 a eS ea ae Ge ee a ES The first publication in English relating entirely to Canada. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. GASTALDI’S PLAN OF HOCHELAGA . ........ .- . I4 From Ramusio, 1556. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE TITLE OF CARTIER’S “BRIEF RECIT,” 1545 . . . 17 Facsimile from original in British Museum. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE TITLE OF ALLEFONSCE’S “VOYAGES,” I559 . . . 23 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. ANDRE THEVET « 2 6 2 @ © % 4 8 a @ a ee 2 od we « BS From Portraits et vies des hommes, 1584. xX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS HuNTING ON SNOW-SHOES IN CANADA we SS, Mi From Thevet’s France Antarctique, Paris, 1558. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Earliest known engraving of snow-shoes in Canada. NEW: FRANCES 0. G2.) A.-M ass Bie. a Woe ce From Desceliers’s Mappemonde, 1546. In the possession of Lord Craw- ford. Froma facsimile in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Henry IV.. After an engraving by Hendrik Gait SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN (photogravure).... . . facing After the Moncornet portrait. FACSIMILE TITLE OF CHAMPLAIN’S “ DES SAVVAGES,” 1604 . Champlain’s first book on New France. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE TITLE OF SIEUR DE Mont’s “ COMMISSIONS,” 1605 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. SENECA-IROQUOIS LONG HOUSE . os : Ate From Morgan’s Houses and House-Life of the American pwede GROUND-PLAN OF LONG HOUSE . From the same. LESCARBOT’S MAP OF NEW FRANCE, I609 . In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. CHAMPLAIN’S MAP OF THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE, 1632 . From The History of Canada under French Régime. CHAMPLAIN’S PLAN OF PLYMOUTH HARBOUR . ota From Champlain’s Voyage, 1613. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. CHAMPLAIN’S PLAN OF THE SETTLEMENT AT PorT ROYAL From the same. THE FORTRESS AT PorT Royat . . From the same. GRAVESTONE AT PorT ROYAL The oldest known European monument on the Atlantic coast of North America. It was discovered in 1827 by Prof. C. T. Jackson on Goat Island in Annapolis Basin, and given to Thomas Haliburton, Esq. The masonic emblem of the square and compass denotes that the person belonged to that fraternity. From the collection of the late Francis Parkman. SULLY After the engraving ae Gerard Edelinck. 27 28 33 36 37 38 4l 4l 46 48 49 50 51 52 53 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHAMPLAIN’S PLAN OF QUEBEC, 1608. . . . .. . 1. ue In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. THE ForT AND BUILDINGS AT QUEBEC, 1608. . ..... From Champlain’s Voyages, 1613. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS aT LAKE CHAMPLAIN, 1609... . From the same. FACSIMILE TITLE OF LESCARBOT’S “LA CONVERSION,” 1610 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE TITLE OF BERTRAND’S “ LETTRE MISSIVE,” 1610 . From the same. * ANTOINETTE, MARCHIONESS OF GUERCHEVILLE . ... . From a crayon attributed to Quesnel. AUTOGRAPH OF SAMUEL ARGALL ....... 2.44. From Brown’s Genesis of the United States. AUTOGRAPH OF SIR THOMAS DALE .......... From the same. CHAMPLAIN’S FIGHT WITH THE INDIANS, 1610 .... . In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. CHAMPLAIN’S PLAN OF Port RoyAL. ....... From the same. VIEW OF IROQUOIS VILLAGE AND CHAMPLAIN TOWER . . From Champlain’s Voyage, 1618. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE TITLE OF L’ALLEMANT’S “LETTRE,” 1627. . . In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE TITLE OF CHAMPLAIN’S “LES VOYAGES,” 1632 . From the same. Stir WILLIAM ALEXANDER... . 1. ee es eee From Winsor’s America. FACSIMILE OF THE HANDWRITING OF ROBERT SEDGWICK . . From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. FATHER JOGUES . «. . . # % @ so 8 4 ee a we Founder of the Iroquois Mission. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. AUTOGRAPH OF MARQUIS DE TRACY esr tee dee From Winsor’s America. xxi 55 57 63 67 68 69 71 71 73 75) 80 81 85 87 89 93 94 xxii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS JEAN BAPTISTE TALON . . . fae ae Be AF After the painting in the Hotel Dieu, Giese CoUREUR DE BOIS... + 6 e+ + ee ew we ew ee es 98 From Winsor's America. AUTOGRAPH OF CLAUDE ALLOUEZ. ......... . 100 From Winsor’s America. ROBERT CAVELIER, SIEUR DE La SALLE (pPhotogravure) facing 102 From a photograph in the collection of the late Francis Parkman. AUTOGRAPH OF FRONTENAC . . eee ee ee ee es 105 From Winsor’s America. AUTOGRAPH OF LOUIS JOLIET. . . + - + «+ » + « 106 From Ernest Paynon’s Louis Joliet, Quebec, 1902. In the Lenox Collec- tion, New York Public Library. JouieT’s Map oF NEw FRANCE, 1673-1674 .- - . «+ - . 106 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE OF MARQUETTE’S HANDWRITING . . .. . =. « 107 From a photograph in the collection of the late Francis Parkman. JACQUES MARQUETTE (fhofogravure) . . .. . . « fating 108 From a photograph kindly loaned by R. G. Thwaites of an oil portrait dis- covered in Montreal in 1897. Autograph from Winsor’s America. FACSIMILE TITLE OF TONTY’s ‘‘DERNIERES DECOUVERTES” . 109 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE TITLE OF TonTy’s “AN ACCOUNT OF”. . . . . II0 From the same. THEVENOT’S MAP OF MARQUETTE’S DISCOVERIES ... . . II2 From the same. PLAN OF ForT FRONTENAC, 1685 . . . 2. 1 1 1 ee ee TIA From Faillon’s Histoire de la Colonie Frangaise. In the Lenox Collec- tion, New York Public Library. AUTOGRAPH OF TONTY . 2. 1. 1 1 eee ee ee ATS From Winsor’s America. HENNEPIN’S FIRST VIEW oF NIAGARA FALLS .. . . 117 From Hennepin’s Nouvelle Découverte, Utrecht, 1697. Inthe Lenox Col lection, New York Public Library. Louis XIV. .... fas deh Te Be ay Ga cae G9 2 After the painting by Guestin, FacsIMILe TITLE oF “A TRYAL OF WITCHES,” 1664. . . . 125 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii Sik MATTHEW HATE 6 2 . (foe 4.8. & @ 4 woe w= % From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery. Autograph from Memoirs of Life and Character of Sir Matthew Hale. FACSIMILE OF VERDICT AND DEATH-WARRANT OF ANN HIb- BINS; MAY, 1656 2 2 2 2 6 ee we eR He eS From the original MS. in the Massachusetts State Library. AUTOGRAPH OF JOHN NORTON ......+.6 2... From Winsor’s America. CoTToN MATHER (fhotogravure) . . 1... . . « facing From the painting by Pelham, in the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Autograph from Winsor’s America. FACSIMILE TITLE OF COTTON MATHER’S “ MEMORABLE PROVI- ENCES?” TO8O. eo io cess oie Rae ed a ws ee In the Boston Public Library. FACSIMILE OF EXAMINATION OF TITUBA, I692 . .... . Tn the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. JuDGE CoRWIN HOUSE, SALEM (THE SO-CALLED WITCH HOUSE) From a photograph in the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. FACSIMILE OF ORDER TO ARREST PARTIES CHARGED WITH WITCHCRAFT, 1692 «6 6 6 ee ee ee ee ee From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ROBERT CALEF TO LoRD BELLO- MONT, AFFIXED TO A Copy OF HIS BOOK ..... . In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE OF DEPOSITION OF Mrs. ANN PUTNAM AND HER DAUGHTER ANN, MADE MAY 31, 1692, BEFORE JUDGES HATHORNE AND CORWIN. . 2. ee ee ee ee ew In the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts. TITLE oF Lawson’s “A BRIEF AND TRUE NARRATIVE” . . From the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. THE JAcosBs HousE, SALEM VILLAGE, NOW DANVERS . . . From a photograph in the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts. AUTOGRAPH OF WILLIAM PHIPS. . .. 1... + es ee From Winsor’s America. WILLIAM STOUGHTON... ee ee ee ee From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. Autograph from the same. THE Nourse HouskE, SALEM. .... . & we Said to have been built in 1636. Froma rhstomees’ in the Essex Insti- tute, Salem, Massachusetts. 127 133 134 136 139 143 145 146 147 149 151 153 154 155 - 159 xxiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Part oF GaLttows HILL, SALEM ......., From a photograph in the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts. FACSIMILE OF END OF EXAMINATION OF MARTHA COREY IN THE HANDWRITING OF REV. SAMUEL PARRIS .. , In the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts. FACSIMILE TITLE OF HaLe’s “A MODEST ENQuiry,” 1702 One of the rarest of the books relating to the New England Witchcraft delusion. In the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts. AUTOGRAPH OF SAMUEL WILLARD. ......... From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. FACSIMILE TITLE OF INCREASE MATHER’S “CASES OF CON- SCIENCE)?” 1003.4. sc Gia “BOM eo ac a ee a A we In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE TITLE OF COTTON MATHER’S “ THE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD,” 1693... 1. 1 6 es From the same. SAMUEL SEWALL 2 # 6 2 2 8 © 4 6 2 & 8 we 4 & & From Winsor’s America. Autograph from the same. AUTOGRAPH OF WILLIAM BRATTLE ......... 4 From the Records of the First Parish Church, Cambridge. AUTOGRAPH OF THOMAS BRATTLE. ......... From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. BENJAMIN COLMAN. . .. . . 2... fh. Ge teh se : From the original painting by Smybert in Memorial | Hall, Harvard { Uni- versity. FACSIMILE TITLE OF TURELL’S “THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE REv. BENJAMIN COLMAN” .... . Se Go ty The autographs Seth Storer of Watertown and Charles Lowell are inter- esting. Quincy calls this the best biography of a Massachusetts man written in provincial times. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. AUTOGRAPH OF JOHN LEVERETT. . ... From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. FACSIMILE TITLE OF SAYBROOK PLATFORM, 1709... . . This is the first book printed in Connecticut. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Euinu YALE . . 1. From the original painting in Yale University. . 167 163 - 169 171 . 172 174 185 » 185 186 189 . 192 . 195 - 199 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ELIHU YALE, FOUNDER OF YALE COLLEGE, TO RICHARD JONES, WEKHAM ly ty Cig Bae. 0 This is the only known Elihu Yale letter in this country. From the col- lection of Charles P. Greenough. JONATHAN EDWARDS (fhotogravure) . . . . . . . facing From the original painting recently in the possession of the late Mr. Eugene Edwards of Stonington, Conn. GEORGE WHITEFIELD. . . . - ee ee ee From Winsor’s America. FACSIMILE TITLE OF EpDwarps’s “A FAITHFUL NARRATIVE,” EIST eR a cop itheut> colons ed cay Sal aes aro ce ap, E> Ze In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. THOMAS PRINCE. . ...... Sy He he eel From the painting in the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mas- sachusetts. SIGNATURE OF PRESIDENT HOLYOKE AND FELLOWS oF Har- VARDCOLEEGE 943: -18) S85 cain Gee He SR RB, ee From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST AND LAST PARAGRAPH OF A LETTER OF JONATHAN EDWARDS ........... From the same. FACSIMILE OF TITLE PAGE AND FIRST PAGE OF TEXT OF FATHER RALE’s MANUSCRIPT DICTIONARY OF THE ABENAKI LAN- GUAGE, 3 ox. a Boe wR a This Manuscript was taken from Rale’s dwelling in Norridgewock, in Jan- uary, 1722, by Col. Thomas Westbrook, and was presented by Middlecott Cooke to the Library of Harvard University. Map oF NorTH AMERICA... ......6. From Edward Wells’s New List of Maps, London, 1698-1699. AUTOGRAPH OF SAMUEL SHUTE. ..........- From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. WILLIAM DUMMER. ......... ote ik. Heise From Winsor’s America. Autograph from the same. AUTOGRAPH OF THOMAS WESTBROOK ....... From the same. AUTOGRAPH OF JOHN LOVEWELL ........... From the same. FACSIMILE TITLE OF SYMMES’S “LOVEWELL LAMENTED,” W726 ee. te MAP ik. GA Rha dis ls ne “BSS elm, SS eh Ge From the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. - 200 202 . 205 207 209 .» 210 . 211 214 . 216 . 217 219 - 221 222 223 xxvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AUTOGRAPH OF WILLIAM VAUGHAN From Winsor’s America. a a ee a ae WILLIAM SHIRLEY (phologravure) . . . . . . . . facing 227 After the painting by T. Hudson. Autograph in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. AUTOGRAPH OF WILLIAM PEPPERELL. . ...... . . 227 From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. AUTOGRAPH OF ROGER WOLCOTT . ...... +... . 228 From the collection of Roger Wolcott, Boston. AUTOGRAPH OF PETER WARREN. . .. . - ss «1 « « 228 From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. FACSIMILE TITLE OF SHIRLEY’S ACCOUNT OF THE LOUISBURG EXPEDITION . 0 6 6 ee ee ee ew ew ee ww 6 229 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Str WILLIAM PEPPERELL (Photogravure) . . . . . facing 230 From the painting in the possession of Mrs. Underhill A. Budd, great- great-great-granddaughter of Sir William Pepperell. FACSIMILE OF PEPPERELL’S DEMAND FOR THE SURRENDER OF LOUISBURG . 2. 2 6 ee ee ee we ee ee 2 BBE In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Map oF LOUISBURG ...... a Ge ae Pe S232 From Mante’s History of the Late War. LOUISBURG CROSS . «= © & % & & HH Se we ee ee we 1 233 From the original in Harvard University. OATH OF ALLEGIANCE TO GEORGE II. . . . 1. + + + + + 236 From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. THE SOUTH VIEW OF OSWEGO ON LAKE ONTARIO. - . - « 237 From Smith’s History of New Vork, London, 1757. In the Lenox Collec- tion, New York Public Library. MaP SHOWING THE BRITISH COLONIES AND NORTHERN NEW FRANCE, 1750-1760 (colored). . 6. 0 6 ww ew ew + 238 CELORON DE BIENVILLE. . 2. ee ee ee et et 239 From Winsor’s America. FACSIMILE OF ONE OF CELORON’S PLATES, 1749. . - - + + 24! From a photograph of the original in the possession of the Virginia His- torical Society. AUTOGRAPH OF DUQUESNE. . . . 1. 1 ee ee ee ts 243 From Winsor’s America. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxvii AUTOGRAPH OF CHRISTOPHER GIST ......... In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE OF ONE OF WASHINGTON’S AUTOGRAPH SURVEYS From the same. FACSIMILE TITLE OF WASHINGTON’S JOURNAL . ..... His first published book. From the same. AUTOGRAPH OF ROBERT DINWIDDIE ... . 5 eR) From the same. PLAN OF ForT DUQUESNE. . . 6 eee ee ee es From a set of plans and forts, London, 1765. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. FACSIMILE AUTOGRAPHS OF THE TWENTY-FIVE MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS OF 1754 AT ALBANY, NEW YORK. . . From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. The autograph of Abram Barnes is from the collection of Elliot Danforth of New York, that of Roger Wolcott is from the collection of Roger Wolcott of Boston. FACSIMILE OF MESHECH WEARE’S PLAN OF FEDERATION . In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. AUTOGRAPH OF EDWARD BRADDOCK... .. .. es. From the same. AUTOGRAPH OF VANDREUIL . . . 2. 1 ee es ee ee From the same. RicHARD, LorD HOWE ...... se ee eee From the same. AUTOGRAPH AND SEAL OF LorD HowE ....... From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. . . Z eis “ae, Be Re cautis After the painting by Mason Chamberlain about 1760, Painted for Col. Philip Ludwell, of Virginia, who went to England in 1760. The original next went to Joshua Bates of Boston, and is now in the possession of his grandson, Victor van de Meyer, London, England. PLAN OF BRADDOCK’S DEFEAT, JULY 9, 1755 «©». « «+ + From Six Plans, London, 1758. From the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. VIEW OF BRADDOCK’S BATTLEFIELD . ....... ss From the painting by Frank Weber, in the Pennsylvania Historical Society. ROBERT MONCKTON .. . 2 6 ee ee ee From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. . 244 - 244 245 246 247 . 252 - 253 254 254 » 255 - 256 . 259 262 263 266 xxvili LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ROBERT MONCKTON ..... . In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. AUTOGRAPH OF PHINEAS LYMAN... +... e+ we ew ee From the same. PLAN OF BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE, SEPT. 8,1755. . .. From the same. AUTOGRAPH OF DIESKAU . . «6 1 we ee ee ee ee From the same. Str WILLIAM JOHNSON (photogravure) ... . . . facing From a contemporary English folio engraving in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. GOVERNOR SHIRLEY’S COMMISSION TO TAWENOC, 1755... In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Earn OF Lovpoun s « 3% 4 @ % ew HR ee ee we we From an original drawing in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Li- brary. Autograph from the same. FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM LOUDOUN TO JOHNSON, 1756. .: In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Mar oF LAKE GEORGE... ee) SE ak a ae A a we From Mante’s History of the Late War, London, 1772. AUTOGRAPH OF WILLIAM PiTT . . . .... 6. ew In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Sir JEFFREY AMHERST ..... 2 SU ow oe From a painting by Thomas Cai oauien in the National Portrait Gitar. Autograph in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. AUTOGRAPH OF JAMES ABERCROMBIE... ...... 4: In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. PLAN OF ForT AT TICONDEROGA ........ 6.464 From the same. AUTOGRAPH OF ISRAEL PUTNAM .........4.4 4. From the same. ROBERT ROGERS ss ee we OR RO ROSS ee From the same. FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF LorD Howe, 1756. . ..... From the same. FACSIMILE OF ROGERS’s “JOURNALS,” 1765 . ...... From the same. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxix FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ROBERT ROGERS, 1756... . . 292 From the same. ADMIRAL EDWARD BOSCAWEN . . «+ «© + + 6 «© «© + « 299 From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the National Portrait Gallery. View oF LOUISBURG DURING THE SIEGE, 1758 . . . . . . 300 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. AUTOGRAPH OF JOHN BRADSTREET ....... . . «301 From the same. Fort FRONTENAC . 6 6 ee 6 8 ee ee eee ws 303 From Mémoires sur Le Canada. In the Lenox Collection, New York Pub- lic Library. AUTOGRAPH OF JOHN FORBES . . . . + se + es + « « + 304 From Winsor’s America. HENRY BOUQUET « 2 4 4 © 4% eH 8 we ee we oe BOF From the same. JAMES GRANT 29 3% ¢ 4» @ 6% @ 4 @ % @ & # @ 5 | 307 From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. Autograph from the same. MAP OF THE SIEGE OF QUEBEC ......... . . 310 From Miles’s History of Canada under the French Régime. FREDERICK HALDIMAND . . «ew ew ee ee ee 313 From Winsor’s America. Autograph from the collection of Charles P. Greenough. MONTCALM’S HEADQUARTERS. . . «ee 6 ee ew ee oe BES From a print in the collection of the late Francis Parkman. VIEW OF THE LANDING-PLACE ABOVE THE TOWN OF QUEBEC, WITH A DISTANT VIEW OF THE ACTION, SEPT. 13, 1759 (photogravure) . 6 6 4 ww ew ee ww ws facing 316 From an engraving in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. From a sketch by Capt. Harvey Smyth, A. D.C. to Gen. Wolfe. BOUGAINVILLE: 4 = (4° 2G le w Gow = a8 Ga a Go STF From the collection of Charles P. Greenough. FACSIMILE OF AUTOGRAPH OF BOUGAINVILLE. . . . . . « 319 From the same. VIEW OF THE TOWN OF QUEBEC (Photogravure). . . facing 320 From an engraving in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library, from a sketch by Capt. Hervey.Smyth, A. D. C. to Gen. Wolfe. JOHN JERVIS: 4... Go ee Ba GR a es HH 20 From the same. Autograph from the same. XXX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Sir WILLIAM HOWE... ~ 1 1 ee ew ee ww 322 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. GENERAL JAMES WOLFE .. . 9p eo ey Se BG In the Lenox Collection, New York Public tabpa. Louis JosEPH, MARQUIS DE MONTCALM ( photogravure) facing 324 From the original painting in the possession of the present Marquis of Montcalm. By permission of G. P. Putnam’s Sons. DEATH OF WOLFE. . . . 20% BG RP Ree a! oa “alee BONG From the painting by Senn West, in Grosvenor Gallery. NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND CHAPTER I FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN Amonc the seafaring people of Europe there are perhaps none more hardy and enterprising than the inhabitants of the picturesque little towns along the coasts of Normandy and Brittany. In race characteristics there is a close simi- larity to their neighbours of the opposite British shore. The Welsh of Armorica are own brethren of the Welsh of Corn- wall, and as long ago as the reign of the Emperor Julian the regions about the mouth of the Seine were commonly known as a Litus Saxonicum, or Saxon shore. There, to this day, you will find the snug enclosed farmsteads so characteristic of merry England, while the map is thickly dotted yoinan with Anglo-Saxon names. Thither a thousand sailors years ago flocked the Vikings from the fjords of Norway and settled down over the north of Gaul as over the east of Britain. The geographical position was favourable to the indulgence of inherited proclivities, and throughout the Mid- dle Ages the French and English shores of the Channel were famed for their hardy mariners. Their ships thronged side by side in the Icelandic waters, in quest of codfish, and even the chase of the whale was not unknown to them. When at the beginning of the fifteenth century the Nor- man knight Jean de Béthencourt conquered and colonized the Canary Islands, for which in return for aid and supplies he did homage to the king of Castile,! his company was 1 See my Discovery of America, i. 321. 2 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND chiefly composed of Bretons and Normans, who have left their descendants in those islands to the present day. As early as 1364 we find merchants from Dieppe trading on the Grain Coast, between Sierra Leone and Cape Palmas; and PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL (Surnamed the Navigator) by 1383 these bold adventurers had established themselves upon that shore, which they held until 1410.1 They were Onthecoast thus in advance of the pioneers of Henry the Nav- of Africa gator, and for a moment it might have seemed as if the Guinea Coast were likely to become French rather 1 Shea’s Charlevotx, i. 13. FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 3 than Portuguese, when the civil war between Armagnacs and Burgundians and the invasion of France by Henry V. of England put a new face upon the matter, and the hold of the French upon Africa was lost. A substantial monu- ment of their early activity in that quarter is furnished by the fortified town of Elmina, upon the Gold Coast, whence in these British days runs the direct road to Kumassi. El mina was founded in the fourteenth century by men of Dieppe, and the trade in elephants’ tusks then inaugurated gave rise to the ivory manufactures which still flourish in the little Norman seaport.! Under these circumstances it is not strange that the voy- ages of Columbus and the Cabots should have met with a quick response from the mariners of northern Gaul. Local traditions of a patriotic sort have asserted that Normandy and Brittany did not wait for the Cabot voyages to be taught the existence of the Newfoundland fisheries, but had learned the lesson for themselves even before the crossing of the Sea of Darkness by Columbus. There is no reason why fishing voyages to the Newfoundland banks might not have been made before 1492, but on the other hand there is no respectable evidence that any such voyages had been made. The strong impression made upon John Cabot by the enormous numbers of codfish off the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland ® indi- cates that the western stretches of the ocean were Breton by no means familiar to the fishermen of the Eng- enipe On . e Danks lish Channel. The first authentic record we have of Breton ships in Newfoundland waters is in the year 1504, 1 Gaffarel, Etude sur les rapports de 0 Amérique et de Vancien Con- tinent avant Christophe Colomb, Paris, 1869, p- 316. 2 Such claims are to be found in the extremely uncritical book of Desmarquets, Mémoires chronologiques pour servir & Vhistoire de Dieppe, Paris, 1785. 8 See his conversation with the Milanese ambassador in Harrisse, Fohn Cabot, the Discoverer of North America, and Sebastian his Son, London, 1896, p. 54. 4 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND and from that time forward we never lose a year. The place once found was too good to be neglected, and thus a presump- tion is raised against any date earlier than 1504. From catching fish in these waters to visiting the neigh- bouring coasts the step was not a long one, and presently the name Cape Breton makes its appearance, the oldest surviving European name upon the Atlantic coast of North America. It is asserted by Dieppese writers that a chart of the Gulf of St. Lawrence was made in 1506 by Jean Denys of Honfleur, and that two years later Thomas Aubert ascended the great aiteze river for eighty leagues, and brought back to Europe discovery seven tawny natives who were exhibited at Rouen Gulf of St. and perhaps elsewhere in 1509. We are further- Lawrence : more assured that upon this voyage Aubert was accompanied by a Florentine mariner destined to win great renown, Giovanni da Verrazano. The authority for these statements is not such as we could desire, being found chiefly in uncritical documents collected by the uncritical editor Desmarquets, who lets slip no opportunity for glorifying Dieppe. There is strong collateral evidence, however, of a voyage into the Gulf of St. Lawrence at about this time. Not only does the exhibition of the kidnapped Indians rest upon independent evidence, as early as 1512,! but in the edition of Ptolemy brought out in 1511 by Sylvanus there is a map containing a square-looking gulf to the west of a spa- cious island which is unquestionably intended for Newfound- land, and the outlines of this gulf seem to have originated in actual exploration and not in fancy. There is a map pre- served in the government archives at Ottawa which purports to be a copy of that of Jean Denys, and may well be so, for, although the names upon it belong to a later period, there is some reason for believing that they are a subsequent addi- tion. If the outlines are those of Denys of Honfleur, we have in them a satisfactory explanation of the strange map of 1 Eusebit chrontcon, Paris, 1512, fol. 172. FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 5 Sylvanus. Moreover, some weight must attach to the fact that both the voyages of Denysand of Aubert are mentioned under the years 1506 and 1508 by Ramusio.! There can be FRANCIS I little doubt that the attention of Frenchmen was, to an appreciable extent, drawn toward the New World during the reign of Louis XII. 1 Ramusio, Vavigation? e viaget, Venetia, 1550, iii. 423; 2d ed., Vene- tia, 1606, iii. 355. Ramusio speaks of Aubert as the first who brought Indians to France, “il primo che condusse qui le genti del detto paese.” 6 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND Under his successor, the gay, gallant, and ambitious Francis I, attention was still further drawn to these strange shores. The jovial lawyer, Marc Lescarbot of Vervins, writing in 1612, tells us that about the year 1518 acertain Baron de Léry made an unsuccessful attempt at establishing a colony upon Sable Island, and left there a stock of cattle and pigs which multi- plied apace, and proved comforting and toothsome to later adventurers.1 The French had sturdy rivals in these Atlantic waters. That was the golden age of Portuguese enterprise, and one of The Por. the first results of the Cabot voyages was to stim- tuguese ulate the curiosity of Portugal. The voyage of to North Cabral in 1500 proved that the Brazilian coast in America great part falls east of the papal line of demarca- tion, and therefore belonged to Portugal, and not to Spain. In that same year a voyage in the northern waters by Gas- par Cortereal raised hopes that the same might be proved true of Newfoundland, and Portuguese vessels sailed often in that direction. Their fishing craft were to be seen off the coast, in company with Norman, Breton, and Biscayan vessels, and sometimes an elaborate attempt at exploration was made. Such was the voyage of Alvarez Fagundes in 1520. In ac- cordance with an old custom the king of Portugal promised this mariner a grant of such new lands as he might discover upon this expedition. In March, 1521, after the return of Fagundes and his report to the king, the grant was duly issued. From the descriptions in the grant, supplemented by a map made forty years later by Lazaro Luiz, we may draw conclusions, somewhat dubious, as to just what was accomplished by Fagundes ; but there can be little doubt that he explored more or less thoroughly the coasts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence? Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, Paris, 1612, i. 22; De Lat, Vovus orbis, p. 39. * The voyage of Fagundes is discussed in Harrisse, The Discovery of FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 7 But the Portuguese were becoming too deeply absorbed with their work in the Indian Ocean to devote much atten- tion to North America. And in like manner in 1517-21 the discovery of Mexico and the astonishing exploits of Cortes quite riveted the minds of their rivals, the Spaniards, in that direction. It was just at this moment, and through these circumstances, that French interest in America received a fresh stimulus. After the capture of the city of Mexico an immense store of gold and silver was shipped for Spain, in charge of Alonso de Avila; but Avila, with his ships and treasure, was captured by the famous Verrazano and carried off to France, probably to Dieppe, where the Florentine navigator seems for many years to have had his headquarters. In the course of the same cruise — Peres Verrazano captured another Spanish ship on its way from San Domingo, heavily laden with gold and pearls, so that he was enabled to make gorgeous presents to King Francis and to the Admiral of France. The delightful ehronicler, Bernal Diaz, who tells us these incidents, adds that the whole coun- try was amazed at the stupendous wealth that was pouring into the treasury of Charles V. from the Indies. The first great war between Charles and Francis was raging, francis 1. and the latter did not need to be told that Mexican a: money could be used to pay the troops that were tionline defeating his army in Lombardy. He sent a bantering mes- sage to Charles, asking if it were really true that he and the Verrazano North America, pp. 180-188; Bettencourt, Descobrimentos, guerras, € conguista dos Portugueses em terras de Ultramar nos seculos xv.e xvt., Lisbon, 1881, i. 132-135, etc. ‘ 8 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND king of Portugal had parcelled out the earth between them without leaving anything for him. Had Father Adam made those two his only heirs? If so, he wished they would show him that patriarch’s last will and testament! Until they could do so he should feel at liberty to seize whatever his good ships might happen to meet upon the ocean, and forthwith he concerted with Verrazano fresh raids upon the enemy’s sinews of war. The result of these meditations was the great voyage of 1524, which first placed upon the map the continuous coast- line of the United States, from North Carolina to the mouth Verrazano’s Of the Penobscot River. The purpose of this purpose ~—_—- voyage was twofold : first, to ascertain if any more countries abounding in precious metals, like Mexico, or in pearls, like Venezuela, were to be found within or near the longitudes traversed by Columbus and Cabot; secondly, to find some oceanic route north of Florida from European ports to the Indian Ocean. In other words, this voyage of Verrazano was the first one which had any reference to a northwest passage. Columbus had believed the shores on which he landed to be parts of Asia, either continental or insular, and his last voyage was an attempt to find the Strait of Malacca at the Isthmus of Panama. Subsequent explora- tions, however, had disclosed an unbroken coast-line all the way from Florida to Patagonia; and the recent return in 1522 of the wornout remnant of Magellan’s expedition brought convincing evidence that the voyage to India by his southerly route was so long and difficult as to be practically useless. Thus the New World coasts were coming to be recognized as a barrier on the route to Asia, and an impor- tant part of Verrazano’s business was to discover a northern 1 “Y entonces dize que dixo el rey de Francia, o se lo embié a dezir a nuestro gran Emperador, Que como auian partido entre el y el rey de Portugal el mundo sin darle parte a el? Que mostrassen el testamento de nuestro padre Adan, si les dexd a ellos solamente por herederos,” etc. Diaz, Historia verdadera, Madrid, 1632, cap. clxix. FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 9 end to this long barrier, or a passageway through it some- where to the northward of the regions already examined. This is not the best place for giving a detailed account of Verrazano’s voyage, inasmuch as it was confined to portions of the American coast over which France has never held sway. I have given the principal details of it in treating of the Dutch and Quaker Colonies,! and need not repeat them here. Let it suffice to say that besides delineating the coast of the United States from North Carolina to Maine, Ver- razano entered the Hudson River and Narragansett Bay, and saw from his ship’s deck the distant peaks of the White Mountains. He found no gold mines nor beds of pearl, neither did he anywhere detect what seemed to him a fea- sible waterway into the Indian Ocean, but he did discover in this connection one of the most extraordinary mare’s nests on record. He seems to have gone ashore upon the Accomac peninsula and tramped across it until his eyes rested upon the waters of Chesapeake Bay, which he mistook for the Pacific Ocean. For soon after his return to Europe two maps were issued, one by his own brother, Girolamo Ver- razano, one by Vesconte Maggiolo,? which exerted a great influence upon the geographical ideas of the next three gen- erations of Europeans. These maps show a solid continen- tal mass connecting Florida with Mexico, and another solid mass to the northward, such as would naturally have been suggested to Verrazano by the presence of such py. sea of large rivers as the Hudson and the Penobscot. Verrazano But between these masses the whole central region of the United States is represented as an immense sea continuous with the Pacific Ocean; while the Virginian coast is shown as a very narrow isthmus, with an inscription by Verrazano’s brother, informing us that here the distance from sea to sea is not more than six miles. A full century elapsed before 1 [See The Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Illustrated Edition, i. 54—-59.] 2 [See Ibid. i. 56.] Io NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND this notion of the Sea of Verrazano was eliminated from men’s minds, and without taking this fact into the account it is impossible to understand the movements of navigators who ascended rivers like the Hudson and the St. Lawrence in the hope of finding passageways into the western sea. When Verrazano arrived in Dieppe in July, 1525, the king, who had been taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia in Feb- ruary, was a captive at Madrid. His demand for a sight of Father Adam’s will had met with a rude response. He pur- chased his freedom in January, 1526, by signing a disastrous treaty, but no sooner had he leaped upon his goodly steed, on the French side of the Pyrenees, than he renounced all intention of keeping promises thus made under duress. The worthy Verrazano fared much worse than his royal master. In the year 1526 he entered into an arrangement with Jean Death of | “ngo and other important citizens of Dieppe for Verrazano a voyage into the Indian Ocean for spices, but in the course of the following year he was overhauled by Span- ish cruisers, who took him prisoner and hanged him as a pirate.t There enters now upon the scene a man of whose person- ality we have a much more distinct conception than we have of Verrazano. As that accomplished Italian is one of the chief glories of the town of Dieppe, so the Breton seaport of St. Malo is famous for its native citizen, Jacques Car- jacques tier. His portrait hangs in the town hall. Unfor- Cartier tunately its authenticity is not above question, but if it is not surely a true likeness it deserves to be; it well expresses the earnestness and courage, the refinement and keen intelligence of the great Breton mariner.2 He had roamed the seas for many years, and had won — and doubt- 1 Barcia, Ensayo chronologico para la historia general de la Florida, 1735, p. 8, since confirmed by documents in the archives of Simancas. ? The best and most critical biography is Longrais, Facgues Cartier, Paris, 1388. FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN II less earned —from Spanish mouths the epithets of “corsair”’ and “pirate,” when at the age of three and forty he was se- lected by Philippe de Chabot, Admiral of France, to carry on the work of Denys and Aubert and Verrazano, and to bring fresh tidings of the mysterious Square Gulf of Sylvanus. On April 20, 1534, Cartier sailed from St. Malo with two small craft carrying sixty-one men, and made straight for the coast of Labrador, just north of the Straits of Belle Isle, a region already quite familiar to Breton and Norman fisher- men. Passing through the straits he skirted the inner coast of Newfoundland southward as far as Cape Ray, whence he CARTIER’S MANOR HOUSE crossed to Prince Edward Island, and turned his prows to the north. The oppressive heat of an American July is com- memorated in the name which Cartier gave to the Bay of Chaleur. A little farther on, at Gaspe, he set up a cross, and with the usual ceremonies took possession of the coun- try in the name of Francis I. Thence he crossed to the eastern end of Anticosti, and followed the north shore of that island nearly to its western point, when he headed about, 12 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND and passing through Belle Isle made straight for France, carrying with him a couple of Indians whom he had kid- napped, young warriors from far up the St. Lawrence, who had come down to the sea to catch mackerel in hemp nets. With this voyage of reconnoissance the shadowy Square Gulf of Sylvanus at once becomes clothed: with reality. The ex- Enough interest was aroused in France to seem Peres to justify another undertaking, and in May, 1535, Tawrence the gallant Cartier set forth once more, with three small ships and 110 men. Late in July he passed through the Strait of Belle Isle, and on the roth of August, a day sacred to the martyred St. Lawrence, he gave that name to a small bay on the mainland north of Anticosti. Whales were spouting all around his course as he passed the west- ern point of the island and ploughed into the broad expanse of salt water that seemed to open before him the prospect of a short passage to the Indian Ocean. Day by day, how- ever, the water grew fresher, and by the September morning when he reached the mouth of the Saguenay our explorer was reluctantly convinced that he was not in a strait of the ocean, but in one of the mightiest rivers of the earth. To these newcomers from the Old World each day must have presented an impressive spectacle; for except the Amazon and the Orinoco it may be doubted if there be any river which gives one such an overwhelming sense of power and majesty as the St. Lawrence; certainly the Mississippi seems very tame in comparison. As the Frenchmen inquired the names of the villages along the banks, a reply which they commonly received from Thename their two Indian guides was the word Canada, “Canada” which is simply a Mohawk word for “ village.”} Hence Cartier naturally got the impression that Canada was the name of the river or of the country through which it flowed, and from these beginnings its meaning has been 1 Beauchamp, /udian Names in New York, p. 104. iq A SHORTE AND briefe narration of the two ae SS Nauigations and Difcoueries a to the Northweatt partes called 2.8 £6 fa NEWE FRAVNCE?: WS fat | sparse) Firft tranflated ont of French into Italian, by that famous f learned man Gio : Bapr: Rgmutins, and now turned into Englith by Leb Florio : Worthy therea- ding of all Venturers, Tratteliets, y x i - “and Difcouerers. H ees “wing, ines {treate; neere ynta ‘Bay natdes-Caftell. TITLE OF CARTIER’S “A SHORTE AND BRIEFE NARRATION” 14 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND gradually expanded until it has come to cover half of a huge continent. Presently on arriving at the site of Quebec, Cartier found there a village named Stadacona, with a chief- tain called Donnacona. Painted and bedizened warriors and squaws came trooping to the water’s edge or paddling out in canoes to meet the astounding spectacle of the white- winged floating castles and their pale-faced and bearded peo- ple. In the two kidnapped interpreters the men of Stadacona quickly recognized their kinsmen; strings of beads were passed about, dusky figures leaped and danced, and doleful yells of welcome resounded through the forest. Was this the principal town of that country? No, it was not. The town in question was many miles up-stream, a great town, and its name was Hochelaga, but it would be rash for the bearded visitors to attempt to go thither, for they would be blinded with falling snow, and their ships would be caught between ice-floes. This ironical solicitude for the safety of the strangers has the genuine Indian smack. The real motive underlying it was doubtless “ protection to home industry ;”” why should the people at Hochelaga get a part of the beads and red ribbons when there were no more than enough for the people at Stadacona? Recourse was had to the supernal or infernal powers. Ona fine autumn morning a canoe came down the river, carrying three scowl- ing devils clad in dogskins, with inky-black faces surmounted by long antlers. As they passed the ships they paddled shoreward, prophesying in a dismal monotone, until as the canoe touched the beach all three fell flat upon their faces. Thereupon forth issued from the woods Donnacona’s feath- An Indian €8ed braves, and in an ecstasy of yelps and groans tele seized the fallen demons and carried them out of sight behind the canopy of leaves, whence for an hour or so their harsh and guttural hubbub fell upon the ears of the Frenchmen. At last the two young interpreters crawled out from the thicket and danced about the shore with ago- Hochelaga GASTALDI's Pl NELLA NOVA FRANCIA A. Portadella Terra Hochelaga. B. Suada principale,che vaalla piazza. c. Plazza. PD. Cafa del Re Agouhana. E. La Corte della cafa del Re, & il {uo fuoco. * F. Vna delle dieci ftrade della Citra. G. Vna delle cafe private.” H. Corte con il fuoco, done fi cucina. I. Spacio tra le cafe, 8 la Citta,douc fi puo 4 -andare artorno. K. L’ordimento , che tiene lerauole della cinta della Citta, cheé fatta in luogo _ di mure. L. Tauoloni cdgionti di fora della citra- M. Spacio di fuora al circuito della Citta. N. Tauolecongionte di dentro via il cir- cuito della Citra. O. Corridordoue ftanno gli huomini per diffefa della Cima. P. Parapetto done ftanno gli huomini al- la diffefa. : Q. Ilvacuo che é ra vna tauola, & Valera, doucé!'ordimenco che tien le tauole. R. Indiani, & Indianc,& puta che fono di fuori della Citta p vedercli Francefi, S$. Franceficheentrono nella Citta, & che toccano la manoalli Indiani,che era- no di fuori della Citta appreflo al fuo- co, & fi fanno carezze. J. La Scala che va fu'l Corridor. HOCHELAGA FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 15 nized cries and gestures of lively terror, until Cartier from his quarter-deck called out to know what was the trouble. It was a message, they said, from the mighty deity Cou- douagny, warning the visitors not to venture upon the dan- gerous journey to Hochelaga, inasmuch as black ruin would surely overtake them. The Frenchman’s reply was couched in language disrespectful to Coudouagny, and the principle of free-trade in trinkets prevailed. With a forty-ton pinnace and two boats carrying fifty men Cartier kept on up the river, leaving his ships well guarded in a snug harbour within the mouth of the stream now known as the St. Charles. A cheerful voyage of a fortnight brought the little party to Hochelaga, where they landed |. on a crisp October morning. There came forth arrives at 4 : Hochelaga to meet them — in the magniloquent phrase of the old narrator — “ one of the principal lords of the said city,” ! with a large company of retainers, for thus did their Euro- pean eyes interpret the group of clansmen by whom they were welcomed. A huge bonfire was soon blazing and crack- ling, and Indian tongues, loosened by its genial warmth, poured forth floods of eloquence, until presently the whole company took up its march into the great city of Hochelaga. A sketch of this rustic stronghold was published in 1556 in Ramusio’s collection of voyages. The name of the draughts- man has not come down to us, but it was apparently drawn from memory by some one of Cartier’s party, for while it does not answer in all details to Cartier’s description, it is a most characteristic and unmistakable Iroquois town. ee It was circular in shape. The central portion con- typical Iro- sisted of about fifty long wigwams, about 150 feet Ee in length by 50 in breadth, framed of saplings tightly boarded in with sheets of bark. Through the middle of each wigwam ran a passageway, with stone fireplaces at intervals coming 1 “Lun des principaulx seigneurs de la dicte ville.” Cartier, Brzef recit de la nauigation faicte es ysles de Canada, etc. p. 23. 16 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND under openings in the high bark roof whereby some of the smoke might escape. Kettles of baked clay hung over most of the fires, and the smoky atmosphere was redolent of sim- mering messes of corn and beans and fowl, or, if it were a gala day, of boiled dog, while the fumes of tobacco were omnipresent. On either side were the rows of shelves or benches covered with furs, which served as beds ; while here and there, overlooking sheaves of stone arrows and scattered tomahawks, there dangled flint knives and red clay pipes and dried human scalps. These spacious wigwams were arranged about a large central square, and outside of them a consider- able interval or boulevard intervened between habitations and wall. Such a town might have held a population of from 2500 to 3000 souls, but the actual number was apt to fall short of the capacity. The town wall was ingeniously constructed of three concentric rows of stout saplings. The middle row stood erect in the ground, rising to a height of twelve or fifteen feet ; and the two outer rows, planted at a distance of five or six feet on either side of it, were inclined so as to make a two-sided tent-shaped structure. The three rows of saplings met at the top, and were tightly lashed toa horizontal ridge-pole, while at the bottom, and again about halfway up, they were connected by diagonal cross-braces, after the herring-bone pattern, thus securing great strength and stability. Around the inside of this stout wall, and near the top, ran a gallery accessible by short ladders, and upon the gallery our explorers observed piles of stones ready to be hurled at an approaching foe. Outside in all directions stretched rugged half-cleared fields clad in the brown rem- nant of last summer’s corn crop, and dotted here and there with yellow pumpkins. The arrival of the white strangers was the cause of wild excitement among the bark cabins and in the open square of Hochelaga. Their demeanour was so courteous and friendly that men, women, and children allowed curiosity to prevail ee Brief recit, & fuccinée narration ,de la nauiga- tion faide esyfles de Canada, Ho- chelage & Saguenay & autres, auiec _ particulieres meurs,langaige, & ce- rimonies des habitans d'icelles:fore delectable a veoir. . Onles uend 4 Paris au fecond pillier en lagrand. falla du Palats ,.¢ en la rue neufuc noftredame a Tenfeigne de lefeu de frace,par Ponce Roffet ditt Faucheur ey Antboine le Clerc freres. 1S 4 fe. TITLE OF CARTIER’S “ BRIEF RECIT” 18 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND over fear ; they flocked about the Frenchmen and felt of their steel weapons and stroked their beards. Sick Indians came up to be touched and cured, trinkets were handed about, The name Polite speeches were made, and at length amid a Montreal loud fanfare of trumpets the white men took their leave. Before they embarked the Indians escorted them to the summit of the neighbouring hill, which Cartier named Mont Royal, a name which as Montreal still remains at- tached to the hill and to the noble city at its foot. It was getting late in the season to make further explora- tions in this wild and unknown country, and upon returning to Stadacona the Frenchmen went into winter quarters. There they suffered from such intensity of cold as the shores Distresses Of the English Channel never witnessed, and pre- ofthewinter sently scurvy broke out with such virulence that scarcely a dozen of the whole company were left well enough to take care of the rest. In vain were prayers and litanies and genuflexions in the snow. The heavenly powers were as obdurate as when Cassim Baba forgot the talismanic word that opened the robbers’ cave. But presently Cartier learned from an Indian that a decoction of the leaves of a certain evergreen tree was an infallible cure for scurvy. The ex- periment was tried with results that would have gladdened Bishop Berkeley, had he known them when he wrote his famous treatise on the virtues of tar water.1 Whether the tree was spruce, or pine, or balsam fir, is matter of doubt, but we are told that Cartier’s men showed such avidity that within a week they had boiled all the foliage of a tree as big as a full-grown oak, and had quaffed the aromatic decoction, whereupon their cruel distemper was quickly healed. The ranks had been so thinned by death that Cartier was obliged to leave one of his ships behind. Further explo- 1 On its specific use in scurvy, see Berkeley’s Szris, pp. 86-119, in Fraser’s edition of his works, Oxford, 1871, ii. 395-408, The bishop’s interest in tar water seems to have been started by his experiences in America, iv. 262. FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 19 ration must be postponed. It was the common experience. A single season of struggle with the savage continent made it necessary to return to Europe for fresh resources. So it was with Cartier. The midsummer of 1536 saw him once more safe within the walls of St. Malo, and confident that one more expedition would reveal some at least of the wonders which he had heard of, comprising all sorts of things from gold and diamonds to unipeds. As we are confronted again and again with these resplendent dreams of the early voyagers to America,-we are reminded not only that the wish is father to the thought, but also that the stolid-looking red man is the most facetious of mortals, and in his opinion the most delightful kind of facetiousness, the genuine epicure’s brand of humour, consists in what English slang calls “ stuffing,” or filling a victim’s head with all manner of false information. In Cartier’s case one effect was to lead him to kidnap Donnacona and several other chiefs, and carry them to France, that they might tell their brave stories be- fore the king. Five years elapsed before another expedition was ready for Canada. King Francis made up his mind that a little more flourish of trumpets, such as the crowns of Spain and Portugal indulged in, would not come amiss. Columbus and Gama had been admirals and viceroys; it was high time for the king of France to create a viceroyalty in the New World. To fill this eminent position he selected Jean Francois, Sieur de Roberval, a nobleman who held large estates in Picardy. This man he created Lord of Norumbega and Viceroy over Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, and so on through a long string of barbaric names. At the same time Cartier was made captain-general, and in his commission the king declares that the lands of Canada and Hochelaga “form the extremity of Asia toward the west.” + Indian tales Roberval 1 Harrisse, Votes sur la Nouvelle France, “De par le roy,” 17 Oct., 1540. 20 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND The flourish of trumpets was loud enough to reach the ears of Charles V., but the Spaniards had become convinced that the codfish coasts contained no such springs of sudden wealth as Cortes and Pizarro had discovered for them, and the Span- ish ambassador at Paris advised his master that the soundest policy was to let Francis go on unmolested and waste his money in a bootless enterprise. The event seemed to justify this cynicism. It was a dismal tale of misdirected energies. So little commercial interest was felt in the voyage that volunteers were not forthcoming and had to be sought in the jails. So much time was con- eas sumed in getting ready that it was decided to send voyage, on a part of the expedition in advance, and so in = May, 1541, Cartier started with three ships, ex- pecting soon to be overtaken by Roberval. In this expecta- tion he tarried six weeks on the Newfoundland coast, until the arrival of August determined him to wait no longer, and he pushed across the Gulf of St. Lawrence and up the river. Of this voyage we have no such full report as of its prede- cessor. Very little seems to have been accomplished in new explorations; at Hochelaga there were rumours of hostile plots on the part of the red men ; and then there was another wretched winter near the site of Quebec; and then a forlorn retreat to the ocean and to France. At one of the harbours on the Newfoundland coast the little fleet of Cartier met that of Roberval, whose detention of a whole year has never been accounted for. Our authorities are here so confused that it is impossible to elicit from them a coherent story. It seems clear, however, that the meeting between the two command- ers was not a pleasant one, and that Cartier kept on his way to France, leaving Roberval to shift for himself. The Lord of Norumbega was not left helpless, however, by this departure. He had sturdy pilots on board, already familiar with these coasts, and one of his three ships was commanded by a veteran navigator who was thought to be FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 21 unexcelled by any other seaman of France. This was Jean Allefonsce, of the province of Saintonge, over which sweep the salt breezes of the Bay of Biscay. In forty : f ‘ i Jean Alle- years or more of life upon the ocean he is likely fonsce tries ai to explore to have visited more than once already these north- the Sea of ern waters, such a haunt of Biscayan fishermen Y°"™2"° He was now entrusted with an important enterprise. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence the expedition was divided, and it seems clear that while Roberval undertook the task of exploring the river he sent Allefonsce on an ocean trip to find a pas- sage into the Sea of Verrazano. This voyage is usually men- tioned in such terms as to be unintelligible ; as for example by the Recollet friar, Sixte le Tac, writing in 1689, who says that Roberval sent Allefonsce northward to Labrador in quest of a passage to the East Indies, but that Allefonsce was so beset with floating ice that he was fain to rest contented with discovering the strait between Newfoundland and the continent in latitude 52°,! or, in other words, the Strait of Belle Isle. Now this is of course absurd, for the Strait of Belle Isle had long been familiar to mariners and was a favour- ite route for entering the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In one of the most recent books, the late Justin Winsor’s “ Cartier to Frontenac,” we get a reverberation of this statement when we are told that “ Allefonsce went north along the Labrador coast to find, if possible, a passage to the west. The ice proved so dense that he gave up the search.”? But while most writers have repeated this statement, it is to be observed 1 “Ce fut lui [Roberval] aussy qui envoya Alphonse trés habile pilote xaintongeois vers la Brador pour essayer de trouver un passage aux Indes Orientales, mais il se contenta de decouvrir seulement celuy qui est entre l’isle Terreneuve et la grande Terre du Nord par les 52 degrés, les glaces ’empeschant d’aller plus loing.” Sixte le Tac, zs toire chronologique de la Nouvelle France, publiée pour la premitre fois a apres le manuscrit original de 1689, par E. Révetllaud, Paris, 1888, P. 45. 2 Cartier to Frontenac, p. 41. 22 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND that the careful and thoroughly informed Hakluyt, writing in 1589, knows nothing of any such northern voyage of Errorsinre. ‘tllefonsce. The truth is, that eminent sailor, af. eee ter returning from his expedition with Roberval, Allefonsce wrote an account of his voyages, in which he was aided by a friend, Paulin de Secalart, a geographer of Hon- fleur. This narrative, written in 1545, still remains in manu- script, a folio of 194 leaves, and is preserved in the National Library at Paris! But in 1559, shortly after the death of Allefonsce, and during that brief period of quickened curios- ity about the man which is wont to come at such a time, a book was published at Poitiers, entitled “The Adventurous Voyages of Captain Jean Allefonsce,” and this book ran through at least seven editions. It was compiled by a mer- chant of Honfleur named Maugis Vumenot, and is a thor- oughly uncritical and untrustworthy narrative. It omits much that Allefonsce tells, and weaves in such interesting material as Master Vumenot happened to have at hand, with- out much regard to its historic verity. Such were the naive methods of sixteenth century writers. If we consider what Allefonsce himself tells us, although his allusions to places are often far from clear, we cannot fail to see that his voyage in quest of a western passage in Thetrue the summer of 1542 was directed not northward direction of “but southward from the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He voyage seems to have entered Massachusetts Bay, and may have passed through Long Island Sound and Hell Gate; at all events, he has much to say about the town of Norum- bega, which Mercator’s map of 1569 places upon Manhattan Island; and he tells us that the river of Norumbega is salt 1 Its description is Cosmographie avec espere et regime du Soleil et au Nord en nostre langue francoyse par Fehan A lefonsce, Bibliotheque Nationale, MSS. francais 676. An account of it is given in Harrisse, Découverte de Terre-Neuve, p. 153, and Notes sur la Nouvelle France, p- 7. See also De Costa, Morthmen in Maine, etc., pp. 92-122. 2 Cf. Weise, The Discoveries of America, New York, 1884, p. 352- ie (ES Voyages auantureux DV CAPIT AINE Tan ALFONCE, Sainctongeois, Auec Priuilege du Roy. A Poitiers, au Pelican, par Jan de Marnef. TITLE OF ALLEFONSCE’S “ VOYAGES,” 1559 24 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND for more than ninety miles from its mouth, which is true of the Hudson, but not of any other river which men have sought to associate with Norumbega. Moreover, our good pilot feels confident that this great river, if followed far enough to the northward, would be found to unite with the other great river of Hochelaga, that is, the St. Lawrence.! This notion, of a union between the Hudson and the St. Lawrence, became a very common one, and found expres- sion upon the famous map of Gastaldi in 1553, and upon other maps. If we were to allow a little free play to our fancy, it would not be difficult to assign a suitable explanation for this voy- age of Allefonsce in connection with the expedition of Roberval. There is no longer any doubt that the Hudson River was first made known to Europeans by Verrazano in 1524, and was called by various names, of which perhaps the Grand River was the most common. At the Indian village on Manhattan Island French skippers traded for furs, hee aes and in 1§40a French blockhouse was built near ae ae the site of Albany for the purpose of protecting such traffic with the red men of the Mohawk val- ley. The name Norumbega unquestionably first appears with Verrazano’s voyage, and for forty years thereafter it was closely associated with the neighbourhood of the Hudson. In reading the string of Roberval’s titles-— which begin with Norumbega and run through Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, etc., down to Newfoundland — it is clear that the king meant to concentrate under his rule the various regions which Verrazano and Cartier had discovered. When the expedition arrives on the American coast it seems not un- natural that the viceroy should send his lieutenant to Nor- umbega while he himself should prosecute the journey to Hochelaga. Possibly, as some believed, the watery channels pursued by the two might unite. At all events, a passage 1 Cf. Weise, Zhe Discoveries of America, New York, 1884, p. 352. FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 25 into the Sea of Verrazano was more likely to be found at the fortieth parallel than at the fifty-second. It isa pity that these amiable old skippers, in telling of their acts and purposes, should have paid so little heed to ANDRE THEVET posterity’s craving for full and exact knowledge. Just how far the good Allefonsce ever got with his Norumbega voyage, or what turned him back, we are not informed. We may safely say that he did not succeed in sailing into the Sea of Verrazano, and the next summer we find him once more with Roberval on the St. Lawrence. Thither that captain 26 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND had proceeded at the outset after parting company with Allefonsce. Of his fortunes during the next seventeen months our accounts are but fragmentary. Hakluyt is un- usually brief and vague, and we have to rely largely upon a manuscript of 1556,! written by the somewhat mendacious André Thevet, who seems to have been an intimate friend of Roberval and a boon companion of the irrepressible buf- foon Rabelais. Provokingly scanty as Thevet often is, there are times when he goes into full details, and one of his romantic stories is worthy of mention, since it probably rests upon a basis of fact. The expedition of Roberval was intended not only for ex- ploring the wilderness but for founding a colony. Homes were to be established in the New World, and many of the company brought along with them their wives and children. Among the young women was Marguerite Roberval, niece of the Lord of Norumbega, and on the same ship was a gal- othe, lant chevalier, and the twain loved one another not terof Ro- wisely but too well. Roberval was a man of stern berval : se : ‘i and relentless disposition, and forgiveness of sins formed no part of his creed. He set his niece ashore ona small barren island, with an old Norman nurse who had been in her confidence, and left them there with a small supply of food and guns for shooting game or noxious beasts. As the ship sailed away, the lover leaped into the sea and by dint of frenzied exertion swam ashore. The place was dreaded by sailors, who called it the Isle of Demons, but bears and wolves were more formidable enemies. On that island was born, during the year 1542, the first child of European parents within the vast region now known as British America, but one after another, child, father, and nurse, succumbed to the hardships of the place and died, leaving the young mother alone in the wilderness. There for more than two years she contrived to sustain life, on 1 See Harrisse, Votes sur la Nouvelle France, p. 278. FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 27 three occasions shooting a white bear, and at all times keeping the demons aloof by the sign of the cross, until one day she was picked up by a fishing vessel and carried back to France. There Thevet tells us that he met her a little later, in a vil- lage of Perigord, and heard the story from her theto- own lips. At all events, it was much talked of in 72M °. France, and forms the subject of the sixty-seventh mee tale in the famous collection of Queen Margaret of Angou- HUNTING ON SNOW-SHOES IN CANADA léme, sister of Francis I.1 The Isle of Demons was often called by sailors the Isle of the Damsel. Ascending the great river to Cap Rouge, near the site of Quebec, where Cartier had wintered, Roberval made it his ‘ See Heptameron: Les Nouvelles de Marguerite, Reine de Navarre, Berne, 1781, tom. iii. pp. 179-184. In my copy of this edztion de luxe the superb engraving by Freudenberg represents the lovers seated under palm-trees ! 28 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND headquarters. Little is known as to the course of events, save that in the following summer Allefonsce had returned, and a trip was made up the Saguenay. There were severe hardships and many died. The sternness of Roberval is conspicuous in the narrative, and may have been called forth by apparent necessity. There were occasions on which both men and women were shot for an example, and the whip- ping post was frequently in requisition, “by which means,” observes the worthy Thevet, “they lived in peace.’ This is about all we know of the mighty viceroyalty of Hochelaga, etc. Lescarbot tells us that in the course of 1543 the king sent out Cartier once more, who brought home to France the wretched survivors of the company.! About this time Cartier received from the king a grant of a manor on the coast of the Channel, not far from St. Malo, and there we lose sight of the navigator, except for the mention of his death at that place in 1557. Allefonsce seems to have been killed in a sea fight about ten years before, and we are told that Roberval was assassinated one evening on the street in Paris. After the failure of this expedition there was a partial ces- sation of French enterprise upon the high seas. The reign of Henry II. was clouded by the disastrous wars with Spain, in which France lost the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and French armies were so woefully defeated at Suspension St. Quentin and Gravelines. The death of the ee king in 1559 was the signal for the rise of the Hon Guises and the pursuance of a policy which brought on one of the most disastrous civil wars of modern times. From 1562 to 1598 some historians enumerate eight succes- sive wars in France, but it is better to call it one great civil war of thirty-six years, with occasional truces. It is still more instructive to regard it all asa phase of the still mightier conflict which was at the same time raging between Spain 1 Lescarbot, ii. 416, HI y Heys Cie Me 2 * 1b NOAA LE Ike ROPIONE. DE CANCER: Lt : am ¢ LA \ER OCCEANES 3 Ee a es Z : 2 « is Z © <5 VER DEFRANCED © Ie Ge f ep Os SO NEW FRANCE, FROM I Ne} = 10 sn eS a Zz ° S a 4] 4 a < S ct au FROM CARTIER TO CHAMPLAIN 29 and the Netherlands, and which presently included Queen Elizabeth’s England among the combatants. It was not a favourable time for expending superfluous energy in found- ing new states beyond sea. During the latter half of the century we witness two feeble and ill-starred attempts at planting Huguenot colonies in America, —the attempt of Villegagnon in Brazil in 1557-58, and that of Ribaut in Florida in 1562-65. The latter of these was pioutin formidable in purpose; it represented the master Florida thought of Coligny which led Sir Walter Raleigh to plan the founding of an English nation in America. The violent destruction of this Huguenot colony was the last notable exhibition of Spanish power beyond sea in that century of Spanish preéminence. Spanish energy, too, was getting absorbed in the conflict of Titans in Europe. The affair of Florida was essentially military in purpose and execution. Attempts at planting commercial colonies on the St. Lawrence must wait for some more favourable oppor- tunity. Yet French fishing vessels steadily plied to and fro across the Atlantic. Investigations in the local tmportance account-books of such towns as Dieppe and Hon- % Dieppe | fleur lead to the conclusion that as many as 200 °% the sea ships were equipped each year in French ports for fishing in American waters. It was no uncommon thing for these craft to bring home furs and walrus ivory. But we hear of little in the way of exploration. Dieppe, indeed, boasted something like a school of seamanship. It was a city to which astronomers, geographers, and map-makers were drawn in order to profit by the experiences of practical navigators, and where questions connected with oceanic exploration were likely to be treated in a scientific spirit. In those days such men as Pierre Desceliers, who has been called the creator of French hydrography, and whose beautiful maps are now of great historical importance, made his headquarters at Dieppe. 1 Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, p. 74. NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND s a time of keen intellectual curiosity and bold commer- \ctivity ; and nothing was needed but relief from the ssive anarchy that had ruled so long to see France put- forth new efforts to plant colonies and to prepare for ime empire. The end of the century saw a new state ngs, the military strength of Spain irretrievably broken, olicy of France in the hands of the greatest and wisest that France ever had, with England and the Nether- looming up as powerful competitors in the world beyond Before the rivals lay the American coasts, inviting iments in the work of transplanting civilization. It ned to be seen how France would fare in this arduous ‘taking. CHAPTER II THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC THE year 1598 was a memorable one in the history of France, for it witnessed the death of that insatiable schemer, Philip II. of Spain, supporter of the Guises, and it also saw the end of the long wars of religion and the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes. The time seemed to be more propitious than before for commercial enterprises, and the thoughts of a few bold spirits turned once more to the St. Lawrence. One of these was the Marquis de la Roche, a mune: Breton nobleman, who obtained from Henry IV. the Marquis bie a . dela Roche a commission very similar to that under which Roberval had sailed. But so little popular interest was felt in the enterprise that volunteers would not come forward, and it became necessary to gather recruits from the jails. The usual scenes of forlorn and squalid tragedy followed. Roche was cast ashore on the Breton coast ina tempest, and was thrown into a dungeon by the king’s enemy, the Duke de Mercceur;! while his convicts were landed on Sable Is- land, and only saved from starving by the wild cattle de- scended from Léry’s kine of fourscore years before. While these things were going on there was a skipper of St. Malo, a man of good family and some property, Frangois Gravé, Sieur du Pont, commonly known as Pontgravé, who had made up his mind that the Canada fur-trade was some- thing that ought to be developed. He had sailed up the St. Lawrence as far as Three Rivers, and had feasted his eyes upon the soft glossy pelts of mink and otter, lynx and 1 The “ Duke Mercury” of John Smith’s 7rue Travels, chaps. v., vi. 32 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND wolverene. The thing to do was to get a monopoly of the trade in furs, and with this end in view Pontgravé applied to a friend of the king, a wealthy merchant of Honfleur named Pierre Chauvin and a staunch Huguenot withal. Another man of substance, the Sieur de Monts, became interested in the scheme, and the three formed a partnership; while the Pontgravé king granted them a monopoly of the fur-trade on and Chau the condition that they should establish a colony. monopoly This privilege awakened fierce heart - burnings trade among the gallant skippers of St. Malo, who de- clared that they had done more than anybody else to main- tain the hold of France upon the St. Lawrence country, and there was no justice in singling out one of their number for royal favour, along with merchants from Honfleur and else- where. Similar complaints were heard from Rouen, Dieppe, and Rochelle; the parliaments of Normandy and Brittany took up the matter, anda fierce outcry was made because Chauvin and Monts were Protestants. But this argument naturally went for little with Henry IV., and the monopoly was granted. Pontgravé and Chauvin made their headquarters at Ta- dousac, where the waters of the Saguenay flow into the St. Lawrence. The traffic in furs went on briskly, but the busi ness of colonization was limited to the leaving of miserable garrisons in the wilderness to perish of starvation and scurvy. So things went on from 1599 to 1603, when Chauvin on his third voyage died in Canada. The partnership was thus broken up, and the monopoly for the moment went a-begging. It was only for a moment, however. The governor of Dieppe since 1589 was Aymar de Chastes, a stout Catholic of the national party and a friend of Henry IV. On the great day of Arques in 1589, when the Leaguers boasted that their fat Duke of Mayenne,! with his army of 30,000, 1 Mais un parti puissant, d’une commune voix, Plagait déja Mayenne au tréne de nos rois. Voltaire, La Henriade, vi. 61. THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 33 would make short work of the king with his 7000, when the fashionable world of Paris was hiring windows in the Fau- bourg St. Antoine, to see the rugged Bearnese brought in HENRY JV tied hand and foot, it was largely through the aid of Chastes that Henry won his brilliant victory and scattered oy. the hosts of Midian.! It was therefore not strange succeeds that when, upon the death of Chauvin, this scarred oar and grizzled veteran asked for the monopoly in furs, his 1 Michelet, Histoire de France, xii. 286; Gravier, Vie de Champlain, p. 6. 34 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND request was promptly granted. Chastes soon found an able ally in Pontgravé, but even with the allurements of rich car- goes of peltries it was hard to get people to subscribe money for such voyages. Loans for such purposes were classed on the market as loans at heavy risk, and the rate of interest demanded was usually from 35 to 40 per cent.! While the preparations were briskly going on a new figure entered upon the scene, the noble figure of the founder of New France. Samuel Champlain was now about six and thirty years of age, having been born in or about the year 1567, at Brouage, a small seaport in the province of Saint- onge, not many miles south of Rochelle. The district, situ- ated on the march between the Basque and Breton countries, was famous as a nursery of hardy sailors, and the neighbour- hood of Rochelle was one of the chief centres of Huguenot ferment. Champlain’s father was a seafaring man, but no- thing is positively known as to his station in society or as to his religion. One local biographer calls him an The early i lifeof humble fisherman, but the son’s marriage contract Champlain describes him as of noble birth. The son was often called by contemporaries the Sieur de Champlain, but that was chiefly perhaps after he had risen to eminence in Canada. The baptismal names of the father and mother, Antoine and Marguerite, indicate that they were born Catholics; while Samuel, the baptismal name of the son, affords a strong pre- sumption that at the time of his birth they had become Hu- guenots. In later life Champlain appears as a man of deeply religious nature but little interested in sectarian disputes, a man quite after the king’s own heart, who realized that there were other things in the world more important than the dif- ferences between Catholic and Huguenot. Champlain was to the core a loyal Frenchman, without a spark of sympathy 1 Toutain, ‘“‘ Les anciens marins de l’estuaire de la Seine,” in Bulletin de la Société normande de Géographie, 1898, xx. 134; Bréard, Le vieux Honfleur et ses marins, Rouen, 1897, p. 59. THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 35 with those intolerant partisans who were ready to see France dragged in the wake of Spain. The early years of this noble and charming man were mostly spent upon the sea. He was a true viking, who loved the tossing waves and the howling of the wind in the shrouds. His strength and agility seemed inexhaustible, in the moment of danger his calmness was unruffled as he stood with hand on tiller, calling out his orders in cheery tones that were heard above the tempest.) He was a strict dis- ciplinarian, but courteous and merciful as well as just and true; and there was a blitheness of mood and quaintness of speech about him that made him a most lovable companion. In the whole course of French history there are few person- ages so attractive as Samuel Champlain. For several years until the peace of 1598 Champlain served in the army of Henry IV. as deputy quartermaster- general. One of his uncles was pilot major of the Spanish fleets, and after the peace Champlain accompanied him to Seville. A fleet was on the point of sailing for Mexico, un- der the Admiral Francisco Colombo, and Champlain obtained, through his uncle’s influence, the command of one of the ships. The voyage, with the journeys on land, hiaastein lasted more than two years, and Champlain kept a_ in the West diary, from which after returning to France he ae wrote out a narrative? which so pleased the king that he granted him a pension. In this relation Champlain described things with the keen insight and careful attention of a nat- 1 Champlain, 7razté de la marine et du devoir d’un bon marinier, Pp. 1-7. ? An English translation from this MS. was published by the Hak- luyt Society in 1859 under the title Varrative of a Voyage to the West Indies and Mexico. The original MS. was first published in 1870 as the first volume of Champlain’s works edited by Laverditre: Brief discours des choses plus remarguables gue Samuel Champlain de Brou- age a reconnues aux Indes occidentales au voyage qu'il en a faict en zcelles en Lannee mil v* ittj** xix, etc. 36 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND uralist. Shores, havens, and mountains lie spread out before you, with the wonderful effects of snow-clad peaks rising from the masses of tropical verdure, birds of strange colour sing in the treetops, while hearsay griffins, with eagles’ heads, bats’ wings, and crocodiles’ tails lurk in the back- ground ; and worse than such monsters, our traveller thinks, are the spectacles of Indians flogged for non-attendance at mass, and heretics burned at the stake. While making a halt at the Isthmus of Panama it occurs to him that a ship- canal at that point would shorten the voyage to Asia even more effectually than the discovery of a northwest passage. When Champlain returned to France he found Aymar de Chastes preparing to send Pontgravé upon a voyage to Can- ada, The veteran Pontgravé was brave and wise, resource- ful and light-hearted, just the sort of man whom Champlain would be sure to like. It is therefore not strange that we find him embarking in the enterprise with Father Pontgravé, as he used affectionately to call him. The two sailed from Honfleur on the rsth of March, 1603, and seventy days Cham- later they were gliding past the mouth of the rebel Saguenay. As they approached the St. Charles Canes they saw no traces of the Iroquois town of Stada- cona. On they went as far as Hochelaga, where Cartier had been entertained sixty-eight years before, but not one of its long bark cabins was left, nor a vestige of its stout triple palisade, nor a living soul to tell the story of the dire catas- trophe. No Iroquois were now to be met upon the St. Law- rence except as invaders, nor were the accents of their speech to be heard from the lips of the red men who emerged from the thickets to greet Champlain and Pontgravé. Another The diss | name than “ Canada’’ would have become attached of the Tro- to that country had these explorers been the first arvexnc®’ to penetrate its wilds. No doubt, whatever, can ne attach to the facts. There is no doubt that in 1535 Iroquois villages stood upon the sites of Montreal and -SAVVAGES, VOYAGE DE SAMVEL CHAMPLAIN, DE BROVAGE, faicen la France nouuelle, Yan mil fix cens trois: CONTENANT Les mecurs, facon de viure, mariages, guerves, & habi- tations des Sauuages de Canadas. De la defconuerte de plus de quatre cens cinquante heués dans le pais des Saunages. Quels peuples y ha- bitent, des animaux qui s'y trrouuent, des riuieres, Jacs, ifles & terres, & quels arbres & frnicts elles pro- duifent. Dela cofte d’Arcadie, des terres que l’on y a de{couucr- tes, & de pluficurs mines quiy font, felonle rapport des Sauuages. De A Re 5 3 Chez CiLAVDE pz MONSTR iL, tenant fa boutique en la Cour du Palais, au nom de Iefus. AVEG PRIVILEGE DV ROY TITLE OF CHAMPLAIN’S “DES SAVVAGES,” 1604 Pa 2 fCOMMITSSTONS DG Roy @) de Monfeigneur b Admiral, aufieurde Monts, pour | ‘babi~ tation és terres de Lacadie Canada, ¢7 autres en— droits enla nouuelle France. Enfemble les defenfes premieres & fecon- des acousautres , de trafiquer auec: les Saunages defdites terres. Anecla verification en la Cour de Parlement 4 Paris. A PARES. 1605, eo? TITLE OF SIEUR DE MON1’S “COMMISSIONS” THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 39 Quebec, or that the Iroquois language was that of the na- tives who dwelt along the shores of the St. Lawrence ; while in 1603 the villages with their people and their language had vanished from these places, and instead of them were found Algonquin villages of a much lower type and a ruder people, known as Adirondacks, and speaking an Algonquian lan- guage. The visits of our good Frenchmen have placed dates upon a portion of one of those displacements or wanderings of people that have commonly gone on in barbaric ages alike in the Old World and in the New. Just as we find Hun- nish hordes in one age breaking their strength against the great wall of China and in another age mowed down by the swords of Roman and Visigoth in the valley of the Marne, just as we see the Arab smile and hear the Arabic guttural in Cordova and in Lucknow, so in the New World we find Dacotahs or Sioux strayed afar into the Carolinas with their identity veiled under the name “Catawbas,”’ and we recog- nize in the brave and intelligent Cherokees of Georgia pure- blooded Iroquois, own cousins of the Mohawks. Now the Iroquois, as we know them, while preéminent in power of organization, have not been a numerous family. Within our historic ken, which is so provokingly narrow, the most fruitful and abounding Indian stock has been that of the Algonquins. They include the Blackfeet of the Rocky Mountains and the Crees of the Hudson Bay coun- ,, | try, along with the Powhatans of Old Virginia, and et Eliot’s version of the Bible for the natives of Massa- by the Al- chusetts Bay is to-day for the most part intelligible ae to the Ojibways of Minnesota. Obviously within recent times, that is to say since the fourteenth century, the Algonquins have been for a period of some duration a rapidly multiplying and spreading race, and their weight of numbers for a time proved too much for the more civilized but less numerous Iroquois to withstand. Thus in the Appalachian region we find the mound-building Cherokees retiring from the Ohio 40 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND valley into Georgia before the advancing swarms of Shaw- nees ; and we see the Tuscaroras, another band of Iroquois, pushed into Carolina by the expansion of the Algonquin Pow- hatans and Delawares. From the time when white men first became interested in the Five Nations of New York, it was a firmly established tra- dition among the latter that their forefathers had once lived on the St. Lawrence, and in particular that they had a strong- hold upon or hard by the site of Montreal ; but that they had been driven to the southward of Lake Ontario by the hostility of a tribe of Algonquins known as Adirondacks! Their first movement seems to have been up the St. Lawrence and across Lake Ontario to the mouth of the Oswego River, where for some time they had their central strongholds. Thence they spread in both directions. Those who settled at the head of the Canandaigua lake became known by the Algonquin name of Senecas, which has been variously interpreted. Those who stopped ata lake to the eastward, with a marsh at its foot, called Cayuga, or “mucky land,” were known by that name. Those who kept up the ancestral council fires, and spread over the divide between the Oswego and Mohawk watersheds, and so on over the gentle rolling country east- ward of the Skaneateles or “long lake,” have ever since been known as Onondagas, or “men of the hills.” Eastward from this central region the people were called Oneidas, or “men of the boulders” (or perhaps “men of granite”), from the profusion of erratic blocks strewn over their territory. Far- thest to the east, and most famous of these confederated war- riors, were the people who called themselves, or were called by their kinsmen, Caniengas, or “people of the flint” that was used in striking fire; they are best known to history, however, by the name of Mohawk, or “ man-eater,”’ bestowed upon them by their Algonquin foes, and which all the Iroquois 1 Colden’s History of the Five Indian Nations, London, 1755, i. 23; THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 41 seem abundantly to have earned by their cannibal pro- pensities.1 The driving of the Iroquois up the St. Lawrence valley into central New York by their Algonquin assailants had remarkable consequences. For military and commercial pur- poses the situation was the best on the Atlantic slope of SENECA-IROQUOIS LONG HOUSE North America. The line of the Five Nations stretched its long length between the treasures of beaver and otter on the great lakes and the wampum beds on the coast of Long Island ; but if an enemy, from any quarter of the compass, eel ial ca ia 96 ft 17 $e . . . GROUND-PLAN OF LONG HOUSE ventured to attack that long line, forthwith it proved to be an interior line in following which he was apt to be over- whelmed. Along with this singular advantage of geographical posi- tion, the Five Nations soon learned the value of political confederation in preserving peace among themselves, while increasing their military strength. It was a common thing 1 Beauchamp, /rdian Names in New York, passim; Morgan, League of the Iroguots, pp. 51-53; Ancient Society, p. 125. 42 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND for Indian tribes of allied lineage to enter into confederation, but no other union of this sort was so artfully constructed, harmonious, and enduring as the League of the Iroquois. = The date of the founding of this confederacy seems Iroquois to have been not far from 1450, and we may sup- sore pose the great movement from the valley of the St. Lawrence to the lakes of central New York to have occurred about a century earlier. This group of Iroquois, which he- came the Five Nations, was an overgrown tribe which un- derwent expansion and segmentation. From the expanding Onondagas the extreme wings first broke off as Senecas and Mohawks; afterward the Onondagas again threw off the Cayugas, while a portion of the Mohawks became marked off as Oneidas. To abolish war throughout their smiling country by referring all affairs of general concern to a repre- sentative council was the great thought of the Onondaga chief Hiawatha, who, after bitter opposition in his own tribe, found a powerful ally in Dagonoweda, the Mohawk.! Soon after the middle of the fifteenth century the work of these sagacious statesmen was accomplished, and thenceforth the people of the five tribes, from Canandaigua, “the chosen settlement,” to Schenectady, “ the plain beyond the opening,” were proud to call themselves Hodenosaunee, or “ Kinsmen of the Long House.” Thenceforth they found themselves more than a match for the Algonquin foe, and able to go forth and assail him. But there were yet other Iroquois kinsmen beside those of the Long House. To the north of the St. Lawrence and of Lake Ontario as far west as the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron one might have encountered the populous tribe of Hurons. In blood and speech they differed no more from Mohawks than a Frank from a Frisian, or a Welshman of Wales from a Welshman of Cornwall. They were the rear of the retiring Iroquois host, the buffer that took the first 1 Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, chap. ii. THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 43 brunt of the Algonquin onsets. They were probably the last to leave the valley of the St. Lawrence. In all proba- bility the towns of Hochelaga and Stadacona, visited in 1535 by Cartier, were Huron towns, which in the eying course of the next half century were swept away tribes of by the last advancing Algonquin wave. In Cham- ae plain’s time the Huron boundaries all stopped west of the meridian of Niagara, and their population of 20,000 souls was to be found mostly between Lake Simcoe and the Geor- gian Bay. Between these Hurons and Lake Erie, west of the Niagara River, dwelt another tribe of identical blood and speech, known as the Attiwendaronks ; and south of Lake Erie came the Eries ; while down in the pleasant valley of the Susquehanna were the villages of the powerful tribe vari- ously called Susquehannocks, Andastes, or Conestogas. All these were Iroquois, and were severely blamed by the Five Nations for refusing to accept Hiawatha’s “ Gift of Peace ” and join the confederacy. They were scorned as base and froward creatures, so bent upon having their own way that they held aloof from the only arrangement that could put a curb upon the perpetual slaughter; such, at least, was the purport of the solemn speeches that used to be made before the council fires at Onondaga. The Five Nations were bound to be peace-makers, even at the cost of massacring all the human population of America. They fully appreciated the injunction, “ Compel them to enter in.” In the course of the seventeenth century we find them annihilating succes- sively the Hurons, Attiwendaronks, Eries, and Conestogas, and after the customary orgies of torment and slaughter, adopting the remnants into their own tribes. In Champlain’s time the hatred between the Five Nations and the Hurons had come to such a pass that the latter forgot their ancient hostility to the Algonquins of the St. Lawrence, and were wont to make common cause with them against the dreaded Long House. In these ways, when Champlain arrived upon 44 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND the scene, a situation had been prepared for him and for France, of which he understood absolutely nothing. Five years were to pass, however, before the gallant French- man was to taste the first fruits of the true significance of the disappearance of Hochelaga. When in the autumn of 1603 the returning ships arrived at Havre, they were met by the news that Chastes was dead. Once more the business ee must be reorganized, and this time it was the Sieur ine sieue de Monts, already mentioned, who took the lead. This nobleman turned his thoughts a little to the southward, perhaps with a view to milder winters, and ob- tained from the king a grant extending from about the lati- tude of Montreal as far south as that of Philadelphia. There is a Micmac word, Acadie or Aquoddy, which means simply “place” or “region,” and which appears in such names as Passamaquoddy. In French it has a romantic flavour, which is perhaps slightly enhanced in the English Acadia. To the country since famous under that name the Sieur de Monts brought his little company in the spring of 1604. There had been indignant outcries over the circumstance that this gentleman was a Huguenot, but the king laughed at these protests. He insisted that Monts should so far defer to public opinion as to take a Romish priest with him to preach the gospel to the heathen ; but he allowed him also to take a Calvinist minister for his own spiritual solace and enliven- ment. Hardly had the French coast-line sunk below the horizon when the tones of envenomed theological discussion were heard upon the quarter-deck. The ship’s atmosphere grew as musty with texts and as acrid with quibbles as that Homeric Of @ room at the Sorbonne, and now and then quarrels. = a scene of Homeric simplicity was enacted, when the curate and the parson engaged in personal combat. “I forget just now,’’ says Champlain, ‘ which was the hardest hitter, but I leave you to imagine what a fine spectacle they made, aiming and dodging blows, while the sailors gathered THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 45 around and backed them according to their sectarian preju- dices,” ! some shouting “ Hang the Huguenot !”’ and others «“ Down with the Papist!”” On shore similar scenes recurred, with an accompaniment of capering and yelping Indians, to whom it was quite enough that a scrimmage was going on, and who were perhaps scarcely worse fitted than the com- batants themselves to understand the issues involved. It happened that amid the hardships which assailed the little company these two zealous men of God succumbed at about the same time, whereupon, says one of our chroniclers with a shudder, the sailors buried them in the same grave, ex- pressing a hope that after so much strife they would repose in peace together.? In our brief narrative there is no need for entering into the details of this first experience of white men in Acadia. The experiment extended over three years, during Qccupation which there were voyages back and forth across of Acadia the ocean with reinforcements to offset the losses from dis- ease. Among the company, besides its leaders, were two men of rare and excellent quality, the Baron de Poutrincourt and Marc Lescarbot, an advocate and man of letters who was seized by a sudden inclination for wild life. Among Lescarbot’s accomplishments was a knack of turning off long Alexandrine verses by the yard, but what was of far more value, he wrote a shrewd and pithy prose, abounding in good sense and cheer. After the priceless writings of Champlain himself there are few books about the beginnings of New France with which we should be so loath to part as the three teeming volumes of Lescarbot. The first attempt at settlement was made at the mouth of the river Ste. Croix, but the fancy of Poutrincourt was cap- tivated by the beautiful gulf to which the English in later days gave the name of Annapolis. He obtained from Monts 1 Champlain, Voyages, 1632, i. 46. 2 Sagard, Histoire du Canada, 1636, p. 9. 46 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND CTHIGVREDE TA TERRE NEVVE, GRANDE RIVIEREDE GANADA, ETC st La ~ vw { = 2 “ALGOVMEQVINS ‘¢ ay a $ La A Jive zl WS =~ 4 =| Lan feline fest LESCARBOT’S MAP OF a grant of the spot with its adjacent territory, and called it Port Royal. There after a while the work of these colonists Founding WaS concentrated, while Champlain spent much ap ee time in exploring and delineating the coasts. Of Annapolis making charts he was never weary, and in follow- ing sinuous shore-lines he found delight. One of his first discoveries was the grand and picturesque island which he called “isle of the desert mountains,” “ L’Isle des Monts Champlain Déserts,” a name which to this day by its notice- Ree able accent on the final syllable preserves a record fand coast of this French origin. A little farther to the west he entered and explored for some distance the Penobscot, which fishermen often called the river of Norumbega, but he found no traces of the splendid city into which popular fancy had magnified Allefonsce’s Indian village upon the * THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 47 FRANCE qe RS Sys Le tds ik 5 tdeiC 3 Le f AERP é ef 4 vane primum delntvat publica wit, denautg Avec priuileye du Roy NEW FRANCE, 1609 island of Manhattan! Farther on he ascended the Ken- nebec, and was correctly told by Indians of the route to the St. Lawrence by the valley of the Chaudiére, the route which was traversed with such bitter hardship by Benedict Arnold and his men in1775. As the French navigator passed Casco Bay he began to notice a marked superiority in the Indians over the squalid Micmacs and Etetchemins of Acadia. The wigwams were better built, and the fields of maize, beans, and pumpkins wore a kind of savage cheerfulness under the scorching July sun. Champlain entered the Charles River, and mistook it for the great stream which was soon to be explored by Henry Hudson. After duly astonishing the na- 1 In Gravier’s Vie de Samuel Champlain, Paris, 1900, pp. 40-49, the reader will find more or less uncritical speculation connected with this little summer voyage. 48 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND tives of the triple-peaked peninsula, he passed on to Plymouth, sailed around Cape Cod, and proceeded as far as Nauset Harbour, where the supplies began to give out, and a direct return was made to the Bay of Fundy. The object of this coasting voyage was to see if any spot could be found for a settlement that would be preferable to those already visited in Canada or on the Bay of Fundy. For a moment the Charles River seems to have tempted these worthy Frenchmen, but they decided to go farther. Their narrative indicates a much greater coast population of red men than was found by the Mayflower Pilgrims fifteen years later, and enables us to form some idea of the magnitude of the pestilence which in the interval nearly depopulated the shores of Massachusetts Bay. In 1605 all the best spots epee seemed to show Indian villages. The next summer exploration Champlain made another reconnoitring voyage from of the : 7 : Massachu- Port Royal, in company with Poutrincourt. They setts coast Jost but little time in getting to Cape Cod, and then in rounding Cape Malabar they had a singular experience. At a distance of a league and a half from the shore they found the depth of water rapidly diminishing to less than a fathom, while on every side the waves leaped and gambolled in the wildest confusion. They got their bark across this ugly shoal with a broken rudder, little dreaming that only four years before the same spot, proudly rearing its head above the sea, had been described by Bartholomew Gosnold under the name of Nauset Island. It had lately been beaten down and submerged by the angry waters, but nearly three centuries were consumed in washing away the fragments. The sea is now six fathoms deep there.! After getting clear of this dangerous place Poutrincourt put into Chatham Harbour for repairs, and there he re- mained a fortnight, closely watched from the bushes by peering red men who one morning before daybreak came 1 De Costa, Pre-Columbian Discovery of America, p. 97. moe al" ——- Saud a a j Sey ene Jae te Noelle alee INEZ Pe OF THE GULF OF ST ENCE, BY CHAMPLAIN, 1632 THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 49 swarming about a party of sleeping Frenchmen, and killed several. Thence our voyagers kept on to Hyannis, and from that neighbourhood descried a shore-line to the south- ward, which must have been either Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket. By this time Poutrincourt had made up his CHAMPLAIN’S PLAN OF PLYMOUTH HARBOUR mind that Port Royal was the best place for his colony after all, and so the prow was turned in that direction. Things went well enough with them until in a stress of weather near Mount Desert their rudder broke, and their last hundred and fifty miles were far from comfortable: As they entered the harbour of Port Royal a singular spectacle greeted them. That fortress consisted of a large wooden quadrangle enclosing a courtyard. At one corner, which came down to the water’s edge, was an arched gateway flanked by rude bastions mounting a few cannon. One side of the quadrangle comprised the dining-room and officers’ quarters, on the second side were the barracks for the men, 50 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND on the third the kitchen and oven, and on the fourth the storerooms. Now on the November evening when Cham- : plain and Poutrincourt sailed into the harbour they ne saw the buildings brightly lighted and the arch welcome surmounted by the royal arms supported on either hand by the heraldic emblems of Baron Poutrincourt and the Sieur de Monts. While the weary voyagers were admiring the pageant there stepped forth from the gateway no less a personage than old Neptune, Lord of the Ocean, with a pompous retinue of Tritons, who marched with measured step to meet the ship, declaiming long Alexandrine rhymed couplets of praise and welcome. Thus was the tedium of the wilderness relieved by the ingenious Lescarbot, whose active brain was never idle, but in the intervals of work was sure to be teeming with quips and quirks and droll conceits. During the summer he had kept the men at work to good purpose, and not only raised a crop of maize, but made a respectable beginning with barley, wheat, and rye. It was to a well-stocked home that he politely ushered the voyagers, after wanderings which he would refrain from comparing with those of A‘neas and Ulysses, inasmuch as he did not like to soil their holy missionary enterprise with unclean pagan similitudes. In such whimsicalities there was a strong sympathy between the mariner of Saintonge and the lawyer of Vervins. Champlain praised Lescarbot’s thrifty house- keeping, and devised a plan whereby their table might be always well supplied. The magnates at Port, Royal, who oc- cupied the dining-room, were fifteen in number ; Champlain formed them into an order of knighthood, which he called the “Order of Good Times,” and each member in regular He rotation was Grand Master of the Order for one Knightly day, during which he was responsible not only for Good the supply of the larder but for the cooking and re serving of the meals. The result was a delicious sequence of venison, bear, and grouse, ducks, geese, and -A Lelien del’habiration. B Tardin du ficur de Champlain. C Alléeautrauers les bois que fit faire le fear dePoitrincoart. | ¥ Moulin que fit faire le fieur d D Iflea Ventrée de lariuierede | Poitriucourt. ij ome hue ot i Les chifres mont G Riviere fainét Antoine. — H Lieu du labourage on on fem Ic ble. L Prairies qui font inn6dées de eaux aur grandes marces. M Riuiere de Equill:. PEquille. E entrée du port Royal. ¥ Bafles qui aflechérde baffe mer CHAMPLAIN’S PLAN OF SC a ‘p os was ‘ Grable on ; + A eS : C ——= braffes dean. La cofte de la mer du post oyal. $ Riviere du moulin. T Petitlae Coftes de montaignes. V Le liew ot les fauvages pes fle prochede lariviere in& |! chentle harang enla (sion, ntoine, X Ruifeau dela truciere Ruifleau dela Roche | Y Aljée que fir faire tc ficuz de Autre Ruiffeau. Champlain TTLEMENT AT PORT ROYAL THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 51 plover, as well as fresh fish innumerable, to go with their breadstuffs and dried beans. Lescarbot boasted that the fare could not be excelled in the best restaurants of Paris, and they had brought, moreover, such a generous quantity of claret that every man in the colony received three pints daily. Under such circumstances we need not wonder that there was no scurvy, or that there were only four deaths during the winter. Such comfort and immunity were un- usual in those improvident days. It was with high hopes that these blithe Frenchmen THE FORTRESS AT PORT ROYAL hailed the approach of spring, but its arrival brought unwel- come news and reminded them of the flimsiness of the basis on which such hopes had been sustained. The merchants and fishermen of Normandy and Brittany had never approved of the monopoly granted to Monts; on the contrary, they had never ceased to fight against it at court with money and personal influence, and now at last they had procured a 52 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND repeal of the monopoly. Monts had spent on the enterprise asum exceeding $100,000 of our modern money ; he was allowed an indemnity of $6000 provided he could collect it ae from fur-traders. The blow was decisive. If it De Monts’ proved so hard to found colonies even with the monopoly advantages of a monopoly, clearly there was no use in going on without such aid. The good Poutrincourt could not be induced to give up his plans for Port Royal, but three years elapsed before he was enabled to renew his work there. Meanwhile we must follow the fortunes of Champlain and Monts after their return to France. They first betook themselves to Paris, to confer with the king ; and Champlain tells us how day after day he walked GRAVESTONE AT PORT ROYAL the streets of the great city like a man in a dream. In early days he had loved the ocean and felt suffocated in an air that was not spiced with adventure. He had now left his heart in the wilderness, a subtle robber that in such matters never makes restitution. He longed to follow up Champlain €ach entrancing vista in the woodland, and to im- tumns bis | prove his acquaintance with its denizens, four- Canada footed or winged as well as human. Especially was his curiosity whetted by the recollection of the mighty river which he had once ascended for so many miles. At Hochelaga, or rather upon the shore where that barbaric THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 53 town had once stood, he had heard of oceans to the west- ward, by which his informants doubtless meant the great lakes, and he had been told of a cataract a league in width, down which leaps a mighty mass of water, which certainly sounds to our ears like a reference to Niagara Falls. Cham- plain wished to see such things for himself, and he believed SULLY that the St. Lawrence fur-trade would prove a source of great wealth; nor was he at all lacking in missionary zeal. He was more than once heard to say that the saving of a soul is worth more than the conquest of an empire. Here, then, was important work which he felt that Frenchmen were called upon to do. He consulted with his comrades Monts and Pontgravé, and found in them abundant sym- 54 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND pathy. Henry IV. was inclined to look with favour upon such schemes, but his able minister Sully took a different view. The European schemes of these two statesmen were far-reaching and of the utmost importance, and Sully believed that France had need at home of all the able-bodied men she could muster; it was poor economy, he thought, to be wasting lives in Canada. There was also the cry against monopolies, but Henry nevertheless yielded so far as to renew to Monts the monopoly in furs for one year, a con- cession which was far from showing the king’s customary soundness of judgment, since it was too brief to be of much use. The grantee and his friends, however, could go on in the hope of further renewals ; and so in fact they did. In April, 1608, the expedition sailed from Honfleur, Champlain following Pontgravé at a week’s interval. On ar- Tiss riving at Tadousac our French adventurers got into dition of | further trouble in the matter of Father Adam’s sea will. Pontgravé found a party of Basques trading with the Indians, and so far were they from taking his re- monstrance in good part that a tussle ensued in which they boarded his ship, killing and wounding some of his men, and seized all his firearms. But on the arrival of Champlain the strangers became more peacefully inclined, and an agree- ment was made by which the whole matter was referred to the courts of justice in France. Champlain then pursued his way up-stream past the island of Orleans to the narrow place where a mighty promontory Guichen rears its head over opposite Point Levi. The founded = French continued calling it by its Algonquin name Quebec, or “The Narrows,”1! and there, in what is now the Lower Town, they speedily reared a stack of buildings en- closed by a wooden wall mounting a few cannon and loop- holed for musketry. While the building was going on there was a leaven of treason at work in the company. A lock- 1 Parkman, Pioneers of France, p. 329. gogr ‘oagaNS JO NVId S.NIVIEWVHO 56 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND smith named Duval took it into his head that more was to be gained from playing into the hands of the Spaniards who had not yet left Tadousac than from loyally serving his own country. What private motives may have urged him we do not know. The plan was to murder Champlain and hand over the new fortress and all the property to the Basques. But the secret was entrusted to too many persons, and so came to Champlain’s ears. Just as he had learned all the details a pinnace sent up from Tadousac by Pontgravé arrived upon the scene, and in it was a man whose fidelity was above suspicion. Champlain instructed him to invite Treachery Duval and three accomplices to a social evening foiled glass in the cabin, telling them that the wine was a present from some Basque friends. The bait was eagerly swallowed, and no sooner had the plotters set foot aboard the pinnace than to their amazement they were seized and hand- cuffed. It was not clear just how far the plot had spread, but it mattered little now. In the middle of the summer night the little colony was aroused from its slumbers, and many a heart quaked with fear as the announcement was made of the detection of the plot and the arrest of the ringleaders. The long rays of the morning sun revealed the severed head of the locksmith Duval adorning the wooden gateway of the courtyard ; his three accomplices were sent to France to work in the galleys; and a proclamation of pardon without further inquiry put everybody else at his ease. Treason and assas- sination had suddenly become unpopular. A terrible winter followed. When Pontgravé set sail for The first France in September with a magnificent cargo of ce furs he left Champlain at Quebec with twenty- eight men. At the end of May only nine of these were left alive. At last the good Pontgravé appeared with reinforcements and supplies, and it was arranged that he should carry on his trading at Quebec while Champlain should explore the country. This was a task the meaning THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 57 THE FORT AND BUILDINGS AT QUEBEC, 1608 of which was to be learned only through harsh experience, but it was obvious from the first that it would involve pene- trating the forest to a great and unknown distance from any possible civilized base of operations. It was work of im- mense difficulty. To carry on such work with an army had well-nigh overtaxed the genius of such commanders as Soto and Coronado, with the treasury of the Indies to back them. For Champlain, without any such resources, different meth- ods must be sought. He must venture into the Friendship wilderness with a handful of followers and as lit- Tite, . tle encumbrance as possible of any sort. There condition of seemed to be but one feasible way of approaching exploration this problem, and this was to cultivate the friendship of such native tribes as might be most serviceable to him on his long routes. By assimilating these expeditions to journeys through a friendly country the risks might be greatly dimin- ished, and the solid results indefinitely increased. 58 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND It was such considerations as these that started French policy in America upon the path which it was destined thenceforth to follow to the end. It was a choice that was fraught with disaster, yet it would be unjust to blame Cham- plain for that. Nothing short of omniscience could have looked forward through the tangle of wilderness politics that seems so simple to us looking backward. For Champlain’s purposes his choice was natural and sagacious, but as to the particular people with whom he should ally himself he can hardly be said to have had any choice. Grim destiny had This condi- already selected his allies. The valley of the St. tion deter- Tawrence was the route for the fur-trade, and mines the subsequent friendship must be preserved with the tribes along policy its banks and inward on the way to those great seas of which Champlain had heard. The tribes on the St. Lawrence were Algonquins whom the French called Mon- tagnais, but who were afterward known as Adirondacks to the English of New York. They were less intelligent and more barbarous than the Iroquois. Agriculture and village Character life were but slightly developed among them, they area were more dependent upon hunting and fishing, and Canada as they showed less foresight in storing provisions for the winter their numbers were more frequently depleted by famine and disease. Farther up the great river and com- manding the northwestern trails were the Ottawas, another Algonquin people considerably more advanced than the Mon- tagnais ; while southerly from the Ottawas and bordering on the Georgian Bay, as already observed, were the Hurons, who rather than join the league of their Iroquois brethren preferred to maintain a sullen independence, and to this end kept up an alliance with their Algonquin neighbours. For such conduct the Hurons were denounced by the confeder- ated Iroquois as the vilest of traitors. Thus the allies marked out for Champlain and his colony were the neighbouring Algonquins and the Hurons. It was THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 59 absolutely necessary that friendship with these tribes should be maintained. In the autumn of 1608 Champlain learned that it was in his power to do them a signal favour. Giants A young Ottawa chief who happened to visit Quebec allies him- was astounded at its massive wooden architecture Ottawan” and overwhelmed with awe at the voice of the can- *™¢ "™"S non and the distant effects wrought by their bullets. Could not these weird strangers be induced to hurl their thunders and lightnings at the insolent enemy of the Algonquins? The suggestion suited Champlain’s love of adventure as well as his policy. It was an excellent means of getting access to the Ottawa’s country. Late in the following June the woods about Quebec resounded with the yells of three hun- dred newly arrived Hurons and Ottawas impatient to start on such an expedition as these forests had never witnessed before. It is a pity that we have no account of it from the red man’s point of view; it is fortunate, however, that we have such a narrative as Champlain’s own. On the 28th of June, 1609, after the customary feast and war dance, they started from Quebec, some three to four hundred barbarians in bark canoes, and Champlain with eleven other Frenchmen, clad in doublets protected with light plate armour, and armed with arquebuses, in a shallop, which the Indians assured Champlain could pass without serious hindrance to the end of their route. The weapons of the red men were stone arrows, lances, and toma- hawks, but already there were many sharp French hatchets to be seen which had been bought with beaver skins. Their route lay across that broad stretch of the St. Lawrence known as Lake St. Peter, to the river which a generation later re- ceived the name of Richelieu. There they paused for some fishing and feasting, and something happened which has been characteristic of savage warfare ineveryage. A fierce quarrel broke out among the Indians, and three fourths of the whole number quit the scene in a towering passion and paddled A war party 60 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND away for their northern homes. The depleted war party, taking a fresh start, soon reached the rapids and carrying- place above Chambly, and there it was found that the shal- lop could go no farther, since she could not stem the rapids, and was too heavy to bé carried. Why the Indians had misinformed their white ally on this point it would be hard to say. Perhaps the inborn love of hoaxing may have pre- vailed over military prudence, or perhaps they may have en- tertained misplaced notions of the Frenchman’s supernatural powers. At all events, the shallop must go back to Quebec, but Champlain decided to go forward in a canoe, and from his men he selected two volunteers as companions. After they had passed the portage there was a grand roll-call, and it was found that the total force was four and twenty canoes carrying sixty feathered warriors and the three white men. As they approached the noble lake which now bears the name of Champlain, but was long known as Lake of the Iro- quois, their movements became more circumspect, they sent scouts in advance, and occasionally they consulted the tutelar Consulta. Spirits of departed Algonquin and Huron heroes. ata To the pious Champlain this sort of invocation Beroes seemed like an uncanny attempt to raise the Devil, but he observed it narrowly and described it fully, according to his custom. A small circular tent was raised, of saplings covered with deer-skins, and into it crawled the medicine- man, with shudders and groans, and drew together the skins which curtained him off from the spectators. Then the voice of the tutelar spirit was heard in a thin shrill squeak, like that of a Punch and Judy show, and if the manifestation were thoroughly successful the frail tent was rocked and swayed hither and thither with frantic energy. This motion was thought by the awe-struck spectators to be the work of the spirits, but the scoffing Champlain tells us that he caught several distinct glimpses of a human fist shaking the poles, THE BEGINNINGS OF QUEBEC 61 —which would seem to be a way that spirits have had in later, as in earlier times. As the war party came nearer and nearer to the enemy’s country they took more pains in scouting, and at last they advanced only by night. As the sky reddened in ,,,. the morning they would all go ashore, draw up Champlain their canoes under the bushes, and slumber on the carpet of moss and pine-needles until sunset; then they would stealthily embark and briskly ply the paddles until dawn. It was on the 29th of July, a full month after leaving Quebec, that they were approaching the promontory since famous under its resounding Iroquois name of Ticonderoga, or “meeting of the waters,” since there Lake George is divided only by a thin strip of land from Lake Champlain; as they were approaching this promontory late in the evening they descried a dark multitude of heavy elm-bark canoes which were at once recognized as Iroquois. Naval battles are not to the red man’s taste. The Iroquois landed at once and began building a barricade, while the invaders danced a scornful jig in their canoes, and the very air was torn asunder with yells. All night the missiles in vogue were taunts and jeers, with every opprobrious and indecent epithet that the red man’s gross fancy could devise. Early in the morning the invaders landed, all except the Frenchmen, ‘who lay at full length, covered with skins. There was no thought of tactics. The landing was unop- posed, though the enemy were at least three to one. There were as many as 200 of them, all Mohawks, tall, lithe, and many of them handsome, the best fighters in the barbaric world. In the ordinary course of things the invaders would have paid dearly for their rashness. As it was, their hearts began to quake, and they called aloud for Champlain. Then he arose and coolly stepped ashore before the astounded Mohawks, while his two comrades moving to a flank posi- tion stationed themselves among the trees. Half palsied War dances 62 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND with terror at this supernatural visitation, the Mohawks behaved like staunch men, and raised their bows to shoot, when a volley from Champlain’s arquebus, into which he had ihe stuffed four balls, instantly slew two of their chiefs Mohawks and wounded another. A second fatal shot, from ericlen by one of the other Frenchmen, decided the day. frearms The Mohawks turned and fled in a panic, leaving many prisoners in Algonquin hands. Most of these poor wretches were carried off to the Huron and Ottawa coun- tries, to be slowly burned to death for the amusement of the squaws and children. There was an intention of indulging to some extent in this pastime on the night following the victory, but Champlain put a stop to it. The infliction of torture was a sight to which he was not accustomed ; at the hissing of the live flesh under the firebrand he could not contain himself, but demanded the privilege of shooting the prisoner, and his anger was so genuine and imperative that the barbarians felt obliged to yield. After this summer day’s work there was a general movement homewards. It was a fair average specimen, doubtless, of warfare in the Stone Age; a long, desultory march, a random fight, a few deaths on the field and a few more at the stake, and nothing definitely accomplished. This last remark, however, will not apply to Champlain’s first forest fight. A specimen of the Stone Age in all other particulars, it was in one particular —the presence of the three Frenchmen —entirely remote from the Stone Age. In that one particular it not only accomplished something definite, but it marked an epoch. Of the many interesting military events associated with Ticonderoga it seems the most important. There was another July day, 149 years later, when a battle was fought at Ticonderoga in which 20,000 men were engaged and more than 2000 were killed and wounded. That battle, in which Americans and Brit- ish were woefully defeated by the Marquis de Montcalm, DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS AT LAKE CHAMPLAIN, 1609 64 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND was a marvellous piece of fighting, but it is now memorable This battle Only for its prodigies of valour which failed to ce redeem the dulness of the English general. It de- hostility bee cided nothing, and so far as any appreciable effect tween the : * French and upon the future was concerned, it might as well the Iroquois ot have been fought. But the little fight of 1609, in which a dozen or more Indians were killed, marks with strong emphasis the beginning of the deadly hostility be- tween the French in Canada and the strongest Indian power on the continent of North America. In all human proba- bility the breach between Frenchmen and Iroquois would in any case have come very soon; it is difficult to see what could have prevented it. But in point of fact it actually did begin with Champlain’s fight with the Mohawks. On the July day when the Frenchman’s thunder and lightning so frightened those dusky warriors, a little Dutch vessel named the Half-Moon, with an English captain, was at anchor in Penobscot Bay, while the ship’s carpenter was cutting and fitting a new foremast. A few weeks later the Half-Moon dropped anchor above the site of Troy and within the very precincts over which the warriors of the Long House kept watch. How little did Henry Hudson imagine what a drama had already been inaugurated in those leafy solitudes! A few shots of an arquebus on that July morn- ing had secured for Frenchmen the most dangerous enemy and for Dutchmen and Englishmen the most helpful friend that the mysterious American wilderness could afford. CHAPTER III THE LORDS OF ACADIA.— LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN WE must now turn our attention for a moment from Que- bec to the Bay of Fundy, where it will be remembered that the withdrawal of the monopoly once granted to Monts had for the moment brought things toa standstill. While Monts and Champlain had forthwith renewed their labours on the banks of the St. Lawrence, Poutrincourt had clung , to his beloved settlement at Port Royal. Thither court re- he returned in 1610 with a good priest who con- Port Royal, verted and baptized the squalid Micmacs of the ane neighbourhood, and then found it hard to restrain them from testing the efficacy of their new religion by sallying forth with their tomahawks against the nearest heathen tribes. A certified list of baptisms was drawn up, and Poutrincourt’s son, usually known by the family name of Biencourt, return- ing next year to France for assistance, carried with him this list as a partial justification of the enterprise. Arriving in Paris, the gallant young sailor found the world turned topsy- turvy. The great Henry had been murdered by Ravaillac. “ Never was king so much lamented as this,” says James Howell in one of his letters1 The effects upon Europe were far-reaching, and in the New France, which had as yet been scarcely more than half ushered into existence, a new and unexpected turn was given to the course of events. The society of the Jesuits, which began in the year 1534 with seven members, had now come to number not less than 7000, and it was everywhere recognized as one of the most 1 Howell’s Familiar Letters, i. 49. 66 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND powerful agencies of the counter-reformation. In many di- ees rections its influence was beneficial, but there can conse- be no doubt as to its disastrous results in France. edatot The dagger of Ravaillac pointed the way to the Henry IV discontinuance of the States-General, the expatria- tion of the Huguenots, the wasting warfare of the last days of Louis XIV., the degrading despotism of the next reign, and the ruthless surgery of the guillotine. Such were the cumulative results of the abandonment of the broad and noble policy inaugurated by Henry in 1598. At the time of his death they were of course too remote to be foreseen, but it was clear to everybody that the power of the Jesuits was rapidly growing, and it was dreaded by many people for its ultramontane and Spanish tendencies. At that time the spirit of propaganda was very strong among the Jesuits ; they aimed at nothing short of the con- Thefar. Version of the world, and displayed in the work such nas the energy, such ability, such unalloyed devotion as Jesuits the world has never seen surpassed. As early as 1549 St. Francis Xavier had penetrated to the remotest East and set up a flourishing church in Japan. Before the death of Claudio Aquaviva in 1615 they had made their way into China. They had already established Christian communities in Brazil, and about this time began their ever memorable work among the Indians of Paraguay. It was quite in the natural course of things that they should include New France in their far-reaching plans. From Henry IV. they obtained but slight and grudging recognition, but his death for a mo- ment threw the reins quite into their hands. There is some- thing irresistibly funny in the alliance of the three women who made the success of the Jesuits their especial care, when one thinks of their various relations with the lamented king, — Marie de Medicis, the miserable and faithless queen; Henriette d’Entraigues, the vile mistress ; and Antoinette, the admirable Marchioness de Guercheville, whom Henry TAG CONVERSION DES SAVVAGES OV ION WES BA- PTIZES EN LA NOVVE€LLE France, cetteanneeiéro. AVEC VN BREF KECIT du voyage du Siewr Dg : PoyrRiNCovRT. A PARIS, Chez tean Mirror, tenant fa boutique fur les degrez dela grand’ Salle du Palais. ‘ois Avec Primilege duRoy. TITLE OF LESCARBOT’S ‘‘'LA CONVERSION ” — ee en ih aa j whe i LETTRE MISSI- VE, TOVCHANTLA CONVERSION ET Bap- trefme du grand Sagamos de lanouuelle Frace,qui en eftoit: auparauant l’arriu¢e des Fran= coislechef & fouuerain. Conrenant fa promeffe damenet fes fubiets ala mefme Conuerfion,owles $contraina - dre par la force des avmes. Enuoyée du Port Royal dc lanotuelle Ps i Frauce au S® dela Tronchaie,dattée ~ ad du 28.Iuin 1610, ee Es me pase A PARIS; Chez lzEAN Re cNnovt, rué du Fois, pres fainét Yues. “161 0. Awec permifsiom, TITLE OF BERTRAND’S “LETTRE MISSIVE” THE LORDS OF ACADIA 69 had wooed in vain. The zealous fathers might well believe that Satan and the good angels were alike enlisted eared in their behalf. Young Biencourt soon learned an interest that resistance was useless. It was in vain that ™*@4* the merchants of Dieppe, who were fitting out a new ex- ANTOINETTE, MARCHIONESS OF GUERCHEVILLE pedition for America, protested that they would have no Jesuit priests, or other agents of the king of Spain, on board. Madame de Guercheville forthwith raised money by subscrip- 70 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND tion, and bought a controlling interest in the business. So the Jesuits came to Port Royal, and bitter were the disputes which they had with Poutrincourt and his high-spirited son Biencourt. An Indian sagamore of the neighbourhood, who loved these old friends, the grantees and true lords of Port Royal, came forward one day with a suggestion for simplify- ing the situation and securing a quiet life. Provided he could be sure it would be agreeable, he would take great pleasure in murdering the newcomers! To his surprise this friendly service was declined. The grantees found that there was no contending against money. Loans were offered to Poutrincourt in emergencies when he had not the courage to refuse them, and thus a load of debt was created, with the result that on his next visit to France, in 1613, he was thrown into prison. At that juncture a ship bearing the inauspicious name of Jonas was fitted up with Jesuit money and manned by per- sons entirely in the interest of that order. Madame de Madame de Culercheville had bought out all the rights and eure claims of Monts to lands in Acadia, and she had a grant of also obtained from the boy king, Louis XIII. a from Acadia grant of all the territory between the river St. Law- to Florida rence and Florida. Here was a grant that came into direct conflict with that which James I. of England had given only six years before to his great double-headed Vir- ginia Company. According to this New French charter the settlers at Jamestown were mere trespassers upon terri- tory over which Madame de Guercheville was lady para- mount! Would she venture to claim their allegiance? Nothing nearly so bold was attempted; but when the Jonas arrived on the Acadian coast, the chief of the expedi- ree tion, a gentleman of the court named La Saussaye, ode set up a standard bearing Madame de Guerche- ville’s coat of arms. At Port Royal he picked up a couple of Jesuits and thence stood for Penobscot Bay, but THE LORDS OF ACADIA 71 first he entered Frenchman’s Bay at Mount Desert, and dropped anchor there, for the place attracted him. Pre- sently a spot was found so charming that it was decided to make a settlement there. It was on the western shore of Somes Sound, between Flying Mountain and Fernald Cove. Scarcely had work begun there when a sloop of war came into Stree ppl the sound carrying fourteen guns, and at her masthead was flying the little red flag of England. She was commanded by young Captain Samuel Argall, who had come all the way from James River to fish for cod, but incidentally Sir Thomas Dale, who was then governing Virginia under the title of High Marshal, had instructed him to look out for any French- men who might have ventured to trespass upon the terri- tory granted by King James to the Virginia Company. Argall had picked up some Indians in Penobscot Bay who told him of the white men at Mount Desert, and from their descrip- tions he recognized the char- Dhl acteristic shrugs and bows of Frenchmen. When his flag = appeared in Somes Sound, the French commander La Saus- saye, with some of the more timid ones, took to the woods, but a few bold spirits tried to defend their ship. It rihcucdh was of no use. After two or three raking shots the captured by English boarded and took possession of her. The “” astute Argall searched La Saussaye’s baggage until he found his commission from the French government, which he quietly tucked into his pocket. After a while La Saussaye, overcome by hunger, emerged from his hiding-place and was received with extreme politeness by Argall, who expressed much regret for the disagreeable necessity under which he had laboured. It was a pity to have to disturb such estimable gentlemen, but really this land belonged to King James and 72 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND not to King Louis. Of course, however, the noble chevalier must be acting under a royal commission, which would lay the whole burden of the affair upon the shoulders of King Argall’s Louis and exonerate the officers who were merely tek acting under orders. So spake the foxy Argall, adding with his blandest smile that, just as a matter of for- mal courtesy, he would like to see the commission. We can fancy the smile growing more grim and Mephistophelean as the bewildered Frenchman hunted and hunted. When at length it appeared that La Saussaye could produce no such document, Argall began to bluster and swear. He called the Frenchmen pirates, and confiscated all their property, scarcely leaving a coat to their backs. Then, as he had not room enough for all the prisoners, he put La Saussaye, with one of the Jesuit fathers and thirteen men, into an open boat and left them to their fate, which turned out to bea kindly one, for after a few days they were picked up by a French merchant ship and carried back to the Old World. As for the other Jesuit father with thirteen other men, Argall carried them to Jamestown, where that great stickler for martial law, Sir Thomas Dale, was inclined to hang them all without ceremony; but the wisdom of Master Reynard was Argall’s, and he saw that this would be going too far. It might make serious trouble between the two Crowns, and would tend to reveal his trickery in a way that would be awkward. So he revealed it himself to Sir Thomas Dale, pulled La Saussaye’s commission from his pocket, saved the Argall re. _ lives of the captives, and remained master of the puns and situation. Presently he sailed for the north again Royal with three ships and burned the settlement at Port Royal, destroying the growing crops and carrying away the cattle and horses. At the moment of the catastrophe Bien- court and most of his armed men were absent, and when they returned they were too few to engage with Argall; so after a fruitless parley and much recrimination the English GHT WITH THE INUIANS, 1610 CHAMPLAIN’S FI 74 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND skipper sailed away. Next year the Baron de Poutrincourt was slain in battle in France, and his steadfast son Biencourt, succeeding to the barony and the title, still remained devoted to the father’s beloved Port Royal. He obtained fresh re- cruits for the enterprise, and the little wooden town rose Phoenix-like from its ashes. At the French court there was grumbling over the conduct of Argall, and complaint was made to King James; and there the matter rested. The death of the elder Poutrincourt occurred in 1615. We must now return for a moment to 1609 and take up the story of Champlain after his memorable experience at Ticon- deroga. In June, 1610, he was called upon to repeat it on Champlain @ larger scale. A party of 100 Mohawks had ad- helps in the vanced as far as the site of Contrecceur, on the destruction ofanattack” peninsula formed there by the St. Lawrence and ing party of Iroquois the Richelieu, a few miles above the mouth of the latter river, and there they were overwhelmed by a large force of Algonquins aided by a dozen Frenchmen. The Mohawks, driven to bay, fought until only fifteen were left alive. These were taken prisoners, and one of them was surrendered to Champlain, while another was chopped into fragments and eaten. The rest were put to death with slow fires by the Algonquin women, who in this respect, Cham- plain tells us, are much more inhuman than the men, “ for they devise by their cunning more cruel punishments, in which they take pleasure, putting an end to their lives by the most extreme pains.” ? After this second taste of Indian warfare Champlain re- turned to France, and in the following December married a young girl, Helen Boullé, daughter of one of the late king’s private secretaries. Clearly Champlain was now no Hugue- not, for as this young lady was somewhat too much of a Calvinist he left her for a while in the following spring at an Ursuline convent, where she might learn more wholesome 1 Voyages of Champlain, ed. Slafter, ii. 246. LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 75 add sail leans) A Petite piace queie fis def- | BM Le lieu of les faumaces | ¥ Prairies: facher. patient leurs canots, par | Z Petire riuieres = B Peur eftang. * terre du coftédu Nott. | » Ifles alflez grandes & belles. f € Petit leeod je fis faire | N Endroit ob vndenos geas | 3 Liewxquidefcouurée quid oi yne mutaille de pierre, & yn fauuage fe noyerent.| les eaux baifsét, obilfe fig” ~ , D Perr susfeau ou te ticanér | © Petit sfier ds rdchers. - grads bouiliduemérs,com- Ls les barques. | P Autre ifler od tes oy(eaux | ‘me aufli faitandicfaar, n £ Prairies of Ce mezzent les] font leurs nids. +1 4 Prairies ptaines d’csux, fanuages quand iis vien- | Q_ Lille aox herons. ° 5 Licox foit bas, & peu do went co ce pays, R Autre ifle dans le faut, fonds, -< -5 B Montaigncs qui paroifs | $ Peririfet. - 6 Autre Petit ifte i fene dans te terres, T Petit ifict rond. 7 Doris rothets, : G Peureftang. Y Autte afler demy eouverr | 8 Ie faindt Uelaine. “ig--"S 1 Mont aayal, . desu, * 4 9 Pevitiflet defparny darbres, TP Peue rufeau. | X Autre sflet ob ily a force} 3 Mareicag*s qui Fefeoulent Bb Le faut, oyfeagx desiviere, ~ Bans fe grand lauc, CHAMPLAIN’S PLAN OF PORT ROYAL opinions. Ata later time she accompanied him to Canada, but he was not yet quite ready to bring her to such a place. On his next return, in 1611, he began building a Christian city on the site of the old Hochelaga. Both in pginnings the interests of the fur-trade and of his proposed of Montreal western explorations he thought it best to have an available station higher up the river than Quebec. The site where building operations were begun he called Place Royale, and on a part of it the Hospital of the Gray Nuns was after- 76 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND wards erected. Scarcely was the work well begun, and a few substantial walls built, when Champlain again crossed the ocean. His old colleague Monts had been appointed governor of Pons, an important place near Rochelle, and could no longer pay attention to things in America. He therefore entrusted everything to Champlain, and it was agreed that in order to give to his enterprise the requisite dignity and protection it was desirable to secure as patron some personage of great social influence. Such a person was found in Charles de Bourbon, Count of Soissons, a prince of the blood royal, who was made viceroy over New France, with Champlain for his lieutenant. To the latter was given full control over the fur-trade. This arrangement was scarcely made when Soissons died and a still greater The Count Magnate was found to succeed him, — namely, of Seissons_ F¥enrj de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, a man cele- and the Prince of brated, as Voltaire says, for having been the father Condé suc- ceed Monts of the great Condé, but eminent for nothing else save petty ambition and greed. Champlain had come to doubt the wisdom of too exclusive a policy of monopoly, and he sought to organize a numerous association of merchants in the seaport towns. During this arduous work, whenever some little assistance at court was wanted the Prince of Condé was always ready to absorb the spare cash as a retaining fee. There was so much to be done that Champlain could not leave France in 1612, but a young man appeared in Paris with such a story about his experiences in the New World that fashionable society had an unwonted sensation. The name of this youth was Nicolas de Vignau. Two years be- fore Champlain had let him go home with a party of Ottawas, in order to learn what he could about their country and per- travellers Daps to inculcate a few civilized ideas into the heads me of their warriors. Now Vignau strutted about Paris with the story that he had seen with his own eyes the west- LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 77 ern ocean; at all events, he had followed the river Ottawa up te its origin in a lake, whence a river flowing northward had carried him down to the sea. On its shore he had seen the wreck of an English ship and the heads of eighty Eng- lishmen who ‘had been massacred by the natives! It is not likely that this story was pure invention. The Ottawa River has its sources in a chain of small lakes, and from these a group of rivers, such as the Moose and Abbittibi, flow northward into James Bay, the southeasternmost portion of the vast Hudson Bay. Vignau may very well have heard of this route and have coupled with it some vague rumour of the mutiny and disaster at James Bay in which Henry Hud- son lost his life in June, 1612. The plausibleness of his story and his straightforward manner carried conviction to everybody, to Champlain among others; and Champlain resolved to make the visiting of that western sea the chief work of the summer of 1613. Late in May he started from the island opposite Montreal, which in honour of the wife he had left behind he called Helen’s Island. He had two canoes, carrying, besides himself and Vignau, three other Frenchmen and one Indian. champlain Far up the Ottawa River they made their way, with pone fierce and sanguinary opposition from the mos- 1613 quitoes, of which Champlain writes with most lively disgust, but otherwise without unpleasant experiences. At Allumette Island they came to a thriving Ottawa village, many of the inmates of which had never seen any white man except Vig- nau. After the usual formalities of feasting and smoking, Champlain addressed the warriors in the kind of speech which he had learned that they liked, and concluded by ask- ing for canoes and guides to take him farther on, even to the country of the Nipissings. But here he read in the faces of his hearers that he had touched an unpleasant chord ; they were not on good terms with the Nipissings. The old chief- tain Tessouat, who replied, gently rebuked Champlain for not 78 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND having been at Montreal the preceding summer to take part once more in a fight against the Iroquois. As for the canoes, of course if Champlain wanted them he should have them ; but oh, those Nipissings! what could he be thinking of in wishing to go to them? They would be sure to kill him! and what a day of mourning for every true Ottawa that would be! On Champlain’s further representations the canoes and guides were promised, and he stepped out of doors to get a breath of fresh air. No sooner was his back turned than the assem- bled warriors reconsidered the subject and decided not to grant the canoes. A message to this effect brought him back into the wigwam, and once more he had to listen to the tale of Nipissing depravity. Naturally he pointed to Vignau and observed that here was a man who had been to the Nip. Vignau's issings and had not found them quite so black as imposture they were painted. “Ah!” exclaimed old Tes- discovered. 2 . souat, turning upon the wretched impostor, “ Nic- olas, did you tell him that you had been to the Nipissings?” It was a terrible moment for that silly young man, before that scowling company, with all those pairs of little snake- like eyes fixed savagely upon him. It mattered little whether he answered yes or no; but after some moments of silence he replied stoutly that he had been there. Angry shouts of “Liar!” arose; for Vignau had really spent his whole winter in this very village, and everybody present knew it. Effront- ery was of no avail; he was plied with sarcastic queries which left him dumb and bewildered. Then quoth Champlain, “Look here, Vignau, if you have told me lies I will forgive what is past, but I insist that you tell the truth now, and if you fail me you shall be hanged on the spot.” For a moment more the young rascal hesitated, then fell upon his knees and confessed the whole. The Indians begged to be allowed to kill him, but Champlain kept his word, and the worthless life was spared. There was no further talk of canoes, and our hero returned somewhat crestfallen to Montreal. LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 79 [Later in the season Champlain took ship for France, where he enlisted the interest of the Recollet friars in Champlain the establishment of missions among the Indians. urs Armed with a royal patent and the authorization of France the Pope, he returned to Canada in the spring Recollets of 1615, accompanied by four friars, whose singular garb at first greatly astonished their prospective flock. One of these missionaries, Le Caron, leaving his brethren at Quebec, went on to Montreal, where he found the yearly gathering of Indian fur-traders. Champlain appeared a few days later, and was then besought by the throng of Hurons to join them in an attack upon the Iroquois. Yielding to these solicitations, he returned to Quebec for equipment. In the mean time Le Caron went on with Indians, fe Caron making his way in a northwesterly direction until j*cbes he, the first of white men, gazed on the great Fresh Huron Water Sea of the Hurons. Not many days later, Champlain arrived at the Huron villages and rejoined Le Caron, and on August 12 the first Christian service was held. Hardly was the work of the church in this abode of evil spirits begun with these solemn rites before attention was directed to the worldly project which the Hurons had most at heart. Champlain reached the chief village of the Hurons, Cahiagueé, the 17th of August. Feasts and war dances filled the hours of waiting till all the bands were gathered, and then, crossing Lake Simcoe, the Indians, accompanied by a handful of Frenchmen under the intrepid Champlain, pushed on rapidly by-lakes and the river Trent to Lake Ontario. Boldly venturing upon this inland sea in their frail craft, they safely reached the other shore. A few days’ of : ci e attack march brought them to the Iroquois village,! where onthe their first rash attack was successfully repelled, fe but at the sound of French muskets and the hissing of 1 [The situation of this fortified town of the Iroquois has been the subject of no little discussion. For the various views, see Winsor, 80 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND the bullets the pursuing Iroquois fell back and sought pro- tection within the palisades of their town. To enable an effective assault to be made upon these defences Champlain had a movable tower built, from which sharp-shooters could pick off Iroquois behind the palisades ; VIEW OF IROQUOIS VILLAGE AND CHAMPLAIN TOWER and also large shields to protect the assailing party from arrows and stones, in their efforts to set fire to the palings. Cham- But the excitement of battle was too much for Jain’s Lo military these undisciplined hordes. They threw away the engines shields, rent the air with cries which made it im- possible for Champlain to be heard, and in their haste lighted Narr. and Crit. Hist. iv. 125; Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, p. 402.] LEREILKE DV PERE CHARLES LALLEMANT “SVPERIEVR DELA MIS- fion de Canadas; de laCom- pagnie de lEsvs. Enuoyee au Pere Hierofmel Allemant fon frere, dela me/meC ompagnie _ Gu fontcontenus les mocurs& facons de vie ure des Sauuages habitans de ce paisa; & comme ils fe comportent auec les Chreftiens Frangois qui y s demeurent. Enfemble ladefcription des villes decefte contree. A DR ee Si Par lean BovecuepR, 1ué des Amandiers ala Verite Royale. 1627.. NPN TBE eee ae Nie Be et i ad TITLE OF L’ALLEMANT’S “LETTRE” 82 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND the fires on the lee side of the stockade, where they were quickly put out by the water poured down by the defenders. After three hours of aimless and ineffectual struggle the Hurons fell back discouraged. Nor was Champlain able to rouse them to another set attack. They refused to stir unless they should be reinforced by some expected allies. These failing to arrive, the defeated Hurons gave up the contest and stole off, carrying their wounded in baskets upon their backs. They found their canoes unharmed, and safely recrossed the lake, but Champlain, greatly to his chagrin, was unable to induce the leaders to fulfil their promise to conduct him back to Quebec. At the last he was fain to accept the shelter of the lodge of a Huron chief. After some months spent in hunting, exploration, and the obser- vation of Huron manners, Champlain returned to Quebec, where he was received as one from the dead. Champlain’s plans to found a colony were in conflict with the commercial interests of the company of merchants who controlled the fortunes of New France. For them the fur- trade was the chief concern, and the growth of settlement could but diminish the profitableness of this commerce. As a trading-post Quebec was a success, but the lapse of eight years from its beginnings saw only two farms in cultivation, Rivalry of One by the Recollet friars, the other by Louis Heé- interests bert, who brought his wife and children to Quebec in 1617, and established the first Christian household in Can- ada. In 1620 Champlain brought his own young wife to Quebec, where she devoted herself with the zeal of a young convert to the spiritual welfare of the Indian women and children. These four years of missionary apprenticeship seemed to have kindled her piety to such a flame that nothing would satisfy her but retirement from the world, and after her husband’s death she became a nun. In 1621 the merchants of St. Malo and Rouen, owing to repeated complaints, were ordered to give place to two Hu- LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 83 guenot merchants named De Caen. Their refusal brought on quarrels between the rival traders, and in weariness at these discords Montmorency sold his viceroyalty of New France to his nephew the Duke of Ventadour, whose interest in the welfare of Canada was wholly religious. It was through him that the order of the Jesuits embraced New France Bae in the world-wide field of their labours. In 1625 ing of the Lalemant, Massé, and Brébeuf began the work aa which was to place their names so high in the history of Canada. The far-seeing eye of Richelieu was now directed to the possibilities for the extension of French power in the New World, and the wasted opportunities of eighteen years devoted to the conflicting interests of trade and re- ligion, which had left Quebec with only one or two self- supporting families, and at most a motley population of little over one hundred persons, convinced the great minister that a radical change was necessary. He abolished the privileges of the De Caens, and formed the company of New France, to consist of one hundred members with a himself at their head. To this body, commonly oes known as the “One Hundred Associates,” were granted the political control of all of New France, the com- mercial monopoly of the fur-trade forever, and of other com- merce, except whaling and cod-fishing, for fifteen years, for which period the trade of the colony was to be exempt from taxation. In return, the Associates must settle in Canada during these fifteen years not less than four thousand men and women, who were to be provided with cleared lands after three years’ residence. In contrast to the lax unconcern with which for the most part England saw her colonies peopled with all sorts and conditions of men, German Pro- testants and English Catholics, English Puritans and Irish Papists, New France was henceforth to be open Religions only to Catholics and Frenchmen. To attain the niformity ideal of religious unity the strongest inducement for an 84 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND energetic and progressive population to migrate was relin- quished, and the interesting possibility of the growth of a Huguenot New France side by side with a Puritan New England was rejected. Hardly had this reorganization been effected when, through the outbreak of war between England and France, these plans were interrupted, and not only the possession but even the existence of the colony hung in the balance. The new com- pany despatched four armed vessels in April, 1628, under Roquemont, one of their number, to succour the distressed colonists, and simultaneously Charles I. of England author- ized a private expedition, patronized by London merchants and commanded by the three sons of their associate, Ger- vase Kirke, to dislodge the French from Acadia and Canada. The English fleet arrived first, but Champlain’s sturdy reso- lution and the apparent strength of his position disconcerted them, and they turned back. But if the Kirkes failed to capture Quebec, the blow they did inflict was hardly less serious, for they overwhelmed the expedition of relief led by Roquemont, and the feeble garrison dragged through another year in such misery that Champlain meditated the desertion of Quebec and the capture of some Iroquois village where they would find a buried store of corn. Before so desperate a plan was resolved upon, Captain Kirke reappeared, this Thecapture time to secure the surrender of Quebec, not through by te Ee the valour of his attack, but through the despair of lish its holders. The English possession, however, was short-lived. Three years later, in accordance with the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, Canada and Acadia were restored to France in response to a demand which the honour of France, the personal pride of Richelieu as the head of the One Hun- dred Associates, and the pious urgency of Champlain for the conversion of the savages, all combined to press. In 1633 Champlain returned to Quebec as governor under commission from the One Hundred Associates. For a brief two years rh Es a VOYAGES NOVVELLE FRANCE OCCIDENTALE, DICTE CANAD A: FAITS PAR LE S' DE CHAMPLAIN Xain&tongeois, Capitaine pour le Roy enlaMarinedu Ponant, d¢toutes les Defcouuvertes quila faitesen ce pais depuis!'an 1603. iuiquesenlan i629. Ou fe-voit comme ce pays a ofc premierement defcouuert partes Francoise fous Lasthorité de nos Ro ays tres-Chrestiens, sufores auregne de fa Abryesté a prefent regeante LOV IS XIU. Roy de France de. Nanarre.~ Auec yn traitté des qualicez & conditions requifesa yn bon eh er eas pour cognoittre la diuerfiré des Eftimes qui fe font en la Nauigation. Les Marques & enfeignements que la prouidence de Dieu A mifes dans les Mers pourredrefler les Marmiers cn leur coutte, fans lefquellcs ils tomberoient en de grands dangers, Et la maniere de bien dreiTer Cartes marines auec leurs Ports, Rades, Mles, Sondes, & autre chofe neceflaire A la Natugation. Exfembleune Carte ceneralle dela defcription dudit paysfaitte er fon Aferidien felon la declinaifan dela guide Aymant & un Carechifme on Daftru tion traduitte dis Prar coisa langage des penples Sasuages de quelque contrée,auec ce gui seft pase enladite Nounelle France en Vannee 1631. A MONSEIGNEVYR LE CARDINAL DVC. DE RICHELIEY. on : A PARIS. : : Chez Lovis SevesrreE Imprimcuz-Libraire rué du Meuricr prés la Porte S. Vitor, & en fa Boutique dans la Cour du Palais. M DC. XXXII. Acc Privilege dw Roy, ) TITLE OF CHAMPLAIN’S “LES VOYAGES’ 86 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND more he guided the destinies of New France. His days of exploration were over, and his mind turned more and more wie to the development and extension of the missions, rr last to which all other interests were now subordinate. On Christmas day, 1635, the father of New France passed away. Like Bradford and Winthrop, his contempo- raries, he was not only the brave, patient, and wise leader of an epoch-making enterprise, but also its honest and dis- passionate historian. Yet this was not all, for to-day he is not less remembered as the adventurous and indefatigable explorer and the curious observer of savage life and manners. Recurring now to the rivalry between France and England for the possession of Acadia, the next stage to be noticed is ae the grant of that region in 1621 by King James I. grants Aer ty Sir William Alexander, a member of the newly le organized Council of New England, to be held under the name Nova Scotia as a fief of the Crown of Scot- land. The first obstacle to the establishment of his sway Sir William found in the French occupants under the leadership of Biencourt. At Biencourt’s death about the year 1623 his possessions and claims fell to his friend and companion, Charles de la Tour. In 1627 Charles de la Tour petitioned the king of France to be appointed commandant of Acadia. ide aca His messenger was his own father, Claude de la Charles de Tour, who, upon his return with Roquemont’s Que- bec relief expedition, was captured by the Kirkes and carried to England. Here, being a Protestant, he re- nounced his French allegiance and entered the service of Sir William Alexander, who made him a baronet of Nova Scotia in 1629. 1 [Champlain’s works are easily accessible in the scholarly collected edition of the Abbé Laverdiére, 6 vols., Quebec, 1870, An English translation of his Voyages by C. P. Otis has been published by the Prince Society under the editorial charge of Rev. E. F. Slafter, who has added a memoir and extensive notes.] LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 87 The return of the father with a commission from England after he had been despatched to secure one from France pro- duced a situation which has appealed alike to poet, J egena of historian, and novelist, who have depicted the son ee sternly rejecting the father’s solicitations to change France his allegiance. The story is a doubtful one, and the facts SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER seem to be that La Tour adapted himself to the changes in the political world with the readiness of the Vicar of Bray! 1 [Roberts, History of Canada, p. 50; and Rameau, Une Colonie Féo- dale en Amérigue, Paris, 1877, p. 57-] 88 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND The restoration of Canada and Acadia to France in 1632 forced the La Tours to trim their sails again, and Charles de la Tour succeeded in getting a grant of lands and a com- mand from the French king. He soon found himself con- boda ce fronted by a shrewd and tireless rival, D’Aunay and Charnisay, the heir of the authority of Claude de mera Razilly, whom the king had sent over in 1632 to receive back Acadia from the English. The rivalry of these two chieftains revived in Acadia the petty warfare of the feudal ages. Ensconced in their rustic castles, first on oppo- site sides of the peninsula of Acadia,— D’Aunay at Port Royal and La Tour at Cape Sable, —and later, on opposite sides of the Bay of Fundy, where La Tour established his Fort St. Jean, — contesting each other’s holdings, capturing each other’s retainers, now proposing common action against the English interlopers, now appealing to Boston for assist- ance, they carried on the struggle intermittently for years.! Appeals to the king of France at first only complicated matters because of the uncertainties of Acadian geography, but in 1641 D’Aunay’s superior influence at court prevailed. La Tour’s commission was recalled, and he was ordered to report to the king in France. At the same time D’Aunay was authorized to take possession of La Tour’s forts. La Tour refused obedience, and D’Aunay was ordered to seize him. La Tour, now finding himself in the dangerous plight of a rebel, had recourse to Boston for help, and convinced the leaders of the Puritan colony that his cause was just, and that D’Aunay was an intruder. Their help, however, was of little lasting advantage, and in 1645 D’Aunay captured Fort St. Death of | Jeanand hanged most of the prisoners. Five years D’Aunay —_Jater the tide turned, when D’Aunay was drowned, leaving a widow and eight children. The skies then bright- 1 [For the vicissitudes of this struggle the reader may be referred to Murdoch’s Héstory of Nova Scotia, to Rameau’s Une Colonie Féodale, and to Parkman’s The Old Régime in Canada.] LATER HISTORY OF CHAMPLAIN 89 ened for La Tour, and he came back to Acadia, having suc- ceeded in getting a new commission from the king. Madame D’Aunay was now overwhelmed with misfortune; her claims and those of La Tour seemed incapable of adjustment, and, urged by the necessities of her children, she accepted La Tour’s proposal to merge them with his by marriage. Hardly 7c Lb eons ite Ch Logg eee ane ee! . FACSIMILE OF THE HANDWRITING OF ROBERT SEDGWICK had this promising settlement been effected when a force of New Englanders under Major Robert Sedgwick of Charles- town, following secret instructions received from Cromwell, suddenly attacked and conquered Acadia. Again La Tour's adroitness served him well. In 1656 he secured for himself, in conjunction with Thomas Temple and William Crowne, a grant of all of Acadia, but apparently he had now had enough 1 [Murdoch prints the marriage contract, i. 120-123. ] go NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND of the labours and vicissitudes of founding a people, for in less than two months he relinquished his share to Temple, La Tour Who devoted himself with great energy to building wives place up the colony. Temple successfully weathered the Thomas change in government at the Restoration, reminding Temple Charles II. that he had been faithful to his father, and “that one of the last commands that he whispered to Kirke on the scaffold was to charge this king to have a care of honest Tom Temple.”! The injunction was heeded so far as to allow Temple to retain Acadia, but it was not heeded to the extent of indemnifying him for his losses when Acadia was transferred again to France in 1667. The Lords of Acadia, from Sir William Alexander to Sir Thomas Temple, and not least the two indefatigable rivals, La Tour and D’Aunay Charnisay, had learned to their cost how great a labour it is to found a state.] 1 [Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, i. 496. This volume contains many items on these Lords of Acadia.] CHAPTER IV WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE WE must now return to the lifetime of Champlain and note some of the principal steps by which the French ac- quired control of the central portion of North America. Among the young men whom Champlain selected to send among the Indians to fit themselves for the work of inter- preters was a Norman named Jean Nicollet. This 5.4, was in 1618, and for the next sixteen years Nicol- Nicollet let’s time was chiefly spent among the Ottawas and Nipis- sings, engaging in their various expeditions, and encountering with them the privations and hardships of the forest. In 1634 Champlain sent Nicollet upon a western expedition. The object was to find out, if possible, what was meant by the repeated stories of large bodies of water to the westward, and of a distant people without hair or beards who did all their journeying in enormous tower-like canoes. Nicollet thought that this must be an Oriental people, and in order that he might not present too strange an appearance when he should have arrived among them, he took along with him a Chinese gown of rich brocade embroidered with flowers and birds. Nicollet’s route lay up the Ottawa River to Lake Nipis- sing, and thence to the Georgian Bay. On that broad ex- panse of water the party launched their canoes for Nicollet a journey to the Sault Ste. Marie and the Ojibway $ SNP + a Nea 3 4 MecVormale , sued Lx -, 4 ¢ ali frre per ‘ JOLIET’S MAP / a Pree One CAN RANCE, 1673-1674 WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE reached the portage from which they launched their canoes on the Wisconsin River. One month from the day of starting they passed the bluffs at Prairie du Chien and glided out upon the placid blue waters of the upper Mississippi. Their joy, as Marquette informs us, was too great for words. A fortnight passed while they floated down-stream without disclosing any trace of human beings, but at length they came to a village called Peoria, where they were treated with great civility and regaled with the usual Indian dishes, while the chief, in a more than usually florid speech, assured them that their visit to his village added se- renity to the sky and new beauty to the land- scape and a fresh zest to his tobacco, but he really, as a friend, could not advise them to pursue their course, as it abounded with dan- gerous enemies. Disregarding this caution, however, they kept on their way without any ill consequences. They did not fail to note the striking spectacle below the cliffs at Alton where the furious Missouri, with its load of yellow mud accumulated during its 3000 miles’ course through the mountains, rushes through, swallows up and defiles the quiet blue They pass waves of the Mississippi. Down the [¢ mouth turbid and surging yellow river they Missouri kept on for hundreds of miles, until they en- countered parties of Arkansas and narrowly escaped withouta fight. Presently they stopped at an Arkansas village where they were feast- ed as usual, but after the hilarity was over the principal chief informed them that a foul conspiracy was on foot to murder them, —an 107 x ao «doomed ye G @o"g Sgro @oucher. gt Ce ste ses FACSIMILE OF MARQUETTE’S HANDWRITING , & pone tide Kisentate-A Antrinotte May, OR a Re_Za_torage & Serle oe 20 A oe Teta Bou prow. 108 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND infringement of the laws of hospitality which he felt himself unable to sanction. This incident seems to have had its effect in deciding them to retrace their course. They had gone so far southward as to convince themselves that the river must empty into the Gulf of Mexico and not into the Vermilion Sea, as the Gulf of California was then commonly called. This was the most important of the points which they had it in mind to establish, and it seemed to them better to return with the information already acquired than to run the risk of perishing and sending back no word. For such reasons they turned back on the 17th of July, just two months from their date of starting. After ascending to the mouth of the Hlinois they went up to the head of that stream, and there met some Indians who guided them to Lake Mich- igan. It was about the end of September when they reached Green Bay, after having wielded the paddles for more than 2500 miles. There the two friends parted. While Joliet made his way to Montreal with a report of what had been accomplished, Marquette lay ill at Green Bay for more thana year. A partial recovery of health led him to attempt the founding of a new mission at the princi- pal town of the Illinois, to be called the Immaculate Con- ception, but his strength again gave out, and on the way to Mackinaw in the spring of 1675 this beautiful spirit passed away from the earth. The immediate effect of the voyage of Marquette and Joliet was to revive in La Salle the spirit which had led him down the Ohio River some years before. The conception of New France as a great empire in the wilderness was tak- ing a distinct shape in his mind. Among its com- La Salle’s ’ ‘ greatde- | prehensive features were the extension of the fur- 7 trade, the building up of French colonies with an extensive agriculture, the conversion of the Indians to Chris- The return 1 [A translation of Marquette’s own narrative may be found in J. G. Shea’s History and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, pp. 6-50.] DERNIERES DECOUVERTES DANS LAMERIOUFER SEPTENTRIONALE aM DE LA SALE; Mifes au jour par M. le Chevalier TONTI, Gouverneur dt. Fort Saint Loiiis, aux Tflinois. A PARIS AU PALAIS, Chez JEAN GUIGNARD, a entree de la Grand’ Sallé, a lImage faint Jean. -M. DC. LXXXXVITI. Avec Privilege an Rey, TITLE OF TONTY’s “DERNIERES DECOUVERTES AN : f: ACCOUNT §} OF ie | Monfieur de a SALLE's | LAST Expedition and DISCOVERIES North AMERICA| Prefented to the French King, And'Publifhed by the Chevalier Towti, Governour of Fort St.Le- } wis, in the Province of the J/linois, Made Exglifb from the Paris Original. ALSO The ADVENTURES of the Sieur de MONT AUBAN, Captain of the French Buccaneers on the Coalt of Guinea, in the Year 1695. , : Lew po x., Printed for J. Tonjon at the Fudge’s Head, and 5, Buck! at the Dolpbin in Flect-fireet, and R. Kpaplock, at tye Angeland, Grown in St. Paul's Church-Yard. 1698. a % ae ae TITLE OF TONTY’S “AN ACCOUNT OF” WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE III tianity, and the playing a controlling part in forest politics. Marquette and Joliet had well-nigh demonstrated that the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico. One might, perhaps, suppose that a reference to the expedition of Soto more than a century before would have sufficed to establish the identity of the river descended by Marquette and Joliet with the river where the great Spanish knight was buried. But the Frenchmen of the seventeenth century seem to have known nothing about Soto or his explorations. To them the problem was a new one. After once completely solving it, La Salle would be in a position to establish a town at the mouth of the great river. Such a town might become a commercial rival of the Spanish seaports in Mexico and the West Indies, while it would be a formidable menace to them in time of war. A chain of military posts might connect the town at the mouth of the Mississippi with the spot where the Illinois empties into that river, and similar chains might connect the Illinois on the one hand 4), riccis- with the Sault Ste. Marie, and on the other hand sippi valley with Lakes Erie and Ontario. It was the gener- pied ally accepted French doctrine that the discovery of a great river gave an inchoate title to all the territory drained by the river, and this inchoate title could be completed by occu- pation. La Salle’s plan was to effect a military occupation of the whole Mississippi valley as far eastward as the summit of the Appalachian range, by means of military posts which should control the communications and sway the policy of the Indian tribes. Thus, the Alleghanies would become an impassable barrier to the English colonists slowly pressing westward from the Atlantic coast. This became the abid- ing policy of the French in North America. This was the policy in attempting to carry out which they fought and lost the Seven Years’ War. Of this policy such men as Talon, Frontenac, and La Salle were the originators, and in La Salle it found its most brilliant representative. 112 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND Ahiah hf ‘ 6 Matans ur ont ae chetans ot des chameaux ° Dakansea S Monsperia oe x, urepeans ar ee a ont, us, Chacuanen 5 an dee ose runes de fer Maniy ~\p Rg bupeig pgsurysny * ayes? vasryrySieegeye eevoeeee? PyeH eooneeer® 1 , : CARTE dhe ta Sih ote file fan “yn dans [Apres "4, is ePeplimtewwtonds 4 4 "sadn hp . se? SS ee ¥F oa MR, eee THEVENOT’S MAP OF An obvious criticism upon such a scheme is its mere vast- ness. Ina colony recruited so slowly as Canada there were not Difficulty of Enough people to carry it into operation. Under carrymgout the most favourable circumstances it could scarcely plan remain more than a sketch; but La Salle believed that the inducements held out by an increasing fur-trade and enlarged opportunities of agriculture and commerce in gen- eral would bring settlers to New France and greatly accel- erate its rate of growth. There was perhaps nothing neces- sarily wild in his calculations, except that he entirely failed to understand the inherent weakness of colonization that was dependent upon government support. When it came to performing his own part of the great scheme, the essential point of weakness was want of money, —a kind of weakness which has proved fatal to many a great WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 113 our ss Terres sahabitecs ienstage it dhe re. + @ Cuchouachirea 4 Thanos MARQUETTE’S DISCOVERIES scheme. In order to cure this-want La Salle was inclined to resort to the agency which was chiefly in vogue in the seventeenth century, namely, that of monopoly. This at once enlisted against him the fur-traders as a class. His friendly relations with Frontenac made it seem probable that he could get whatever he wanted, and in whatsoever quarter he turned his attention the monopoly scare was ya satte’s excited and every possible device was adopted for Prvicas hindering his success, — devices which went all position the way from attaching his property to hiring desperadoes to murder him. Besides this, La Salle was regarded with cold- ness, if not hostility, by the Jesuits, whose service he had abandoned and whose schemes for civilizing the wilderness were often at variance with his. Moreover, with all his ad- mirable qualities, La Salle was not exactly a lovable person. 114 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND He was too deeply absorbed in his arduous work to be genial, and he was a stern disciplinarian against whom lawless spirits, familiar with the loose freedom of the wilderness, were liable to rebel. The history of his brief career of eight years after he had finally given himself up to his life work is a singular record of almost unintermitted disaster leading to a tragic end, yet relieved by one glorious, though momentary, gleam of triumph. One of Frontenac’s first steps for the protection of the Fours chav FORT DE FRONTENAC on Katarakouy Constr par te Sieur de la Salle, “Plow envave par Hf de Denonville ded ew 1085 @ thous ff ot Sable PLAN OF FORT FRONTENAC, 1685 fur-trade between Montreal and the northwestern wilderness was the erection of a strong wooden blockhouse at the outlet Fort of Lake Ontario. Its site was about that of the ee present town of Kingston, and it was long known LaSalle as Fort Frontenac. It served as a wholesome menace to the men of the Long House over across the lake. La Salle went to France and had an interview with Louis XIV., in which he obtained that monarch’s authority to con- WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 11S duct an exploring expedition, and he was placed in command of Fort Frontenac on his promise to rebuild and greatly strengthen it. This promise was amply fulfilled. The for- tress was rebuilt of stone according to sound military princi- ples, and was strong enough to defy the attempt of any force that was likely to be brought against it. The next reach of La Salle’s arm was from the outlet of Ontario to the Niagara River above the Falls. For the prosecution of his enterprise canoe navigation : : La Salle seemed hardly to suffice, and on the Niagara River builds the La Salle built and launched a schooner of some °™ forty-five tons burden, armed with five small cannon, and carrying on her prow a grotesque griffin, the name that was given to her in honour of Count Frontenac’s family arms. While these preparations were going on La Salle received a treacherous dose of poison, the effects of which his iron constitution threw off with rather sur- prising ease. He started out on his enterprise with about forty men, two of whom deserve espe- cial mention for various reasons. Henri de Tonty was a native of Naples, son of the gentleman who invented the kind of life insurance for a long time popular as penn de the Tontine. In his youthful days Tonty had one Tonty hand blown off in battle; he had it replaced by an iron hand over which he always wore a glove, and he was commonly known among the Indians as Iron Hand. He was a man of direct and simple nature, brave and resourceful, and in every emergency was absolutely faithful to La Salle. A very different sort of person was Louis Hennepin, a native of Flanders, about thirty-seven years of age. He had early joined the Franciscan friars, and an irrepres- ou; sible love for adventure brought him to Canada, Hennepin where he found the wild solitudes about Fort Frontenac quite in harmony with his tastes. He was a capable man 116 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND with many excellent qualities, and on most occasions truth- ful, although his reputation has greatly suffered from one gigantic act of mendacity.!. We shall have occasion to note his characteristics as we go on. He was one of the advance party sent by La Salle to the Niagara River, and was proba- bly the first of Europeans to look at the Falls. It is certain that he was the first to make a sketch of them for publica- tion. Sucha sketch is engraved in his account of his journeys published in Utrecht in 1697, and is extremely interesting and valuable as enabling us to realize the changes which have since occurred in the contour of the Falls.? It was in the autumn of 1678 that La Salle set sail in the Griffin. His departure was clouded by the news that impa- anaes tient creditors had laid hands upon his Canadian of the estates, but nothing daunted, he pushed on through age Lakes Erie and Huron, and after many disasters reached the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. The Griffin was now sent back with half the party to the Ni- agara River with a cargo of furs to appease the creditors and purchase additional supplies for the remainder of the journey, while La Salle, with his diminished company, pushed on to the Illinois, where a fort was built and appropriately named Fort Crévecceur. It was indeed at a heart-breaking moment that it was finished, for so much time had elapsed since the departure of their little ship that all had come to despair of her return. No word ever came from her. In that time of universal suspicion there were not wanting whis- pers that her crew had deserted and scuttled her, carrying off her goods to trade with on their own account. But 1 (Hennepin, in his Nouvelle Découverte d’un grand Pays situé dans ? Amérique, Utrecht, 1697, affirmed that he himself had explored the Mississippi to its mouth in 1680, thus anticipating the great exploit of La Salle, and he gave an account of the voyage. This account Henne- pin based on the journal that Father Membré kept of his voyage down the river in company with La Salle.] 2 [Hennepin’s sketch of the Falls is reproduced in Winsor’s Warr. and Crit. Hist., iv. 248.] WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 117 HENNEPIN’S FIRST VIEW OF NIAGARA FALLS perhaps she may simply have foundered in some violent gale on the lakes. After a winter of misery it was evident that nothing could make up for the loss of the Griffin except a journey on foot to Montreal. Accordingly, in March, 1680, eae La Salle started on this terrible walk of 1000 terrible win- miles, leaving Fort Crevecceur under command of es the faithful Tonty. La Salle had with him a long-tried Indian guide, a Mohegan from Connecticut, who for many years had roamed over the country. He took with him also four Frenchmen; and these six fought their way eastward through the wilderness, now floundering through melting snow, now bivouacking in clothes stiff with frost, now stop- ping to make a bark canoe, now leaping across streams on floating ice-cakes, like the runaway slave girl in “ Uncle Tom’s Cabin;” in such plight did they make their way across Michigan and along the north shore of Lake Erie to 118 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND the little blockhouse above Niagara Falls. All but La Salle had given out on reaching Lake Erie, and the five sick men were ferried across by him in a bark canoe to the blockhouse. We may see here how the sustaining power of wide-ranging thoughts and a lofty purpose enabled the scholar reared in luxury to surpass in endurance the Indian guide and the hunters inured to the hardships of the forest. He had need of all this sustaining power, for at Niagara he learned that a ship from France, freighted for him with a cargo worth about $30,000 in our modern money, had been wrecked in the St. Lawrence, and everything lost. He received this staggering news with his wonted iron composure, and taking three fresh men in place of his invalids, completed his march of 1000 miles to Montreal. There he collected supplies and reinforcements, and, returning as far as Fort Frontenac, was Fresh taking a moment’s rest preparatory to a fresh start disasters when further ill tidings arrived. In July there came a message from the fort so well named Heart-break. The garrison had mutinied, and after driving away Tonty with such men as were faithful, they had pulled the block- house to pieces and made their way eastward through Mich- igan. Recruiting their ranks with divers wood rangers of ill repute, they had plundered the station at Niagara, and their canoes were now cruising on Lake Ontario in the hope of crowning their work with the murder of La Salle. These wretches, however, fell into their own pit. Between hear- ing and acting, the interval with La Salle was not a long one. That indomitable commander’s canoes were soon upon the lake, and in a few days he had waylaid and captured the mutineers and sent them in chains to be dealt with by the LaSalle viceroy. La Salle now kept on his way to the IIli- a nois River, intending to rebuild his fort and hoping Tonty to rescue Tonty with the few faithful followers who had survived the mutiny. That little party had found shel- ter among the Illinois Indians; but during the summer of WILDERNESS AND EMPIRE 119 1680 the great village of the Illinois was sacked by the Iro- quois, and the hard-pressed Frenchman retreated up the west- ern shore of Lake Michigan as far as Green Bay. When La Salle reached the Illinois village he found nothing but the horrible vestiges of fiery torments and cannibal feasts. The only thing to be done was without delay to utilize | iin the situation by cementing a firmer alliance than of the Illi- ‘ ‘ . _ nois village before with the western Algonquins on the basis by the of their common enmity to the Iroquois. After *°™°* thus spending the winter to good purpose, he set out again for Canada in May, 1681, to arrange his affairs and once more obtain fresh resources. At Mackinaw his heart was rejoiced at meeting his friend Tonty, after all these wild vicissitudes, and together they paddled their canoes a thou- sand miles and came to Fort Frontenac. La Salle’s enemies had begun to grow quite merry over his repeated discomfitures, but at length his stubborn cour- age for a time vanquished the adverse fates. On the next venture things went smoothly and according to the pro- gramme. In the autumn he started with a fleet of canoes, passed up the lakes from Ontario to the head of Michigan, crossed the narrow portage from the Chicago River de Wire ; La Salle’s to the Illinois, and thence coming out upon the winter voy- Mississippi, glided down to its mouth. On the the Mises gth of April, 1682, the fleurs-delis were duly “?” planted, and all the country drained by the great river and its tributaries, a country far vaster than La Salle ever im- agined, was solemnly declared to be the property of the king of France, and named for him Louisiana.1 Returning up the Mississippi after this triumph, La Salle established a small fortified post on the Illinois River which he called St. Louis of the Illinois. Leaving Tonty in com- 1 [Father Membré’s narrative of this voyage is given in translation in J. G. Shea’s Discovery and Exploration of the ALisstssippi Valley, pp. 165-184.] 120 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND mand there, he lost no time in returning to France for means to complete his scheme. The time had arrived for founding LaSalle # town at the mouth of the Mississippi and con- returns to necting it with Canada by a line of military posts. France : * La Salle was well received by the king, and a fine expedition was fitted out, but once more the fates began to frown and everything was ruined by the ill fortune of the naval commander, Beaujeu, whom it was formerly customary to blame more than he seems really to have deserved. The intention was to sail directly to the mouth of the Missis- Failire of Sippi, but the pilots missed it and passed beyond ; Poe some of the ships were wrecked on the coast of dition Texas; the captain, beset by foul weather and pirates, disappeared with the rest, and was seen no more. Two years of misery followed, and with the misery such quarrelling and mutual hatred as had scarcely been equalled since the days of the early Spanish explorers in South America. At last, in March, 1687, La Salle started on foot in search of the Mississippi, hoping to ascend it and find succour at Tonty’s fort; but he had scarcely set out with this forlorn hope when two or three mutineers skulked in ambush and shot him dead. Thus was cut short at the La Salles Carly age of forty-two the career of the man whose death personality is impressed in some respects more strongly than that of any other upon the history of New France. His schemes were too far-reaching to succeed. They required the strength and resources of half a dozen nations like the France of Louis XIV. Nevertheless, the lines upon which New France continued to develop were substantially those which La Salle had in mind, and the fabric of a wilderness-empire, of which he laid the founda- tions, grew with the general growth of colonization, and in the next century became truly formidable. It was not until Wolfe climbed the Heights of Abraham that the great ideal of La Salle was finally overthrown. CHAPTER V WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE In the year 1670 the provincial parliament of Normandy condemned a dozen women, young and old, to be burned at the stake. Their crime was attendance upon the Witches’ Sabbath. An appeal was taken to the Crown, and ;..:, xq. Louis XIV. was persuaded to spare their lives on commutes thesen- condition that they should leave the kingdom and nee : : : . ea neverreturn. Astonishment and indignation greeted imposed this exercise of royal clemency, and the provincial alleged parliament sent a petition to the king containing “be a grave remonstrance: “ Your parliament have thought it their duty on occasion of these crimes, the greatest which men can commit, to make you acquainted with the general and uniform feeling of the people of this province with re- gard to them; it being moreover a question in which are concerned the glory of God and the relief of your suffering subjects, who groan under their fears from the threats and menaces of this sort of persons. . . . We humbly supplicate your Majesty to reflect once more upon the extraordinary results which proceed from the malevolence of these py. partia- people; on the loss of goods and chattels, and the mentof 3 . Normandy deaths from unknown diseases, which are often protests the consequence of their menaces; . . . all of which may easily be proved to your Majesty’s satisfaction by the records of various trials before your parliaments.” It is pleasant to be able to add that Louis XIV. was too well versed in the professional etiquette of royalty to withdraw a pardon which he had once granted, and so the poor women were saved 122 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND from the flames. What we have especially to note is that the highest court of Normandy, representing the best legal LOUIS XIV knowledge of that province, in defining witchcraft as the in- fliction of disease or the destruction of property by unknown and mysterious means, describes it as the greatest of all crimes, and has no more doubt of its reality than of burglary or highway robbery. 1 [For the original text and further particulars in regard to this peti- tion Lecky refers to Garinet, Histoire de la Magte en France, p. 337 Cf. also Rambaud, Hest. de la Civilisation Francaise, ii. 154. “ In 1672, Colbert directed the magistrates to receive no accusations of sorcery.” Lecky, H7st. of Rationalism, i. 118.] WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 123 This unquestioning belief in the reality of witchcraft has been shared by the whole human race, civilized and uncivil- ized alike, from prehistoric ages to the end of the rhe belief seventeenth century! There are tribes of men Witch craft uni. with minds so little developed that travellers have vet! doubted the existence of religious ideas among them; but none have been found so low as not to have some notion of witchcraft. Indeed, one of the most primitive and funda- mental shapes which the relation of cause and effect takes in the savage mind is the assumed connection between dis- ease or death and some malevolent personal agency. The conceptions of natural disease and natural death are attain- able only by civilized minds. To the savage, who has scarcely an inkling of such a thing as laws of nature, all death is re- garded as murder, either at the hands of a superhuman power that must be propitiated, or at the hands of some human being upon whom vengeance may be wreaked. The inter- 1 [For a comprehensive survey of the history of witchcraft and allied occult phenomena, from the standpoint of modern psychology, see Alfr. Lehman, Aberglaube und Zauberet, Stuttgart, 1898. Mr. Lecky’s opening chapter on Magic and Witchcraft, in his Azstory of Ration- alism, still remains for the English reader the most convenient sketch of witchcraft in modern times. On the rise of modern witchcraft, the most scholarly investigation in English is that of H. C. Lea, in his Zx- quisition in the Middle Ages, vol. iii, chaps. vi. and vii. Recently there has appeared an investigation into the beginnings of the witchcraft delusion that surpasses all previous works in scientific thoroughness. It is Joseph Hansen’s Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Hexenwahns und der Hexenverfolgung im Mittelalter, Bonn, 1g01. Hansen has presented his results in popular form in his Zauberwahn, Inquisition und die Entstehung der Grossen Hexenver- folgung, Munich, 1901. In the Report of the American Hist. Assoc. for 1890 will be found an admirably compact and learned sketch of “The Literature of Witchcraft,” by Professor George L. Burr. An excellent selection of extracts illustrating the belief in witchcraft, the methods of trial, and the growth of the opposition is given in Professor Burr’s The Vi ttch-Persecutzons, a pamplet published by the University of Pennsylvania. ] 124 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND pretation of disease is the same, and hence one of the chief occupations of medicine-men and priests among barbarous races is the detection and punishment of witches! Hence among all the superstitions, —or things that have “stood Vitality of Over’ from primeval ages, — the belief in witch- the belief ~~ craft has been the most deeply rooted and the most tenacious of life. In all times and places, until quite lately among the most advanced communities, the reality of witch- craft has been accepted without question, and scarcely any human belief is supported by so vast a quantity of recorded testimony. At the present day, among communities like our own, we may observe a wonderful change. Among educated people the belief in witchcraft is practically extinct. It has not simply ceased to be taken seriously, but it has vanished from people’s minds. We recognize it as one of the grotesque features in an Indian’s theory of things, or perhaps we find it cropping out among the odds and ends of diabolism that the negro mind retains from the old stock of African folk- lore, but we no longer associate such a belief with civilized men, and a good deal of historical study is needed to enable us to realize adequately its omnipresence only two centuries ago. What has caused this remarkable change in our mental attitude toward witchcraft? Surely not argument. Nobody Causeof has ever refuted the evidence that once seemed so reat conclusive in favour of the belief. For the most the belief ~~ bart we should now regard that evidence as not worth the trouble of refuting. Some powerful cause has made our minds insuperably inhospitable to such sort of evi- dence. That cause is the gigantic development of physical 1 [On the stubborn resistance made in modern times to the displace- ment of the Satanic theory of disease and disaster by scientific theories, see A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, chaps. xi.—xvi.] TRYAL OF AT THE ASSIZES ' #HELD AT || Bury St. Edmonds for the County of SUFFOLK, on the Tenth day-of March, 1664. DEPORE Sir Marruew Hace Kt | 7 THEN. Lord Chief Baron of Fis Majefties Court of EXCHEQUER. Taken by a Perfon then Attefiding the Court LONDON, Printed for Wikiam Shrewsbery at the Bible in Dack-Lane. 1682. TITLE OF “A TRYAL OF WITCHES” 126 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND science since the days of Newton and Descartes. The minds of civilized people have become familiar with the conception of natural law, and that conception has simply stifled the old superstition as clover chokes out weeds. It has been observed Rise of phy. that the existence of evidence in favour of witch- sical science craft closely depends upon the disposition to believe it, so that when the latter ceases the former disappears. Accordingly we find no difficulty in understanding the uni- versality of the belief until quite modern times. The dis- position to believe was one of the oldest inheritances of the human mind, while the capacity for estimating evidence in cases of physical causation is one of its very latest and most laborious acquisitions. In 1664 there was a witch trial at Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk. The presiding justice was Sir Matthew Hale, one _, Of the most eminent and learned of English judges. An English 3 witch trial Two aged widows, Amy Duny and Rose Cullen- Matthew der, were indicted for bewitching six young girls i and one baby boy. This infant was seized with fainting turns, and his mother, suspecting witchcraft, took counsel of a country doctor, who told her to hang the child’s crib blanket all day in the chimney corner, and if on taking it down at nightfall she should see anything strange there, she was not to be afraid of it, but to throw it into the fire. Well, when she was putting the baby to bed she took down the blanket, and a big toad fell out and hopped about the hearth. ‘Oh, put it in the fire, quick,” said she to a boy present, who forthwith seized the poor toad with a pair of tongs and held it in the blaze. There was a flashing as of Grotesque POWder, and a strange noise, and then the toad van- evidence ished; but that same evening Amy Duny sitting by her own fireside had her face all smirched and scorched. Of course Amy was the toad, and it was natural that she should be vexed at such treatment, so that when the baby’s sister suddenly sickened and died, and its mother grew lame WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 127 enough to use crutches, it was all clearly due to Amy’s diabolical arts. Absolute demonstration was reached when Inakorw tly Amy was sentenced to death, for then her witch-power ceased, and the lame woman forthwith threw away her crutches and walked as briskly as anybody. The other afflicted children complained of griping pains, and vomited crooked pins and twopenny nails. In the court- room when Amy Duny or Rose Cullender came near to them, they threw their aprons over their heads and writhed in 128 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND agony. It happened that among the magistrates present were some hard-headed Sadducees. Lord Cornwallis and Sir Edmund Bacon suspected these fits and torments of being a Indications Wicked sham. They blindfolded the girls, and had eo other old women approach and touch them. The ignored girls went off into fits every time without discrimi- nating between Rose or Amy and the other women. But this trifling flaw in the case was nothing when set off against the weighty evidence of a witness who declared that Rose Cullender had given him hard words, and shortly afterwards his hay-cart was stuck in passing through a gate. Another deposed that Amy Duny had said, “ That chimney of yours will be falling down one of these days,” and so sure enough it did. After this there could be no doubt in any reasonable mind that Rose had bewitched the cart and Amy the chim- ney. The learned justice in his charge aimed a rebuke at Sir Mat. (He Scepticism exhibited by some of the magis- hee Hale. Wales; he declared that the reality of witchcraft reality of | waS not open to question, since it was expressly witchcraft affirmed in Holy Writ, and provided for in the criminal codes of all nations. The jury took less than half an hour to agree upon their verdict of guilty ; and next week the two old dames were hanged at Cambridge, protesting their innocence with their last breath.t Upon just such so-called ‘“ evidence”’ more thousands of innocent persons than it will ever be possible to enumerate have been put to death under the forms of law. It is diffi- cult to accept all the wholesale figures mentioned by old his- torians, yet the figures for which we have good authority are sufficiently dreadful. In general we may regard it as prob- able that during the Middle Ages executions for witchcraft occurred with much the same monotonous regularity as exe- 1 Linton’s Witch Stories, p. 395. [Cotton Mather printed an account of this trial in his Wonders of the Invisible World, London reprint, 1862, pp. 111-120. He says it “ was a Tryal much considered by the Judges of New England.” Ibid. p. 111.] WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 129 cutions for murder and other felonies, but from time to time there were epidemics of terror when the number of victims was fearfully swelled. Now the famous bull of Pope Inno- cent VIII. against witchcraft, published in 1484, ‘asta oe marks the beginning of a new era in the history of witchcraft tips : superstition the superstition! As literature and art have had their Golden Ages, so the sixteenth and seventeenth centu- ries were especially the Sulphurous Age of the witchcraft delusion. It was the period when the Church of Rome was engaged in a life and death struggle with heresy, and obnox- ious persons suspected of heresy could sometimes be de- stroyed by a charge of witchcraft when there was no other method of reaching them. Thus the universal superstition was enlisted in the service of a militant and unscrupulous ecclesiastical organization with effects that were frightful. As it was understood that the diabolical crime of witchcraft was now to be stamped out once for all, the evidences of it were naturally found in plenty. The “Malleus eon Maleficarum,”’ or Hammer of Witches,? published mer z in 1489, became the great text-book of the subject, tear and at no time since history began have the fires of hell been so often lighted upon earth as in the course of the next two centuries. We are told by Martin del Rio that in 1515 not less than 500 witches were executed in the single city of Geneva; and a certain inquisitor named Remigio boasted that in his district, in the north of Italy, within fifteen years he had personally superintended the burning of more than 900 such crimi- nals.3 In Scotland, from 1560 to 1600, the average annual 1 [This bull is given in an English translation by Burr, The Witch- Persecutions, pp. 7-10.] ? [An extract from this book is given by Burr, Te Witch-Persecutions, and an analysis of it in Roskoff’s Geschichte des Teufels, ii, 226-292. Cf. also Hansen, as above.] 3 [ Williams, The Superstitions of Witchcraft, p.107. See also White, Warfare of Science and Theology, i. 358, 359.] 130 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND number of victims was 200, making a grim and ghastly total of 8000 for the forty years. Or, to put it in another form, the executions averaged four each week in a population about equal to that of Massachusetts at the present day. In 1597 that grotesque royal author, James VI., published at Edin- burgh his treatise on “ Dzemonologie,” in which he main- King James tained that against so foul a crime as witchcraft wr ofwick. any sort of evidence is good enough, and the tes- call timony of very young children, or of persons of the vilest character, ought on no account to be omitted. In the course of our story we shall see that James was by no means singular in this absurd style of reasoning. In 1604, scarcely more than a year after he had become King of England, Parliament passed the famous “ Witch Act,” which remained on the statute-book until the reign of George II. It was in the reign of Charles I. that trials and execu- tions under the Witch Act were most frequent. While the Thedeu. 008 Parliament was in session the affair attained so almost the proportions of an epidemic, but under the riseof | the rule of Cromwell there was a sudden halt, and aoe i" thereafter the delusion never fully recovered its Brit hold upon the community. Cases like those of Amy Duny and Rose Cullender were sporadic. In that age of Newton and Locke, the whole baleful troop of demons were spreading their wings for their final flight from this world. The last executions for witchcraft, however, occurred in Rest! England in 1712 and in Scotland in 1722.1 We tions for. may observe in passing that in Germany the case witchcraft Of Maria Renata, a nun beheaded for witchcraft, oc- curred as late as 1749, the year in which Goethe was born? 1 [Cf£. Lecky, i. 139.] 2 [On this case see White, Warfare of Science, ii.121 and 156. He refers in particular to an essay on Maria (or Anna) Renata by Johannes Scherr in his Hammerschlige und Historien.] WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 131 Considering the fact that the exodus of Puritans to New England occurred during the reign of Charles I., while the prosecutions for witchcraft were increasing toward a maxi- mum in the mother country, it is rather strange that so few cases occurred in the New World. It was already noted in Cromwell’s time that Independency in ecclesiastical matters seemed to be attended by a diminution of activity in the world of witches, but on the other hand the Independents who came over to New England voluntarily thrust them- selves into a country which was supposed to be in i Gees a special sense under the direct control and admin- America istration of the Devil. It was believed that Pagan Seoa af countries generally were ruled by Satan, and that Pare here in the American wilderness that old foe of mankind had taken his stand to annoy and dishearten the Lord’s elect. As for the red men, it was easy to see that they were his veritable imps; their tricks and manners proclaimed them as such. There could be little doubt that the heathen New World was Satan’s Kingdom ;! and in view of this very com- mon belief it is strange that the instances of witchcraft or diabolism were so rare in the early history of New England. During the sixty years following the first settlement of Boston, a dozen or more cases can be enumerated. The first victim in the New World was Margaret Jones of Charlestown, who had some sensible ideas about medicine. She disapproved of wholesale bleeding and violent emetics, and used to work cures by means of herb tonics The first and other simple prescriptions. This offended the Victim of the witchcraft doctors, and in 1648 the poor woman was tried for ¢elsion witchcraft, convicted, and hanged. Governor Win- England throp, who tells the story, adds that at the very hour of her execution there was a great gale in Connecticut, which blew down trees, and this he considers an absolute demonstration 1 [See Cotton Mather, Zhe li’onders of the Invisible World, Lon- don, 1693, London reprint, 1862, p. 74.] 132 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND of her guilt! When Winthrop wrote this, Isaac Newton was a child playing in the nursery. When we see a mind so broad and cultivated as Winthrop’s entertaining such notions of cause and effect, is it not obvious that the main- stay and support of the frightful superstition was ignorance of physical science ? About the same time, according to Thomas Hutchinson, a woman was hanged at Dorchester, and another at Cambridge, for the crime of witchcraft. The next case was a startling one, on account of the victim’s social position. A woman like Margaret Jones, though perhaps educated, and such as would to-day be classed as a lady, was in those times not called Mrs. Jones, but simply Goodwife or Goody Jones. To be Mrs., or Mistress, one must be the wife of an esquire, and the rank of esquire was as carefully guarded in common forms of speech as the rank of knight or baronet. The next ite victim of the witch-delusion was Mistress Ann Hib- o: Mi, bins. Her husband, William Hibbins, who died in 1654, had been for twelve years a member of the council of assistants, and at one time was the colony’s diplo- matic agent in England. Her brother, Richard Bellingham, was deputy-governor of Massachusetts. In 1656 this lady was tried for witchcraft before Governor Endicott and the General Court. She was found guilty, and was hanged on Boston Common on the 19th of June of that year. The verdict and death-warrant are in the Colonial Records,? but we have no report of the case, and do not know how the accu- sation was originated. Hutchinson, whose great-grandfather Edward was one of the lady’s friends, believed it to bea case of outrageous persecution, and so some of her contem- poraries regarded it. The Rev. John Norton, persecutor of 1 [See Winthrop, ii. 326 (rev. ed., ii. 397); W. F. Poole, Wo. Am. Rev., April, 1869, pp. 343, 344-] 2 (Mass. Records, iv. pt. i. 269. The record is quoted in Winsor’s Memorial Hist. of Boston, ii. 139.] gSo1 ‘AVIN ‘SNICHIH NNV JO LNVUMVM-HLVAG GNV LOIGNaA AO AIIWISOVA : pus yp a AA 3) wh A PEED 8 Lappy» on Ly iu ~y yrs 350 Ie 4 ye . ; a9) 0 B61 ayy B ; RSA fx prayer UY: } a ee rE Se ty2y Gove sriposp lh UY g : Poeun) yrs eve, Se gle poh te Pepin gm fo meni gh ADS ea eH —~— 4 A pSEY +o Ws yu Busse WP? YR yr mb UT sy ; a Buwdy a ; 3 sum WY, p By db O-tor, o . Re - si OF MONI BP brad 304 oy B42 wy, 44 prey yf ANIM a Ba) A eee) mn PHBL AOL oy Y2T yyy Bian yv>? bArcarore amaprag ern? BOB" Boe ed son oe ati ee pop: oF Lg Pz lin78V729"F 7 ye hy ee wih OP rucapiy seer By WER Af) fe WP whe w SURE APPLY? 1291 ee pee ” a a, Uy G79 TH p98 91 354 35 2 al wus ; a reapa by W 3Ub ey Fe g A 07 34 mm Sp TATA IS aE on rele Kym 103, AHF 4270 Ses ey) Ag Er a a uPa94 hay ob pr unmfep Ops 40 eee I as PrsLhargy ym 342g AME TD sD kelp Gy aok sSiyny gam fees 77 ae foe tae) gwany of: b oY Aes 97107 fo Bao fe) TH Pyeng yoy Ba = PIBLS UD wt). : a 2 eo pa, fr gous aL wy frp 2 aa M hyn 4 fs JO 84 4p Suen ss Pes oy. Z 134 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND Quakers, was by temperament quick to see marks of Satan’s presence, but he tried his best to save Mrs. Hibbins, and A victim of afterward spoke of her accusers with his customary oon ie sarcasm. Mrs. Hibbins was hanged, he said, “ only superstition for having more wit than her neighbours.”! One day she saw two persons whom she knew to be unfriendly to her talking together in the street, whereupon she exclaimed that she knew they were talking about her. Her guess be- ing correct was forthwith cited against her as an instance of supernatural in- Ju kn Norfon sight which must have been imparted to her by the Devil. According to Norton this argument had great weight with the court. It is a pity, and it is strange too, that we know so little of this case, for there must have been something extraordinary in the circumstances that could thus send to the gallows one of the foremost persons in that colonial society. There is evidence that the affair created fierce excitement and left much bitterness behind. There were many in Boston who insisted that a saint had been wickedly done to death by slanderous tongues. Out of a dozen cases in the course of the next thirty years we find several acquittals, and once in a while we en- counter a gleam of genuine common sense, as in the case of John Bradstreet of Rowley, who was accused of familiarity with the Devil; forasmuch as the said Bradstreet confessed that he had “ read in a book of magic, and that he heard a Asensible VOice asking him what work he had for him. He jury answered, ‘Go make a bridge of sand over the sea ; go make a ladder of sand up to heaven, and go to God, and come down no more.’” When the case was tried at Ipswich, the jury found that the said Bradstreet lied, where- upon the court sentenced him to pay twenty shillings fine or else to be whipped? 1 [Hutchinson’s Hist. of Mass., i. 173-] 2 (Nevins, Witchcraft in Salem Village, p. 34. This case occurred in 1652.] WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 135 More disastrous was the case of the Goodwin children in Boston in 1688. An Irish Catholic woman named Glover was laundress for John Goodwin's family, in which there were four children. One day the eldest child, Martha, aged thirteen, accused the Glover woman of purloining some pieces of linen. Glover answered with threats and curses, and Martha presently fell down ina fit. The other children —aged eleven, seven, and five — soon followed her example. Then they went through with all sorts of pranks: 4. Good. they would pretend to be deaf and dumb; they winchildren would complain of being pricked with pins or cut with knives ; they would bark like dogs and purr like cats; they even performed feats of what modern spirit-rappers call “levitation,” skimming over the ground without appearing to touch it, seeming, as Cotton Mather said, to “fly like geese.” This sort of thing went on for several weeks. Doctors and ministers agreed that the children must have been bewitched by the Glover woman, and she was accord- ingly hanged. The chief interest in this case arises from Cotton Mather’s connection with it. That famous divine, son of Increase Mather and grandson of John Cotton, was then five cotton and twenty years of age. He had been graduated Mather at Harvard ten years before, his career as an author had al- ready begun, and he was already regarded as the most learned man of his time. The range of his reading was enormous. Theology, philosophy, history, literature, physical science, in all these he was omnivorous, and he could write and speak at least seven languages (one of them the Iroquois) with fluency and precision! In the course of his life he published nearly four hundred books and tracts, most of which bring a high price now, while some are indispensable to the stu- 4;, dent of history. He was an earnest and severely character conscientious man. His chief foible was vanity, which was 1 [Samuel Mather, Life of Cotton Mather, p. 49.] 136 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND perhaps not strange in view of the wholesale homage and adulation to which he was accustomed. He was not a profound or original thinker, nor was he free from the errors and superstitions characteristic of his time; but in most matters his face was set toward the future and his Hiscourage Work was helpful to mankind. In 1721, in spite ioe ho of furious opposition and some personal peril, he lation succeeded in introducing into America inoculation for smallpox,! the most conspicuous among many instances in which he showed himself wiser than his contemporaries. With his other fine qualities he was a man of loving heart and gracious sympathies. But in the disputes and conflicts of his time he took too prominent a part to get along with- out making enemies ; and so it happened that after the witch- craft delusion had become thoroughly discredited, a malicious writer saw fit to distort and misrepresent his relations to it. The slanders of Robert Calef became the commonplaces of ind historical writers in a later generation, and the Calef and memory of Cotton Mather has been held up to Upham A scorn as that of the man who did more than any one else to stimulate and foster the witchcraft delusion in Massachusetts. This view is maintained by Charles Went- worth Upham, in his history of “Salem Witchcraft,” pub- lished in 1867 in two volumes, the most learned and elabo- rate work on the subject.2. It was repeated at second hand from older writers and embellished with cheap rhetoric by George Bancroft, and has usually been copied by the makers of compendiums and school-books, so that it has obtained a firm lodgment in the popular mind. The correct view of Cotton Mather’s relations to witchcraft was first set forth in 1 [See Peabody’s Life of Cotton Mather, pp. 311-326.] ? [For the literature of this subject, see G. H. Moore, Bibliographical Notes on Witchcraft in Massachusetts, Worcester, 1888, and Justin Winsor, “ The Literature of Witchcraft in New England,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Soc., 1895. | WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 137 Longfellow’s “ New England Tragedies,” published in 1868. The poet had studied the original documents with profound attention, and his fine critical insight had detected the truth when Upham, the Dryasdust specialist, had missed it. But the first full and adequate statement of the case y, wip was made in 1869 by the late William Frederick Poole Poole, who was at that time librarian of the Boston Athe- neum. Cultivation of the critical faculty and the exercise of it upon original sources of information are perpetually obliging us to modify, and sometimes to reverse, long-accepted judgments upon historical characters and events. In the present brief narrative I shall simply indicate, without con- troversy, the true position of Cotton Mather. His connection with the Goodwin case began late. He was the last minister invited to attend. He had nothing to do with the accusation or prosecution of the poor laundress, but after her death sentence he visited her twice in cotton prison to pray for her. She confessed to him that Mather and she had made a covenant with Satan, and was in win case the habit of going to meetings at which that personage was present. She was utterly impenitent and wanted none of his prayers. ‘ However,” as he says so sweetly in his account of the matter, “against her will I prayed with her, which, if it were a fault, it was in excess of pity.” In her confession she implicated several other persons by name, but Mather never divulged any of these names, for, as he said, “we should be very tender in such relation, lest we wrong the repu- tation of the innocent by stories not enough inquired into.” About the time of this woman’s execution Mather took the little accuser, Martha Goodwin, into his own home and kept her there for several months, partly as a subject for investi- gation, partly as a patient to be cured by prayer and judicious 1 [Mr. Poole’s paper was published in the Vo. Am. Review in April, 1869. Mr. Upham replied to it in The Historical Magazine in Sep- tember, 1869.] 138 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND treatment,! for this brilliant young clergyman was also a doctor in medicine of no mean attainments, besides knowing Cotton more law, and knowing it to better purpose, than Mather and half the jurists of his time. The girl showed her- win girl self an actress of elk-like precocity and shrewd- ness. She wished to prove that she was bewitched, and she seems to have known Mather’s prejudices against Quakers, Papists, and the Church of England; for she could read Quaker books and Catholic books fluently, and seemed quite in love with the Book of Common Prayer, but she could not Tests of be. Tread a word in the Bible or any book of Puritan witchment theology, and even in her favourite Prayer Book, whenever she came to the Lord’s Prayer she faltered and failed. Gradually the young minister’s firm good sense and kindness prevailed in calming her and making her discard such nonsense, but during the cure her symptoms showed the actress. She would refuse to go into the study, lined with its goodly tomes of Greek and Hebrew, because her devils for- bade it; then she would go into hysterics of six-young-lady- power until it occurred to some one of the family to drag her, all screams and kicks, into the sacred room ; then she would instantly grow quiet and say that the accursed thing had just gone from her in the form of a mouse, — which was of course a bit of ancient Teutonic folk-lore, a remnant of the doctrine of changelings, implicitly believed by our ancestors when they lived in what Freeman used to call Oldest England, be- fore ever Hengist and Horsa sailed for Kent. After a while the little minx was cured ; her distemper gave way to kind patience and common sense, and the affair went no farther. Cotton Mather was a firm believer in the reality of witch- 1£“ J] took her home to my own family, partly out of compassion to her parents, but chiefly that I might bea critical eye-witness of things that would enable me to confute the Sadducism of this debauch’d age.” Mather’s Magnalia, ii. 460 (Hartford ed., 1853). The Magnalia was first published in 1700.] : MIMORA? BAD PROVIDENCES, ~ : Relatin int £7 tS. oo “WITCHCRAFTS And POSSESSIONS. _ ‘A Faithful Account of‘many Wonderful asithice prifing Things, - that have befallen feveral Be~ | Cea and Pof@fed Perfons in New-England. ; Particularly, A NARRATIVE of the marvellous | Zrowble and Relecf Experienced by a us Fa~« | mily in Boffon,. very lately and fadly moleited.. « } with EVIL SPIRITS. 4 i Whereanto « added, - a i ‘A Difcourfe delivered unto a Congregation im: > Bofton, on the Occafion of that Mluftrions Prom ee As alfo’ eS I 4 Difcourfe delivered unto the fame Congrega-. a tion, on the oceafion. of an horrible’ Sel/-Adars . *. der Committed in the. Town. ~ ) With an Appendix, in vindication ofa Chapter A _ ina late Book of Remarkable Providenccs, from . 4 | the Calumnies of a Quakerat ‘Pen-filvania. Mristen’ By Cotton Mather , Minifier of the Gofpel.: 4 And Recommended by the Minifters ot Boftos and Charlefion, { Printed at Boffow in NV. ‘Exgland by 8. P. P. i689! | Sold by Fofeph Bruning, at his Shop at the Cora, { ger of the Pri cneLiant Mex’ she Lvevangss ¥ = = mo aoe ane aia TITLE OF COTTON MATHER’S “ MEMORABLE PROVIDENCES” 140 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND craft. He published an account of this case and its cure His object in the publication was twofold : first, to prove the Mather reality of witchcraft against a few bold sceptics publishesan who were lately beginning to doubt it, in spite of this case the teachings of Holy Writ ; secondly, to show the best method of effecting a cure. In this second point he was in advance of his age, and had others been as discreet and self-contained as he, there need have been no such tragedy as was soon to be enacted in Salem. All personal and local references, whatever could give the mania a concrete hold and a chance to work bodily mischief, he had kept, and ever after kept, locked up within his own breast. He had evidence enough, perhaps, to have hung half the old women in Boston, but his strong common sense taught him that the Devilis too tricksome a rascal to be worthy of much credit as an accuser. His rules of evidence were far in advance of those upon which the great lawyer, Sir Matthew Hale, had condemned people to death only four and twenty years before. Mather’s rules would not have allowed a verdict of guilty simply upon the drivelling testimony of the afflicted persons; and if this wholesome caution had been observed, not a witch would ever have been hung at Salem. Some writers have thought that the mere publication of Mather’s book must have led to the outbreak of the delusion in Salem, since it must have helped put such ideas into the heads of Salem people. But this is forgetting that the estan superstitious ideas were in everybody’s head al- Mathers’ ready. Not a man, woman, or child in Massachu- pe Salets setts, or elsewhere in the civilized world, but knew exactly how a witch should behave. Tracts and chap-books on the wretched subject abounded, and poisoned 1 [Mather’s account of this case was included in his Memorable Providences, relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, etc., Boston, 1689. Reprinted in London in 1691 as Late Memorable Providences, etc. He also gave a full account in his agnadia, Hartford ed., ii. 456-465.) WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 141 young minds as dime novels do in our time. Even if Mather had written nothing, the execution of the Irish laundress and the pranks of her little accusers were familiar topics at every fireside in New England. But in 1692, quite apart from any personal influence, there were circumstances which favoured the outbreak of an epidemic of witchcraft. In this ancient domain of Satan there were indications that Satan was beginning again to claim his own. War had broken out with outlook that Papist champion, Louis XIV., and it had so far ™ nee been going badly with God’s people in America. The shrieks of the-victims at Schenectady and Salmon Falls and Fort Loyal still made men’s blood run cold in their veins ; and the great expedition against Quebec had come home crestfallen with defeat. Evidently the Devil was bestirring himself; it was a witching time; the fuel for an explosion was laid, and it needed but a spark to fire it. That spark was provided by servants and children in the household of Samuel Parris, minister of the church at Salem Village, a group of outlying farms from three to five miles out from the town of Salem. The place was sometimes called Salem Farms, and in later times was set off as a sepa- rate township under the name of Danvers. Any one who has ever visited a small New England village can salem form some idea of the looks of the place, for the Vise type is strongly characteristic, and from the days of Cotton Mather to the introduction of railroads the changes were not great. On almost any country roadside in Massachusetts you may see to-day just such wooden houses as that in which Samuel Parris dwelt. This clergyman seems to have lived for some years in the West Indies, engaged in commercial pursuits, before he turned his attention to theology. Some special mercantile connection between Salem and Barbadoes seems to have brought him to Salem.Village, where he was installed as pastor in 1689. Anventry in the church records, 142 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND dated June 18 of that year, informs us that “it was agreed and voted by general concurrence, that for Mr. Parris his Beat encouragement and settlement in the work of the Parris, the ministry amongst us, we will give him sixty-six eos pounds for his yearly salary, — one third paid in money, the other two third parts for provisions, etc.; and Mr. Parris to find himself firewood, and Mr. Parris to keep the ministry-house in good repair; and that Mr. Parris shall also have the use of the ministry-pasture, and the inhabitants to keep the fence in repair; and that we will keep up our contributions . . . so long as Mr. Parris continues in the work of the ministry amongst us, and all productions to be good and merchantable. And if it please God to bless the inhabitants, we shall be willing to give more; and to expect that, if God shall diminish the estates of the people, that then Mr. Parris do abate of his salary according to proportion.” ? This arrangement was far from satisfying the new minister, for it only gave him the use of the parsonage and its pasture lands, whereas he was determined to get a fee simple of both. Parish Another entry in the parish book says that it was troubles voted to make over to him that real estate, but this Village entry is not duly signed by the clerk, and at the time there were parishioners who declared that it must have been put into the book by fraudulent means. Out of these circumstances there grew a quarrel which for utterly ruthless and truculent bitterness had scarcely been equalled even in the envenomed annals of New England parishes. Many peo- ple refused to pay their church-rates, till the meeting-house began to suffer for want of repairs, and complaints were made to the county court. Matters were made worse by Parris’s coarse and arrogant manners, and his excessive sever- ity in inflicting church discipline for trivial offences. By 1691 the factions into which the village was divided were ready to fly at each other’s throats. Christian charity and 1[C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, i. 291.] VdOLIL JO NOILVNINVXA AO ATIWISOVA Whee. I; Gl eS ‘y+ 4%) Crom 9 “Moy : ‘Wop : denk ows ere PP om ooy BG Fo ay & Ok fy FS47uy PSF AAW mM away ape vd 24 Pee hee mn ROGAN ROK. OM} ae : 10 Kono re Pe AL Pigs 5S OO UE MOM tar Root By Ama ‘ 3 en. SY yooh Ae re AN < . GOO £3 we “IE YIM F O° Qa30M Qynom-%) OM Weng la ei OVC eh Sm tyes tae ay A Fig ed ous HY EES ~) 4y SA op ' . » "Sa ke ESS WI -Y t HAM foou oO AGM 40 a same Wy 9 a yas SP 9, NEY hos¥) QAAB—AVOYy) Ka Se + CG et Cetin pel Sys Lace ll Die rer. Lb706 VEL Your Fee. ey i 7 a Ce ee FEE ' Flas 2 é : yi will LL fren Oten /ty ra Cer.2 pire” Goatel cf , SR fpr Déd bof L- Mor reccd tivfl. wfc trond pe wl Gevbarnent z ee eae a é FACSIMILIE OF LETTER OF ROBERT CALEF to feel their power. Their next blow was aimed at victims of far higher sort. The wretched Tituba knew human nature well enough to consult her own safety by acting as king’s evi- dence,? and in her examination she testified that four women 1 (For the details of these examinations, see W. E. Woodward, Records of Salem Witchcraft, Roxbury, Mass., 1864, i. 1-49; Upham, li. 4-32; Nevins, Witchcraft in Salem Village, pp. 57-69.] * [“The account she since gives of it is that her master did beat her, and otherways abuse her, to make her confess and accuse (such 148 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND of the village tormented the girls; two of them were Good and Osburn, but the faces of the other two she said she could not see. After Tituba had gone to prison, the girls were urged to give up the names of these other two tormentors. At first they refused, but shortly it began to be whispered in bated breath that some of the most respected and godly persons in the village were leagued with Satan in this hor- The accusa. TiDle conspiracy. About the middle of March the fies aus whole community was thunderstruck by the arrest and Re- of Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse. Of these two becca Nurse Jadies the former was about sixty years of age, the latter more than seventy. As they were addressed not as “Mrs.,” but as “ Goodwife,” their position was not exactly aristocratic. It was nevertheless most respectable. They were thoroughly well-bred and well-educated ladies, full of sweet courtesy and simple-hearted kindliness, like the best of farmers’ wives in New England villages of to-day. Mar- tha Corey was third wife of Giles Corey, a farmer eighty years old, a man of herculean stature and strength, proud, self-willed, and contentious, but frank and noble, with a rash, unruly tongue. He had been in many a quarrel, and had made Redcat enemies. His wife, so far as we know, had not. i Macs She was a woman of deep and sincere piety, with as clear and sound a head as could be found anywhere between Cape Cod and Cape Ann. She disbelieved in witch- craft, was inclined to regard it as a mere delusion, and had no sympathy with the excitement which was beginning to turn the village topsy-turvy. She did not flock with the mul- titude to see the accusing girls, but she reproved her more credulous husband for giving heed to such tomfoolery, and he, with that uncurbed tongue of his, was heard to utter as he called) her sister-witches: and that whatsoever she said by way of confessing, or accusing others, was the effect of such usage.” Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, Salem reprint, 1823, p. 189.] zogr ‘If AVW ‘YHaLHOAVG YAH GNV WVYNLAd NNV ‘SUN AO NOILISOdT - e e oy HpfiroenD BPN | 4 aoe sre fay Bee | —< cette Jy bye G7 eg eree, Ee e 4 Sa aR at phage nay to dd» Pry Ved dary yyy 6 haya. Soop Lung erie of 75 pray FO pry AT “yA ust Py ~~ time VA HS G zylheprs asonl aor way Jo bto-mimahog el Ugh J Ooh vung Jo e-& OS Sn 2m Wyo y Sny Qvilve. gw : apn fee . = AK fe te de iS amady x3 3000, Z 7 srapmt YY sn rol Spigw live UW mney wig 2a? 2 bp 1. mins Word vie Rp lS 2 Fred “lengpen, gOS oe fl fags 6 FY por watag, prrvarywowe subg hue yon a oes SEE ES hae egg bregiouy prey "Ig pk tay ee EL Fae beewery tem ff) york quae putes 77H v2 bor. hout -t£ - BOS, ij vipat Clyy nt ©; B24 * : Ree z "3 pees ats = ike ome Se eh ee poe ee i Re ee Wy % Se Sep as oe SSS 150 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND indiscreet jests about his good wife’s scepticism. It was probably this that caused her to be selected as a victim. Sceptics must be made to feel the danger of impugning the authority of the accusers and the truth of their tales, Accordingly Martha Corey, accused by little Ann Putnam, was soon in jail awaiting trial. The next was Rebecca Nurse. She was one of three sis- ters, daughters of William Towne of Yarmouth, in England. Rebecca Her two sisters, who were arrested soon after her, Bures were Mary Easty and Sarah Cloyse. With their husbands they were all persons held in highest esteem, but an ancient village feud had left a grudge against them in some revengeful bosoms. Half a century before there had been a fierce dispute between parties from Salem and from Topsfield who had settled in the border region between the two townships. The dispute related to the possession of cer- tain lots of land; it had grown more and more complicated, Avillage and it had engendered hard feelings between the feud Putnams on one side and the Eastys and Townes on the other. Besides this, Rebecca Nurse and her husband had become obnoxious to the Putnams and to the Rev. Mr. Parris from reasons connected with the church dispute. There was evidently a method in the madness of the accus- ing girls. Rebecca Nurse was arrested two days after the committal of Martha Corey. The appearance of this vener- able and venerated lady before the magistrates caused most profound sensation. Her numerous children and grand- children stood high in public esteem, her husband was one of the most honoured persons in the community, herself a model of every virtue. As she stood there, delicate and fragile in figure, with those honest eyes that looked one full Theex. inthe face, that soft gray hair and dainty white egret muslin kerchief, one marvels what fiend can have Nurse possessed those young girls that they did not shamefastly hold their peace. In the intervals of question SPE IE ake Cough bof o> sr pdaes Dajuus « Vere) Ly GO A BRIEF and TRUE NARRATIVE Of fome Remarkable Paffages Relating to fandry Perfons "Afflicted by WVitcher alt, SALEM VILLAGE: Which happened from the Nineteenth of March, to the Fifth of teh eg sO ge ‘Colle&ted by © Deodat Leaf - 28 « B8as Belton, Printed for Benjamin Warris and are to be Sold at bis Ship, over “arnt hy Old-Mesting-Houfe, 1692, TITLE OF LAWSON’s “A BRIEF AND TRUE NARRATIVE” ° . 152 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND and answer they went into fits as usual. When the magis- trate Hathorne became visibly affected by the lady’s clear and straightforward answers, the relentless Mrs. Putnam broke out with a violence dreadful to behold: “ Did you not bring the black man with you? Did you not bid me tempt God and die? How often have you eaten and drunk your own damnation?’’ At this outburst, like the horrible snarl of a lioness, the poor old lady raised her hands toward hea- ven and cried, “O Lord, help me!” Whereupon all the afflicted girls “were grievously vexed.” Hathorne thought that their spasms were caused by a mysterious influence emanating from Goodwife Nurse’s lifted hands, and so his heart was hardened toward her. Mary Walcott cried out that the prisoner was biting her, and then showed marks of teeth upon her wrist. Thus the abominable scene went on till Rebecca Nurse was remanded to jail to await her trial. That was on a Thursday morning. The Rev. Deodat Lawson, a fine scholar and powerful preacher, had arrived in the village a few days before, and it was known that Deodat he was to preach the afternoon sermon familiar Lawson in those days as the Thursday lecture. He had scarcely arrived when two or three of the girls called upon him and drove him nearly out of his wits with their per- formances. Their victory over him was complete, and the result was seen in that Thursday lecture, which was afterwards printed, and is a literary production of great in- tensity and power. The arrests of Martha Corey and Re- becca Nurse had destroyed all confidence, everybody dis- trusted his neighbour, and that impassioned sermon goaded the whole community to madness. If the Devil could use a such “gospel women” for his instruments, what e spread ee safety was there for anybody? Arrests went on with increasing rapidity during the spring and sum- mer, until at least 126 persons, of whom we know the names and something of the family history, were lodged in jail; WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 153 and these names do not exhaust the number. Among them —to mention only such as were executed —we may note that John Procter and the venerable George Jacobs had each had one of the accusing girls in his family as a domestic servant, and in both cases personal malice was visibly at work. In the case of George Jacobs it may also eet be observed that his own granddaughter, to save personal her own life, confessed herself a witch, and testi- oar fied against him ; afterward she confessed this horrible wick- edness. Sarah Wildes, Elizabeth How, and Mary Easty THE JACOBS HOUSE, SALEM were connected with the Topsfield affair already mentioned. Some, such as Susannah Martin, seem to have owed their fate to mere superstition of the lowest sort. On a rainy day she walked over a good bit of country road without getting her hose or skirts muddy, and it was sagely concluded that such neatness could only have been attained through the aid 154 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND of the Devil. She was mother of the Mabel Martin about whom Whittier wrote his beautiful poem, “The Witch’s Daughter.” John Willard incurred his doom for having said that it was the accusing girls who were the real witches worthy of the gallows, and John Procter in a similar spirit had said that by the judicious application of a cudgel he could effect a prompt and thorough cure for all the little hussies. People who ventured such remarks took their lives in their hands. The boldest and most remarkable of all these arrests was that of the Rev. George Burroughs, and it was one of the cases in which malice was most clearly concerned. This gentleman was graduated at Harvard College in 1670, and had been pastor over the church in Salem Village from 1680 to 1682. He had left there because of church ae feuds, in which he had the misfortune to belong to Burroughs the party hostile to Mrs. Ann Putnam and her friends. He was afterwards settled over a church in Wells, Maine, and was liv- ing there quietly in the : 1692, when about FU Marr $0: Lf, the first of May he was arrested and taken to Salem to answer a charge of witchcraft. His physical strength was alleged against him. Though small in frame he could carry a barrel of cider and hold out a heavy musket at arm’s length, which without in- fernal aid was not likely. On accusations brought by the afflicted girls he was thrown into prison. All the events thus far recounted happened under the pro- visional government of Massachusetts that followed the over- cieeieet throw of Andros. Now in the middle of May the court first royal governor, Sir William Phips, arrived in pbk Boston with the new charter. Military duties soon called him far down East, and he did not return till October. 1 [CE Nevins, Witchcraft in Salem Village, pp. 131 ff.] WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 155 Before his departure he appointed a special court of Oyer and Terminer to try the witchcraft cases. William Stough- ton was presiding justice, and among his colleagues it may suffice to mention John Hathorne for his connection with one of the most illustrious names in modern literature, and 156 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND Samuel Sewall, in whose voluminous diary we have such a wonderful picture of that old Puritan society. Early in the proceedings this court requested the opinion of the ministers in Boston and neighbouring towns concern- ing the subject then uppermost in all minds. The opinion, written by Cotton Mather, one of the youngest of the min- isters, and subscribed by all the most eminent, was calm and judicial. It ran as follows : — Boston, June 15, 1692. 1. “ The afflicted state of our poor neighbours that are Pen laas e suffering by molestations from the Invisible ee. World we apprehend so deplorable, that we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all per- sons in their several capacities. 2. “ We cannot but with all thankfulness acknowledge the success which the merciful God has given unto the sedulous and assiduous endeavours of our honourable rulers to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country; humbly praying that the discovery of these mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected. 3. “We judge that, in the prosecution of these and all such witchcrafts there is need of a very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too much credulity for things received only upon the devil’s authority, there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage over us; for we should not be ignorant of his devices. 4. “Asin complaints upon witchcraft there may be matters of inquiry which do not amount unto matters of presump- tion, and there may be matters of presumption which yet may not be matters of conviction, so it is necessary that all proceedings thereabout be managed with an exceeding ten- derness toward those that may be complained of, especially if they have been persons formerly of an unblemished repv- tation. 5. “ When the first inquiry is made into the circumstances WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 157 of such as may lie under the just suspicion of witchcrafts, we could wish that there may be admitted as little as possible of such noise, company and openness as may too hastily ex- pose them that are examined, and that there may be nothing used as a test for the trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted by the people of God, but that the directions given by such judicious writers as Perkins and Barnard may be observed. 6. “ Presumptions whereupon persons may be committed, and much more, convictions whereupon persons may be con- demned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused persons being repre- sented by a spectre unto the afflicted, inasmuch as it is an undoubted and notorious thing, that a demon may by God’s permission appear, even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous man. Nor can we esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a look or touch of the accused, to be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be abused by the devil’s legerdemains. 7. “We know not whether some remarkable affronts given the devils, by our disbelieving these testimonies whose whole force and strength is from them alone, may not put a period unto the progress of the dreadful calamity begun upon us, in the accusation of so many persons, whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the great transgression laid to their charge. 8. “ Nevertheless, we cannot but humbly recommend unto the government, the speedy and vigorous prosecutions of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious, according to the direc- tions given in the laws of God and the wholesome statutes of the English nation for the detection of witchcrafts.” Had these recommendations been followed, not a single capital conviction could have been secured. Note the warn- ing to the judges against relying upon “ spectral evidence ” or upon the physical effects apparently wrought upon the 158 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND accusers by the presence of the accused persons, since evi- dence of that sort is “frequently liable to be abused by the devil’s legerdemains.” Now every one of the victims was convicted and hung upon the strength of ‘spectral evidence” or the tantrums of the afflicted children, or both combined. Spectra | And what, pray, was “spectral evidence”? Lit- evidence tle Ann Putnam’s testimony against Mr. Burroughs was an instance of it. She said that one evening the appa- rition of a minister came to her and asked her to write her name in the devil’s book ; then came the forms of two women in winding sheets, and looked angrily upon the minister and scolded him till he was fain to vanish away; then the women told little Ann that they were the ghosts of Mr. Burroughs’s first and second wives whom he had murdered, and one of them showed the very place under the left arm where he had stabbed her. At another time three other persons who had recently died appeared to Ann and accused Mr. Bur- roughs of murdering them, and commanded her to tell these things to the magistrates before Mr. Burroughs’s face. On such evidence was a gentleman and scholar condemned to death.! So when Mercy Lewis was found sobbing and scream- ing, “ Dear Lord, receive my soul,” “O Lord, let them not kill me quite,” the same Ann Putnam and Abigail Williams were sent for to see what was the matter, and both declared that they saw the apparitions of Mary Easty and John Wil- lard pinching and biting and strangling poor Mercy Lewis. On such evidence Mary Easty and John Willard were sent to the gallows. With such ghost stories did Mary Wal- cott and Elizabeth Hubbard convict Rebecca Nurse of three hideous murders, naming persons who had died within a few years. When the astounded old lady called upon. God to witness her innocence, the girls all went into fits. Never- theless it was hard to obtain a verdict against her. 1 [See Cotton Mather’s account of Burroughs’s case, Wonders of the Invisible World, pp. 120 ff.] WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE TITLE OF HALE’S ‘‘A MODEST ENQUIRY” 168 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND The execution of Mary Easty, Martha Corey, and their six companions was the last scene in the tragedy. Further trials were held, but there were no more executions, and early in Sadan 1693 all the prisoners were set free. As to the collapse of cause of this sudden collapse in the frenzy we may say that it came, as such collapses always come, when humanity has been outraged more than it will bear. Why did the guillotine stop its work in 1794 just after the fall of Robespierre? The men who overthrew him were not much better than himself, but the state of things had come to be unendurable. Such periods of furious excitement in- evitably lead up to a moment of reaction, and the suddenness and completeness of the reaction is apt to be proportionate to the intensity and ferocity of the excitement. The reign of terror in Salem Village was due to a temporary destruc- tion of confidence ; everybody became afraid of his neigh- Reaction | bours, and there is nothing so pitiless as fear. But jolows the many long ages of social discipline based upon strain mutual confidence, without which human society could not exist, have made that sentiment so strong and tough that it cannot be suppressed for more than a short time. The feeling with which people endured the sight of Rebecca Nurse and George Burroughs and Martha Corey hanged like common felons was a feeling of tension that must soon give way. The accusing girls did not appreciate this point; they became overweeningly bold and aimed too high. Increase Mather, President of Harvard College, had expressed his disapproval of the methods of the court, anda Theaccus member of his family was accused. Then the girls ae too cried out against Rev. Samuel Willard, pastor of the Old South Church in Boston, a man of as much eminence in his day as the late Phillips Brooks. They even assailed Lady Phips, the governor’s wife, who condemned their proceedings and expressed sympathy with the victims. In these instances the girls struck too high. The same WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 169 Stoughton and Hathorne, who could take for granted the guilt of Martha Corey, could entertain no such thoughts about Mr. Willard, and when some of the girls mentioned his name they were sharply rebuked and told to hold their tongues. Their final and most fa- . fro Wyk. tal mistake was made in October, when they accused Mrs. Hale, wife of the minister in Beverly, a lady known throughout the colony for her noble Christian character. The vile accusa- tion opened the eyes of her husband, who had been active in the pursuit of the witches. He instantly faced about, began to oppose the whole prosecution, and confessed that he had been deceived. This was a fatal blow to the witch- hunters, and the effect was presently enhanced when accusers some high-spirited persons in Andover, on being ‘heatened accused of witchcraft, retorted by bringing an ac- fordamages tion for defamation of character with heavy damages. This marked the end of the panic, and from that time people began to be quick in throwing off the whole witchcraft delusion. Another circumstance is worthy of notice in this connection. About three weeks after the execution of Martha Corey and her companions the General Court of Massachusetts was assembled at Boston. It was different from any General Court that had sat before, for it was the first Court elected under the new charter. Under the old charter none but church members could either serve as representatives or vote for representatives.!. Under the new charter such restrictions were abolished and a property qualification was sub- the court stituted for them. The effect was not only greatly of Oyer and to widen the suffrage, but also to secularize it. One abolished of the first acts of the new legislature was to abolish the 1 [This was modified in 1664, in response to the king’s command, so as to extend the suffrage to all respectable citizens of orthodox opin- ions.] 170 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND special court of Oyer and Terminer under which the witch- craft trials had been held, and to establish a superior court. When the new court met in January, the change was visible. The grand jury began by throwing out more than half of the indictments.1 In the mean time a tract published by In- crease Mather, entitled “Cases of Conscience,’’? had done Gétian much to cast discredit upon spectral evidence. Mather As for Cotton Mather, he had not been present at any of the witch trials, nor do we know of any comment which he made upon them at the time, except that Calef tell us that at the execution of Mr. Burroughs young Mather was present on horseback, having, perhaps, ridden down from Boston for the occasion. Calef says the spectators were so impressed with Burroughs’s innocence of demeanour that Cotton Mather felt it necessary to tell them that the devil might take on the semblance of a saint or an angel; and that thereupon, the people being appeased, the execu- tions went on. Now Calef has so often been convicted of inaccuracy that his statement here is open to suspicion. The argument that Satan might assume the appearance of some person of known innocence or excellence was a favour- ite one with Cotton Mather when he was inveighing against spectral evidence. As applied to the alleged testimony of the two deceased wives of Mr. Burroughs, it had a peculiarly Matherian meaning; it meant that instead of the first and second Mrs. Burroughs, it was the devil who was talking to little Ann Putnam, so that therefore the unfortunate minis- Explana- | ter was condemned upon the devil’s evidence. As Mute; ordinarily understood, in the sense that Mr. Bur- apeoch roughs himself was an impersonation of the devil, the remark ascribed by Calef to Mather does not fit in with [} See Sir William Phips’s report to the home government of his policy in regard to the troubles, Palfrey, iv. 112, 113.] [? This occupies pp. 220-291 of the London reprint of the Wonders of the Invisible World.) Cafes of Canitience | Concerning evil | Perfonating’ Men, - Witchcrafts, infallikle Proofs of Guilt in fuch.as are accufed with that. Crime. JAN Contidered according to the Scriptures, ‘Hi*ory, Experience, and the Judgment! ef many Learned mon. . By nereate BPather, Prefident of Warvaro Colledge at Cambrisec, and Teacher of; aChurch at BOSTON in New-England. Prov. 22. 24. --- That thow mightest Anfwer the words of Truth, to tim that ford unto thee, . Efficiunt Demones, ut que non funt, fic tamen, quai fint ,confpicienda hemtnibys exhibeante Laétantius Lib, 2. Indi. Cap.15. Diabolus Cenfulitur, cum ijs medi; s erimur al.quid Cognofcendi que a Diabole fure introduita. |4mes. Cafe Confe. Le 4. Car 23, , ; BOSTON Printed, and Sold by Benjamin Harris at the Loadon Coffee-Houfe. 1693. pa TITLE OF INCREASE MATHER’S “CASES OF CONSCIENCE” apy. ay a __- fhe CHtonvers of the Invifible Cor Herts, - OBSE RVATIONS ee ae well Aiftorical as Theologica’, upon the NATURE, the NUMBER, and the OPERA TIONS of the DEVILS Accompany“d with,» 1. Some Accounts of the Grievous Moleftations, by DA MONS and WITCHCRAFT, which have lately annoy’d the Countrey ; and the T tials of fome cui r Malef s‘lors Executed upon occafion thereof: swith feverak Remarkable Curiofities therein occturring. Il. Some Couniils, Directing a due Improvement of the ter- rible things, lately done, by the Unulval & Amazing Rangeof EVIL SPIRITS, in Our Neighbourhood : & — the methods to prevent the Wrongs which thofe Exit Angels may intend againtt all forts of peopleamong us 5 efpetial ly in Accu dons of the Innocent. IIL. Some Conjectures upon the’ great EV TENTS, key to befall; the WORLD ia Gonce ay and NEW-EN-~ GLAND in Parcitul ar; asalio upon the Advances Of Z they TIME, when we thall fc: BEL TER DAYES. ‘ IV_A fhort Narrative ofa late Outrage committed by>a knot of WITCHES in Swedeland, very much Refem- bling, and fo far Explaining, Thac under which our parts of America have laboured ! V. THE DEVIL DISCOVERED: In a Brief Difeoutte. upon ‘thole TEMPTATIONS, which are the more Ordinary Devicee __of the Wicked One. | , By Cotten Mathes ‘Bellon Printed by Benj. Harris for Sam. Phillipe: 169% - Ww ” TITLE OF COTTON MATHER’S “THE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 173 his habits of expression and has no point. Apart from this misconstruction, there is nothing in the records to set off against the weighty evidence of Mather’s own rules of pro- cedure, which were in themselves the strongest condemna- tion the court could have had. Longfellow’s picture of Ma- ther in his tragedy of Giles Corey seems absolutely justified, except in one trifling particular, when he makes him say to Mary Walcott, “ Accept an old man’s blessing,” which from a spruce young minister of twenty-nine is, no doubt, a slight anachronism. The reign of terror we have been describing was the ex- piring paroxysm of the witchcraft delusion. In the energy of the reaction sceptics declared themselves in all quarters. How Judge Sewall, only five years afterward, got fadzewew up in the Old South Church and publicly acknow- ll’s public . < acknowledg- ledged his shame and repentance is known to every ment of one. Not all the court were so open to conviction, “’°"® Stoughton, who was at best a narrow-minded and cross- grained creature, maintained to his dying day that he had done nothing to be sorry for. Of the wretched children, one of the most active, Ann Putnam, fourteen years ss afterward, humbled herself before the village church Putnam’s at Salem and declared that she had been instru. “°™*"°" mental, with others, in bringing upon the land the guilt of innocent blood; “though what was said or done by me against any person, I can truly and uprightly say before God and man, I did it not out of any anger, malice, or ill-will to any person, for I had no such thing against one of them, but what I did was ignorantly, being deluded of Satan. And particularly as I was a chief instrument of accusing Goodwife Nurse and her two sisters, I desire to lie in the dust and to be humbled for it, in that I was a cause, with others, of so sad a calamity to them and their families.” } I think we should accept this solemn disclaimer of malice 1 (Nevins, Witchcraft in Salem Village, p. 250.] 174 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND as sufficient evidence that in 1706 the poor girl did not be- lieve herself to have been actuated by unworthy motives in 1692. By declaring herself to have been deluded by Satan she meant that when she accused Rebecca Nurse and George Burroughs and others she said what she believed to be true at the time, but had since learned to reject as false. In other words, when a little girl of twelve, she believed that she had WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 175 seen the ghosts of Mr. Burroughs’s wives and other persons who said that they had been murdered, but as a young woman of six and twenty she looked back upon this as a delusion, and charged it to Satan. This brings us to the ques- tion, Are we justified in accepting this explanation were the of Ann Putnam as to her own conduct, and shall *eisve. we suppose the case to have been substantially the shamming? same with the other girls? Did they really have visions of ghosts and black men and yellow birds and devil’s autograph books, or was it alla lie? Did they really fall into convul- sions, and fancy themselves pricked with pins, and cut and bitten, or was all that put on for effect? In his elaborate history Mr. Upham seems to incline toward the latter view. Certainly the fits came and went, and the ghost stories were told, as if to order, and certainly there was methodical co- operation of some sort, if not collusion, between most if not all the girls, and Ann Putnam’s mother and the gyigences minister Parris. There can be no doubt as to such of collusion codperation. They all worked together as harmoniously and relentlessly as the cog-wheels in a machine. Of the victims from Salem Village and the towns near by, a large majority were persons against whom either the Putnam family, or the minister, or some of the afflicted girls, are known to have entertained a grudge; others were sceptics whose scoffing remarks were liable to weaken the authority of the accusers. When we have eliminated these two classes, very few names are left. Like the tracks of various beasts which Master Reynard saw, all pointing toward the lion’s cave and none coming out from it, the traces of evidence here all point in the same direction, —all point toward methodical codpera- tion between the accusers. The question remains, however, was this codperation a case of conscious and deliberate conspiracy, or must we seek some other explanation? The theory of conspiracy, toward which Mr. Upham seems inclined, offers us a spectacle of astound- 176 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND ing wickedness. We are asked to believe that a minister of the gospel and a lady of high position in the community make up their minds to destroy their enemies, and for that purpose employ young girls in their families to pretend illness and bring false accusations conceived and supported Was there 7 . , adeliberate with all the skill of trained actresses! Such a ne. conspiracy is much too diabolical and altogether too elaborate for belief. Moreover, it leaves out of account the most important fact in the whole case,—the fact that the accusers, like nearly all the rest of the community, unques- tionably believed in the reality of witchcraft. It will not do to invest those poor girls with a nineteenth century con- sciousness. The same delusion that conquered learned magis- trates led them also astray. Still more, they were doubtless in a morbid mental condition. A large part of Indian medi- ee cine consists of convulsive muscular movements, ofhysterical twitching, capering, and groaning, accompanied by emotion 7 : an awestruck belief in the presence of some super- natural agency. Such convulsive movements tend to prolong themselves, to recur with spasmodic violence, and they are in a high degree contagious. Abundant instances may be found among the experiences of revival meetings, where mul- titudes of ignorant minds are at work after much the same fashion as the Indian’s, though in connection with different religious symbols. This kind of hysterical excitement selects for its victims impressionable people with sensitive nerves; it attacks children more frequently than adults, and women Peychology MOTE frequently than men; vivacious and quickly eh elena responsive temperaments are more subject to it than those that are phlegmatic and slow. Under suitable circumstances it easily develops into a thoroughly morbid mental state, in which convulsive movements are attended by partial and temporary hallucinations ; the ner- vous impressions become so vivid that ideas are clothed with externality and mistaken for realities. Such are the charac- WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 177 teristics of hysteria and allied forms of mental disturbance, which differ from true insanity in being merely temporary and functional, and not connected with any organic lesion. They are very striking phenomena, and often very shocking, but not more mysterious than many other phases of abnor- mal mental life. It was not strange that an ignorant age should have called them the result of witchcraft ; that same age, we must remember, regarded ordinary insanity as the direct work of the devil. Applying these considerations to the case of the Salem girls, we may suppose that the minister’s West Indian ser- vants began by talking Indian: medicine and teaching its tricks to his daughter and niece ; then the girls of their ac- quaintance would naturally become interested, and would seek to relieve the monotony of the winter evenings by tak- ing part in the performances. Their first motives are most likely to have been playful, but there was probably praying a half-shuddering sense of wickedness, a slight Wit fre aroma of brimstone, about the affair, which may have made it the more attractive. I feel sure that sooner or later some of those girls would find themselves losing control over their spasms, and thus, getting more than they had bargained for, would deem themselves bewitched by Tituba and John In- dian. But, especially if they found themselves taken to task by their parents, the dread of punishment — perhaps of church discipline, wherein Parris was notably severe — would be sure to make them blame the Indians in order to screen them- selves. If Cotton Mather’s methods had now been followed, the affair would have been hushed, and the girls isolated from each other would have been subjected to quiet and The evils of soothing treatment; and thus no doubt it would Buiicity in all have ended. But when Parris made the affair "tions as public as possible, when learned doctors of divinity and medicine came and watched those girls, and declared them bewitched, what more was needed to convince their young 178 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND minds that they were really in that dreadful plight? Such a belief must of course have added to their hysterical con- dition. Naturally they accused Tituba, and as for the two old women, Good and Osburn, very likely some of the girls may really have been afraid of them as evil-eyed or otherwise uncanny. For the rest of the story a guiding influence is needed, and I think we may find it in Mrs. Putnam. She was one of the Carrs of Salisbury, a family which for several generations Explana- had been known as extremely nervous and excita- tion of Ms; ble. There had been cases of insanity among her part near relatives. The deaths of some of her own children and of a beloved sister, with other distressing events, had clouded her mind. She had once been the most spar- kling and brilliant of women, but was sinking into melan- cholia at the time when the first stories of witchcraft came from the parsonage and she learned that her little daughter Ann, a precocious and imaginative child, was one of the afflicted. Mrs. Putnam and her husband were both firm be- lievers in witchcraft. I do not think it strange that her dis- eased mind should have conjured up horrible fancies about Goodwife Nurse, member of a family which she probably hated all the more bitterly for the high esteem in which it was generally held. Mrs. Putnam fell into violent hysterical fits like her daughter, and their bright and active servant Mercy Lewis was afflicted likewise. These three, with the minister’s niece Abigail Williams and her friend Mary Wal- cott, were the most aggressive and driving agents in the She whole tragedy. I presume Mrs. Putnam may have pee exercised something like what it is now fashionable contr’, to call hypnotic influence over the young girls. children She honestly believed that witches were hurting them all, and she naturally suspected foes rather than friends. I see no good reason for doubting that she fully believed her own ghost stories, or that the children believed theirs. In WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM VILLAGE 179 their exalted state of mind they could not distinguish be- tween what they really saw and what they vividly fancied. It was analogous to what often occurs in delirium. Such an explanation of the witchcraft in Salem Village accounts for the facts much better than any such violent supposition as that of conscious conspiracy. Our fit attitude of mind toward it is pity for all concerned, yet the feelings of horror and disgust are quite legitimate, for the course of the affair was practically the same as if it had been shaped by deliberate and conscious malice. It is on the whole the most gruesome episode in American history, and it sheds back a lurid light upon the long tale of witchcraft in the past. Few instances of the delusion have attracted so much attention as this at Salem, and few have had the details so fully and minutely preserved. It was the last witch epi- demic recorded in the history of fully civilized nations. It occurred among people of our own sort, and the sixth gen- eration, born since it happened, has not yet passed away. It came just as the superstition which produced it was about to die out from the thoughts of educated men, and there is no monument more conspicuous than the Salem Witchcraft to mark the remote and fast receding side of the gulf which the human mind has traversed in these two centuries. For these reasons it looms up in our memory, and is sometimes alluded to as if it were in some way a singular or exceptional instance of superstition. Yet in Europe, only a few years earlier, the hanging of nineteen persons for witchcraft in a single village and in the course of a single summer would have called forth no special comment. The case 4). case of of Salem Village may help us in the attempt to Salem Vil 5 ; ge helps form some dim conception of the stupendous. one to real- wickedness that must have been wrought by the rors of the terrible delusion in the days of its stalwart prime, oe when victims by the hundred were burned at the ‘Ps stake. We can but faintly imagine what must have been the 180 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND destruction of confidence, the breaking of the dearest ties, ‘the madness, the reign of savage terror; and we cannot be too grateful that the gaunt spectre which stalked so long over the fairest parts of earth has at length been exorcised forever ! CHAPTER VI THE GREAT AWAKENING OnE of the effects of the witchcraft epidemic at Salem was to cast discredit upon the clergy, who still represented the old theocratic ideal which had founded the Common- wealth of Massachusetts. It is true, that with regard to the prosecutions of witches, the more eminent among the clergy had behaved with much wisdom and discretion; nevertheless, the new public opinion, receiving its tone far more _ from laymen than formerly, was inclined to charge reaction this whole business of diabolism to the account of ee the men who represented an old and discredited “°° state of things. With regard to the reality of witchcraft, Cotton Mather had been foremost among the defenders of the belief, and now that there came a sudden and violent reaction against the superstition, it made little difference to people that he had been remarkably discreet and temperate in his handling of the matter; it was enough that he had been a believer and prominent advocate. To some extent Cotton Mather was made the chief butt of popular resent- ment because he and his father especially typified the old theocratic state of things. Now the old Puritan theocracy in the early days when Winthrop and Cotton led it had framed for itself an ideal of society that was at least lofty and noble, although from the first there were settlers who dissented from it. The defen- sive wall behind which the theocracy sought to shelter itself from all hostile attack was the restriction of the rights to vote and hold office to members of the Congregational 182 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND churches in full communion. One of the first effects of this policy was to drive away from Massachusetts the men who founded Connecticut! and some of those who founded Rhode Island ; but after such depletions there was a consid- erable number left in Massachusetts who were disfranchised, and who would have been glad in many respects to secularize the government. In the second period of the theocracy, with cst Endicott, Bellingham, and Norton at the head, the ; e ori ; rae opposition had become very strong ; indeed, it fore numbered a majority of the population. When the eocracy Quakers arrived upon the scene, determined to stay in the Commonwealth at all hazards and thus destroy its character as a united body of believers, there is little doubt that a majority of the people sympathized with them2 The violent policy pursued by magistrates and ministers soon failed because the force of a new and growing public opinion was arrayed against it. During the reign of Charles II. the course of the theocracy, in spite of its narrowness and ar- rogance, commands our admiration for the boldness with which it resisted all attempts of the British government to interfere with the local administration of the colony. There can be no doubt that the Massachusetts theocracy then made a splendid fight for the principles of political freedom, so far as they concerned the relation between a colonial and im- perial government. At the same time, the theocracy at home was felt as more and more oppressive. By the time of the death of Charles II. it was reckoned that four fifths of the adult males in Massachusetts were disfranchised be- cause of inability to participate in the Lord’s Supper. It is not strange, therefore, that between the one fifth who ruled, 1 [Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, Illustrated Edition, pp. 133, 276. * on ae Quakers in Massachusetts, cf. Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, Mlustrated Edition, pp. 205 ff. ; Doyle, Zhe English in America, The Puritan Colonies, ii. 126 ff.; and R. P. Hallowell, 7he Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts.] THE GREAT AWAKENING 183 and the four fifths who had no voice in ruling, there should have been marked differences of policy accompanied with a good deal of ill-feeling. In view of such difficulties which began to be foreseen soon after 1650, an opinion grew up that all baptized persons of upright and decorous lives ought to be considered, for practical purposes, as members of the church, and therefore entitled to the exercise of political rights, even though un- qualified for participation in the Lord’s Supper. This theory, according to which a person might be a halfway : member of the church, — member enough for polit- Halfway 2 oe Covenant ical purposes, but not for religious, — was known at the time as the “ Halfway Covenant.”’! It formed the occa- sion for prolonged and bitter controversy, in which prom- inent clergymen took opposite sides. It was contended by some that its natural tendency would be toward the spiritual demoralization of the church, while others denied that such would be its practical effect, and pointed to the lamentable severance between ecclesiastics and laymen as a much greater evil. In the First Church of Boston, the Halfway Covenant was decisively condemned, and the Rev. John Davenport, a theocrat of extreme type, was called from New Haven to be its pastor. Then the minority in the church, who approved of the Halfway Covenant, seceded in 1669 and formed themselves into a new society known as the South ay. soutn Church, further defined in later days as the “Old Church South.” The wooden meeting-house of this society, which occupied the spot of land upon which its brick successor 1 (Cf. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, pp. 467 ff.; Walker, Aéstory of Congregational Churches, pp. 170 ff; Trumbull, History of Connecticut, i. 296 ff. ; Palfrey, History of New England, ii. 487 f£.; Doyle, The English in America, The Puritan Colonies, ii. 96; Bancroft, History of the United States (author's last revision), i. 360 ; Massachusetts Colonial fecords, vol. iv. pt. ii. pp. 117 and 164. Dr. Dexter, p. 476, gives two specimen “ Halfway Cove- nants.” ] 184 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND still stands to-day, was a favorite place for meetings which dealt with political questions, and in a certain sense its founding may be regarded as a kind of political safety valve for the agitation in Massachusetts. In spite of such palliatives, however, the opposition grew, and it was apt to take the form of political Toryism, or a disposition to uphold the British government in its contests aie eee with the theocracy. From this point of view we sitionto may regard Joseph Dudley and his friends as the the theo- P cracy lays founders of New England Toryism. Boston was Lene becoming a place of some commercial note, sus- Toryism taining business relations with various parts of the world. Among its residents were members of the Church of England, who desired a place of worship for themselves, and naturally felt indignant that nothing of the sort was allowed to be provided. Such was the state of affairs when the old charter was re- scinded, and Sir Edmund Andros was sent by James II. to govern New England according to his own sweet will, with- out any constitutional checks or limitations. The rule of Andros produced for the moment something approaching to unanimity of opposition, for there were few men in Massa- chusetts ready to surrender the charter of their liberties, although there were many who would be glad to see it modified. After the well-planned and fortunate insurrection which expelled Andros, the representatives of the theocracy, and in particular Increase Mather, made every effort to ob- tain from William JI]. a charter essentially similar to the Thenew Old one. In this they were completely defeated. charter of The new charter, with its substitution of a royal setts governor for a governor elected by church mem- bers, dealt a serious blow at the independence of the Com- monwealth, At the same time the wide extension of the 1 [Mr. Fiske writes a little more fully of this movement in The Be- ginnings of New England, \lustrated Edition, pp. 278 ff.] THE GREAT AWAKENING 185 suffrage, and its limitation only by a property qualification, was equivalent to the death-blow of the old theocracy. It was a revolution, the severity of which for the clergy was but slightly disguised by the appointment of Mather’s can- didate, Sir William Phips, to be the first royal governor. Five years after the new charter had gone into operation, an event occurred which illustrated most strikingly the decline in the power of the clergy. Increase Mather had been for many years minister of the North Church in Boston, and in 1685 was appointed president of Harvard, but continued to live in Boston. During the Andros interval he was occupied in protecting the interests of the colony in London. Thus the management of affairs W™7fypeA@, at Harvard was left chiefly in the hands of William Brattle and John Leverett, who both belonged to the extreme liberal wing of the clergy; for the influences which were raising up a crop of free thinkers for the eighteenth century in England were not entirely without effect in the English colonies. Under the influence of Brattle and Lev- erett, grew up Benjamin Colman, who took his master’s de- gree at Harvard in 1695, and then went to England, where he was settled over a congregation at Bath. The group of liberals in Bos- ton was stead- ily increasing in number, and one of their lead- ers was Thomas Brattle, treasurer of Harvard, a wealthy merchant whose lei- sure hours were more or less devoted to astronomy and phy- sics. He was the author of several papers on lunar eclipses and of an able criticism of the witchcraft delusion. In 1698 ' [On the new charter, see Palfrey, iv. 76.] 186 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND Thomas Brattle conveyed to a body of trustees the land upon The Brattle Whicha new meeting-house was to be built, and in the paurn following year an invitation was sent to Benjamin 1005 Colman to become the pastor of the new Brattle Church. Upon Colman’s arrival in Boston, his church issued BENJAMIN COLMAN a manifesto in which two startling novelties were announced. It had been the custom to require from all candidates for admission to the Lord’s Supper not only a general subscrip- tion to the Westminster creed, but also a relation of personal THE GREAT AWAKENING 187 experiences, which in order to insure their admission must be satisfactory to the presiding clergy. The new church announced that it would dispense with such personal expe- riences, requiring merely a formal subscription to the West- minster creed. It had also been customary to confine the choice of a minister to the male communicants alone; the new church proposed to allow all members of the Relaxation congregation who contributed money toward the gcond support of the church to have votes in the election ™embership of ministers. It is hardly necessary to point out the far- reaching character of these provisions in allowing a whole- some opportunity for variations in individual opinion to creep into the church. A body of ministers elected only by com- municants, and able to exclude all communicants save such as could satisfy them in a relation of personal experiences, was naturally able to exert a very powerful influence in re- pressing individual divergences. The Mathers were quite right in thinking that the Brattles and their friends aimed a blow at the vitals of the church. On the 5th of January, ae Cotton Mather writes in his diary : “I see Satan beginning a terrible shake in the churches of New England, ee and the innovators that have set up a new church Mather’s in Boston (a new one, indeed !) have made a day ae of temptation among us. The men are ignorant, arrogant, obstinate, and full of malice and slander, and they fill the land with lies. . . . Wherefore I set apart this day again for prayer in my study, to cry mightily unto God.’’! It was indeed probable that should the new Brattle Church succeed in obtaining recognition asa Congregational church in good standing, it would create a precedent for latitudina- rianism which might be pushed to almost any extent, and yet there was no available method of preventing it. Under the old theocracy, that clause of the Cambridge Platform would have been sufficient which enjoined it upon the magis- 1 [See Quincy’s Hist. of Harvard University, i. 487.] 188 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND trates to suppress heresy. Had the old state of things con- tinued in 1699, there can be little doubt that Leverett, Col- man, and the two Brattles would either have been expelled ‘The theo. £0m the Commonwealth or heavily fined, as had cacy help: been the case with William Vassall, Robert Child, sie nee and their companions. But the Cambridge Plat- form had fallen with the fall of the old charter; and although Increase Mather had endeavoured to obtain a pro- vision substantially replacing it, King William, who was no friend to theocracies, would not hear of sucha thing. The Mathers were therefore reduced to the expedient of declin- Thenew ing to exchange pulpits with the new pastor; this ale refusal of ecclesiastical courtesies was all that was recognized left for them, and from the theocratic point of view one cannot wonder if they thought that in some essential respects the world was coming to an end. In the course of the following year a kind of peace was patched up between the party of the Brattles and that of the Mathers, and bless- ings were interchanged, but as we look back upon the affair we can see that the theocracy had received a fatal blow. The increasing power of the liberals was displayed about the same time in what went on at Harvard College. The charter of 1650, by which the Company of Massachusetts Bay had incorporated that institution, was generally regarded as having lost its validity when the charter of the company was repealed ; and although things went on about as usual at the college, it was felt that things stood upon a precarious footing. But to obtain a new charter which would be satis- The effort factory to the theocrats was no easy matter, for to sctanew any such charter must either exclude or allow the Harvard ~—_ exclusion from the teaching body of all persons not in communion with the Congregational church, and King William would never consent to the exclusion of Episcopa- lians. It will be remembered that one of the chief sources of contention between Charles II. and the government of hy df Gprer fe f Mids OF THE Reverend Beijamin Colman, D. D. igte Paftor of a Courch in Boston New-ENcLanp, Who Deceafed Augult 29th 1747. By Evenezen Turret, A.M. Paftor of Medford. \ Rey. ii. 19. I know thy--- SERVICE. ame Non Notis nati fumus — BOSTON, New-Ene Se ned and Sold by Rocers “and Fowre in Qucen freer, and by J. owagos in Cornhill, MDCCXELIN TITLE OF TURELL’S “THE LIFE AND CHARACTER’ 190 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND Boston had been the repressive policy pursued by the latter toward members of the Church of England. King William felt, both as an advocate of liberalism and as the representa- tive of imperial authority, that no concessions could be al- lowed to the theocracy on this point. In 1699 the party of the Mathers introduced a bill into the General Court, provid- ing for a religious test in Harvard College, the substance of which was, “that in the charter for the college, our holy religion may be secured to us and unto our posterity, by a provision that no person shall be chosen president or fellow of the college, but such as declare their adherence unto the principles of reformation which were espoused and intended by those who first settled the country . . . and have hitherto been the general professions of New England.” This bill passed both houses, but, fortunately, was vetoed by the royal governor, Lord Bellomont. Meanwhile, the discontent in Governor ©ambridge arising from President Mather’s non- Bellomont residence had been increasing. That worthy divine soar tea seems to have felt more attachment to his church in Boston than toward the college! After a while the Rev. Samuel Willard of the Old South was appointed vice-president of the college, but he, too, seems to have pre- ferred the duties of pastor to those of administering a college, and his absenteeism attracted comment as well as Mather’s. I think, however, that the true explanation of Mather’s diffi- Rise of wp. Culty with the college lies deeper. There can be ise of lib- ' eralism in no doubt that between 1685 and 1700 the intellec- the college : tual atmosphere of the college was rapidly becom- ing more and more liberal. Leverett and the Brattles were the ruling spirits, and the events of each passing year made Ma- ther more and more uncongenial to them ; whereas, Willard was both in character and in turn of thought more to their mind. It is not strange, therefore, that we find Mather’s non-residence complained of, while the same fault in Willard 1 [Sewall’s Diary, i. 493-] THE GREAT AWAKENING 1gI is but lightly noticed. After a while Mather signified that if the General Court were not satisfied with his conduct, it might perhaps be well for them to choose another president. To his intense chagrin, he was taken at his word, and in September, 1701, the dignity and duties of the pre- president sident were transferred to Willard, who, however, ee retained the title of vice-president, thus somewhat displaced softening the blow. A couple of entries in Judge Sewall’s diary are rather amusing in this connection. Sewall was a member of the court which had just wrought this change in the presidency. The first entry is: “Mr. Cotton Mather came to Mr. Wilkins’s shop, and there talked very sharply against me as if I had used his father worse than a neger ; spake so loud that people in the street might hear him. I had read in the morning Mr. Dod’s saying: Sanctified af- flictions are good promotions. I found it now a cordial.” Then follows a memorandum: “Oct" 9. I sent Mr. Increase Mather a hanch of very good venison; I hope in that I did not treat him asa negro.”! As for Cotton Mather, he hoped to be chosen president of Harvard when Willard : ‘ i Cotton should die or resign, but he did not read correctly Mather’s the signs of the times, nor did he play his part pnp with skill; for he chose the part of sulking, and went so long without attending the meetings of the corporation, of which he was a member, that people spoke of his having ab- dicated his office? In 1702 Joseph Dudley, who had been in England ever since the Andros days and had just been appointed to succeed Lord Bellomont as governor of Massa- chusetts, arrived in Boston. The enmity between Governor Dudley and the Mathers was of long standing, and Dudley may be said to have had its origin in the very roots of things. Between the representatives of the old theocracy and the subtle founder of Toryism there could be no love 1 [Sewall’s Diary, ii. 43, October 20, 1701.] ? [See Quincy’s Hust. of Harvard University, i. 151.] 192 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND lost at any time; on the other hand, by that very law of selection which was apt to bring together revolters against the theocracy, whether for religious or political reasons, a strong alliance grew up between Dudley and Leverett, When Willard died, in September, 1707, the corporation at once chose Leverett as his successor. At his instigation a The new resolution was introduced into the General Court ae on declaring that the charter of 1650 was still in pa ee force ; or rather, enacting a charter which in its ment of that essential provisions was identical with the old one. a This charter was at once signed by Governor Dud- ley. The English Privy Council might still have overturned it, but they never did, so after the vicissitudes of the great revolution through which Mas- sachusetts had passed, Har- vard College started quietly upon a new chapter in her career, with her hands tied as little as possible by hamper- ing statutes or traditions. While these things were going on in Massachusetts, affairs were taking a somewhat different turn in Connecticut. The confederacy of river towns which gave birth to the state of Connecticut had represented a more liberal principle than that upon which Massachusetts was founded. The whole- sale migration which carried the people of Dorchester, Cam- bridge, and Watertown to the Connecticut River was a migration of people for whom Massachusetts was too theo- cratic. In Connecticut there was no restriction of civil ee ee rights to church members; the relative power of in Connecti: the representatives as compared with the Council = of Assistants was much greater, and the local in- dependence of the several towns was more complete. Con- necticut was originally more democratic and more liberal in complexion than Massachusetts. THE GREAT AWAKENING 193 On the other hand, the federal republic of New Haven closely resembled the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but was even more theocratic and aristocratic.! But the union of New Haven with Connecticut did not by a mixture of plus and minus make a commonwealth quite like 4 yaven Massachusetts. The most theocratic elements in annexed to ‘ . : Connecticut New Haven either migrated in large bodies to New Jersey, or came as individuals one by one back to Massachu- setts. Of those who remained on the shores of Long Island Sound, the greater part were those who had protested against the New Haven theocracy with its exclusiveness. On the whole, the Connecticut of 1670 to 1690 seems to have been a more liberal-minded community than Massachusetts. But if we come forward into the nineteenth century, it can hardly be denied that while both states have maintained a high intellectual level, Massachusetts has been the more liberal-minded community. Or, if a different phrase be pre- ferred, Massachusetts has been somewhat more Comparison prompt in adopting new ideas or in following out ova oa new vistas of thought, especially in all matters Connecticut where theology is concerned. Or, to put the case in yet another way, Massachusetts has shown less hesitation in departing from ancient standards. The history of Unitari- anism is of itself a sufficient illustration of this. To some minds the rise of Unitarianism seems like a great step in advance ; to other minds it seems like a deplorable forsaking of the highroad for byways that lead to Doubting Castle ; but all will agree that the great development of Unitarianism in Massachusetts, as compared with its small development in Connecticut, shows in the former state less hesitation ' [After the Restoration the people of Connecticut through their governor, the younger Winthrop, secured from the king a charter which included New Haven in the boundaries allotted to Connecticut, and in spite of the reluctance of the people of New Haven the absorption of their republic was consummated in 1665. Doyle, Zhe Puritan Colonies, il. 154-162.] 194 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND in deviating from old standards. Something of the same contrast in regard to deviation is shown in the history Causes of Of Yale College as contrasted with Harvard; no Connecticut one will deny that the temper of the former has oe been more conservative. It becomes interesting, then, to inquire what has produced this change. In what respect have circumstances operated to render the career of Connecticut more conservative than that of the sister commonwealth? Such questions are always difficult to an- swer with confidence, but certain facts may be pointed out which have a bearing upon the question. It is a general tendency of organizations to grow more rigid through increase of rules and definitions, and to inter- Theten- | fere more and more with the free play of individ- dency or uality ; so that often in the pursuit of a given end, ganizations teeaey the organization will so far hamper itself as to de- mechanical crease its fitness for attaining the ends desired; in other words, the ends become a matter of secondary impor- tance, while the machinery of the organization absorbs the en- tire attention. Especially has this been true in the case of ecclesiastical organizations. —The members of a priesthood are apt to acquire an exaggerated idea of the importance of the body to which they belong and which is invested by public opinion with a peculiar sanctity, and they are apt to feel justified in making laws and regulations tending to coerce all their members into conformity with some prescribed set of gers rules. In Massachusetts an early and _baneful stance of —_ source of rigidity was the Cambridge Platform baer of 1648, which enjoined it upon magistrates to : punish any infractions of ecclesiastical doctrine or observance. Among the fruits of this Cambridge Platform were the odious proceedings against Baptists and Quakers, which have left such a stain upon the annals of Boston. But it is worthy of note that owing to the very restrictions which confined the civil liberties of Massachusetts to communing oe Seat 4M et oy ok CONFESSION FAITH Owned and Confented to ‘by rhe Elders and: Mefieng: ors: Of the CHURCHES In the Colony of CO NNECTIICUT in NEW-EN GLAN D, Affembled by. Delegation at Say Brook September 9 b. 1708. 4 Eph. 4 5. Oue. Faith, | Cola 9. “Fayre ged B holding your Order avd the Sieadfa,: nc{s . of your Puth it Che ars a New-London in LN. E. -Rrint edb fT hon: S Short, ; ‘1 aS ie. TITLE OF THE SAYBROOK PLATFORM 196 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND church members, a large body of citizens grew up in opposi- tion, so that the Commonwealth was never deprived of the healthful stimulus of competition and struggle between op- posing views in interest. To such a point had this conflict come that when, in 1699, an attempt was made to fasten a religious test upon Harvard, it fell to the ground, and that critical period of the history of the Commonwealth saw Harvard falling more and more completely under the guid- Lack ofa ance of the party opposed to the old theocracy, Ee ;P On the other hand, Connecticut pursued the even Connecticut tenor of her way from the first beginnings into the nineteenth century with comparatively little severe internal commotion. She had for a moment, of course, resented the arrogance of Andros, but her constitution was never wrenched out of shape by such violent changes as those which Massachusetts witnessed after 1685. I think we must attribute it to this very fact of the slightness and gentleness of the opposition, — to the comparative mildness of ecclesi- astical life in Connecticut, — that at the beginning of the eighteenth century her clergymen and people should have yielded so easily to the natural impulse to improve, or, rather, to define and limit their ecclesiastical organizations. By that time it had come to seem to many worthy people that the work of the church might be greatly facilitated if its organization were made a little more thorough in its working. The result was the synod held at the town of Saybrook in May, 1708, which adopted the famous consti- tution known as the Saybrook Platform. This constitution provided that “the particular pastors and churches, within the respective counties in this government,” should “be one consociation, or more if they should judge ‘ps meet, for mutual affording to each other such as- beybrapk sistance as may be requisite, upon all occasions ecclesiastical.” Hitherto ecclesiastical authority had been exercised by councils formed by voluntary election THE GREAT AWAKENING 197 by individuals or by single churches. Such authority was henceforth to be vested in permanent councils appointed by the consociation of churches. Disobedience to the decree of one of these permanent councils was punished by excom- munication of the too independent pastor or church. The council of one consociation might invite councils from one or more neighbouring consociations to take part in its pro- ceedings, and it was further provided that a general associa- tion consisting of representatives from all the churches in the Commonwealth should be held every year at the time of the election of governor and legislature. This platform was adopted by the General Court of Con- necticut, with the proviso that a church which conducted itself discreetly and soberly might be allowed to carry on worship and exercise discipline according to its own con- science, even though it should not be able to enter into the consociation of churches. This was a prudent and liberal provision, and was intended to prevent injustice and persecu- tion. The general effect of the platform was to assimilate Congregationalism in Connecticut to Presbyterianism, and there can be little doubt that this was an important change in the direction of conservatism. Manifestly, the power of any ecclesiastical organization in checking individual 4. pray. variations depends upon the coercive power which form tends the whole can bring to bear upon any one of its late Congre- parts. Manifestly, the conservative power of a See Mussulman caliph, being absolutely unchecked, was terianism greater than that of the medizeval Pope, who might be limited by a council or thwarted by an emperor. Still less coercive power could be exercised by a sovereign head of a church, like Elizabeth or Charles IT. Still less could be exercised by a Presbyterian synod, and from this again down to an inde- pendent congregation the step in diminution of coercive power was a long one. It is therefore interesting and sig- nificant that just at the moment when Massachusetts by the 198 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND founding of Brattle Church took a long step in the direc- ees tion of further independency, Connecticut should settsand have taken a decided conservative step in the di- Connecticut ‘ ee change rection of Presbyterianism. The effect exerted by a the mere possession of coercive power does not always need to be exhibited by overt actions; it is a subtle effect consisting largely in the colouring which it gives to that indefinable thing known as public opinion, but I suspect that in the circumstances here narrated we have at least a partial explanation of the fact that a century later, when so many churches in Massachusetts adopted Unitarian theology while still remaining Congregational churches, on the other hand, in Connecticut a step so extreme was very difficult to take, and that while there were churches in which dissent from time-honoured doctrines was rife, nevertheless-it was seldom that Unitarian doctrines were avowed. One effect of the Saybrook Platform was to make it easy in later times for the Congregational churches in Connecti- cut to fraternize with the Presbyterian churches. To such an extent has this fraternization been carried in modern times, that persons in Connecticut and states to the west of it are very apt to use the word “ Presbyterian” in a loose sense when they really mean “ Congregational,” —a use of language which would have made the hair of one of Crom- well’s Ironsides stand on end with horror. The beginning of the eighteenth century in Connecti- cut was also memorable for the founding of Yale College. The found. - He journey from the Connecticut towns to Cam- ing of Yale bridge was much longer than it is now, and it was College felt that there ought to be a college nearer home. The movement was begun by a meeting at Branford of ten ministers, nine of whom were graduates of Harvard. These gentlemen contributed from their libraries about forty gigan- tic folios for the founding of a college library. Other gifts began to come in, and an act of incorporation in 1701 created THE GREAT AWAKENING 199 a body of trustees, all of whom were to be clergymen and not less than forty years of age. The college was at first situ- ated in Saybrook, though in the first years the classes were taught at Killingworth, where the first rector of the college, ELIHU YALE Abraham Pierson, was pastor. At length the college was settled in New Haven in 1716, and two years later it received the name of Yale College in recognition of a donation from Elihu Yale, a merchant of London, whose father had been one of the original settlers of New Haven. Now this found- ing of Yale College exerted a conservative effect upon the 200 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND mind of Connecticut. While on the one hand it brought a classical education within the reach of many persons who The conser. WOUld not have gone to Cambridge to get it, on the eine fens other hand it tended to cut off the clergy of Con- Connecticut necticut from the liberalizing influences which were a so plainly beginning to be powerful at Harvard. nellsee From the outset something like a segregation be- gan. Many persons in Massachusetts who were disinclined to the liberalism of Leverett and the Brattles transferred their affections to Yale College, making gifts to it and sending their sons there, and in this way the conservatism of the uni- versity that was controlled entirely by ministers holding under the Saybrook Platform was increased. When to all these circumstances we add that the royal governor in Boston, although an abiding cause of irritation, nevertheless kept bringing in ideas and fashions from Europe, we can see how the stormiér life of Massachusetts Bay was more favourable to change than the delicious quiet of the land of steady habits. The general state of the church in New England in the first decades of the eighteenth century was one which may be best characterized by saying that spirituality was at a low ebb. Pretty much the same might be said of the church in England, and if we were to extend the observation to France, Sikes we should have to make it still more emphatic. religion The causes of this state of things were complicated. early in the ss ‘ . : eighteenth Among other things, the scientific reaction against Sea supernaturalism, which was so rapidly destroying the belief in witchcraft, was leading the great mass of super- ficial thinkers in the direction of materialism. In France the church had discredited itself through an alliance with despotism, until nearly all the best minds had turned against it. In England the epoch of intense mental exaltation which characterized the seventeenth century had provoked a reac- tion in which worldly-mindedness prevailed and sanctity was Pere ES eee Cohan ee SS ia Pale ey a Uo ELIE EY Cr? “0g NY ES ae og LE hep <2 12g “y ogg ag ffir wb orvufias % oh Go 276 aa ee eit Se ~ % ww es Sgr 7 Le eg. hope eo x Sa os By <3 Se ate p oe 7. ple oY, ‘> PES pepo, Te eee Zt oo ez? vi a os f es aoe bast ee eo! M . 2335 = Se ] AOATION AIVA AO UATGNNOd ‘AIVA NHITA AO YALLA PONS Ree ef te ec fe er OY 8 gre | Pet ereacg A272. YO 7p 6? rb- a ak wpe hoy type bo ay ag fg (ae a ede Igoe Be Be ee -€ uT CE Pt 2: ioe beteygove e” ‘ lp 6~ ue’ £ y9uT Ory es Ue Le gree ree s1 (yp 1t Pwan Ee wf oe “yr o- gg L$? 2? kN Lygroee 1? ae 2 Ivete G 2c Leen 6 a7” ea ABCC) ¢ f- oat Ly Moyhy oS Lap? ae ee t } | | THE GREAT AWAKENING 201 derided. There can be little doubt, I think, that the politi- cal uses to which religion had been put during the terrible struggle of the counter-reformation had done much to loosen its spiritual hold upon men’s minds. Something may be said, too, of the rapidly expanding effects of commerce. a Men’s interests were multiplying so that some- commercial thing must suffer for a time, and religion, for the urine causes already mentioned, was the weak spot in the social fabric. But whatever the explanation may be, the fact is generally accepted that the early years of the eighteenth century were a period of coldness in religious matters. This coldness was quite generally perceived and lamented by clergymen and laymen throughout New England, and speculations were rife as to the probable cause and the best cure. It is not unlikely that among other things the Halfway Covenant may have exerted a baneful influence. If there could be anything serious and solemn in life it would seem to be the ascertainment of the state of mind which would qualify a person for participation in the Lord’s Supper, yet the Half- way Covenant practically admitted to this sacrament all per- sons of decorous lives who had been baptized in infancy. One effect of this was to endow infant baptism with the character of a magical ceremony and to make of the communion a mere lifeless form. At first, indeed, the sup- porters of the Halfway Covenant simply allowed baptized members of the congregation to vote and hold cgioaaara office, without allowing them to participate in the ¢anism” communion until they could make some statement of their internal experience which proved them qualified for such participation ; but a crisis seemed to be reached when the Rev. Solomon Stoddard of Northampton admitted people to communion without any other credentials than proof of bap- tism in infancy.1 1 [On this outgrowth of the Halfway Covenant, see Walker, Ast. 202 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND This work was to be undone and this whole state of things put an end to by the writings and the preaching of Solomon Stoddard’s grandson, a man who was one of the wonders of the world, probably the greatest intelligence that the west- Jonathan YN hemisphere has yet seen. Jonathan Edwards Edwards = was born at East Windsor, Conn., in 1703, inherit- ing extraordinary abilities both from his father, Rev. Timo- thy Edwards, and from his mother, Esther Stoddard. From early childhood Edwards was a personage manifestly set apart for some high calling. His “ Notes on Nature,” writ- ten at the age of sixteen, show a precocity as remarkable as that of Pascal; his Treatise on the Will and other works of his maturity show a metaphysical power comparable with that of Kant or Berkeley ; while in many of his speculations his mind moves through the loftiest regions of thought with a sustained strength of flight that comes near reminding one of the mighty Spinoza. There can be no doubt that the more one considers Edwards, the more colossal and astonishing he seems. Among writers of Christian theology his place is by the side of Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin. At the same time there was more in Edwards than sheer power of intel- lect. His character was as great as hisgenius. The highest attributes of manliness were united in him. He was a man of deep affection, abounding in sympathy, so that without resorting to the ordinary devices of rhetoric he became a pene preacher of the first order. Now in the mind of vein of Jonathan Edwards there was a vein of mysticism mysucs™ as unmistakable as that in the mind of William Penn. Such mysticism may be found in minds of medium capacity, but in minds of the highest type I believe it is rarely absent. A mind which has plunged deeply into the secrets of nature without exhibiting such a vein of mysti- of the Congregational Churches in the U. S., pp. 180-182. Stoddard advocated this practice as early as 1679. It was adopted in his church in 1706. ] A THE GREAT AWAKENING 203 cism is, I believe, a mind sterilized and cut off in one direction from access to the truth. Along with Edwards’s abstruse reasoning there was a spiritual consciousness as deep as that of Spinoza or Novalis. From his mystic point of view, the change whereby a worldly, unregenerate man or woman became fitted for divine life was a conversion of the soul, an alteration of its innermost purposes, a change of heart from evil to goodness. Perhaps this way of conceiv- ing the case was not new with Edwards. From | the earliest ages of Christianity a turning of the phasis on soul from the things of this world to Christ has finesse been the essential, but the importance of what has since come to be known as conversion, or change of heart, assumed dimensions never known before. As Calvinism enhanced the value of the individual soul by representing it as the sub- ject of a mighty struggle between the powers of heaven and those of hell, so Edwards, while setting forth this notion in all its grimness, gave it a touch of infinite tragedy and pathos through the power with which he conceived the situ- ation of the soul whose salvation trembled in the balance. The distinction between the converted and the unconverted became in his hands more vitally important than the older distinction between the elect and the non-elect. There was great difficulty in working the two distinctions together, and a large portion of the eighteenth century was consumed by New England theologians in grappling with this difficulty. It was due to Edwards that the prime question with every anxious mind was not so much, Am I one of the elect ? as this other question, Have I surrendered my heart to Christ ? It is obvious that this new point of view in itself, and even more in the mood in which it was set forth, soon worked a vivifying change in the religious consciousness of New Eng- land. The effect was presently shown in those so-called revivals which are in the strict sense a product of the New England mind. Phenomena of religious Revivals 204 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND excitement, sometimes reaching epidemic proportions, are of course to be found among heathen savages, but religious emotion of an intense sort, coupled with a high general level of education, such as we see it in modern revivals, is some- thing that had its beginnings in New England. The essen- tial features of a revival are the aroused consciousness of sin, overwhelming fears associated therewith, and a condition of doubt as to whether one has really satisfied the condi- tions of salvation. One can see that when such a state of things has been generally reached in a community, there is no longer any room for such mechanical devices as the Half- way Covenant. Before such a state of things can be reached, the ecclesiastical atmosphere must be spiritualized. To this end the whole tenor of Edwards’s preaching contributed, for he insisted, with as much emphasis as William Penn, upon the insignificance of the form as compared with the spirit. Sometimes the religious revival seemed a mere survival of The Revi barbaric superstition, —as when the earthquake val of 1734 of 1727 brought people in crowds into the Boston churches. But in 1734 there began at Northampton, where Edwards, who had succeeded his grandfather, had been preaching for eight years, a revival of a much higher kind. This wave of religious excitement spread through the whole Connecticut valley and lasted for six months. It attracted some notice in England, and presently George Whitefield accepted an invitation from Dr. Benjamin Colman to come Beare to New England and preach. Whitefield was Whitefield twenty-six years of age, and had just been ordained aCe Eng- as a minister of the Church of England. He wasa man of mediocre intelligence, without distinction either as a scholar or as a thinker, but his gifts as an orator were very extraordinary. In 1740 Whitefield preached in various parts of New England, sometimes in churches, some- times in the open air, to audiences which on occasion reached 15,000 in number. He made a pilgrimage to Northampton THE GREAT AWAKENING 205 GEORGE WHITEFIELD in order to visit the preacher of the late revival there, and thought he had never seen such a man as Edwards, while on the other hand, under the influence of Whitefield’s musical voice, Edwards sat weeping during the entire sermon. The example set by Whitefield was followed after his de- parture by a Presbyterian minister from New Jersey named Gilbert Tennent. This preacher came to Boston and spent some three months in the neighborhood, preaching to enor- 206 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND mous audiences with most startling effect. Tennent was followed by James Davenport of Southold, Long Island, a Gilbert great-grandson of the famous Davenport of the old Tennent New Haven colony. This James Davenport was highly esteemed by Whitefield and other revivalist preach- ers, but his ill-balanced enthusiasm led him to very strange lengths. On one occasion he is said to have preached a ser- mon nearly twenty-four hours in length, with such violence of intonation and gesture that he brought on a brain fever. He was constitutionally intemperate in speech, eccentric in action, and inspired by that peculiar self-conceit which is one of the marks of mental derangement. If he came to a town amies where little excitement was manifested on the sub- Davenport ject of religion he would revile the ministers of the town, accusing them of being unconverted, blind leaders of the blind, and he warned the people that by listening to such preaching they were imperilling their souls. At Boston he grew so abusive that the ministers held a conference and decided that they would not allow him the use of their pulpits. Nothing daunted, however, this Boanerges hurled forth his thunderbolts on such places as Copp’s Hill and Bos- ton Common, where he spoke his mind with great freedom to thousands of listeners. For example, in one of his prayers, he said, “ Good Lord, I will not mince the matter any longer with Thee, for Thou knowest that I know that most of the ministers of Boston and of the country are unconverted, and are leading their people blindfold to hell.” For these words Davenport was indicted for slander, but was acquitted on the ground of insanity. A situation had now arisen in some respects not unlike Comparison that when Mrs. Hutchinson and her Antinomian with the friends had been preaching in Boston a century ear- a lier. One of the chief objections to the Antinomians was that they professed to have their minds illumined by a divine light which enabled them to see truths hidden from — A: Faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Surprizing Work of Gop TN? 2 os CONVERSION Many Hunprep Sours in Northampton, and the Neighbouring Towns and Villages of New-Hampfhire in New- England, Ina LETTER 10 the Rev'. Dr. BENJAMIN CouMAN of Boflon. Written by the Revt, Mr. Epwarn', Minifter of Northamptox, on Nov. ©. 1736. And Publithed, With a Laree PREPA CE, By Dr. Warts and Dr, Guyse. LONDON; Printed for Joun Osw ato, at the Rof and Crows, in hz Poultry, near Stacks-Market. M.pcc.xxxvit. Price ftitch’d 15, Bound.in Calf-Leather, is. 6d: A TITLE OF EDWARDS'S “A FAITHFUL NARRATIVE” 208 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND the generality of Christians, and in this belief they confi- dently assailed even the highest of the clergy as creatures acting under a covenant of works. It was now held by many clergymen that the conduct of Tennent and Davenport and other followers of Whitefield resembled that of the An- tinomians, and tended to introduce dissensions into the churches. There can be no doubt that such was its immedi- ate effect. Emotional extravagances on the part of revival- ists were so marked as to lead many persons to question whether, in view of this and of the intemperate criticism that had been indulged in, the revival had not really been productive of more harm than good. Such questions were agitated until in almost every church there came to be a party who approved of the revival and a party which con- demned it. Under these circumstances it is not strange that the power of the revival should have declined, or that we should find the Rev. Thomas Prince writing in 1744 that “The Sovereign Spirit, in His awakening influence, has seemed these two last years in a gradual and awful manner to withdraw. For a twelvemonth I have rarely heard the cry of any new ones, What shall I do to be saved? But few are now added to our churches, and the heavenly shower in Boston seems to be over.” About the time that Prince White- expressed himself so despondingly Whitefield re- field's re wy turned to New England, but he was not so much England a novelty as before and made less sensation. The Brattle Church showed its liberality by inviting him, an Episcopal priest, to administer its Communion. On the other hand, President Holyoke and the Faculty of Harvard passed a resolution condemning his itinerant methods, and the clergymen of Cambridge refused to allow him in their pulpits ; so that his preaching was done to a large audience on Cambridge Common. In Massachusetts the opposition to the revivalists showed itself only in such protests by professors and clergymen, but THE GREAT AWAKENING 209 THOMAS PRINCE in Connecticut the matter went further. Whitefield, Ten- nent, and Davenport travelled about in that commonwealth, making converts by hundreds, and Davenport, at least, made no scruple of attacking the settled ministers. These pro- ceedings called forth interference from the government. At Stratford Davenport was arrested for disturbing Davenport the peace by gathering great crowds of people, Sie s filling their heads with pernicious doctrines, and ‘isturbance inciting them to a noisy and disorderly demeanour. During their examination a mob of their converts undertook to res- 210 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND cue them from the sheriff’s custody, and in order to quiet the disturbance it proved necessary to call out the militia. For revivalist practices similar to Davenport’s the Rev, Benjamin Pomeroy was turned out of office and deprived of his salary. It thus appears that one result of the Great Awakening was to stir up dissension in the churches between the more é en Manco sdnabtalirr x Coleg ium Delehev onh_- OhelWluith\ ea Yr’, yripnen . SIGNATURE OF PRESIDENT HOLYOKE AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE aristocratic ministry of the old type and the more democratic preachers like Whitefield and his friends. Our account would be far from complete if we were to omit the conclusion of the story at Northampton, the home of Jonathan Edwards, Lastdaysof from whose preaching this Great Awakening had Edwards emanated. We have seen that the Edwards doc- trine of conversion was flatly opposed to the Halfway Cove- nant to which Edwards’s grandfather in Northampton had given its most extreme form. In 1749, after Edwards had been settled twenty-two years over that parish and regarded with extreme reverence by his parishioners, he suddenly lost favour with them by insisting upon more rigorous require- ments in admitting communicants to the church. This gave rise to a quarrel of such bitterness that Edwards's parish SGUVMGH NVHLVNOf 40 UALLAT V AO SHAVUOVUVd LSVI GNV ISUIA AHL AO ATINISOVA é s : - . ei fd yd deg "Oe, 42 oe » gfe ce Tee LS ‘ a pee we of a TE “Li oe ee Cy US BO cen wth farrier; 4 2 Mer seteg Rees roth ar yy y Sarg ae ze Ly aoe Sy Avid PAY t f : eda ek IP ry eer Ae TD a oe woe Oa) serta trea og LY Pym yale oy ae red oe on 8 1 2f way Fy Curagysr p29 was we oh y is = baad Teron, ay es yur a Wp get yy c oy v ee ay PAD seh om weet f ae ee “4 ~22.7 fo Wegrie ter 2 9 OT yorsb aA Pe ee A Wg a { 772d fad ou oF Rea SPY) puvs y fos Yee Loge “7 ‘Arpey anak. yl ' se rbag 4 Soa. Ag 28 gis fortfoad rie 21006 os soe W ‘srajfog wy 7 Pat ayy aeryet PPC PULE ot Tyee Se oe 724 > 7 re yey? $782 tt PVIAT byprnfepr? seep. pray Fern ese Wpeat) parib yg ef prroyg grey ogre [ i ee af prerea ia }f ay Kv 79 ye BELL ke 212 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND not only dismissed him, but obtained a vote in town meeting to the effect that he should not be allowed any more to enter a pulpit in that town. The result was the removal of Ed- wards to Berkshire for missionary work among the Stock- bridge Indians, and thence after six years to the presidency of Princeton College, He died in Princeton at the early age of fifty-five. One result of the breaking down of the Halfway Covenant was to discredit infant baptism, so that the majority of the revivalists of the more democratic type went over to the Baptist church and greatly swelled its numbers in New Eng- land. With regard to the general effect of the Awakening, in spite of the extravagances with which it was here and there attended, it certainly did much to heighten and deepen the religious life in New England. As compared with the old days of the Halfway Covenant, the new doctrine of con- version was like an uplifting of the soul to better things. The religious thought of the seventeeth century was in dan- ger of losing its life among dry logical formulas. It needed to be touched with emotion, and that was what the Great Results of /»Wakening accomplished. It may be said to have the Awak- exerted a stimulating influence similar to that which cr attended the preaching of the Wesleys in England, and it should not be forgotten that John Wesley in the early part of his career received a powerful stimulus from news which reached him from New England. If we were able thoroughly to sift all relevant facts I think we should conclude that in producing the tenderness of soul in which the nineteenth century so far surpassed the eighteenth, a considerable share must be assigned to the preaching and self-searchings, the prayers and tears, the jubilation and praise, of the Great Awakening. CHAPTER VII NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG Wuen Mr. Seward, about forty years ago, spoke of the ‘irrepressible conflict ’’ between slavery and freedom, it was generally felt that he had invented a happy and telling phrase. It was a conflict equally irrepressible that was carried on for seventy years between France and England for the posses- sion of North America. It was the strife between 4), «ine absolutism and individualism, between paternal gov- Pressible ernment carried to the last extreme, and the spon- between : gs France and taneous life of communities that governed them- England in selves in town meeting. Alike in Europe and in ae America each party was aggressive and uncompromising. Particularly in America the proximity of the Indians made it next to impossible to avoid bloodshed even when the gov- ernments of France and England were nominally at peace with one another. There is no better illustration of this than is afforded by the story of Norridgewock. The treaty of Utrecht, by which the long war of the Span- ish succession was brought to an end in 1713, transferred the province of Acadia from France to England. After many changes of ownership backward and forward it was decided that Acadia was finally to become English. Acadia But what was Acadia? As customarily applied, are ts the name included Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, s!n¢ and a part of Maine; and the English maintained that all this territory was ceded to them by the treaty; but the French, on the other hand, maintained that they had only given away Nova Scotia, and woe to the Englishman who 214 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND should dare to meddle with the rest! It was intended that this question should be settled by a special commission, but the question was such a ticklish one that neither country was in haste to appoint a commission, and so things remained until the matter was settled forever by the mighty Seven Years’ War. According to the French view, the boundary between their territory and that of New England was the river Kennebec. This line they felt it important to defend for two reasons, The French First, the New England settlements were rapidly view of he extending northeastwardly along the coast; sec- Heatia ondly, the sources of the Kennebec were connected by an intricate network of streams, marshes, and lakelets with those of the Chaudiére, which falls into the St. Law- rence just opposite Quebec. It was an excessively difficult route by which to invade Canada, as Benedict Arnold found half a century later. Nevertheless, it was a possible route which the French felt it necessary to bar. In this they proceeded according to their usual manner by establishing a hold upon their Algonquin friends along the Kennebec River. These Algonquins were commonly known as Abenakis, or Eastern Men, Their grade of culture was quite similar to that of the tribes in Massachusetts and considerably more advanced than that of the Micmacs of Nova Scotia. They were divided into numerous tribes and subtribes, the names of which, such as Kennebec, Penobscot, etc., have in many cases remained as local names upon the map, while the The Abe. most important of these Abenaki tribes was that naki tribes of the Norridgewocks, inasmuch as their position guarded the approaches to the upper waters of the Ken- nebec, The stockaded Norridgewock village was situated close by the river, about seventy-five miles from its mouth, and a journey to it from Portsmouth or Boston seemed like plunging into the innermost depths of the wilderness. These aa e - ian aout WG eS ie te yea ee 527 & ae Nees apcocre ge [) 4 97 Be: heat note ee 7 ‘iepaps pen “Yo oovae Bley nba > fen, oor iy fpebrarn. eo "4 ae ie ray & aS Oa it es oa tee ere ee e we oS ere Cr a7 ne oo as ih yon woe euayobreoyp ' ptt Lo er ner i: ee at . La Ls ae a een es a “ye “f or ane Sf Ap if TH Ue wvals 1 ‘£7333 -wn3eM coat ey n me pemagenge . . cmadhagt st st th—pas, Ss : : porate Let fee so a Pear fo JOvV? @ Eels. ae ab SL Pr oT HOVAONVT INVNAGV AHL AO AUVNOILOIA SA1VuY UAHLVA AO ATINISOVA LXHL AO TOVd LSUMIA spbrerNfmeryire — fer ple beef ae wads ay ee ee Lplge fla 70? a MA piers! oP fg wg “eve EB Ayer rarer ness Bon “ewee copa 0 Ye -2 ees ongie Sag 1egg7r he evraeb ty * ‘Bow HOGAvyaU pow Ono 1y TY Mer ye Mamepies Mie ee Lae oe am ee 1° near the Brick Meeting Houle in Cornhill. i TITLE OF SYMMES’S “LOVEWELL LAMENTED” 224 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND was necessary to build a rude fortification and leave there a guard for the sick ones. This reduced the number to thirty- four. Early on a bright May morning these men fell into an Lovewell’s 2mbuscade of Pequawket Indians, and they kept up fight a desperate fight all day against overwhelming odds. Toward sunset the Indians gave way and retired from the scene, leaving a tremendous harvest of scalps for the victors. But these children of the Ironsides had paid a high price for their victory. Captain Lovewell and eleven others were slain, being rather more than one third of the number. One coward had run away and told so dismal a story to the sick men and their guard that they deemed it best to quit their rude fortification and travel southward with all possible de- spatch. The retreat from the battlefield began at midnight and was led by Ensign Wyman. One of the party was the chaplain of the expedition, Rev. Jonathan Frye of Andover, a youth of twenty-one, recently graduated at Harvard, who was as zealous an Indian killer as any of the party. He had been terribly wounded in the fight, and as he felt his strength giving out so that he must lie down upon the ground, he The death begged his comrades not to incur danger by waiting of Frye with him, but to keep on their way, and he said to one of them, “Tell my father that I expect in a few hours to be in eternity, and am not afraid to die.” So they left him alone in the forest, and nothing more was heard of him. The survivors of this expedition were rewarded with exten- sive grants of land on the mountain ridges between Lancaster and the Connecticut River, which down to that time were a howling wilderness, and it was in this way that Petersham and others of the hill towns in that region originated. For half a century, until its memory was obscured by the incidents of the Revolutionary War, Lovewell’s fight was a popular theme with the New England farmers. Ballads as long as “ Chevy Chase” were written about it, and perhaps a few verses should be quoted in this connection : — NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 225 “ Then spake up Captain Lovewell, when first the fight began, ‘Fight on, my valiant heroes, you see they fall like rain!’ For, as we are informéd, the Indians were so thick, x man could searcely si a gun, “_ nee some of them ite Our ony Captain Tavewell among them iliere did de) They killed Lieutenant Robbins, and wounded good young Frye, Who was our English chaplain: he many Indians slew, And some of them he scalpéd, when bullets round him flew.” } As for this worthy young chaplain, he was mourned by the fair Susanna Rogers, daughter of the minister at Boxford, to whom he was betrothed. She afterward wrote a long monody which thus begins : — “ Assist, ye Muses, help my quill While floods of tears does down distil, Not from mine eyes alone, but all That hears the sad and doleful fall Of that young student, Mr. Frye, Who in his blooming youth did die.” Such incidents as the destruction of Norridgewock and Lovewell’s fight occurred in what was reckoned as an inter- val of peace between the second and third great intercolonial wars. We may now pass over twenty years and make some mention of the most important event that marked in Amer- ica the war of the Austrian Succession, which began with the seizure of Silesia by Frederick the Great in 1740, and ended with the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. On the southeast side of Cape Breton Island, in a very commanding position, was a small town which had been known as English Harbour, but which in the many vicissi- tudes of Acadia had passed into the hands of the French and had been by them christened Louisburg, after the king. After the treaty of Utrecht, the French refused to surrender Cape Breton Island on the ground that Louisburg 1 [The whole of this ballad is given in Hart’s American History told by Contemporaries, ii. 344-346. ] 226 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND the name “Acadia” applied only to Nova Scotia in the strictest sense, excluding the adjacent islands. About 1720 the French began fortifying this place, and went on until they had spent a sum equivalent to more than $10,000,000 of our modern money, and had made it one of the strongest places in the world, scarcely surpassed by Quebec or Gibral- tar. With reference to Canada, France, and the West Indies, this place occupied a central position. It blocked the way to any English ascent of the St. Lawrence, such as had been attempted in 1690 and 1711, and it afforded an admirable base of supplies from which a powerful French squadron might threaten Boston or any other English city upon the Atlantic coast. It was in 1744 that France and England were dragged into the war between Austria and Prussia, and no sooner had the news arrived in America than Duquesnal, the French commander of Louisburg, sent a squadron to surprise and capture such English ports in Nova Scotia as might be found insuffi- ciently guarded. e720 The little port of Canseau was at once taken, and an energetic but fruitless attack was made upon Port Royal. A certain number of prisoners who had been taken from Canseau to Louisburg were returned in the autumn of 1744, and they sent such messages to Gov- __, ernor Shirley as led him to believe that a prompt at- The project : - . tocapture tack upon Louisburg itself might prove successful. Louisburg . Perhaps the first person to entertain such a scheme seriously was William Vaughan, a graduate of Harvard in 1722, whose father had been lieutenant-governor of New Hampshire. Vaughan had an estate on the Damariscotta River, and did a brisk trade in lumber and fish. There was imminent danger that Louisburg might work the destruction of the English fisheries, and Vaughan, who was daring to NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 227 the verge of foolhardiness, thought it a good plan to antici- pate such a calamity by capturing the impregnable fortress. So bold was the project that Parkman gives to his chapter on this subject the simple heading, “A Mad Scheme.”? Fortunately, Shirley was himself a man of courage and re- source. Aftera conversation with Vaughan, Shirley informed his legislature that he had a proposal to make of such great importance that he wished them before receiving it to take an oath of secrecy. Shirley had shown much tact in avoid- ing dissensions with his leg- islature, and this extraordi- nary request was granted, Gy porrle —_§_ but when the Assembly came to consider the question of attacking Louisburg without assistance from British arms, the Assembly deemed the proposal chimerical, and voted to reject it. Nothing daunted, however, Shirley returned to the attack, and with the active codperation of many merchants who felt that their business absolutely demanded the reduc- tion of the French stronghold, he succeeded at last in ob- taining a majority of one vote in the Assembly. The next step was to seek aid from the other colonies, but ae only New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Con- England necticut gave favourable responses. Connecticut cea and New Hampshire furnished each 500 men, and ***° Rhode Island furnished the sloop of war Tartar. Massachu- setts supplied 3000 men, and Shirley selected William Pep- perell to command the expedition. Pepperell was a very wealthy merchant of Kittery, who had served as justice of the peace and as a militia officer of various grades, ending with colonel. He was by no means a genius, but a man 1 [Half Century of Conflict, ii. 78-107.] 228 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND of energy, good sense, and tact. He was now raised to the rank of lieutenant-general, and Roger Wolcott of Connecti- cut was commissioned major-general and appointed second in command. Pepperell’s good sense was sufficient to make him doubt the possibility of success; and the Rev. George Whitefield, when asked to furnish a motto for one of Wi Leater the flags, suggested JVz/ desperandum Christo duce, or, in other words, There is room for hope when Christ is leader, which, under the circumstances, does not seem to indicate a very exuberant confidence on the part of the great preacher. As for a naval force, it was always possible to extemporize something of the sort in New England, where almost every The naval Seaport had citizens ready to venture money in pri- aor vateering, or perhaps in equipping expeditions for capturing privateers from Frenchmen and Spaniards. The force collected for the Louisburg expedition consisted of one new 24-gun frigate and twelve smaller vessels, mostly sloops of from 8 to 20 guns. This was a ludicrous force for the purpose assigned; one French line-of-battle ship could easily have destroyed the whole of it. To put 4000 men upon Cape Breton Island without an adequate naval force to insure : OO mete felt Bet OV byprrlt. fpol Gerrere, their retreat might easily entail their starvation or capture. More ships must be had, and Shirley sent a message to Com- modore Peter Warren, at the island of Antigua, requesting assistance. Warren was inclined to give the aid required, but a council of war overruled him, and he declined; but ene a FROM WILLIAM SHIRLEY, E/95 Governor of Maffachufet's Bay, To his Grace the Duke of Newcaffle : WITH A JOURNAL of the Siege of Louishourg, and other Operations of the Forces, during the Expedition againtt the French Settlements on Cape Breton; drawn up at the Defire of the Council and Houfe of Reprefentatives of the Province of Maffachufet’s Bay ; approved and attefted by Sir William Pepperrell, and the other Principal Officers who commanded in the faid Expedition. Publifhed by Auchortyp. E, OAN =D. Ov NE: Printed by £. Owen in Warwick-Lane, 1746. (Price Six-pence.) TITLE OF SHIRLEY’S ACCOUNT OF THE LOUISBURG EXPEDITION 230 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND Shirley had wisely provided another string to his bow, and had written some time before to the Duke of Newcastle, Sec- retary of State, pointing out the great danger to the fisheries and the Acadian ports from the proximity of Louisburg. It was this Duke of Newcastle who knew so little about Amer- ican affairs that, one day when he was told that Annapolis must be fortified, he replied, “‘ Annapolis, Annapolis ! Oh, yes, Annapolis must be defended; to be sure, Annapolis should be defended. Where is Annapolis?” Fortunately, this ami- able secretary’s zeal was better than his knowledge, and he promptly wrote to Commodore Warren, ordering him to sail for Boston and do what he could to help the cause. Warren accordingly sailed with one line-of-battle ship and two 44-gun frigates. While on the way he met a Boston vessel which informed him that Pepperell’s force had already sailed, so Warren changed his course and joined the expedition at Can- seau. Perhaps Pepperell had been precipitate, but in point The French Of fact this headlong speed was the salvation of surprised the enterprise. The French were practically taken unawares; for although rumours of the scheme had reached them, they had been inclined to laugh them to scorn. What likelihood was there of an enemy attacking them with any hope? Their batteries mounted at least 150 heavy guns, against which the provincial assailants brought a vastly infe- rior armament in size and strength. The British ships, how- ever, constituted a powerful reinforcement. The French garrison consisted of 560 French regulars and Swiss merce- naries, with about 1400 Canadian militia, some 2000 in all. The New Englanders effected a landing on the 1st of May, and immediately laid siege to the town. On the next day Vaughan led 400 men behind a line of hills to a point where there were large magazines of naval stores. These he set on fire; and what with the pitch and tar and other such com- 1 [Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of King George II, i. 396.] wh tt Bp ae <, See ae rer wSveed ey ned J epee WEP ise Co) pent oe ‘ Cp B ref. rors BMC CG BY huis Coseng, (2 Pleem ber # CY Le Drill rranee) ae ip reap Ab), Ian [artes é phon d Hiele Mote Venere), a tnd abo a oe Oo fie, eyelid oe #7 WQer ME Comer and 6) TiO Ha Lope Herd. 2 gH. Lnan jee Wore Mas fh rlorer A are ieee 7 per Me pe 6 Mi) BiDémse off lhe Forti oR nan * Gren Lf) ase Wo Had 4 Wider Seppe: ‘ 7D Ke Azsrn hawrer, Beprecen PLEAS Ber crn Gs chan feed, aa wn © ES “ “ger Fever cegn ee Wed, LA ecates) es Gine force Ler) iS nse, mal 4 ic. OD Mevig We ety ee te fermensdie Be 4 vad era Y weDeer ce) FEAF Lad EY pre a aD) Sonn theres thyallien ithe Ti, br litany, Coronary Bo) ove CY War Mherepen le Cetbn ee : ote Crepe green ta whore AI Ales ae ‘4 en A igor Loretta aad Ex Westie, wu Aa Ain a Wan wa D cH pene oe DG ees fa LLG ccf he ceva Men, ee to, Sh ll. Ca TFe et So. ee oe Lc rrsat rie ment AaraAheci foe rg ereae 2, Reson) a Marri, an D Aaca— deme Cran port ems: oer, ave e! Yaott ages fal & DA. Srenck Hangs Dasitadasy on eras ; a Quer ee senna a7 2 er 67S for ce Pg wee we). 2 Be 4s G ss) im rene De We (Fae -) wae ase . TK 7agporrsll prone . Geet. re\atraces eee G z pees Ps ys af ; a7 Se LOUIE? | ti 7 Pdew Ope fre nS. ae, ; FACSIMILE OF PEPPERELL’S DEMAND FOR THE SURRENDER OF LOUISBURG 232 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND bustibles, the smoke that came up and floated over the town The Grand Was something quite tremendous. One effect upon Battery |, the French was absurd. Near the burning stores inpanic = was a large fortification known as the Grand Bat- tery, mounting 30 heavy guns. As the thick clouds of smoke rolled up and enveloped this battery, the defenders were seized with panic and abandoned it without firing a shot ; so that when Vaughan’s men passed it, observing the pro- found quiet, they reconnoitred for a moment and then exult- ingly marched in. So hastily had the French departed that they left an immense quantity of ammunition as a present for Vaughan’s men, while the cannon were so poorly spiked that the gunsmith, Seth Pomeroy, had them all ready for use the next morning. So that our New Englanders could now bombard the town with cannon and shot provided by the most Christian king. This capture of the Grand Battery was something on which the besiegers had no right to count, for if it had been properly defended they probably could not have taken it. As it was, its loss by the French probably decided the issue of the whole conflict. The New England troops pressed matters with vigour, and at the end of a week demanded the surrender of the place, but the time had not yet come. On May 19 a French line-of-battle ship arrived upon the scene Capture ofa heavily laden with material of war, and on approach- Erenchi@® ing the town she encountered one of the English oe ships of smaller calibre, which, retreating before her, lured her within reach of the whole British fleet. She was soon surrounded and captured, and all her material of war passed into the hands of the besiegers. Presently the latter received a great reinforcement by the arrival of eight British seventy-fours, under cover of which the troops were able to establish new batteries at various points. By the middle of June there was scarcely a house in the town that had not been more or less riddled by shot and shell. The Se (Z oe Cape Noir MAP OF ask oe ah Island Lyi A Battery speyo , DUISBURG NORRIDGEWOCK AND LOUISBURG 233 British fleet held the harbour closely invested, and 1000 scaling ladders were made ready for a grand attack. This was too much for the Frenchmen, and on the 17th Louisburg of June this famous fortress was surrendered. The Ae mad scheme of Vaughan and Shirley had become 1745 a sober reality. When the news was disseminated abroad the civilized world was dumb with amazement. For the first time it waked up to the fact that a new military power had grown up in America. One of the strongest fortresses on the face of the earth had surrendered to a force of New England militia. Pepper- ell was at once created a baronet, being the only native American who ever attained that rank. War- ren was promoted to the grade of admiral. Louis- burg Square in Boston commemorates the vic- tory. Some twenty-five years ago, when we were rebuilding the eastern transept of Harvard Col- lege Library, I discovered ina gloomy corner an iron cross about thirty inches in height, which had stood in the market-place at Louisburg and was brought to Cambridge as a trophy. I thought it a pity to hide such a thing, so I had it peliwet gilded and set up over the southern entrance to the Louisburg library, where it remained several years, until one night some silly vandals, presumed to be students, succeeded in detach- ing this heavy mass of iron and carrying it away. LOUISBURG CROSS 1 [Fortunately it has since been returned, and is now in the library. ] CHAPTER VIII BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR THE treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle did very little to set matters at rest in North America ; it provided only a short breathing ene spell before the numerous unsettled questions gave of Aixla- rise to another and far greater war. The treaty Chapelle ye ‘ 5 did little or nothing toward marking out bounda- ries either at the east in Acadia, or at the west toward the Ohio valley, and it was in the latter region that the next great storm was to burst. By 1748 the schemes of La Salle had developed as far as they were ever destined todo. A thriving colony had been founded near the mouth of the Mississippi River, and that region was connected with Canada by a straggling series of fortified villages at great distances apart. Such places were Kaskaskia and Cahokia, as well as Fort Chartres in the Illinois country, and Detroit. But the French were now beginning to feel the disadvan- tage of scarcity of numbers distributed over long exterior lines. Every year that brought them closer to contact with the English made this disadvantage more apparent. Since La Salle’s time a great change had come over the land. In his day, Pennsylvania was merely the banks of the Delaware The spread River, while the Maryland and Virginia settlements of the E8- were confined to the tidewater regions; but by want 1748 not only had these English populations spread for many miles into the interior, but a fresh migration from Europe, conducted on a greater scale than any of its pre- decessors, had introduced into the middle Appalachian region an active and aggressive population. Of the 3,000,000 in- BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 235 habitants of the United States in 1776, at least one sixth part were Presbyterians who had come from the north pre scotch. of Ireland since 1720.1 Along with these there lish was a considerable population of Protestant Germans who had come at about the same time. By far the greater part of this population had passed through the old settled sea- board districts and made homes for itself on what was then the western frontier; that is to say, the Alleghany region of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. From this population came some of the most hardy and enterpris- ing pioneers of the old west, such men as Daniel Boone, James Robertson, and John Sevier the Huguenot; for in this movement we find the name of many a Protestant Frenchman enlisted under the banner of St. George. By 1748 the settled English population was fast approaching the Appalachian ranges, and the more mobile company of hunters, trappers, fur-traders, and other pioneers The were passing beyond them and fast making their eee mark upon the western country. A company had Alleghanies already been formed in Virginia for the improvement of lands on the Ohio River, and in this company were inter- ested some of the most prominent men in the colony, in- cluding two brothers of George Washington. Some of the pioneers were pressing forward to make homes in the wilder- ness where afterward grew up the two great commonwealths of Kentucky and Tennessee; but that stage was only real- ized three years later. Meanwhile as the Indian trade was lucrative, and hunting had its charms, all the restless spirits who preferred life in the wilderness to life on plantations were finding their way through the picturesque defiles of 1 (Cf. on the Scotch-Irish, Fiske, Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Illustrated Edition, ii. 370-376; The Dutch and Quaker Colonies, \lus- trated Edition, ii. 334-336; and Mr. C. A. Hanna’s elaborate work, 7he Scotch-Irish, or the Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America, 2 vols., New York, 1902.] 236 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND the mountains down the broad grassy slopes through which flowed the western rivers. Now this advance of the English frontier was an advance against the centre of the whole French position. In those aaa days, as at present, there were two great routes, vance of the whether for military purposes or for trade, between English a F oslo wie uate menaceto the Atlantic seaboard and the Mississippi valley. the French One of these was from Albany to the Niagara River, and thence westward either to the north or to the south of Lake Erie. The other was from Philadelphia or Baltimore to Pittsburg, and thence down the Ohio River. It followed, therefore, that if the English could firmly hold both the Niagara River and the junction between the Allegheny and the Monongahela, where Pittsburg now stands, it would be in their power to strike at the centre of the long exterior line held by the French, and forever to cut Louisiana asun- der from Canada. By degrees the more far-sighted French- men who administered the affairs of Canada had been taking in the alarming character of the situation. Since the early The French Patt of the century the influence of the Frenchmen Eeenes VEL the Indian tribes had relatively diminished. Indians They held as firmly as ever the alliance of the ectines northern Algonquins, from the Micmacs of Nova Scotia to the Ojibways of Lake Superior, and at one time in the early part of the eighteenth century their influence had waxed strong even among their ancient enemies of the Long House. The persuasive tongues of the Jesuits had even won converts among the Mohawks, a small colony of whom they had established at Caughnawaga on the St. Law- rence River, a short distance above Montreal. These Caugh- nawagas were useful as middle-men in the trade between the remote northwest and the province of New York by way of Lake Champlain, and they were also of considerable service as spies to report in Canada the affairs of New York. These circumstances led William Burnet, the able governor of New q pue Ayan ‘sjaipid ‘COD jo souayad PI poe snoriyisdns are “quey Jo yoang> oy) ut pi Y_22y1I9D"S ay pus “QuIes s9q20 Kue Jo “eepy WISI A ay2 jo uoneiopy 30 “LSINHD J0 pore pur (peg ou) oul ausy 29 per.g\jo sjuawayy 242 Jo UONRRURYQnjURIT, — Age.jou st 2134) “Yad d MS-3.d Y OT oy jo weomesoes aya uP eye 2aatjaq Op [2e4.L | Saepoaq pur ApyaL ‘sjojosg “GOD jo souajarg ayy ur Syasaquy pue Ajuulsjoj of *£" 7 fee es grins en Rae Pie. 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Teg, “BING pue sjimorg Ajajoouy og ‘g ‘7 I = ut ow ore yi -WoTe90 AUT oy: 224 | PY > 19ADOPeYM Uosiog Aug Aq Josreyy-voies99jTo7y oy) Jaye 10-32. 2181 ‘238[21q ‘Uopiog ae Il ADNOTD OL AONVIOATIV AO HLVO Prasie P77IYAYY | o Sedeg aif 4a sjodang s eyusdiiq: ABE snow pue § sraz0jzym uoneasay> qh uo} 341 19 &uowpny a wo uoreyuadsg t PopgyM vo}iog to Huoyiny Xue : Y lerusu 3 popysopun Ajuouiwes are. A a Sa a SaaS 8S se eae SS BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 237 York, to build a fortress at Oswego in 1722 upon land which he bought for the purpose from the Six Nations. As the New York Assembly was as froward and penny wise ne as usual, Burnet cut the Gordian knot by paying founding the expenses out of his own pocket. This found- Sead ing of Oswego was an event of prime importance in the his- tory of the United States, inasmuch as it diverted the main THE SOUTH VIEW OF OSWEGO current of the northwestern fur trade from the valley of the St. Lawrence to the valley of the Mohawk, and thus greatly strengthened the hold of the English upon the Long House all the way from the Hudson River to Lake Erie! In 1738 this English influence was still further increased by the ar- rival of that remarkable man, William Johnson, a native of Ireland, who waxed rich in the Indian trade, built for himself two strongholds in the Mohawk valley, and acquired such a reputation among the Mohawks that they revered him like one of their natural chiefs. The influence exerted gj, witiam upon the Indians by Johnson and by the Schuylers Jens" of Albany, as well as through the trading station at Oswego, 1[W. L. Stone, Life and Times of Sir William Fohnson, i. 30-32. ] 238 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND made it probable that in the event of a conflict with France the English could control the Niagara River. Still more important, however, was the mountainous site of Pittsburg, the Gateway of the West, as it used to be called; for it was in that neighbourhood that the English were already pressing westward and winning control over the numerous and powerful tribes of the Ohio valley. Among these should especially be mentioned the Delawares and Shawnees upon the upper Ohio; and with them were asso- ciated the remnants of the Hurons, generally known as Wyandottes, and likewise a group which had migrated from the Long House, apparently consisting chiefly of Senecas, but called by the frontiersmen Mingos. Westward of all these came the Miamis, and then the Illinois. Late in the seventeenth century all these tribes had been invaded, tor- mented, and made more or less tributary by the Long House. Whether they acknowledged the relationship or not, the Long House asserted it whenever an occasion offered. French influence over these tribes had never been strong except English among the Illinois. On the other hand, the Eng- traders in lish traders as they came into the Ohio valley were valley careful to propitiate the natives, and succeeded in establishing a strong influence over them, especially the tribes of the upper Ohio. Obviously, if this sort of thing were to go on, it would not be long before the English would hold the whole stretch of country from Oswego south of Lake Erie to Cahokia as firmly as the French held the coun- try from Montreal to the Sault Ste. Marie; in other words, the English would hold both the great routes between east and west, and New France would be severed in twain. This situation was distinctly realized by the Marquis de la Galissoni¢re, who governed Canada in 1749; and that year he sent a party of about 250 men to inspect the country between the Niagara and Ohio rivers, to take possession of it in the name of the French king, and to ascertain the sen- 83 79 Janes Bay L. Nipissing at a Roo Zz. fi oy Texandria 4 a a GINIA it a 4 Peet GN. O RTH CA ei ROLINA * sy i 87 . . 83. 79 Longitt ——— | MAP SHOWING THE BRITISH COLONIES ‘ ee, AND i—_——— if & NORTHERN NEW FRANCE + PS 1750-1760 y seals of Miles i 0 40 80 160 240 Dark buff represents 1,000 ft. and over. | so | New France Cy British Colonies | \ ide West 15 from Greenwich 67 63 37 BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 239 timents of the native tribes. The command of this party was entrusted to a captain and chevalier named Céloron de CELORON DE BIENVILLE Bienville. They went up the St. Lawrence as far as Fort Frontenac, crossed Lake Ontario in canoes which they car- ried up by the bank of the Niagara River, and launching them at a safe distance above the falls, made their way into Lake Erie. Then for seven days they forced their way 240 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND through the dense forest to the placid waters of Chautau- qua Lake, and after landing where Jamestown now stands, and struggling once more with the tangled woods, they reached the Allegheny River. At that point of their route on the 29th of July they took possession of the country in the name of Louis XV. This act of taking possession was Sein performed as follows: The royal arms of France takes pos’ = stamped upon a tin plate were nailed to a tree. session of ; the Ohio At the root of the tree a plate of lead was buried, Lok Xv, upon which was an inscription stating that Mon- ae sieur Céloron had buried this plate “as a token of renewal of possession heretofore taken of the aforesaid river Ohio, of all streams that fall into it, and all lands on both sides: to the source of the aforesaid streams, as the preceding kings of France have enjoyed or ought to have enjoyed it, and which they have upheld by force of arms and by treaties, notably by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle.” 1 It will be observed that this is the usual style which France has maintained for some centuries, Whenever her borders have been extended it has always been officially declared to be simply taking possession of what was hers already. Upon various other spots as they descended the river our party of Frenchmen buried these leaden tablets, the last place being at the mouth of the Great Miami. Some of the plates have since then been dug up and preserved in museums. The general demeanour of the Indians through whose towns the Frenchmen passed was polite, but suspicious and unsatisfactory. It was evi- dent that the English influence was strong throughout the Céloron —-UPPEF country drained by the Ohio. When Célo- among the ron reached the Great Miami he turned his course Mims “up that river and presently came to a village of the Miamis, ruled by a chieftain who was a firm friend to the 1 [A facsimile of this plate is given in Winsor, Varrative and Critt- cal Hist. of America, v. 9.] 6bL1 ‘SHLVTd $,NOUO1AD AO ANO AO ATIWISOVA 242 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND English, in so much that they commonly called him “Old Britain,” but the French oddly called him “ La Demoiselle,” or “ The Maiden.” Whether he was faint-hearted, as such an epithet might seem to imply, or perhaps more delicate of feature than others of his race, we cannot say; but as to his capacity for lying, we are not left in doubt. His home had formerly been upon the Maumee River, not far from the site of Fort Wayne, and he had now moved close down to the Ohio, apparently in order to be in the highway of English trade. Céloron heaped gifts upon him and urged him to take his men back to their old home on the Maumee. The astute Demoiselle accepted the presents and was profuse in The Miamis Promises, but so far was he from retiring that he Paelish gathered into his new town as many recruits as he influence could summon.! The English called it Pickawil- lany. It became one of the principal Indian towns of the west, completely under English influence, and was a serious obstacle to all French schemes in that quarter. For some time Canadian officials intrigued and fulminated against Pick- awillany, until at length in the summer of 1752 Charles de The French Langlade, a young French trader of Green Bay, destroy the Jed a large force of Ojibways and Ottawas against ing village the obnoxious town. They took it by surprise, slaughtered many of the defenders, and burned the town, crowning the work by a hilarious supper in which they feasted upon the boiled carcase of the Demoiselle himself. Considering the vital importance of the Gateway of the West, it seems very strange that the English, who were then in possession of it, did not build and maintain a strong for- tress there, but in truth the spot was claimed at once by Virginia and by Pennsylvania, and in neither of these pro- vinces did the legislature wish to invest money in property that might be adjudged to belong to another province. The 1 [A facsimile of the map of Father Bonnecamp, the chaplain of the expedition, is given in Winsor, arr. and Crit. Hist. of Amer., v. 569.] BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 243 swarm of difficulties that surrounded this unsettled question sufficed to prevent all action. Meanwhile, a new governor came to Canada, the Marquis Duquesne, who saw clearly that New France must either control the Gateway of the West, or give up all hold upon the Ohio valley amanyiis and submit to see Canada severed from Louisiana, ”“™*"* Accordingly, in the spring of 1753 Duquesne sent out a force. of 1500 men commanded by an able veteran named Marin. This little army crossed Lake Erie at some distance to the west of Niagara River, and landed at Presqu’Isle, where the town of Erie now stands, and there they built a strong blockhouse. From that point they cut a ee road through the forest to the stream since known expedition as French Creek, and there they erected a second eee blockhouse and called it Fort Le Boeuf. Here they could re- sume their canoes and easily float down French Creek to the Allegheny River, ee need ie, : the Gulf of Mexico. At this point the French commander fell dangerously ill, and his place was taken by another skilful veteran, Legardeur de Saint-Pierre. By these active measures the French were gaining strength daily. It is true that the Indians of the region they were en- tering were friends of the English, but the red man’s politics were apt to be of a vacillating sort, and truckling sein aces to strength was one of their chief characteristics. between They resembled the politics of the famous Vicar of ooo Bray, whose conduct was always guided by one unswerving principle, no matter what party might be uppermost, always to remain Vicar of Bray, sir. The red man was usually ready to follow the advice of Mr. Pickwick and shout with 244 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND whichever mob shouted the loudest. This was seen in the conduct of a feathered potentate whom the English called the Half-King ; he came out from his village with a show of fight, but soon made up his mind that discretion was the better part of valour. Fifteen hundred Frenchmen! truly the white father at Quebec must be a mighty chief. Sev- eral tribes sent messages seeking to curry favour with the invaders. It was Duquesne’s intention to have a third fort built at Venango, where French Creek flows into the Allegheny, and an advance party, commanded by Joncaire, had arrived at that Z, Vn oe and seized and fortified an (4 SGeaho English trading house there. Thus far had things proceeded in the early days of December, 1753, when one evening as Joncaire and his friends were Achance Sitting down to supper, some unbidden guests ar- meeting rived upon the scene. The party consisted of Christopher Gist, a veteran trader who acted as guide, an Indian interpreter named Davison, a French interpreter named Vanbraam, and four wood rangers as servants. The person for whom this little party acted as escort was a tall : and stately youth named George Washington, a Major mnt Ey abscet barat et Gree major in the Virginia militia. Governor Dinwid- sent towarn die of Virginia, who was keeping as keen a watch the French bon the Ohio valley from Williamsburg as Dv- quesne was keeping from Montreal, had heard of the crossing of Lake Erie by the French and their approach toward the Gateway of the West. To warn them off was a delicate matter, while to counteract their intrigues with the Indians a wise head was called for. Washington had been in the employ of Lord Fairfax in surveying frontier land, and had made good use of the opportunities for studying Indians. Governor Dinwiddie, moreover, gave him credit for a clear- sightedness that nothing could hoodwink and a courage that yg 6 A Oe ge eg i daa oa Creag ye a o/s wae pay) Copoogg | Seen STON Ere W2.ba-.1W+ Goo... es aa ge ee LE Ee OLR SE FT hg G eel} pupae rreway i PV) LPI OPP peeps g tay of UY thy Uy ony ypormeny mip ep yy Mp 0 777G ae y eral yoonyy hey L cds emf VL Yf ne OT eer Gregg erage G9 CNTY YORE SF PLY IO DEY IAC ee Sy Be wD ae ge GP CPP eg ye CY, ie ‘whyap ACE <3 MY So S ahi Se eS S75 AN 4 ’ : xo CLCSe 620 eas € Se 24 T WO’ JOURNAL Major ae W afbington, - SENT BY THE Hon. ROBERT DINWIDDIE, ty . His. Majeity’s Lieutenant-Governor, and » Commander in Chief of PIRGIN IA, TO THE COMMANDANT OF THE FRENCH FORCES OHTO. To WHICH ARE ADDED, THE GOVERNOR’ LETTER; Anp. A TRANSLATION or tue Frinci OFFICER’s ANSWERi _WILLIAMSBURG:..... vee ee Printed by WILLIAMHUNTER i753 TITLE OF WASHINGTON’S JOURNAL 246 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND nothing could daunt, and in this the wise old Scotchman was not deceived. After the party had sat down to supper and the wine had begun to circulate, the Frenchmen grew somewhat confiden- tial, and with their politest smiles assured Washington that they intended to drive the English out of all that The French ‘ boast of | country; and they felt sure that they could do it, ‘heir Plans for although inferior in force, they more than made up for this by their quickness of movement. The next day Washington proceeded to Fort Le Boeuf, where he met the French commander, and gave him a polite letter from Din- widdie expressing his surprise that he should thus venture to encroach upon English _ terri- ; : 5 tory in time of ue. IZ ee L&I peace. The old Frenchman treated Washington with extreme politeness, but said that he should feel it necessary to remain where he was until he should have had time to transmit Dinwiddie’s letter to Montreal and get a reply from Governor Duquesne. Washington’s return to Virginia was marked with adven- tures and some hair-breadth escapes... When Governor Din- widdie heard the results of his journey, which were not very different from what he had anticipated, he made up his mind Governor that as large a force as possible must be collected Dinwiddie from Virginia and other colonies, to advance, while resolves to any y's; there was yet time,and occupy the Gateway of the the West West; but the governor of a free English colony was at a great disadvantage as compared with a despotic governor of Canada. Dinwiddie must persuade his legisla- ture, and he must notify other governors, who in turn must 1 [Washington’s Journal of this expedition is in Sparks’s ed. of his works, ii. 432-447. For other reprints, see Winsor, Warr. and Crit. Hist., v. $72. Gist’s Journal is to be found in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 3 ser. v. 101-108. | BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 247 persuade their legislatures. We need not be surprised that the English were too late. Washington had selected the spot where Pittsburg now stands as the proper place for a commanding fortress, but scarcely had his men begun to work there when they were driven away by a superior force of Frenchmen, who proceeded to build a stout Digudae fortress and call it Fort Duquesne. Well might anticipates the indignant Dinwiddie exclaim in a letter writ. “* "8's" ten at this time, “If our Assembly had voted the money in November which they did in February, it’s more than prob- able the fort would have been built and garrisoned before H APLAN' ofthe he i Vuew Forv ., 3 ‘i at PITTS- BURGH on DU QUESNE Now 759. Stet Sivunted InJat,48.20 Long.88. ? ¥ OBIO ox Vee ALLEGENY:, byplanation ‘ ACasemater wider he Cartaina 3 B Powder Magannes....... 3 Laboratonts for the Arhllay...... Beorracht ie goo Men. Sally parts he front te ‘Casta. 4 GiZLow Linin. PLAN OF FORT DUQUESNE the French had approached ; but these things cannot be done without money. As there was none in our treasury, I have advanced my own to forward the expedition ; and if the independent companies from New York come soon, I am in hopes the eyes of the other colonies will be opened ; 248 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND and if they grant a proper supply of men, I hope we shall be able to dislodge the French or build a fort on that river.” 1 When we read such letters as this and realize that through the whole seventy years of struggle with New France the difficulty was always the same, we surely cannot much wonder that the British minister at the beginning of Pontiac’s war should have deemed it necessary to resort to such a measure as the Stamp Act. Americans should not forget that while that measure was ill-considered, the evil which it was designed to relieve was most flagrant and dan- gerous. In point of fact, in May, 1754, Dinwiddie’s force on the mie frontier was only the Virginia regiment of about ora three hundred men under Colonel Joshua Fry, with Oe Major Washington second in command. Fry was detained by sickness at Will’s Creek about one hun- dred and forty miles from Fort Duquesne. The advance was slow and difficult, as it was necessary to cut roads through the virgin forests and over the mountains in order to drag cannon and wagons. An advance of a mile in a day was sometimes all that could be accomplished. In spite of these obstacles, Washington had crossed the mountains and en- camped at a spot called Great Meadows with about one hun- dred and fifty men, when a message came to him from his friend the Half-King, saying that the French were upon the march to meet him. For two or three days Washington watched vigilantly for a surprise, and the reports that came in seemed to indicate that a French force was lurking in the Washington neighbourhood. Presently the Half-King arrived surprises 2 upon the scene, and as everything indicated that foe the enemy intended a surprise, it was decided to find them if possible and inflict a counter surprise. The result was that presently the French were discovered in a ravine, and there was a brief fight in which the French 1 (Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, i. 144.] BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 249 commander, an ensign named Jumonville, was killed, with nine others, and the remaining twenty-two were captured. After it was all over some of the prisoners informed Wash- ington that they were a party sent from Fort Duquesne by its commander, Contrecceur, to carry a message to Washington. In point of fact, it was a scouting party intended to look out for any approaching party of English, and to warn them to withdraw from this portion of New France. A great out- cry was afterward raised by the French at what they chose to call perfidy on Washington’s part, and an absurd story was circulated to the intent that he had fired upon a flag of truce. The whole case may, however, be properly summed up as a chance encounter between two forces engaged in actual hostilities before any declaration of war. Each side professed to be unwilling to force on hostilities, while each side was eager to strike the other as soon as a proper occa- sion offered. After this affray Washington built a rude entrenchment at Great Meadows which he called Fort Necessity. 5.4 A few days afterward news came of Colonel Fry’s Necessity death, and presently other troops arrived from Virginia and South Carolina, until Washington was in command of some three hundred men besides about one hundred and fifty Indians under the Half-King and others. Meanwhile the authorities in Canada had not been idle, and the garrison of Fort Duquesne now numbered fourteen hundred men. A force of about six hundred under Coulon de Villiers, brother of the slain Jumonville, marched up the Monongahela in quest of Washington. Villiers arrived at Great Meadows on a rainy day, and a lively firing |. ie was kept up until dark. By that time the English of Fort 5 . Necessity found their powder nearly exhausted and their guns foul, while their food was gone and starvation faced them. Washington therefore accepted the terms. offered by the French commander, that the English should march away 250 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND with the honours of war, with drums beating and colours flying, and that they should be protected from insult, while on the other hand they should surrender their prisoners of Jumonville’s party. So the English marched away. It was not a very murderous affair, and Washington’s friend, the red man Half-King, sarcastically gave it as his opinion that the Frenchmen had behaved like cowards and the English like sy fools. It was on the 4th of July that young Wash- English ington began his doleful retreat across the moun- rere tains into Virginia. The situation seemed to have nothing to retrieve it. At this first outbreak of the struggle with France the enemy seemed to be carrying everything before them. The Gateway of the West was in their posses- sion, and the red flag of England waved nowhere within the limits of what they chose to call New France. Yet Wash- ington even at that early age was already a marvel of fortitude and may have consoled himself with the thought that better days were coming. Before he was permitted, however, to see such better days, the cup of disaster must be drained to its dregs. Nothing could be clearer than that the possession of Fort Duquesne by the French and their infliction of a slight defeat upon the English would have an immediate and disastrous effect upon most of the Indian tribes in the Ohio valley. Dinwiddie therefore at once prepared to assume the offensive and carry the war on a larger scale into the enemy’s country. But he found himself impeded at every step by the Virginia House of Burgesses. Those canny planters were loath to put much money into the governor’s hands lest he should make an Niggardli- improper use of it. At one time they would refuse ness of the the appropriation asked for, at another time they Assemblies would grant a sum too small to be of much use, and yet again they would grant a sufficient sum, while at- taching to the bill a rider concerning some long-disputed question which they knew would elicit an angry veto from BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 251 the governor. Similarly in Pennsylvania the Assembly re- fused money for military purposes in order to wring from the governor some concession with regard to the long-vexed question of taxing proprietary lands. Moreover, the Assem- bly at Philadelphia was not quite sure that it was worth while to raise troops for taking Fort Duquesne from the French if it should thereby fall into the possession of Vir- ginia. It was with difficulty that these representative bodies could be made to see anything that required any breadth of vision. Moreover, they were used to contending against their governors ; in the eyes of most representatives that was the sole object for which legislatures existed, but they were not accustomed to devote much thought to the French as ene- mies, nor had they as yet learned very well what it meant to be invaded by Indians. On the other hand, New 2. stonce York and Massachusetts were somewhat more for- of the colo- . ‘ nies depend- ward, inasmuch as they had a keen perception of ent on the what was involved in warfare against Frenchmen °°" and Indians. Here too, however, the zeal of the governors far outran the efficiency of the legislatures. Shirley, in par- ticular, a veteran lawyer of great sense and more than aver- age insight, appreciated the nature of the threatened struggle more keenly than any of the other governors except Din- widdie. In fact, something was happening of the sort that people never quite see until they can look backward. The Eng- lish colonies had insensibly drifted into a continental state of things. The crisis had been hastened by the wholesale incoming of the Scotch-Irish and Germans. The bulging of the centre of the English line toward the Ohio valley had brought things to a pass where it was no longer a conflict between New France and New England in the narrower sense, but between New France and the entire world of English America. Under these circumstances the next war that should break out must be a continental affair ; it would 252 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND concern Louisiana and Georgia as well as New York and Canada; and yet, here were the people of these colonies aeons profoundly ignorant and almost culpably careless aunionof of each other’s interests, ready to throw away all the colonies i i the advantages of numerical strength and interior lines and give away the victory to an inferior enemy rather than codperate with one another in defeating him. Qbvi- ously, the crying need of the time was some feasible plan for a federal Union. In the event of a war, it was important to insure the aid of the Six Nations, and to this end it was necessary to let them know how much support they might expect from the English colonies. For this purpose a con- gress was called to assemble at Albany in the summer of 1754 in order to consider the situation. It was the sec- ond congress that assembled on American soil, the first hav- ing been the one called by Leisler at New York in 16901! It is significant that even on this verge of a mighty con- flict only the four New England colonies with New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were represented at the Albany Congress. The deliberations were chiefly memorable for a plan of union drawn up by Benjamin Franklin, which, if The Albany it had been adopted, might perhaps have averted Congress the Revolution of twenty years later.2 This plan would have created a true federal Union, the government of which would have operated directly upon individuals, as our present federal Union does, and not upon states only, as the Continental Congress did. Franklin’s plan would have created a Continental government with taxing power for continental purposes only, leaving otherwise intact the local self-government. There would have been a president or 1 (CE Fiske, The Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Ulustrated Edition, 182, 183, and Frothingham, Rise of the Republic of the United States, PP. 90-93-] ? [Such seems to have been Franklin’s opinion in 1789; see Froth- ingham, ise of the Republic, etc., p. 149, note.] AYINSdNVH MUN LOASDILOANNOOD ANVISI ACOHY WIJ VIN VA AS NM NSIeT MUYOA MAN Be a WA, A Bo oe AMES Lor its Lape oy oboe i feet Revegaline , he lop SE GEA pL oY tt ee lore iy and mE thes iad J ie ie pf Seente x tba Lett vee oy pfttevreval Lee ( See Bacppivce #6 Cap we Z a We: Fersget % Segre ae ect) Ano Se - DE ne fe Le be di ae ee Le Te Ce. y Pap ce Go Lifer wu oe 2 bbe Disp eb Gop | fone gtiee CG Pie oo: baie ee, e, eS Z He top nty Ge, pe As fs le puch elegy nar 4 9 oh: excl ly aa fas fiat Orie at ee van ti. et on QW iifrre ape | 4 es Seusial Gs wh Bost bine Goibikons gs] FACSIMILE OF MESHECH WEARE’S PLAN OF FEDERATION 254 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND governor-general appointed by the Crown to serve as chief executive in purely continental matters.? This plan of federation was rejected with small ceremony by the colonies. In some cases no notice was taken of it; Franklins in others it was treated with contempt. There a were few people as yet who saw any meaning in rejected the demand for a closer union, and nothing but a long experience of distress and disaster would have taught them the need of it. This rejection of the Albany plan left Bradvock. the colonies in a very embarrassing position. On the brink of a great war there was no single power in the country which could raise men and money for the common defence. Of course there were but few who anticipated war, or were alive to the situation. It was at this moment that it oc- curred to Shirley that if the colonists could not create for themselves a continental taxing power, it would be necessary for Parliament to fulfil that function. This would involve a direct tax, and while Shirley recognized the American un- willingness to submit to taxation by any other authority than that of the colonial Assemblies, he nevertheless thought that a stamp tax might be received with acquiescence i, because it had so few an- noying features. It was by such considerations as these that the British official mind was prepared for the Stamp Act of eleven years later. As it was, the colonies had to flounder through a great war as best they could. The representations of the royal governors and of the 1 (See Bigelow, Franklin's Works, ii. 355-375; Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, etc., pp. 134-151.] BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 255 viceroy of Canada created some excitement both in Eng- land and in France. In England a couple of regiments, each of five hundred men, were shipped for Virginia un- enced der command of Major-General Edward Braddock. and France When this was learned at Versailles a force of cate three thousand men was started for Canada under ‘”» Baron Dieskau. The health of Duquesne was failing, and RICHARD, LORD HOWE with Dieskau’s expedition there came a new viceroy for Can- ada, the last of her French governors, Vaudreuil, a younger son of the former governor of that name. The expedition did not get clear of European waters without adventure. It 256 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND was well understood by the British government that the squadron gathering at Brest had troops on board destined for America. Accordingly, a powerful force of eighteen or twenty ships of the line was sent out to intercept and cap- ture any French vessels bound for America. The greater part of the French squadron, however, got away; but three of its ships, having fallen behind through stress of weather, Canteen mena in the neighbourhood of Cape Race when the ee British fleet overtook them. As the British ship Dunkirk came abreast of the French ship Alcide, a red flag was suddenly hoisted upon the British flagship as a signal for fighting ; whereupon the French captain of the Alcide called out, “Ts this peace or war?” He was answered by Richard Howe, captain of the Dunkirk, “I don’t know; but you’d better get ready for war.” Scarcely had the words been uttered when the Dunkirk and other English ships opened fire, and the Alcide, with one of her companions, was forced to surrender. This little incident at sea was the naval counterpart to Wash- ington’s passage at arms with Jumonville in the mountains. It was in February, 1755, that General Braddock arrived at Governor Dinwiddie’s house at Williamsburg. The spring Gener was spent in preparations for the campaign that Braddock was to wrest Fort Duquesne from the enemy and recover the Gateway of the West. The figure of Braddock has long been well known to all Americans, —a British bull- dog, brave, obstinate, and honest, but more than ordinarily dull in appreciating an enemy’s methods, or in freeing him- self from the precise traditions in which he had been edu- BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 257 cated. His first and gravest mistake, however, -—that of underrating his Indian foe, —is one that has been shared by many commanders, to their confusion, and by many writers. The fighting qualities of the red man have often been ill appreciated, and in particular he has been ignorantly accused of cowardice because of his stealthy methods and |... unwillingness to fight in the open. In point of mode of fact, his method of fighting was closely adapted to ia the physical conditions of the American wilderness, and it was just what was produced by survival of the fittest during thousands of years of warfare under such conditions. When white men came to America, they were at first able to wreak wholesale destruction upon the natives without regard to numbers or conditions. Such was the case when the Pe- quots, the Stamford Indians, and the Narragansetts were swept out of existence.1 This was largely because of the European superiority in arms, but in later days, when this disparity had been done away with, white men were apt to find Indians quite as formidable enemies as they cared to deal with, and in order to achieve success it was found ne- cessary to adopt the Indian methods, abandoning solid col- umns and lines of battle, so as to fight in loose order and behind trees or earthworks. It is interesting to see that in these later days when the increase in the power papish and precision of death-dealing weapons has greatly ee s increased the dangerousness of the battlefield, there meh has been a tendency to recur to Indian methods in so far as concerns looseness of order and the use of vari- ous kinds of cover. In the eighteenth century there was nobody so ill fitted to fight with Indians as a European reg- ular, trained in European manuals of war and inured to Eu- ropean discipline. Braddock’s fatuity was well illustrated in his reply to Dr. Franklin, when the latter informed him that 1 (Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, lllustrated Edition, pp. 140, 250.] 258 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND the Indians, as antagonists, were by no means to be despised : “These savages may, indeed,” said Braddock, ‘‘be a formid- able enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the king’s regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible that they should make any impression.” } Many stories of Braddock’s arrogance and ill-temper have come down to us, but if we consider the obstacles that were thrown in the way of military promptness, by which zealous Braddock’s men like Shirley and -Dinwiddie were so often difficulties goaded to anger, we need not wonder that Brad- dock’s temper was sometimes not altogether at its best. He scolded a good deal about the legislatures, and sometimes let fall exasperating remarks about the lack of zeal and rec- titude in public servants. For such insinuations there was sometimes apparent ground, especially when the member ofa legislature showed himself more intent upon annoying the governor than upon attacking the enemy. The energetic Shirley made a visit to Braddock’s camp at Alexandria, in the course of which a comprehensive plan of procedure was agreed upon, which involved operations on the Niagara River and Lake Champlain and the northeastern frontier as well as in the Alleghany Mountains. For the present we will confine our story to the latter. At the outset a mistake was made in the choice of a route. For a force like Braddock’s, wagons were indispensable, and wagons were far more common in Pennsylvania than in Vir- ginia. A route corresponding with the general direction of Braddock the Pennsylvania Railroad would not only have been should have “much shorter than the route through Virginia, but Philadel it would have been, at least in its earlier stages, a phia ; ’ ; route through a population which could furnish wagons. By adopting this route Braddock would have made the Pennsylvanians feel some personal interest in the acquisi- 1 [Life of Benjamin Franklin, written by himself. Edited by John Bigelow, Philadelphia, 1884, i. 425.] BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 259 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN tion of Fort Duquesne; whereas, when he decided to march through Virginia it only tended to confirm Pennsylvanians in the impression that Fort Duquesne, if conquered, was to pass into Virginian hands. After a while Benjamin Frank- lin went about among the farmers, and by pledging his own personal credit obtained a fair supply of horses and wagons. 1 [Life of Benjamin Franklin, etc., edited by John Bigelow, i. 322.] 260 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND Braddock’s force at length set out in detachments and marched along the banks of the Potomac River to the old trading station of the Ohio Company known as Will’s Creek. It had lately been fortified, and received the name of Fort Cumberland. This was the rendezvous of the army. The two regiments from England had been increased by further enlistments in Virginia of nine companies of militia of fifty men each to a total of fourteen hundred men. Braddock despised these militia, and had small respect either for par- tisan guerilla forces or for Indian auxiliaries. The services of the chief Scarroyaddy, or of the noted frontiersman Black Jack, were at his disposal at the cost of a few civil words only, but he treated these worthies so superciliously that they went off on business of their own. In spite of these instances of indiscretion, however, it is not correct to say, as has often been said, that Braddock neglected all precaution and was drawn into an am- buscade. Such statements are samples of the kind of exaggeration that is apt to grow up about events that create great public excitement. Braddock made mistakes enough, but he was not absolutely a fool. During the whole of the march flanking parties were kept out on each side of the creeping column, while scouts in all directions ranged through the depths of the woods. The column, which con- sisted of about twenty-two hundred men, sometimes extended for four miles along a road hardly fit to be called a bridle- path, on the average scarcely four yards in width, The march began on June to, and eight days later the force had advanced only thirty miles from Fort Cumberland. By that time the rear of the column was so heavily encumbered with sick men that its power of marching had almost come to an end. It Adetach. Was therefore decided to leave with the rear col- ment sent umn of about one thousand men most of the heavier advance = wagons and other impedimenta, and to proceed somewhat more quickly toward Fort Duquesne with an ad- The march BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 261 vance guard of twelve hundred. But in spite of this diminu- tion of labour, the difficulties of the road were such that the 7th of July had arrived when the advance column approached Turtle Creek, a stream that flows into the Monongahela about eight miles south of Fort Duquesne. Meanwhile, its pro- gress had been detected and watched, as was to have been expected, by French and Indian scouts. At the fortress Contrecceur still governed, with Beaujeu second in command. The force consisted of five or six hundred Frenchmen, partly regulars and partly Canadian militia, with eight hundred In- dians, some of them baptized converts from the northeast, some of them wild Ojibways led by Charles de Langlade, the conqueror of the Demoiselle, and the rest, Ottawas under their renowned chieftain, the long-headed and ferocious Pon- tiac. When the approach of Braddock’s column to the mouth of Turtle Creek was announced at the French fortress Cap- tain Beaujeu volunteered to go out with a strong party and lay an ambuscade for the English. With this end Beaujeu in view he took some two hundred and fifty French- Sisort re men and over six hundred Indians and stole through Enslish the woods between the fortress and Turtle Creek, but he never succeeded in preparing the desired ambuscade, nor did Braddock’s force march into an ambuscade, in any proper sense of the word. So sensible was Braddock of the great danger of the road between Turtle Creek and Fort Duquesne, on the right bank of the Monongahela, that he p.adaocks forded the latter stream and proceeded down the Precautions opposite bank for five or six miles, when he again crossed the river and brought his column on to a rising ground along which the narrow road ran toward the fortress. His column was then in its usual condition: a few Virginian guides in front, then the advance under Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Gage, among whose men were two lieutenants destined in later days to play inglorious parts, Horatio Gates and Charles Lee. Behind Gage came Sir John St. Clair with the 262 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND working party, followed by a couple of cannon, and these, in turn, by the wagons with powder and tools. Behind these came the principal part of the column, while both flanks and rear were very strongly guarded with flanking parties. The situation would not have been particularly dangerous if the British regulars had known how to separate and fight under cover. It was owing to this internal faultiness, and not to any ambush, that Braddock’s column came to grief. When the opposing forces met it was simply the meeting of the two heads of columns in a narrow woodland road. Who can ever forget that moment when Gage’s light horsemen quickly fled back and those behind could catch a glimpse through the trees of a young French- man wearing a brilliant red gorget and bounding lightly along the road, till, on seeing his enemy, he turned and waved his hand? That brief glimpse of Captain Beaujeu at the mo- ment of his death will forever live in history. At the third volley he dropped dead. Gage’s men delivered fire with ad- mirable coolness, but its effect was slight, for the enemy, in two bifurcating columns, passed to right and to left of the English, all the time pouring in a galling fire from behind trees and bushes. Never were the conditions of a battle more simple. The English were torn to pieces because they stood in solid line where they could be seen; and if any- thing were needed to make it impossible to miss them, it was their bright scarlet coats. On the other hand, no matter The battle The_ how diligently the British loaded and fired, they English , could see nothing to aim at. One officer who had unseen foes been in the thickest of the fight, literally wedged in among falling bodies, said after the battle that he had not caught sight of an Indian during the whole of the battle. They were fighting simply against puffs of smoke which seemed to come from all points of the compass. For a time the cannon were diligently plied and split many tree trunks. Many of the regulars fired wildly and hit their own comrades. — och, hyngs foe pu > oy) fi PUD) fy: YE DE ee i gee : co : aD wD DMVC/ 2 Pp? 2Y) OAD] py \ jo Monn oft ¢ We ; pie aa fe ise ae ( Ee © ( é ¢SZ1 ‘6 ataf ‘1vadada SMOOdavUd AO NVTd / mu ~ecniiney 3 : > ned ay ALBUM DRURY M Anuay ayo Apoy un, ‘WHE A oureenes? veces” HL . Arcade pnd oy yp Paves) (Peay Le "NT POS © PAPROULY ELUM “Stayin hj thin?) oO WAN]? BEN UIE™ OT Y SULLDIOING I SAMO UALY O19 GUE * sdoary, tye *Sype) ey) 29) ) Beer dorses? Ay “SIIMIIAAY, ATHIAATLLVA SMOOGAGVUd AO MAIA 264 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND The Virginians, who scattered and fought in Indian fashion, suffered but little and did more than their share of execution. Some of the regulars tried to imitate these tactics, but wher- ever Braddock saw anything of the sort going on he would Bravery of Strike them with the flat of his sword and force them Braddock pack into the ranks. As for the general himself, ington he performed prodigies of valour, and was forever in the most exposed places, while he had four horses shot under him and at last fell from the fifth with one of his lungs badly torn by a bullet. Washington’s fighting was equally desperate. Two horses were killed under him and his clothes were partly torn from his back by bullets. He seemed to bear a charmed life. It is needless to enlarge further upon such a scene. Let it suffice to say, that out of a total force of thirteen hundred and seventy-three all but four hundred and fifty-nine were killed or wounded; and in addition to these, out of eighty-six officers only twenty-three escaped unhurt. The whole affair was as thickly fraught with horror as anything that is likely to happen in modern warfare. The utter fatuity of the affair, the hopeless feeling of brave men drawn up for slaughter without understanding the means of defence, has in it something peculiarly intolerable. The gal- Braddock’s lant Braddock, as he lay half-dazed upon his death- death bed, was heard to murmur, “ Who would ever have thought it?’’ and again, after an interval, “ We shall know better how to do it next time.” } The skilful retreat from this field of blood added much to the credit of the youthful Washington, and marked him out Dunbars 28 an officer likely to have a brilliant future. As culpable for the rear column, which had been left under pees command of Colonel Dunbar, it retreated to Fort Cumberland, and presently abandoned the campaign, a most ill-judged and reprehensible proceeding which threw open the frontier to all the horrors of Indian invasion. The events of 1 [Life of Benjamin Franklin, written by himself, i. 327.] BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR 265 the past twelve months had done all that twelve months could do in destroying the influence of the English among the Ohio tribes. Washington’s disaster at Great Meadows had gone far toward undermining their allegiance, Brad- dock’s insolence had seasoned their contempt with a spice of anger, and now at last this headlong overthrow of an English army had convinced the red men that good medicine was all on the side of the Great White Father on the St. Lawrence. Thus inauspiciously for the English began the mighty war that was to put an end to the dominion of Frenchmen in America, yet it must be remembered that no declaration of war had as yet been made public. These deeds of blood were the deeds of a time of so-called peace.! 1 [For the literature of Braddock’s march and defeat, see Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist. v. 575-580.} CHAPTER IX CROWN POINT, FORT WILLIAM HENRY, AND TICONDEROGA WuiLe General Braddock was at Williamsburg in the spring of 1755, discussing plans for the summer, he was Governor Visited by Governor Shirley, and a very extensive shay? Scheme of campaigning was laid out. While Brad- campaigtt dock was to advance against Fort Duquesne, Shir- ley was to conduct a force, consisting largely of New England troops, to the Niagara River by way of the Mohawk valley and Oswego. At the same time a force com- manded by William Johnson was to wrest from the French the control of Lake Cham- plain, and yet another force under Colonel Monckton was to proceed against the French on the Aca- dian frontier. The expedition against Ni- agara was to be com- manded by Shirley himself, and he also undertook to provide a leader for the oper- ations against Crown Point. Few royal governors had so much success in dealing with their legislatures as Shirley, ROBERT MONCKTON 2 é ae Porn. BFE. 2 yD: | Bicep Fen. 650. oo E Z 2 ye A IZA 2 de S Pam bef Ph vel! ZZ oe ee Ce aes A oi 5, Vv Jitr es CA TUCLS = fe af 7 s Cpe : ca Ze Np Bee! Pg Ze LA 2 & Be pen ry T oe wee a ee Ei o we Cad nfo ages 6, fe GY Z a we TF a ay LA Lo ee FE ee SPENT Gu PO, fig Te es ert < edp “97 ie ; i a. {Xo pe Jee Ee Oo Bowes 00 on ape co LLAL rACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ROBERT MONCKTON 268 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND who was conspicuous for moderation and tact. He knew how to make his demands seem reasonable in amount, and he knew how to urge them so gracefully as to make it hard to refuse them. In the present instance he had to deal with the four New England colonies and New York; and he understood very well that he could not appoint a com- mander from any one of the New England commonwealths without offending the other three. But against the appoint- ment of William Johnson nothing could very well be said, since the aid of the Iroquois seemed important and John- son’s influence over them was well known. Besides, the ex- pedition was to be directed toward points in the Mohawk Wiliam COUDtry. For these reasons Shirley selected John- Johnson son to command the movement against Crown to attack ‘ « Crown Point, and it proved a good selection. It greatly sa pleased New York and the Long House, and no serious objection was made in New England except that Connecticut insisted that one of her own officers, Phineas Lyman, should be second in command, and this, too, was a good selection. There was much delay, owing to the neces- sity for communicating with five different legis- latures, and the larger FZ, POT, part of the summer had GY passed away before any- thing was accomplished. The sad news of Braddock’s defeat came like an augury of disaster to Johnson and his men as they were approaching the upper waters of the Hudson in August. Along with this news came a report from the north that the French were coming with eight thousand men to defend Lake Champlain. Johnson’s little army consisted almost entirely of New England yeomanry, many of whom were now for the first Character time in training for the tasks that awaited them in f John- oe ae amy 1775 and the ensuing years. Among them were ne are JR] a Fes S Sy SO & Sree ea oy ra PEIN AL Elq: “yp : Y on me KC i | ref 9 Be (Lee ‘yn fie; Al Cee tlle t? biped ‘ a onen , at nate Ce PS ft a ae Ade viel tie C Vibe We 1 teRD PLAN OF BATTLE OF ios ot ' , Mi 2 SKAL nf’ é Ieyp é 5 WY , Me igi DIE WME, iy Canylf Felaives SAIN) a tf Fo! aed] Hert be Vi 3, Me. C ‘A hell CM ber I: Vander fe th, ne if Ved Me / , > Ma Ler Suas fr we tye On aie € sith #22, oS ‘Sse cS oN Sf wo oN es SAS so t we 8 Sa ~~ AS hee ow Re “Ss Ses ts 4 o 7 nad nett FAKE Joins Gg fie ® brulen / Ce J Wr Rinclathul Oy ipa Oe age dened fa 4 34a Greenurnff. ‘ Ld y Spe ahd 4 i. ty t < wy d IFRS RS See rs aden PH 0 i ‘ NTS “ Pe cel é . i x ica we ae FR 1 | 2 Vat OHA BAS OD: 3 ett ih SS See PEt ae oS Min aXe i) y ‘qi GEORGE, SEPT. 8, 1755 CROWN POINT 269 names afterward so important as those of Seth Pomeroy, Israel Putnam, and John Stark. The training now gained by these men and their comrades made veterans of them for the opening scene of the later war. The movements were slow and the delays incessant, partly because the business of moving an army was so ill under- stood. Cannon, ammunition, and camp kettles would be forgotten and left on the way; wagons would not arrive at- the right time, either because distances had been miscalcu- lated, or because the wagoners were disappointed of their pay and spiteful ; the stock of bullets delivered to a regiment would not fit their muskets ; stores of food were delayed un- til men were oppressed with hunger ; and so on through the usual list of mishaps attendant upon bad logistics. By the third week in August this New England army had arrived at a point on the Hudson River where a fortress then partly built was called Fort Lyman, a place which afterward acquired celebrity as Fort Edward. There they were joined by three hundred Mohawks. From Fort Lyman to Crown Point two routes were available: one by way of Lake George, the other by way of Wood Creek, which emptied into the long, narrow head of Lake Champlain. These two routes united at Ticon- deroga, about twenty-five miles south of Crown Point. After some discussion it was decided to follow the route by Lake George, which was then known by its French name of Lake Sacrement, but Johnson gave it the name of the haces British king, partly by way of asserting his domin- names Lake ion over it. Leaving five hundred men to complete ii Fort Lyman, Johnson moved with the other two thousand to the head of Lake George, and encamped there. Meanwhile, the French commander, Baron Dieskau, had arrived at Crown Point with a force of more than thirty-five hundred men, and decided to push forward and find pjescaws the enemy. At Ticonderoga he received informa- pproach tion from an English prisoner which was intended to draw 272 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND been a very important one if Johnson had followed it up and destroyed the enemy’s force. Much fault was found with him for not doing this, but, as has often happened in such cases, the reasons for his inaction are not easy to explain. Pacereriner eerieteens SepMFONMRMRpCtS aN om § hi oO By Mes S oO neeeddtney ae Gens ee ul atherley, >| ay. OB ees ag fo Lethe yet vo Oherees (1 orth hoe ca) M, (ae o Baier stot. frets: . , cl qy Poe ce of Mhe oR er and ee yn (pee: Ais Nafiedy nk ers og cecal 6 richard Gon fei idectce th your hac GEL CMachinent he a To Fv rev! terest ay uy aif Meee beend, S ‘by Uiforal y a Nhe tee eLruenoe 15 be i oft 3 Loantl He Cia on vapbinygedt ih Me prretert por remoting Ue Treveh vhereue Cc als ey iret ariel eltecoftcte, tt er le nike & bid ye ae fatly re titling oy Aye eesti ing af ethed. ) cm co pny ts balal Raunt fie Gam as ‘ fhe Chfarce, Me fe: rear phn ber ye re 6 ay mice Gomaand, W Yher dey Ay I ee fe | bea. mae a 3 figs Pan B re GOVERNOR SHIRLEY’S COMMISSION TO TAWENOC With the victory, such as it was, the English were obliged Shirley's t© Test content for some time to come. For Shir- expedition ley’s expedition against Niagara was a complete Nicara failure. Shirley penetrated the New York wil- 2 failure derness as far as Oswego, from which it was pos- sible to reach the Niagara River in boats in the course of five or six days. But there was a French force of fourteen hundred men at Fort Frontenac. This was about equal to Shirley’s full force. If he were to leave men enough at Oswego to defend the works, he would not be able to go on with force enough to accomplish his object ; but if he were to proceed westward with his full force, the French from Fort Frontenac would at once capture Oswego and expose him to starvation. There was no escape from the dilemma, and it became necessary to abandon the campaign. CROWN POINT 273 The winter which followed was one of such misery on the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania as had never been witnessed before. Firebrand and tomahawk were aS perpetually busy, and it proved impossible to con- on the centrate forces in such way as to deal with the eer horror. It was a winter of bitter contention in legislatures, and of gloom and fault-finding everywhere. At last, in May, 1756, nearly two years after Washington’s little campaign at Great Meadows, England declared war against France, and the most memorable war of modern times was begun. Frederick of Prussia, in beginning to ee build up a modern Germany out of the soundest the Seven Years’ War elements that had survived the general devastation of the Thirty Years’ War, had contrived to enlist against himself a powerful coalition. By his seizure of Silesia he had made a permanent enemy of Austria. Maria The- resa, having failed to recover Silesia in the recent war, was ready to try again; and she found a formidable ally in Eliza- beth of Russia, who was ready to attack Prussia for various reasons, all of them sharpened and embittered by the dead- liest of insults when Frederick had called her by an epithet that was strictly true. To these two powers was added that of France, which was coming to forbode more danger from Prussia than from Austria. In such a combination the alli- ance of England with Prussia was marked out England by all sound policy. From the narrowest point of and Prussia view, George IT. would find his principality of Han- peers over thus better protected, while from the widest point of view, the contest for colonial empire could best be carried on while the military strength of France was largely absorbed in warfare on the continent of Europe. The English trea- sury was thus the mainstay of Frederick the Great, who put every penny of the money thus received to the best possible use by sustaining single-handed a victorious contest against 274 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND Russia, Austria, and France.1 While Frederick was winning some of the most astonishing victories the world has seen, and keeping his three antagonists at bay, the fight for control of the colonial world was carried on by England with great ad- vantage against France in North America and in Hindostan. It was not in a moment, however, that the English world reaped the advantages of this new combination of forces, for it happened that the choice made by the French minister for a commander-in-chief in America proved to be exceptionally fortunate. The appointment of Louis Joseph, Mar- quis de Montcalm, was an appointment for long- tried merit. He was forty-four years of age, having been born in the neighbourhood of Nimes in 1712. He had an excellent education, especially in Greek and Latin classics and philology, and his literary tastes were such that one of the great objects of his ambition was to become a member of the Academy. In his leisure moments he was always engaged in reading and study. During the war of the Aus- trian Succession he had served with great distinction, and he was recognized by competent judges as one of the ablest officers in the French service. When he came to America he left behind him in his charming country home at Candiac, near Nimes, a wife and six children, besides his mother. Montcalm was a man of strong family affections and intense love of home, as we see from many charming allusions in his journal and letters while campaigning in the New World. His voyage of nearly six weeks was a rough one, and sometimes dangerous. In a letter to his wife he says: “ The _Montcalm’s forecastle was always under water, and the waves ase broke twice over the quarter-deck. From the 22d to Canada of April to the evening of the 4th of May we had fogs, great cold, and an amazing quantity of icebergs. On Montcalm 1 [For the diplomatic changes which preceded the Seven Years’ War, see Perkins’s France under Louis XV., ii. 1-84, or Tuttle, Héstory of Prussia under Frederic the Great, ii. 234-321.] CROWN POINT 275 the 30th, when luckily the fog lifted for a time, we counted sixteen of them. The day before, one drifted under the bowsprit, grazed it, and might have crushed us if the deck- officer had not called out quickly, Zu After speaking of our troubles and sufferings, I must tell you of our pleasures, which were fishing for cod and eating it. The taste is ex- quisite. The head, tongue, and liver are morsels worthy of an epicure. Still, I would not advise anybody to make the voyage for their sake. My health is as good as it has been for a long time. I found it a good plan to eat little and take no supper ; a little tea now and then, and plenty of lemon- ade. Nevertheless I have taken very little liking for the sea, and think that when I shall be so happy as to rejoin you I shall end my voyages there. I don’t know when this letter will go. I shall send it by the first ship that returns to France, and keep on writing till then. It is pleasant, I know, to hear particulars about the people one loves, and I thought that my mother and you, my dearest and most be- loved, would be glad to read all these dull details. We heard mass on Easter Day. All the week before, it was impossi- ble, because the ship rolled so that I could hardly keep my legs. If I had dared, I think I should have had myself lashed fast. I shall not soon forget that Holy Week.” ! When Montcalm arrived in Montreal, his reception by Governor Vaudreuil was far from cordial. Vau- eau dreuil aspired to military fame, and thought himself faterstnes competent to direct military operations on a large calm’s : scale as well as to command either Canadian militia *""" or French regulars. He liked, moreover, to have everything his own way, and knew very well that he was not likely always to prevail over a strong-willed and energetic general- in-chief. Besides, Vaudreuil was a native of Canada, having been born there during his father’s administration, and be- tween Canadians and Frenchmen from the old country there 1 (Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, i. 364, 365.] 276 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND was somewhat the same kind of jealousy that existed between Americans and British. The coldness between Montcalm and the governor sometimes had an ill effect upon the French operations. Nevertheless the arrival of Montcalm was soon signalized by a heavy blow to the English. In a certain sense the blow was prepared by the English themselves. We have seen how Shirley’s expedition had been turned back at Oswego by French demonstrations from Fort Frontenac. Such a failure was of course inevitable for any expedition directed against Niagara, unless Fort Frontenac were first captured. After Shirley Shirley’s return to New York the general discon- superseded tent assumed the form of a quarrel between him and Johnson, and several persons of influence in New York wrote to the minister requesting that another commander- in-chief be appointed in his stead. The ministry replied by appointing John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, to the chief com- mand in America; but as this particular Campbell was slow in coming, they sent General James Abercrombie in advance of him, and as Abercrombie was not quite ready, they sent Colonel Daniel Webb ; insomuch that Shirley, who was just preparing a new campaign against Oswego, had to turn over the command to Webb, who turned it over to Abercrombie, who turned it over to Loudoun, —and so much swapping of horses in mid-stream, as President Lincoln would have said, was not conducive to promptness and unity of operation. As for the new commander-in-chief, he was as poor a choice The Earl of 28 could have been made, Shirley was a mere Loudoun amateur soldier, but he had courage, quickness, and discretion. Loudoun, on the other hand, was dull, sleepy, and irresolute,—the kind of man who would be likely to stop halfway in any important undertaking. Dr. Franklin summed him up very well when he compared him to Saint George on the tavern signboards, always on horse- back, but never getting ahead. CROWN POINT 277 The effect of the arrivals of Webb and Abercrombie was to delay an expedition which Shirley would have sent to Oswego in the hope of moving from that point against Fort Loudoun Frontenac. When Loudoun arrived, late in July, PPS"; he determined to concentrate his efforts against comderes@ Ticonderoga, where the French had erected a new fortress, and to content himself on Lake Ontario by merely holding EARL OF LOUDOUN Oswego. Having thus decided, he allowed time to slip away without reinforcing Oswego. This was bad generalship, since if the French were to take Oswego, they would not only cut off the English from Niagara but would have their hands free to concentrate against them at Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 278 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND After Loudoun’s arrival at Albany, all operations were brought to a standstill by a silly order of the king in council that all generals and colonels holding commissions from the colonial governments should rank only on the level of senior captains. Such an arrangement might have put the entire provincial army under the command of a British major. While hot disputes were raging over this matter, Loudoun suddenly re- membered the need of Oswego and sent Webb in all haste with reinforcements, but this hurry at the eleventh hour was unavailing. When Webb arrived at the great portage be- tween the Mohawk valley and Lake Ontario, about where Fort Stanwix was afterwards built, and near the site of the Fall of present city of Rome, he learned with dismay that Oswego Montcalm had captured Oswego. It was even so. While Loudoun had been dawdling, Montcalm had been act- ing. He had crossed from Fort Frontenac, invested Oswego, and pressed the siege so vigorously that the garrison of four- teen hundred men with two or three hundred non-combatants surrendered, prisoners of war. Among the spoils were more than a hundred light cannon. Here something occurred which was ominous of future horror. A few of Montcalm’s Indians began murdering prisoners, and it was only with great diffi- culty and by making lavish promises that he succeeded in restraining those painted demons. He reckoned that the presents to be given them as a ransom for the prisoners would amount to ten or twelve thousand livres. The following winter witnessed many scenes of partisan warfare which we need not here stop to describe. The sum- mer of 1757 found things looking ill for the English cause. The French had destroyed Oswego, which was for them an outpost dangerously near the strongholds of the Six Nations, but while they held Fort Frontenac they could prevent the English from reaching the Niagara River, and this fact, together with their possession of Fort Duquesne, seemed to have given them the victory so far as the whole interior CROWN POINT fos 279 a aed an Ke ech lew P mar Pesetin Bor ee hae one Foon) omer on, Fo ayr ond Vewne Ke Fikasr eke Straon on Vo a a eS 4 pee oe we 2 Bote. De. Ceamond go Loner por? we 4 + emp per a ee a hf One 4G | we Fo ee by Sl, free a Oma ny J fii no dlb Gide Cons bo Te aa Ss, Ceknga pes. ep ach pops tery Ces EBs i. ees ; ~i Deters pope Skefleor a % sy ; LL Ws esi >i oy Is - bal Ce, ory Prdgen ih ss fom oN sf te yee Hid wey Brepper & @ ere te, bor Ey 2 Ae dager & : tn Bares Heegh komen Loa Posy dy Ligh Cig te E oe wh hdr De; entered his presence without going away a better citizen and a braver man. In an age when most statesmen looked with tolerance upon corruption, and when domestic morals were not upon a high plane, Pitt was absolutely spotless in public and in private life, and the popular faith in his disinterestedness was never disappointed. He was a democrat, too, after the fashion of the eighteenth Pitt's hoa CONtUTY, and for the first time since the death of on popular Cromwell the English people felt that they had confidence 4 leader who represented the whole nation, from the highest to the lowest. In America the feeling toward him was nearly as strong as in England, so that when he began by informing the New England colonies that he should have to ask them for twenty thousand men, they replied with greater willingness than when formerly they had been asked for one fourth of that number. One of Pitt’s first acts was to recall the incompetent Lou- doun and to replace him by a general of tried ability, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, and among his subordinate generals was TICONDEROGA 285 the youthful James Wolfe, of whom we shall presently hear more. Pitt would have been glad to remove Aber- pitt recatis crombie, but influences were brought to bear in [oudoun behalf of that general of such a nature that it did not seem altogether wise to disregard them. He was accordingly re- 286 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND tained in command of the forces on the Hudson River, while Pitt sent over to be his second in command Lord Howe, whom Wolfe called the best soldier in the English army, and who was unquestionably an officer of rare personality and extraordinary powers. This George Augustus, Viscount Howe, was the elder brother of the famous admiral, Richard, Viscount Howe, and of Sir William Howe, who commanded the British army in America a few years later. These three brothers were grandsons of George I., whose daughter by the Baroness Kielmannsegge married Emanuel, Vis- count Howe. They were half-cousins to the reign- ing king, George II. All three studied military affairs from their earliest years ; all three were warm friends to the Amer- ican colonists; but this was especially true of the eldest brother, George Augustus. In sending him to America Le, tebe.er 017g Pitt had reason to believe that he would prove the real guid- ing spirit of Abercrombie’s army. We have now to see how an adverse fate exacted yet one more costly sacrifice before all the benefits of the new change in administration were realized. At the end of June, 1758, Abercrombie’s army was en- camped at the head of Lake George, where Johnson had Theexpedi Gefeated Dieskau three years before, and where tion against’ scarcely ten months had elapsed since the horrors deroga of Fort William Henry. Abercrombie had col- lected at that spot more than six thousand British regulars and nine thousand provincial troops ; in all, more than fifteen thousand, the largest army that had ever been collected in North America. The task before him was to do what John- son had failed to do, to move upon Montcalm at Ticonderoga and defeat him. By the 4th of July all the arrangements Lord Howe TICONDEROGA 287 ‘PLAN, ortar FORT . at a. a y on, “at de HRap Pe tel sien! a IP g 4 - Lhe Redoubt Battery | of Tine. SoriGuna. a (Ht te TeePmvesions: 4 is gh s ts ny dewiraying thet. s es 4 : HAMPLILAIN PLAN OF FORT AT TICONDEROGA were completed, and next morning the whole army embarked in bateaux and canoes on Lake George. It was an imposing sight, eloquently described by more than one contemporary pen. It soon appeared that Pitt had not been wrong in sup- posing that Lord Howe would prove to be the life of the army. His popularity was unbounded with all ranks, from the commander down to the private soldiers. On his first arrival in America he had seized an opportunity » * apa Lord for learning something about the conditions of war- Howe's _ fare in the wilderness, for he sought with the true “4?! insight of genius to adapt himself to new conditions. He would lay aside all cumbersome baggage and trim away all useless apparel, cutting down long coats into jackets, making the men wear leather leggings for protection in the brush, and carry meal in their knapsacks, which they could at any time cook for themselves. In all such things he himself set the example. 288 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND At noon of July 6 the flotilla had reached the northern end of Lake George, where it narrows into a crooked river or strait communicating with Lake Champlain at the mouth of Wood Creek. The whole force was speedily landed, and began its march on the west side of the river. Robert Rogers led the way with a couple of New England regi- he Fae: ments, but presently became entangled in woods lish scout- so dense that the rays of the sun could hardly find lostin the their way in. Here, after a while, they became mands confused, and were at a loss in which direction to move. A party of three hundred and fifty French under Langy had been watching the landing from an eminence be- tween the river and Trout Brook. Before they could retreat from that spot the whole Eng- lish army had advanced so far Vo rite YL as to cut them asunder from KI_I—Q_ 5) their main army at Ticonderoga, but Langy was an old hand at bushranging, and he thought that by crossing to the north of Trout Brook he could describe a semicircle and reach Ticonderoga. Thus the three hundred and fifty Frenchmen under Langy and the two New England regiments under Rogers were wandering in a forest which at midday was nearly as dark as night. And here the Frenchmen, too, soon lost their bearings. At the very head of the English column was Lord Howe with Major Israel Putnam, when all at once a rustling was heard among the branches, and a sharp cry of “ Qui vive?” The answer, “‘ Frangais,” was prompt enough, but some of Langy’s men had sharp eyes, and even in that pitch darkness could tell the Death of | British scarlet from the French white. Langy’s Lord Howe reply was a volley which slew Lord Howe and wrecked the fortunes of an army. The further result of * TICONDEROGA 289 this chance collision was the defeat of Langy’s party, most of which was captured, but when this densest piece of woods had been traversed, and the news of what had happened flew ROBERT ROGERS from rank to rank, it is said the spirit of the whole army was dashed, and high hopes gave place to consternation. So greatly had this young officer endeared himself to people in the short time since his arrival in America, that at the news of his death there was weeping throughout the northern colonies. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts afterward erected a monument to Howe in Westminster Abbey. Nobody felt the loss more keenly than Abercrombie, who 290 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND had been depending upon Howe’s advice. He had need of such advice after coming within touch of the French position. Across the plateau northwest of the fortress of Ticonderoga Montcalm’s there runs a ridge which Montcalm had fortified by defences felling trees in such wise as to make a zigzag para- pet, so that an approaching foe could be torn between flank fires of grapeshot and musketry. On the inner side was a platform from which to fire, and the parapet was so high that nothing could be seen of the French soldiers standing upon the platform except the crowns of their hats. Along the entire front of the parapet the ground was covered with in- tertwisted boughs presenting a myriad sharp points to any approaching foe. Now this position was obviously one which could hardly be carried by infantry armed with muskets, but to a general who possessed the slightest inventiveness of mind it was very far from being an impregnable position. Indeed, Montcalm had been slow in making up his mind whether to try to hold Ticonderoga or to retreat upon Crown : + se F Wipe jp iM paths oot Damerd fo me | Fae ee ee ee Oey FL ory thay 274 Pog se Yet Vine, FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF LORD HOWE Point, and when at last he decided to fortify this position, his resolution was somewhat hastily taken. It is probable that Montcalm made a mistake in trying to defend the point JOURNALS OF Major RoBertT RoGERs: CONTAINING An Account of the feveral Excurfions he made under the Generals who commanded upon the Continent of NortH America, during the late War. From which may by collected The moft material Circumftances of ‘every Cam- paign upon that Continent, from the Commence- ment to the Conclufion of the War. i Low D oN: Printed for the AU THOR, And fold by J. Miztan, Bookieller, near Whitehall. ’ MDCCLXV. TITLE OF ROGERS’S “JOURNALS” Dill” oe "Moun 1h heel'l GSE Vlad a ety Unis Git Cit 20 0 wert Orbis 7 6 Gistge He PLLIPL Lit, PP ype poe Ullah egy oe Tc Ladle ne fee ae Ee LB ae cheers © ge ve Gof oe By Aigo Oe Vr ihe p Lap eter ae Cee VAC Fall fae pe od feu NS LU oe CuROg oS lay al fay cn 44h yf Ae atbi22. CU (pere! a1d bP i, Warne tac OE pete oo Ee, Gxing wether bad arrcle. YG? iy t1D 27 ge a Che be LO La Tp tP iE LOL fepite Je "Cgilin Doth pe o Lo Ls (Geet tre figne- wt Pa ip folen tothe, ate ee de ie ay eee Las Jbe. “Dopp 1 ee Luge f me, Junt “ Gres Ig ie es C. LEO. S we OY lof ee rd Cera Livrreceazt 271 ee en Li Mitel af See yl acd CF t pet le! See es Z a, ftir FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ROBERT ROGERS TICONDEROGA 293 of land upon which the fortress of Ticonderoga stood, for there were several ways in which Abercrombie might have defeated him. He might have sent back to the landing place and brought up all his cannon and used them to Alterna- batter down these wooden obstructions before [¥%,9Pe charging them with his infantry. That, one would ctombie suppose, would have been a mere ordinary precaution. And then, there was a hill in the immediate neighbourhood where Abercrombie might have planted a few batteries that could have torn the French army to pieces, and must have obliged them to change their position at once. Precisely such a use of that hill was made in 1777 by General Burgoyne, with the desired result of taking Ticonderoga, and since that occasion it has been known as Mount Defiance. Yet again, if Aber- crombie had made a feint with part of his army upon Mont- calm’s position, while with his main force he had marched about five miles on the road to Crown Point, he eee would have found the lake there so narrow that he ee might have commanded the whole of it with bat-_ bie’s stu- teries, and thus cut off Montcalm’s retreat and left pee it for starvation to do the rest. It would seem, therefore, that Montcalm was rescued from a perilous situation by the stupidity of his enemy, and it is among the possibilities that he may have counted upon that very circumstance. There is a curious analogy between this battle of Ticonderoga and those of Bunker Hill and New Orleans. At Bunker Hill the American force was completely at the mercy of the British, and might have been forced to surrender without the loss of a life. This would have been done if the British had simply gone by water and occupied Charlestown Neck, but the brother of the young general slain at Ticonderoga preferred to assault intrenchments and suffered accordingly.! So, too, at New Orleans. It was not necessary for Sir Ed- ward Pakenham to assault Andrew Jackson’s intrenchments, 1 [See Fiske, The American Revolution, Illustrated Edition, i. 151.] 294 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND for he might have advanced up the farther bank of the Mis- sissippi River and turned the whole position, but he preferred the bulldog method, and very probably Jackson should have the credit of having known his man. With regard to Abercrombie, he seems to have been influ- enced by undue haste. A rumour reached him that rein- forcements were on the way to Montcalm, and therefore he was anxious to adopt the quickest method. Besides, he seems to have harboured that fallacious notion that one Eng- lishman can under any circumstances beat three Frenchmen. Anassault ‘dt all events, on the forenoon of July 8 the assault ordered was ordered. The instructions to the English in- fantry were to carry the works by a solid bayonet charge, an order which seems almost incredible, for as might have been expected, the compactness needed for a bayonet charge was almost instantly broken up by the tangle of pointed boughs and the trunks lying in all directions upon the ground, and presently the assailants, caught in a hailstorm of grape and musket shot on either flank, could only answer by firing in turn. Again and again, with astounding gallantry, the men from New England and Old England returned to the charge. Between noon and nightfall they made six assaults of the most desperate character, sometimes almost winning their way over the parapet, but of course the situation was utterly Allassaults hopeless. The greater the bravery, the sadder the repulsed ~_ Joss of life. At twilight, when the firing ceased, Abercrombie had lost in killed and wounded two thousand men.} Even after all this useless waste of life, there was no rea- son why the English should have retreated. Montcalm was in no condition to take the offensive, and it would still have been in Abercrombie’s power to march down the Crown Point road and cut off supplies from the French army ; but 1 [The killed alone amounted to some five hundred and fifty men. Kingsford, History of Canada, iv. 173.] TICONDEROGA 295 our accounts agree in representing the general’s conduct as disgraceful. He seems to have lost his head, and thought only of escaping, as if from a superior foe. By the time he had réturned to the head of Lake George, Abercrombie found himself a laughing-stock. People called him bercrom- a poltroon, an old woman, Mrs. Nabbycrombie, and biemeteulee such other nicknames and epithets as served to relieve their feelings. It was indeed a dark day for New England when the death of Lord Howe deprived the army of its brains. Of all the disasters of the war, perhaps none struck so near home as Ticonderoga. But the tide of misfortune had reached its height, and was already turning. We have now to take up the story of Louisburg, of Fort Frontenac and Niagara, of Fort Duquesne and Quebec,-—a story fraught with good cheer for English-speaking America. CHAPTER X LOUISBURG, FORT DUQUESNE, AND THE FALL OF QUEBEC At midsummer of 1758 four years had elapsed since Washington’s experiences at Great Meadows, and as yet little or nothing had occurred to encourage the English. It will be remembered that along the border between New Siiaeste France and the English colonies there were strate- pointsin gic points of primary importance. The first of the contest 6 these was Fort Duquesne, commanding one of the great central routes into the western wilderness. The French had anticipated the English in seizing this point, and the ruin of Braddock’s army had been incurred in the attempt to recover it for the English. The second strategic point was Fort Frontenac at the outlet of Lake Ontario into the river St. Lawrence, for this stronghold commanded the eastern approaches to Niagara, and thus controlled the other great route to the west. Thus far its importance had been illus- trated, first, by the failure of Shirley to advance beyond Oswego in the direction of Niagara, and secondly, by Mont- calm’s capture of Oswego, a very heavy blow to the English. The third strategic point was the southern extremity of Lake Champlain with its fortresses at Crown Point and Ticonder- oga, for in French hands this was an excellent base for an invasion of New York, while in English hands it would serve equally well for an invasion of Canada. This strategic point had been held from the first by the French, and in three campaigns the English had failed to drive them away. In the first of these Johnson had won a tactical victory which he failed to improve. The second had witnessed the shock- LOUISBURG 297 ing tragedy of Fort William Henry. The third had been a climax of imbecility, as shown in the useless butchery at Ticon- deroga and the shameful retreat of Abercrombie after that battle. The fourth strategic point was the fortified town of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, which not only threat- ened the Newfoundland fisheries and British commerce on the Atlantic in general, but also afforded an excellent base for a French invasion of the New England coast, while at the same time it made the entrance of the St. Lawrence dangerous for a hostile fleet. On the other hand, if held by the English, Louisburg afforded an excellent base for a naval expedition up the St. Lawrence against Quebec. This im- portant place had been captured by New England militia, aided by British ships in the preceding war thirteen years before, but had been restored to France by the treaty which terminated that war. Down to the midsummer of 1758 nothing seemed to have prospered with the English, but at all the strategic points where there had been collision, the advantage had remained with the French. The first change of fortune was at Louisburg. That town was situated on a penin- sula at the south side of Cape Breton Island. To the east of it was a deep and finely sheltered bay which was defended at its northern end by what was called the Grand Battery, and on an island at the entrance, by what was called the Island Battery ; while across the peninsula, in front of the town, the entrance to the harbour was commanded by a series of four bastions named from south to north Princess’s, Queen’s, King’s, and Dauphin’s. The rear of the town was to a con- siderable extent protected by marshes, and the rocky coast of Gabarus Bay to the rear or west presented but few points where troops could effect a landing. At all times the sea was so boisterous as to make it dangerous for any floating thing to approach the rocks. Since the treaty of Aix-la- Chapelle the French government had spent great sums of Louisburg 298 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND money in perfecting the fortifications. It was now com- manded by General Drucour, who had three thousand regu- lar troops with a few Canadians and Indians, while in the harbour were five ships-of-the-line and seven frigates mount- ing five hundred and forty guns and carrying three thousand men. On the twenty-eighth day of May there sailed out from Halifax an English force which was to undertake the reduc- The Eng tion of Louisburg. It was commanded by Admiral lish expe. Boscawen, who had twenty-three ships-of-the-line against and eighteen frigates along with a fleet of trans- Louisburg 4 sue ports carrying eleven thousand British regulars and five hundred colonial militia. The land force was commanded by the new general-in-chief for America, Sir Jeffrey Amherst. It was the 2d of June when this powerful force arrived in Gaba- rus Bay and scrutinized its wild coast for a place to land in the rear of the town. The prospect was not encouraging, and some officers were inclined to pronounce the attempt foolhardy, but Boscawen and Amherst saw a spot which seemed practicable, and they entrusted the task of effecting a landing there to the young brigadier-general, James Wolfe. There were three or four places along the coast where a landing might be effected if the sea were somewhat to sub- side, and the plan was to make demonstrations against all these points while the extreme left wing under General Wolfe should advance against the most remote of them, known as Fresh Water Cove, with the intention of carrying it. Although this plan was matured on the 2d of June, it was not until the 8th that there was enough of a lull in the violence of the surf to admit of any approach to the shore General whatever. Then the plan was tried, and Wolfe’s Woe, landing was achieved with brilliant success. Al- Bee though Fresh Water Cove was defended by one thousand Frenchmen behind entrenchments supported by a battery of eight cannon, Wolfe managed his landing so as to LOUISBURG 299 pass by their left flank, between it and the town, and there to attack them in such wise as to cut them off. Under these circumstances the Frenchmen abandoned their works and fled to the woods, whence they made a circuitous retreat to ADMIRAL EDWARD BOSCAWEN their comrades in the town. After this auspicious beginning the remainder of the English army was safely landed, and ready for further operations. Troops were presently moved so as to threaten the communications of the Grand Battery at the north end of the harbour, whereupon the French abandoned it. The eastern side of the harbour ran in the shape of a sickle from the Grand Battery, terminating in a point opposite the point of the peninsula on which the city 300 NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND stood. The space of sea between these two points was the entrance to the harbour, and the small island already men- tioned, with its Island Battery, lay midway between them. Considering the great superiority of the English fleet, the Thehar French had felt it rash to keep a detachment upon pont patter the opposite point, where it was liable to be cut ies secured errednced off and they had therefore withdrawn it. Now by t English Wolfe, with twelve hundred men, marched past the Grand Battery and around the sickle-shaped shore and took possession of the works which the French had there abandoned, and from that point he kept up a heavy fire against the Island Battery until by June 25 all its guns were dismounted and silent. It now became possible for the English fleet to enter the harbour, and in order to ward off such a calamity, Drucour sank six ships at the entrance. Meanwhile, General Amherst was digging his trenches and building his parallels with pro- digious labour over the treacherous ground behind the town. Gradually the English drew nearer, until they approached the very walls on both sides of the peninsula, and kept throw- Gradual ing shot and shell into the streets. In one adven- destruction ture after another the French ships were sunk or French fleet burned until only five were left. On the 21st of July a bomb falling upon one of these penetrated her maga- zine and she blew up, communicating the flames to two sister ships, which were burned to the water’s edge.