Canada: The Empire of the North — From 1686 to 1698, part 3
The French had been victorious on all three raids; but they were victories over which posterity will never boast, which no writer dare describe in all the detail of their horrors, and which leave a black blot on the escutcheon of Canada.
It was hardly to be expected that the New England colonies would let such raids pass unpunished.
The destruction of Schenectady had been bad enough.
The massacre of Salmon Falls caused the New Englanders to forget their jealousies for the once and to unite in a common cause.
All the colonies agreed {176} to contribute men, ships, and money to invade New France by land and sea.
The land forces were placed under Winthrop and Schuyler; but as smallpox disorganized the expedition before it reached Lake Champlain, the attack by land had little other effect than to draw Frontenac from Quebec down to Montreal, where Captain Schuyler, with Dutch bushmen, succeeded in ravaging the settlements and killing at least twenty French.
The expedition by sea was placed under Sir William Phips of Massachusetts,--a man who was the very antipodes of Frontenac.
One of a poor family of twenty-six children, Phips had risen from being a shepherd boy in Maine to the position of ship's carpenter in Boston.
Here, among the harbor folk, he got wind of a Spanish treasure ship containing a million and a half dollars' worth of gold, which had been sunk off the West Indies.
Going to England, Phips succeeded in interesting that same clique of courtiers who helped Radisson to establish the Hudson's Bay Company,--Albemarle and Prince Rupert and the King; and when, with the funds which they advanced, Phips succeeded in raising the treasure vessel, he received, in addition to his share of the booty, a title and the appointment as governor of Massachusetts.
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM PHIPS] Here, then, was the daring leader chosen to invade New France.
Phips sailed first for Port Royal, which had in late years become infested with French pirates, preying on Boston commerce.
Word had just come of the fearful massacres of {177} colonists at Portland.
Boston was inflamed with a spirit of vengeance.
The people had appointed days of fasting and prayer to invoke Heaven's blessing on their war.
When Phips sailed into Annapolis Basin with his vessels and seven hundred men in the month of May, he found the French commander, Meneval, ill of the gout, with a garrison of about eighty soldiers, but all the cannon chanced to be dismounted.
The odds against the French did not permit resistance.
Meneval stipulated for an honorable surrender,--all property to be respected and the garrison to be sent to some French port; but no sooner were the English in possession than, like the French at Portland, they broke the pledge.
There was no massacre as in Maine, but plunderers ran riot, seizing everything on which hands could be laid, ransacking houses and desecrating the churches; and sixty of the leading people, including Meneval and the priests, were carried off as prisoners.
Leaving one English flag flying, Phips sailed home.
Indignation at Boston had been fanned to fury, for now all the details of the butchery at Portland were known; and Phips found the colony mustering a monster expedition to attack the very stronghold of French power,--Quebec itself.
England could afford no aid to her colonies, but thirty-two merchant vessels and frigates had been impressed into the service, some of them carrying as many as forty-four cannon.
Artisans, sailors, soldiers, clerks, all classes had volunteered as fighters, to the number of twenty-five hundred men; but there was one thing lacking,--they had no pilot who knew the St. Lawrence.
Full of confidence born of inexperience, the fleet set sail on the 9th of August, commanded again by Phips.
Time was wasted ravaging the coasts of Gaspé, holding long-winded councils of war, arguing in the commander's stateroom instead of drilling on deck.
Three more weeks were wasted poking about the lower St. Lawrence, picking up chance vessels off Tadoussac and Anticosti.
Among the prize vessels taken near Anticosti was one of Jolliet's, bearing his wife and mother-in-law.
The ladies delighted the hearts of the Puritans by the {178} news that not more than one hundred men garrisoned Quebec; but Phips was reckoning without his host, and his host was Frontenac.
Besides, it was late in the season--the middle of October--before the English fleet rounded the Island of Orleans and faced the Citadel of Quebec.
[Illustration: COUNT FRONTENAC (From a statue at Quebec)] Indians had carried word to the city that an Englishwoman, taken prisoner in their raids, had told them more than thirty vessels had sailed from Boston to invade New France.
Frontenac was absent in Montreal.
Quickly the commander at Quebec sent coureurs with warning to Frontenac, and then set about casting up barricades in the narrow streets that led from Lower to Upper Town.
Frontenac could not credit the news.
Had he not heard here in Montreal from Indian coureurs how the English overland expedition lay rotting of smallpox near Lake Champlain, such pitiable objects that the Iroquois refused to join them against the French?
New France now numbered a population of twelve thousand and could muster three thousand fighting men; and though the English colonies numbered twenty {179} thousand people, how could they, divided by jealousies, send an invading army of twenty-seven hundred, as the rumor stated?
Frontenac, grizzled old warrior, did not credit the news, but, all the same, he set out amid pelting rains by boat for Quebec.
Half-way to Three Rivers more messengers brought him word that the English fleet were now advancing from Tadoussac.
He sent back orders for the commander at Montreal to rush the bush-rovers down to Quebec, and he himself arrived at the Citadel just as the Le Moyne brothers anchored below Cape Diamond from a voyage to Hudson Bay.
Maricourt Le Moyne reported how he had escaped past the English fleet by night, and it would certainly be at Quebec by daybreak.
Scouts rallied the bushrangers on both sides of the St. Lawrence to Quebec's aid.
Frontenac bade them guard the outposts and not desert their hamlets, while Ste.
Hélène and the other Le Moynes took command of the sharpshooters in Lower Town, scattering them in hiding along the banks of the St. Charles and among the houses facing the St. Lawrence below Castle St. Louis.
Sure enough, at daybreak on Monday, October 16, sail after sail, thirty-four in all, rounded the end of Orleans Island and took up position directly opposite Quebec City.
It was a cold, wet autumn morning.
Fog and rain alternately chased in gray shadows across the far hills, and above the mist of the river loomed ominous the red-gray fort which the English had come to capture.
Castle St. Louis stood where Château Frontenac stands to-day; and what is now the promenade of a magnificent terrace was at that time a breastwork of cannon extending on down the sloping hill to the left as far as the ramparts.
In fact, the cannon of that period were more dangerous than they are to-day, for long-range missiles have rendered old-time fortifications adapted for close-range fighting almost useless; and the cannon of Upper Town, Quebec, that October morning swept the approach to three sides of the fort, facing the St. Charles, opposite Point Lévis and the St. Lawrence, where it curves back on itself; and the fourth side was sheer wall--invulnerable.
{180} With a rattling of anchor chains and a creaking of masts the great sails of the English fleet were lowered, and a little boat put out at ten o'clock under flag of truce to meet a boat half-way from Lower Town.
Phips' messenger was conducted blindfold up the barricaded streets leading to Castle St. Louis; and the gunners had been instructed to clang their muskets on the stones to give the impression of great numbers.
Suddenly the bandage was taken from the man's eyes and he found himself in a great hall, standing before the august presence of Frontenac, surrounded by a circle of magnificently dressed officers.
The New Englander delivered his message,--Phips' letter demanding surrender: "_Your prisoners, your persons, your estates .
.
.
and should you refuse, I am resolved by the help of God, in whom I trust, to revenge by force of arms all our wrongs_."
.
.
.
As the reading of the letter was finished the man looked up to see an insolent smile pass round the faces of Frontenac's officers, one of whom superciliously advised hanging the bearer of such insolence without waste of time.
The New Englander pulled out his watch and signaled that he must have Frontenac's answer within an hour.
The haughty old Governor pretended not to see the motion, and then, with a smile like ice, made answer in {181} words that have become renowned: "I shall not keep you waiting so long!
Tell your General I do not recognize King William!
I know no king of England but King James!
Does your General suppose that these brave gentlemen"--pointing to his officers--"would consent to trust a man who broke his word at Port Royal?"
[Illustration: CASTLE ST. LOUIS]
As the shout of applause died away, the trembling New Englander asked Frontenac if he would put his answer in writing.
"No," thundered the old Governor, never happier than when fighting, "I will answer your General with my cannon!
I shall teach him that a man of my rank"--with covert sneer at Phips' origin, "is not to be summoned in such rude fashion!
Let him do his best!
I shall do mine!"
It was now the turn of the English to be amazed.
This was not the answer they had expected from a fort weakly garrisoned by a hundred men.
If they had struck and struck quickly, they might yet have won the day; but all Monday passed in futile arguments and councils of war, and on Tuesday, the 17th, towards night, was heard wild shouting within Quebec walls.
[Illustration: ATTACK ON QUEBEC, 1690] "My faith, Messieurs!"
exclaimed one of the French prisoners aboard Phips' ship; "now you _have_ lost your chance!
Those {182} are the coureurs de bois from Montreal and the bushrovers of the Pays d'en Haut, eight hundred strong."
The news at last spurred Phips to action.
All that night the people of Quebec could hear the English drilling, and shouting "_God save King William_!"
with beat of drum and trumpet calls that set the echoes rolling from Cape Diamond; and on the 18th small boats landed fourteen hundred men to cross the St. Charles River and assault the Lower Town, while the four largest ships took up a position to cannonade the city.
It was four in the afternoon before the soldiers had been landed amid peppering bullets from the Le Moyne bushrovers.
Only a few cannon shots were fired, and they did no damage but to kill an urchin of the Upper Town.
Firing began in earnest on the morning of October 19. The river was churned to fury and the reverberating echoes set the rocks crashing from Cape Diamond, but it was almost impossible for the English to shoot high enough to damage the upper fort.
It was easy for the French to shoot down, and great wounds gaped from the hull of Phips' ship, while his masts went over decks in flame, flag and all.
The tide drifted the admiral's flag on shore.
The French rowed out, secured the prize, and a jubilant shout roared from Lower Town, to be taken up and echoed and reëchoed from the Castle!
For two more days bombs roared in midair, plunging through the roofs of houses in Lower Town or ricochetting back harmless from the rock wall below Castle St. Louis.
At the St. Charles the land forces were fighting blindly to effect a crossing, but the Le Moyne bushrovers lying in ambush repelled every advance, though Ste.
Hélène had fallen mortally wounded.
On the morning of the 21st the French could hardly believe their senses.
The land forces had vanished during the darkness of a rainy night, and ship after ship, sail after sail, was drifting downstream--was it possible?
--in retreat.
Another week's bombarding would have reduced Quebec to flame and starvation; but another week would have exposed Phips' fleet to wreckage from winter weather, and he had drifted down to Isle Orleans, where the {183} dismantled fleet paused to rig up fresh masts.
It was Madame Jolliet who suggested to the Puritan commander an exchange of the prisoners captured at Port Royal with the English from Maine and New Hampshire held in Quebec.
She was sent ashore by Phips and the exchange was arranged.
Winter gales assailed the English fleet as it passed Anticosti, and what with the wrecked and wounded, Phips' loss totaled not less than a thousand men.
[Illustration: CASTLE ST. LOUIS, QUEBEC]
Frontenac had been back in Canada only a year, and in that time he had restored the prestige of French power in America.
The Iroquois were glad to sue for peace, and his bitterest enemies, the Jesuits, joined the merrymakers round the bonfires of acclaim kindled in the old Governor's honor as the English retreated, and the joy bells pealed out, and processions surged shouting through the streets of Quebec!
From Hudson Bay to the Mississippi, from the St. Lawrence to Lake Superior and the land of the Sioux, French power reigned supreme.
Only Port Nelson, high up on the west coast of Hudson Bay, remained unsubdued, draining the furs of the prairie tribes to England away from Quebec.
Iberville had captured it in the fall of 1694, at the cost of his brother Châteauguay's life; but when Iberville departed from Hudson Bay, English men-of-war had come out in 1696 and wrested back this most valuable of all the fur posts.
It was now determined to drive the English forever from Hudson Bay.
Le Moyne d'Iberville was chosen for the task.
April, 1697, Sérigny Le Moyne was dispatched from France with five men-of-war to be placed under the command of Iberville at Placentia, Newfoundland, whence he was "to proceed {184} to Hudson Bay and to leave not a vestige of the English in the North."
The frigates left Newfoundland July 8. Three weeks later they were crushing through the ice jam of Hudson Straits.
Iberville commanded the _Pelican_ with two hundred and fifty men.
Bienville, a brother, was on the same ship.
Sérigny commanded the _Palmier_, and there were three other frigates, the _Profound_, the _Violent_, the _Wasp_.
Ice locked round the fleet at the west end of Hudson Straits, and fog lay so thick there was nothing visible of any ship but the masthead.
For eighteen days they lay, crunched and rammed and separated by the ice drive, till on August 25, early in the morning, the fog suddenly lifted.
Iberville saw that Sérigny's ship had been carried back {185} in the straits.
The _Wasp_ and _Violent_ were not to be seen, but straight ahead, locked in the ice, stood the _Profound_, and beside the French vessel three English frigates, the _Hampshire_, the _Deering_, the _Hudson's Bay_, on their annual voyage to Nelson!
A lane of water opened before Iberville.
Like a bird the _Pelican_ spread her wings to the wind and fled.
[Illustration: PLAN OF QUEBEC (after Franquelin, 1683)] September 3 Iberville sighted Port Nelson, and for two days cruised the offing, scanning the sea for the rest of his fleet.
Early on September 5 the sails of three vessels heaved and rose above the watery horizon.
Never doubting these were his own ships, Iberville signaled.
There was no answer.
A sailor scrambled to the masthead and shouted down terrified warning.
These were not the French ships!
They were the English frigates bearing straight down on the single French vessel commanded by Iberville!
On one side was the enemy's fort, on the other the enemy's fleet coming over the waves before a clipping wind, all sails set.
Of Iberville's crew forty men were ill of scurvy.
Twenty-five had gone ashore to reconnoiter.
He had left one hundred and fifty fighting men.
Amid a rush of orders, ropes were stretched across decks for handhold, cannon were unplugged, and the batterymen below decks stripped themselves for the hot work ahead.
The soldiers assembled on decks, sword in hand, and the Canadian bushrovers stood to the fore, ready to leap across the enemy's decks.
By nine in the morning the ships were abreast, and roaring cannonades from the English cut the decks of the _Pelican_ to kindling wood and set the masts in flame.
At the same instant one fell blast of musketry mowed down forty French; but Iberville's batterymen below decks had now ceased to pour a stream of fire into the English hulls.
The odds were three to one, and for four hours the battle raged, the English shifting and sheering to lock in death grapple, Iberville's sharpshooters peppering the decks of the foe.
It had turned bitterly cold.
The blood on the decks became ice, and each roll of the sea sent wounded and dead weltering {186} from rail to rail.
Such holes had been torn in the hulls of both English and French ships that the gunners below decks were literally looking into each other's smoke-grimmed faces.
Suddenly all hands paused.
A frantic scream cleft the air.
The vessels were careening in a tempestuous sea, for the great ship _Hampshire_ had refused to answer to the wheel, had lurched, had sunk,--sunk swift as lead amid hiss of flames into the roaring sea!
Not a soul of her two hundred and fifty men escaped.
The frigate _Hudson's Bay_ surrendered and the _Deering_ fled.
Iberville was victor.
[Illustration: LANDING OF IBERVILLE'S MEN AT PORT NELSON (After La Potherie)] But a storm now broke in hurricane gusts over the sea.
Iberville steered for land, but waves drenched the wheel at every wash, and, driving before the storm, the _Pelican_ floundered in the sands a few miles from Nelson.
All lifeboats had been shot away.
In such a sea the Canadian canoes were useless.
The shattered masts were tied in four-sided racks.
To these {187} Iberville had the wounded bound, and the crew plunged for the shore.
Eighteen men perished going ashore in the darkness.
On land were two feet of snow.
No sooner did the French castaways build fires to warm their benumbed limbs than bullets whistled into camp.
Governor Bayly of Port Nelson had sent out his sharpshooters.
Luckily Iberville's other ships now joined him, and, mustering his forces, the dauntless French leader marched against the fort.
Storm had permitted the French to land their cannon undetected.
Trenches were cast up, and three times Sérigny Le Moyne was sent to demand surrender.
[Illustration: CAPTURE OF FORT NELSON BY THE FRENCH (After La Potherie)] "The French are desperate," he urged.
"They must take the fort or perish of want, and if you continue the fight there will be no mercy given."
The Hudson's Bay people capitulated and were permitted to march out with arms, bag and baggage.
An English ship carried the refugees home to the Thames.
The rest of Iberville's career is the story of colonizing the Mississippi.
He was granted a vast seigniory on the Bay of {188} Chaleur, and in 1699 given a title.
On his way from the Louisiana colony to France his ship had paused at Havana.
Here Iberville contracted yellow fever and died while yet in the prime of his manhood, July 9, 1706. After the victory on Hudson Bay the French were supreme in America and Frontenac supreme in New France.
The old white-haired veteran of a hundred wars became the idol of Quebec.
Friends and enemies, Jesuits and Recollets, paid tribute to his worth.
In November of 1698 the Governor passed from this life in Castle St. Louis at the good old age of seventy-eight.
He had demonstrated--demonstrated in action so that his enemies acknowledged the fact--that the sterner virtues of the military chieftain go farther towards the making of great nationhood than soft sentiments and religious emotionalism.
{189} CHAPTER X FROM 1698 TO 1713
