Canada: The Empire of the North — From 1600 to 1607, part 1

English voyages to North America--Sir Humphrey Gilbert--Henry Hudson--Champlain's first voyage--Founding of Ste.

Croix--The colonists in Acadia The second attempt to plant a French colony in the New World was more disastrous than the first.

Though my Lord Roberval fails, the French fishing vessels continue to bound over the billows of the Atlantic to the New World.

By 1578 there are a hundred and fifty French fishing vessels off Newfoundland alone.

The fishing folk engage in barter.

Cartier's heirs ask for a monopoly of the fur trade in Canada, but the grant is so furiously opposed by the merchants of the coast towns that it is revoked until the Marquis de la Roche, who had been a page at the French court, again obtains monopoly, with many high-sounding titles as Governor, and the added obligation that he must colonize the new land.

What with wars and court intrigue, it is 1598 before the Governor of Canada is ready to sail.

Of his two hundred people taken from jails, all but sixty have obtained their freedom by paying a ransom.

With these sixty La Roche follows the fishing fleet out to the Grand Banks, then rounds southwestward for milder clime, where he may winter his people.

Straight across the ship's course lies the famous sand bank, the graveyard of the Atlantic,--what the old navigators called "the dreadful isle,"--Sable Island.

The sea lies placid as glass between the crescent horns of the long, low reefs,--thirty miles from horn to horn, with never a tree to break the swale of the grass waist-high.

The marquis lands his sixty colonists to fish for supplies, while he goes on with the crew to find place for settlement.

Barely has the topsail dipped over the watery sky before breakers begin to thunder on the sand reefs.

Air and earth lash to fury.

Sails are torn from the ship of the marquis.

His {24} masts go overboard, and the vessel is driven, helpless as a chip in a maelstrom, clear back to the ports of France.

Here double misfortune awaits La Roche.

His old patrons of the court are no longer powerful.

He is thrown in prison by a rival baron.

In vain the colonists strain tired eyes for a sail at sea.

Days become weeks, weeks months, summer autumn; and no boat came back.

As winter gales assailed the sea, sending the sand drifting like spray, the convicts built themselves huts out of driftwood, and scooped beds for themselves in the earth like rabbit burrows.

Of food there was plenty.

The people had their fishing lines; and the stock, left by the Baron de Lery long ago, had multiplied and now overran the island.

Wild fowl, too, teemed on the inland lake; and foxes, which must have drifted ashore on the ice float of spring, ran wild through the sedge.

Like Robinson Crusoe cast on a desert isle, the desperate people fought their fate.

Traps were set for the foxes, snares for the birds, and scouts kept tramping from end to end of the island for sight of a sail.

Racked with despair and anxiety, these outcasts of civilization soon fell to bitter quarreling.

Traps were found rifled.

Dead men lay beside the looted traps; and, doubtless, not a few men lost their lives in spring when the ice floes drifted down with the seal herds, and the men gave mad chase from ice pan to ice pan for seal pelts to make clothing.

Spring wore to summer.

The graves on the sand banks increased.

For a second winter the dreary snowfall wrapped the island in a mantle white as death sheet.

Then came the same weary monotony,--the frenzied seal hunt over the blood-stained floes; the long summer days with the drone of the tide on the sand banks; the men mad with hope at sight of a sail peak over the far wave tops, only to be plunged in despair as the fisher boat passed too far for signal; the fading of the grasses to russet in the sad autumn light; then snowfall again--and despair.

Five years passed before La Roche could aid his people; and the pilot who went to their rescue won himself immortal contempt by robbing the castaways of their furs.

Word of the {25} rescue came to the ears of the court.

Royalty commanded the refugees brought before the throne.

Only twelve had survived, and these marched before the royal presence clothed in the skins of seals, hair unkempt, beards to mid-waist, "like river gods of yore," says the old record.

The King was so touched that he commanded fifty crowns given to each man and the stolen furs restored.

La Roche died of chagrin.

While France is trying to colonize Canada, England has not forgotten that John Cabot first coasted these northern shores and erected the English flag.

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH] About the time that Marguerite Roberval was left alone on Isle Demons, two boys--half-brothers--were playing on the sands of the English Channel, sailing toy boats and listening to sailor yarns of loot on the Spanish Main.

One was Humphrey Gilbert; the other, Walter Raleigh.

These two were destined to lead England's first colonies to America.

Martin Frobisher had already poked the prows of English ships into the icy straits of Greenland waters, seeking way to {26} China.

He had come out with a fleet of fifteen sails and one hundred mariners in 1578 to found colonies, but was led away by the lure of "fool's gold."

Loading his vessels with worthless rocks which he believed contained gold enough "to suffice all the gold gluttons of the world," he sailed back to England without leaving the trace of a colony.

Francis Drake, the very same year, had for the first time plowed an English furrow around the seas of the world, chasing Spanish treasure boats up the west coast of South America and loading his own vessel with loot to the water line.

Afraid to go back the way he had come, round South America, where all the Spanish frigates lay in wait to catch him, Drake pushed on up the west coast as far as California, and landing, took possession of what he called "New Albion" for Queen Elizabeth.

But still no colony had been planted for England.

[Illustration: THE BOYHOOD OF GILBERT AND RALEIGH.

(From the painting by Sir John Millais)] Gilbert and Raleigh, the two half-brothers, were both zealous for glory.

Both stood high in court favor.

Both had fought for Queen Elizabeth in the wars.

Gilbert had fame as seaman and geographer.

He asks for the privilege of founding England's first colony.

The Queen will incur no expense.

Gilbert and Raleigh and their friends will fit out the vessels.

Elizabeth deeds to Gilbert all that old domain discovered by John Cabot, reserving only one fifth of the minerals he may find; and she sends him a present of a golden anchor as a Godspeed.

June 11, 1583, Sir Humphrey sets sail with a fleet of three splendid merchantmen, fitted out as men-of-war, and two heavily armed little frigates.

The crews number three hundred and sixty men, but they are for the most part impressed seamen and riotous.

The fleet is only well away when the biggest of the merchantmen signals that plague has broken out, and flees back to England.

Later, as fog hides the boats from one another, the pirate crew on board the little frigate _Swallow_ run down an English fisherman on the Grand Banks, board her, and at bayonet point loot the schooner from stem to stern.

When the ships lower sail to come in on the tide through the long Narrows, to the rock-girt harbor of St. John's, Newfoundland, {27} the hundreds of fishing vessels lying at anchor there object to the pirate _Swallow_; but Sir Humphrey reads his commission from the Queen, and the fishing fleet roars a welcome that sets the rocks ringing.

Sunday, August 4, the next day after entering, Biscayans and French and Portuguese and English send their new Governor tribute in provisions,--fish from the English, marmalade and wines and spices from the foreigners.

The admiral gives a feast to the master mariners each week he is in port, and entertains--as the old record says--"right bountifully."

Wandering round the rocky harbor, up the high cliff to the left where remnants of an old fortress may be seen to-day, along the circular hills to the right where the fishing stages cover the water front, Gilbert's men find "fool's gold," rock with specks of iron and mica.

Daniel, the refiner of metals, declares it is a rich specimen of silver.

The find goes to Sir Humphrey's head.

He sees himself a second Francis Drake, ships crammed with gold.

When the captains of the other vessels in his fleet would see the treasure, he answers: "Content yourselves!

It is enough!

I have seen it but I would have no speech made of it in harbor; for the Portuguese and {28} Biscayans and French might learn of it.

We shall soon return hither again."

[Illustration: SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT] Many of the men are in ill health.

Gilbert decides to send the invalids home in the _Swallow_; but he transfers the bold pirate crew of that frigate to the big ship _Delight_, which carries provisions for the colony.

While planning to make St. John's the headquarters of his new kingdom, Sir Humphrey wishes to explore those regions where Cartier had gone and whence the fishing schooners bring such wealth in furs.

August 20 the remainder of his fleet rounds out of St. John's south west for the Gulf of St. Lawrence,--the _Delight_ with the provisions, the _Golden Hinde_ with the majority of the people, the little frigate _Squirrel_ weighted down by artillery stores but under command of Gilbert himself, because the smaller ship can run close ashore to explore.

To keep up the spirits of the men, there is much merrymaking.

Becalmed off Cape Breton, Sir Humphrey visits the big ship _Delight_, where the trumpets and the drums and the pipes and the cornets reel off wild sailor jigs.

"There was," says the old record, "little watching for danger."

Wednesday, August 26, the sounding line forewarned the reefs of Sable Island.

Breakers were sighted.

The _Delight_ signaled that her captain wanted to shift southwest to deeper water, but Gilbert wanted to enter the St. Lawrence and signaled back to go on northwest.

That night a storm raged.

The provision ship ran full tilt into the sand banks of Sable Island, and was battered into chips before the other ships could come to rescue.

All supplies were lost and all the pirate crew perished but sixteen, who jumped into the pinnace dragging astern, and, with only one oar, half punted, half drifted for seven days till the wave wash carried them to the shores of Newfoundland.

There they were picked up by a fishing vessel.

With provisions gone, Sir Humphrey Gilbert's colony was doomed.

He must turn back.

Saturday, August 31, they reversed the course.

When halfway across the Atlantic the admiral rowed from the little _Squirrel_ across to the _Golden Hinde_ to have a lame foot treated by the surgeon.

"Cheer {29} up," he urged the men.

"Next year her Majesty will loan me 1000 pounds, and we shall come again."

[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH] As storm was gathering, the men begged him to remain on the larger ship, but Gilbert refused to leave the sailors of the _Squirrel_.

The frigate was as safe for him as for them, he said.

Some one called his attention to the fact that the frigate was overweighted with cannon.

Gilbert laughed all danger to scorn.

Soon afterwards the waves began to break short and high--a dangerous sea for a small, overweighted ship.

It had been arranged that both ships should swing lanterns fore and aft to keep each other in sight at night.

On the night of September 9 a phosphorescent light was seen to gleam above the mainmast of the _Squirrel_,--certain sign to the superstitious sailors of dire disaster;

but when the _Hinde_ slackened speed, and the great waves threw the vessels almost together, there was Sir Humphrey sitting aloft, book in hand, shouting out, "We are as near Heaven by sea as by land."

The _Hinde_ fell to the rear.

The _Squirrel_ led away, her stern lanterns lighting a trail across the shiny dark of the tempestuous billows.

Suddenly, at midnight, the guiding {30} light was lost.

The _Squirrel's_ stern lanterns were seen to descend the pitching trough of a mountain wave, and when the wall of water fell, no light came up.

Down into the abyss the little craft had plunged, never to rise again, carrying explorer, treasure hunters, colonists, to a watery grave.

It may be added that the disaster took place halfway across the ocean, and not off Newfoundland, as the ballad relates.

But for all this misfortune, England did not desist.

The very next year Raleigh, who had played on the sands with Humphrey Gilbert, sends out his colonists to the Roanoke, and lays the foundations for the beginning of empire in the Southern States.

English sailors explore Cape Cod.

Ten years after Frobisher had brought home his cargo of worthless stones from Labrador, Davis, the master mariner, is out exploring the waters west of Greenland; and Henry Hudson, the English pilot who had discovered Hudson River, New York, for the Dutch, is retained by the English in 1610 to explore those waters west of Greenland where both Frobisher and Davis reported open passage.

It is midsummer of 1610 when Hudson enters Hudson Straits.

The ice jam of Ungava Bay, Labrador, has almost torn his ships' timbers apart and has set fear shivering like an aspen leaf among the crew.

Old Juett, the mate, rages openly at Hudson for venturing such a frail ship on such a sea; but when the ship anchors at the west end of Hudson Straits, five hundred miles from the Atlantic, there opens to view another sea,--a sea large as the Mediterranean, that, like the Mediterranean, may lead to another world.

It is as dangerous to go back as forward; and forward Hudson sails, southwestward for that sea Drake had cruised off California, the old mate's mutiny rumbling beneath decks like a volcano.

South, southwestward, seven hundred miles sails Hudson, past the high rocks and airy cataracts of Richmond Gulf, past silence like the realms of death, on down where Hudson Bay rounds into James Bay and the shallows plainly show this is no way to a western sea, but a blind inlet, bowlder-strewn and muddy as swamps.

{31} [Illustration: AT EASTERN ENTRANCE TO HUDSON STRAITS] When the ship runs aground and all hands must out to waist in ice water to pull her ashore as the tide comes in, Juett's rage bursts all bounds.

As they toil, snow begins to fall.

They are winter bound and storm bound in an unknown land.

Half the crew are in open mutiny; the other half build winter quarters and range the woods of James Bay for game.

Of game there is plenty, but the rebels refuse to hunt.

A worthless lad named Green, whom Hudson had picked off the streets of London, turns traitor and talebearer, fomenting open quarrels till the commander threatens he will hang to the yardarm the first man guilty of disobedience.

So passes the sullen winter.

Provisions are short when the ship weighs anchor for England in June of 1611. With tears in his eyes, Hudson hands out the last rations.

Ice blocks the way.

Delay means starvation.

If the crew were only half as large, Henry Green whispers to the mutineers, there would be food enough for passage home.

The ice floes clear, the sails swing rattling to the breeze, but as Hudson steps on deck, the mutineers leap upon him like wolves.

He is bound and thrown into the rowboat.

With him are thrust his son and {32} eight others of the crew.

The rope is cut, the rowboat jerks back adrift, and Hudson's vessel, manned by mutineers, drives before the wind.

A few miles out, the mutineers lower sails to rummage for food.

The little boat with the castaways is seen coming in pursuit.

Guilt-haunted, the crew out with all sails and flee as from avenging ghosts.

So passes Henry Hudson from the ken of all men, though Indian legend on the shores of Hudson Bay to this day maintains that the castaways landed north of Rupert and lived among the savages.