_Historical Narrative_
Macaulay in the introduction to his essay on Hallam deplores the fact
that the writers of history of his day, exact and accurate though
they may be, “present no scene to the imagination.” “To make the past
present, to bring the distant near, to place us in the society of a
great man or on the eminence which overlooks the scene of a mighty
battle, to invest with the reality of human flesh and blood beings
whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities
in an allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all their
peculiarities of language, manners and garb, to show us over their
houses, to seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned
wardrobes, to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture”--these,
he writes, are “parts of the duty which properly belongs to the
historian.” And such an historian Macaulay assuredly was; indeed,
he was so entirely true to his idea and ideal of history that his
portrayal of English life and events for only fifteen years fills
five volumes of closely printed pages.
Yet it is to Macaulay that the writer of historical narrative must
turn both for precept and for example. _To present a scene to the
imagination_ must be his motive and aim, and he will do well to look
to Macaulay as to a master in this interesting field of narrative
writing.
His subjects may come, as did those of Macaulay, from anywhere and
everywhere. He may choose to depict an incident of warfare, such as
the story of the Black Hole of Calcutta from the essay on Lord Clive,
or the account of a journey, such as Francis Parkman’s narration of
the winter journey of La Salle. For either of these subjects American
history is filled with suggestions. One has but to think of familiar
names from General Braddock to Custer, from Ponce de Leon and De Soto
to Lewis and Clark to become convinced of the richness of material
within our own borders. More interesting than wars and explorations,
however, may be narratives of pioneer life in the Middle West, or
accounts of the trials and executions of such persons as Joan of Arc,
Mary, Queen of Scots, Edith Cavell, Charles I, or incidents in the
life of some historical personage written with a view to character
portrayal. Truly the sources for historical narrative are limitless.
A study of the succeeding selections will show you that the following
characteristics are evident in the best historical narratives:
1. A wealth of vivid detail by which Macaulay’s ideal of _presenting
the scene to the imagination_ is realized.
This is especially well shown in Froude’s story of the marriage of
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
2. A careful adaptation of the style to the subject at hand.
This is illustrated by the Black Hole of Calcutta incident from
Macaulay’s essay on Lord Clive. Even a careless student must note
the rapidity of movement, the brevity of many of the sentences, the
quick succession of clauses as the action mounts. Another excellent
example of this characteristic is the description of the buffalo hunt
in Parkman’s chapter on Indian Conquerors.
3. An appreciation of the value of pictorial and suggestive words.
Although all the selections given illustrate this quality, none,
perhaps, is so helpful in this respect as the first.
A single sentence, picked almost at random from Chapter III of
Macaulay’s _History of England_, illustrates perfectly the possible
forcefulness of historical narrative as over against the bare
statement of bare fact. In a description of the English navy in 1685,
Macaulay is contrasting the life of the officers with that of the
common sailors. He says:
They dressed as if for a gala at Versailles, ate off plate, drank
the richest wines, and kept harems on board, while hunger and
scurvy raged among the crews, and while corpses were daily flung
out of the port-holes.
And yet there are those who will contend that he might
as well have said:
They lived royally, while many of the sailors sickened and died.
M. E. C.
THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
The great province of Bengal, together with Orissa and Bahar, had
long been governed by a viceroy, whom the English called Aliverdy
Khan, and who, like the other viceroys of the Mogul, had become
virtually independent. He died in 1756, and the sovereignty descended
to his grandson, a youth under twenty years of age, who bore the name
of Surajah Dowlah. Oriental despots are perhaps the worst class of
human beings; and this unhappy boy was one of the worst specimens
of his class. His understanding was naturally feeble, and his temper
naturally unamiable. His education had been such as would have
enervated even a vigorous intellect, and perverted even a generous
disposition. He was unreasonable, because nobody ever dared to reason
with him, and selfish, because he had never been made to feel himself
dependent on the goodwill of others. Early debauchery had unnerved
his body and his mind. He indulged immoderately in the use of ardent
spirits, which inflamed his weak brain almost to madness. His chosen
companions were flatterers sprung from the dregs of the people, and
recommended by nothing but buffoonery and servility. It is said that
he had arrived at the last stage of human depravity, when cruelty
becomes pleasing for its own sake, when the sight of pain as pain,
where no advantage is to be gained, no offence punished, no danger
averted, is an agreeable excitement. It had early been his amusement
to torture beasts and birds; and, when he grew up, he enjoyed with
still keener relish the misery of his fellow-creatures.
From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English. It was his whim
to do so; and his whims were never opposed. He had also formed a
very exaggerated notion of the wealth which might be obtained by
plundering them; and his feeble and uncultivated mind was incapable
of perceiving that the riches of Calcutta, had they been even greater
than he imagined, would not compensate him for what he must lose,
if the European trade, of which Bengal was a chief seat, should be
driven by his violence to some other quarter. Pretexts for a quarrel
were readily found. The English, in expectation of a war with France,
had begun to fortify their settlement without special permission
from the Nabob. A rich native, whom he longed to plunder, had taken
refuge at Calcutta, and had not been delivered up. On such grounds as
these Surajah Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort William.
The servants of the Company at Madras had been forced by Dupleix
to become statesmen and soldiers. Those in Bengal were still mere
traders, and were terrified and bewildered by the approaching danger.
The governor, who had heard much of Surajah Dowlah’s cruelty, was
frightened out of his wits, jumped into a boat, and took refuge in
the nearest ship. The military commandant thought that he could not
do better than follow so good an example. The fort was taken after
a feeble resistance; and great numbers of the English fell into the
hands of the conquerors. The Nabob seated himself with regal pomp in
the principal hall of the factory, and ordered Mr. Holwell, the first
in rank among the prisoners, to be brought before him. His Highness
talked about the insolence of the English, and grumbled at the
smallness of the treasure which he had found, but promised to spare
their lives, and retired to rest.
Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular
atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it was
followed. The English captives were left to the mercy of the guards,
and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison
of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black
Hole. Even for a single European malefactor, that dungeon would, in
such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The space was only
twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It
was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal
can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty
halls and by the constant waving of fans. The number of prisoners
was one hundred and forty-six. When they were ordered to enter the
cell, they imagined that the soldiers were joking; and, being in
high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their
lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They
soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated; they entreated; but
in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The
captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the
door was instantly shut and locked upon them.
Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which Ugolino
told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody
lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors which
were recounted by the few survivors of that night. They cried for
mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell, who, even in that
extremity, retained some presence of mind, offered large bribes to
the gaolers. But the answer was that nothing could be done without
the Nabob’s orders, that the Nabob was asleep, and that he would
be angry if anybody woke him. Then the prisoners went mad with
despair. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at the
windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy
of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed,
implored the guards to fire among them. The gaolers in the meantime
held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic
struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low
gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his
debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it was some time
before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors by piling up
on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had
already begun to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage was
made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would
not have known, staggered one by one out of the charnel-house. A pit
was instantly dug. The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three in
number, were flung into it promiscuously and covered up.
But these things--which, after the lapse of more than eighty years,
cannot be told or read without horror--awakened neither remorse nor
pity in the bosom of the savage Nabob. He inflicted no punishment
on the murderers. He showed no tenderness to the survivors. Some
of them, indeed, from whom nothing was to be got, were suffered to
depart; but those from whom it was thought that anything could be
extorted were treated with execrable cruelty. Holwell, unable to
walk, was carried before the tyrant, who reproached him, threatened
him, and sent him up the country in irons, together with some
other gentlemen who were suspected of knowing more than they chose
to tell about the treasures of the Company. These persons, still
bowed down by the sufferings of that great agony, were lodged in
miserable sheds, and fed only with grain and water, till at length
the intercessions of the female relations of the Nabob procured their
release. One Englishwoman had survived that night. She was placed in
the harem of the Prince at Moorshedabad.
Surajah Dowlah, in the meantime, sent letters to his nominal
sovereign at Delhi, describing the late conquest in the most pompous
language. He placed a garrison in Fort William, forbade Englishmen to
dwell in the neighbourhood, and directed that, in memory of his great
actions, Calcutta should thenceforward be called Alinagore, that is
to say, the Port of God.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, _Lord Clive_.
THE MARRIAGE OF HENRY AND ANNE BOLEYN
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE
On the morning of the 31st of May, the families of the London
citizens were stirring early in all houses. From Temple Bar to the
Tower, the streets were fresh strewed with gravel, the footpaths
were railed off along the whole distance, and occupied on one side
by the guilds, their workmen, and apprentices, on the other by the
city constables and officials in their gaudy uniforms, “with their
staves in hand for to cause the people to keep good room and order.”
Cornhill and Gracechurch-street had dressed their fronts in scarlet
and crimson, in arras and tapestry, and the rich carpet-work from
Persia and the East. Cheapside, to outshine her rivals, was draped
even more splendidly in cloth of gold, and tissue, and velvet. The
sheriffs were pacing up and down on their great Flemish horses,
hung with liveries, and all the windows were thronged with ladies
crowding to see the procession pass. At length the Tower guns opened,
the grim gates rolled back, and under the archway in the bright
May sunshine, the long column began slowly to defile. Two states
only permitted their representatives to grace the scene with their
presence--Venice and France. It was, perhaps, to make the most of
this isolated countenance, that the French ambassador’s train formed
the van of the cavalcade. Twelve French knights came riding foremost
in surcoats of blue velvet with sleeves of yellow silk, their horses
trapped in blue, with white crosses powdered on their hangings. After
them followed a troop of English gentlemen, two and two, and then
the Knights of the Bath, “in gowns of violet, with hoods purified
with miniver like doctors.” Next, perhaps at a little interval,
the abbots passed on, mitred in their robes; the barons followed in
crimson velvet, the bishops then, and then the earls and marquises,
the dresses of each order increasing in elaborate gorgeousness. All
these rode on in pairs. Then came alone Audeley, lord-chancellor, and
behind him the Venetian ambassador and the Archbishop of York; the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Du Bellay, Bishop of Bayonne and of
Paris, not now with bugle and hunting-frock, but solemn with stole
and crozier. Next, the lord mayor, with the city mace in hand, and
Garter in his coat of arms; and then Lord William Howard--Belted Will
Howard, of the Scottish Border, Marshal of England. The officers of
the queen’s household succeeded the marshal in scarlet and gold, and
the van of the procession was closed by the Duke of Suffolk, as high
constable, with his silver wand. It is no easy matter to picture to
ourselves the blazing trail of splendour which in such a pageant must
have drawn along the London streets,--those streets which now we know
so black and smoke-grimed, themselves then radiant with masses of
colour, gold, and crimson, and violet. Yet there it was, and there
the sun could shine upon it, and tens of thousands of eyes were
gazing on the scene out of the crowded lattices.
Glorious as the spectacle was, perhaps, however, it passed unheeded.
Those eyes were watching all for another object, which now drew near.
In an open space behind the constable there was seen approaching “a
white chariot,” drawn by two palfreys in white damask which swept
the ground, a golden canopy borne above it making music with silver
bells: and in the chariot sat the observed of all observers, the
beautiful occasion of all this glittering homage; fortune’s plaything
of the hour, the Queen of England--queen at last--borne along upon
the waves of this sea of glory, breathing the perfumed incense of
greatness which she had risked her fair name, her delicacy, her
honour, her self-respect, to win; and she had won it.
There she sate, dressed in white tissue robes, her fair hair
flowing loose over her shoulders, and her temples circled with a
light coronet of gold and diamonds--most beautiful--loveliest--most
favoured perhaps, as she seemed at that hour, of all England’s
daughters. Alas! “within the hollow round” of that coronet--
Kept death his court, and there the antick sate,
Scoffing her state and grinning at her pomp.
Allowing her a little breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing her with self and vain conceit,
As if the flesh which walled about her life
Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus,
Bored through her castle walls; and farewell, Queen.
Fatal gift of greatness! so dangerous ever! so more than dangerous
in those tremendous times when the fountains are broken loose
of the great deeps of thought; and nations are in the throes of
revolution;--when ancient order and law and tradition are splitting
in the social earthquake; and as the opposing forces wrestle to and
fro, those unhappy ones who stand out above the crowd become the
symbols of the struggle, and fall the victims of its alternating
fortunes. And what if into an unsteady heart and brain, intoxicated
with splendour, the outward chaos should find its way, converting the
poor silly soul into an image of the same confusion,--if conscience
should be deposed from her high place, and the Pandora box be broken
loose of passions and sensualities and follies; and at length there
be nothing left of all which man or woman ought to value, save hope
of God’s forgiveness.
Three short years have yet to pass, and again, on a summer morning,
Queen Anne Boleyn will leave the Tower of London--not radiant then
with beauty on a gay errand of coronation, but a poor wandering
ghost, on a sad tragic errand, from which she will never more return,
passing away out of an earth where she may stay no longer, into a
Presence where, nevertheless, we know that all is well--for all of
us--and therefore for her.
But let us not cloud her shortlived sunshine with the shadow of
the future. She went on in her loveliness, the peeresses following
in their carriages, with the royal guard in their rear. In
Fenchurch-street she was met by the children of the city schools; and
at the corner of Gracechurch-street a masterpiece had been prepared
of the pseudo-classic art, then so fashionable, by the merchants of
the Styll-yard. A Mount Parnassus had been constructed, and a Helicon
fountain upon it playing into a basin with four jets of Rhenish wine.
On the top of the mountain sat Apollo with Calliope at his feet,
and on either side the remaining Muses, holding lutes or harps, and
singing each of them some “posy” or epigram in praise of the queen,
which was presented, after it had been sung, written in letters of
gold.
From Gracechurch-street the procession passed to Leadenhall, where
there was a spectacle in better taste, of the old English catholic
kind, quaint perhaps and forced, but truly and even beautifully
emblematic. There was again a “little mountain,” which was hung with
red and white roses; a gold ring was placed on the summit, on which,
as the queen appeared, a white falcon was made to “descend as out
of the sky”--“and then incontinent came down an angel with great
melody, and set a close crown of gold upon the falcon’s head; and in
the same pageant sat Saint Anne with all her issue beneath her; and
Mary Cleophas with her four children, of the which children one made
a goodly oration to the queen, of the fruitfulness of Saint Anne,
trusting that like fruit should come of her.”
With such “pretty conceits,” at that time the honest tokens of
an English welcome, the new queen was received by the citizens
of London. These scenes must be multiplied by the number of the
streets, where some fresh fancy met her at every turn. To preserve
the festivities from flagging, every fountain and conduit within
the walls ran all day with wine; the bells of every steeple were
ringing; children lay in wait with songs, and ladies with posies, in
which all the resources of fantastic extravagance were exhausted;
and thus in an unbroken triumph--and to outward appearance received
with the warmest affection--she passed under Temple Bar, down the
Strand by Charing Cross to Westminster Hall. The king was not with
her throughout the day; nor did he intend to be with her in any part
of the ceremony. She was to reign without a rival, the undisputed
sovereign of the hour.
Saturday being passed in showing herself to the people, she retired
for the night to “the king’s manour house at Westminster,” where she
slept. On the following morning, between eight and nine o’clock, she
returned to the hall, where the lord mayor, the city council, and the
peers were again assembled, and took her place on the high dais at
the top of the stairs under the cloth of state; while the bishops,
the abbots, and the monks of the abbey formed in the area. A railed
way had been laid with carpets across Palace Yard and the Sanctuary
to the abbey gates, and when all was ready, preceded by the peers in
their robes of parliament, the Knights of the Garter in the dress
of the order, she swept out under her canopy, the bishops and the
monks “solemnly singing.” The train was borne by the old Duchess of
Norfolk, her aunt, the Bishops of London and Winchester on either
side “bearing up the lappets of her robe.” The Earl of Oxford carried
the crown on its cushion immediately before her. She was dressed in
purple velvet furred with ermine, her hair escaping loose, as she
usually wore it, under a wreath of diamonds.
On entering the abbey, she was led to the coronation chair, where she
sat while the train fell into their places, and the preliminaries of
the ceremonial were despatched. Then she was conducted up to the high
altar, and anointed Queen of England, and she received from the hands
of Cranmer, fresh come in haste from Dunstable, with the last words
of his sentence upon Catherine scarcely silent upon his lips, the
golden sceptre, and St. Edward’s crown.
James Anthony Froude, _The History of England_.
THE HARDIHOOD OF LA SALLE
FRANCIS PARKMAN
La Salle well knew what was before him, and nothing but necessity
spurred him to this desperate journey. He says that he could trust
nobody else to go in his stead, and that, unless the articles lost
in the “Griffin” were replaced without delay, the expedition would
be retarded a full year, and he and his associates consumed by its
expenses. “Therefore,” he writes to one of them, “though the thaws
of approaching spring greatly increased the difficulty of the way,
interrupted as it was everywhere by marshes and rivers, to say
nothing of the length of the journey, which is about five hundred
leagues in a direct line, and the danger of meeting Indians of four
or five different nations, through whose country we were to pass,
as well as an Iroquois army, which we knew was coming that way;
though we must suffer all the time from hunger; sleep on the open
ground, and often without food; watch by night and march by day,
loaded with baggage, such as blanket, clothing, kettle, hatchet,
gun, powder, lead, and skins to make moccasins; sometimes pushing
through thickets, sometimes climbing rocks covered with ice and snow,
sometimes wading whole days through marshes where the water was
waist-deep or even more, at a season when the snow was not entirely
melted,--though I knew all this, it did not prevent me from resolving
to go on foot to Fort Frontenac, to learn for myself what had become
of my vessel, and bring back the things we needed.”
The winter had been a severe one; and when, an hour after leaving the
fort, he and his companions reached the still water of Peoria Lake,
they found it sheeted with ice from shore to shore. They carried
their canoes up the bank, made two rude sledges, placed the light
vessels upon them, and dragged them to the upper end of the lake,
where they encamped. In the morning, they found the river still
covered with ice, too weak to bear them and too strong to permit them
to break a way for the canoes. They spent the whole day in carrying
them through the woods, toiling knee-deep in saturated snow. Rain
fell in floods, and they took shelter at night in a deserted Indian
hut.
In the morning, the third of March, they dragged their canoes half
a league farther; then launched them, and, breaking the ice with
clubs and hatchets, forced their way slowly up the stream. Again
their progress was barred, and again they took to the woods, toiling
onward till a tempest of moist, half-liquid snow forced them to
bivouac for the night. A sharp frost followed, and in the morning
the white waste around them was glazed with a dazzling crust. Now,
for the first time, they could use their snow-shoes. Bending to their
work, dragging their canoes, which glided smoothly over the polished
surface, they journeyed on hour after hour and league after league,
till they reached at length the great town of the Illinois, still
void of its inhabitants.
It was a desolate and lonely scene: the river gliding dark and cold
between its banks of rushes; the empty lodges, covered with crusted
snow; the vast white meadows; the distant cliffs, bearded with
shining icicles; and the hills wrapped in forests, which glittered
from afar with the icy incrustations that cased each frozen twig.
Yet there was life in the savage landscape. The men saw buffalo
wading in the snow, and they killed one of them. More than this: they
discovered the tracks of moccasins. They cut rushes by the edge of
the river, piled them on the bank, and set them on fire, that the
smoke might attract the eyes of savages roaming near.
On the following day, while the hunters were smoking the meat of the
buffalo, La Salle went out to reconnoitre, and presently met three
Indians, one of whom proved to be Chassagoac, the principal chief of
the Illinois. La Salle brought them to his bivouac, feasted them,
gave them a red blanket, a kettle, and some knives and hatchets, made
friends with them, promised to restrain the Iroquois from attacking
them, told them that he was on his way to the settlements to bring
arms and ammunition to defend them against their enemies, and, as the
result of these advances, gained from the chief a promise that he
would send provisions to Tonty’s party at Fort Crèvecoeur.
After several days spent at the deserted town, La Salle prepared to
resume his journey. Before his departure, his attention was attracted
to the remarkable cliff of yellow sandstone, now called Starved Rock,
a mile or more above the village,--a natural fortress, which a score
of resolute white men might make good against a host of savages; and
he soon afterwards sent Tonty an order to examine it, and make it his
stronghold in case of need.
On the fifteenth, the party set out again, carried their canoes
along the bank of the river as far as the rapids above Ottawa; then
launched them and pushed their way upward, battling with the floating
ice, which, loosened by a warm rain, drove down the swollen current
in sheets. On the eighteenth, they reached a point some miles below
the site of Joliet, and here found the river once more completely
closed. Despairing of farther progress by water, they hid their
canoes on an island, and struck across the country for Lake Michigan.
It was the worst of all seasons for such a journey. The nights were
cold, but the sun was warm at noon, and the half-thawed prairie was
one vast tract of mud, water, and discolored, half-liquid snow. On
the twenty-second, they crossed marshes and inundated meadows, wading
to the knee, till at noon they were stopped by a river, perhaps the
Calumet. They made a raft of hard-wood timber, for there was no
other, and shoved themselves across. On the next day, they could
see Lake Michigan glimmering beyond the waste of woods; and, after
crossing three swollen streams, they reached it at evening. On the
twenty-fourth, they followed its shore, till, at nightfall, they
arrived at the fort, which they had built in the autumn at the mouth
of the St. Joseph. Here La Salle found Chapelle and Leblanc, the two
men whom he had sent from hence to Michillimackinac, in search of
the “Griffin.” They reported that they had made the circuit of the
lake, and had neither seen her nor heard tidings of her. Assured of
her fate, he ordered them to rejoin Tonty at Fort Crèvecoeur; while
he pushed onward with his party through the unknown wilds of Southern
Michigan.
“The rain,” says La Salle, “which lasted all day, and the raft we
were obliged to make to cross the river, stopped us till noon of
the twenty-fifth, when we continued our march through the woods,
which were so interlaced with thorns and brambles that in two days
and a half our clothes were all torn and our faces so covered with
blood that we hardly knew each other. On the twenty-eighth, we found
the woods more open, and began to fare better, meeting a good deal
of game, which after this rarely failed us; so that we no longer
carried provisions with us, but made a meal of roast meat wherever
we happened to kill a deer, bear, or turkey. These are the choicest
feasts on a journey like this; and till now we had generally gone
without them, so that we had often walked all day without breakfast.
“The Indians do not hunt in this region, which is debatable ground
between five or six nations who are at war, and, being afraid of
each other, do not venture into these parts, except to surprise each
other, and always with the greatest precaution and all possible
secrecy. The reports of our guns and the carcasses of the animals
we killed soon led some of them to find our trail. In fact, on the
evening of the twenty-eighth, having made our fire by the edge of
a prairie, we were surrounded by them; but as the man on guard
waked us, and we posted ourselves behind trees with our guns, these
savages, who are called Wapoos, took us for Iroquois, and thinking
that there must be a great many of us, because we did not travel
secretly, as they do when in small bands, they ran off without
shooting their arrows, and gave the alarm to their comrades, so that
we were two days without meeting anybody.”
La Salle guessed the cause of their fright; and, in order to confirm
their delusion, he drew with charcoal, on the trunks of trees from
which he had stripped the bark, the usual marks of an Iroquois
war-party, with signs for prisoners and for scalps, after the custom
of those dreaded warriors. This ingenious artifice, as will soon
appear, was near proving the destruction of the whole party. He also
set fire to the dry grass of the prairies over which he and his men
had just passed, thus destroying the traces of their passage. “We
practised this device every night, and it answered very well so long
as we were passing over an open country; but, on the thirtieth,
we got into great marshes, flooded by the thaws, and were obliged
to cross them in mud or water up to the waist; so that our tracks
betrayed us to a band of Mascoutins, who were out after Iroquois.
They followed us through these marshes during the three days we were
crossing them; but we made no fire at night, contenting ourselves
with taking off our wet clothes and wrapping ourselves in our
blankets on some dry knoll, where we slept till morning. At last,
on the night of the second of April, there came a hard frost, and
our clothes, which were drenched when we took them off, froze stiff
as sticks, so that we could not put them on in the morning without
making a fire to thaw them. The fire betrayed us to the Indians, who
were encamped across the marsh; and they ran towards us with loud
cries, till they were stopped half way by a stream so deep that they
could not get over, the ice which had formed in the night not being
strong enough to bear them. We went to meet them, within gun shot;
and whether our fire-arms frightened them, or whether they thought
us more numerous than we were, or whether they really meant us no
harm, they called out, in the Illinois language, that they had taken
us for Iroquois, but now saw that we were friends and brothers;
whereupon, they went off as they came, and we kept on our way till
the fourth, when two of my men fell ill and could not walk.”
In this emergency, La Salle went in search of some watercourse by
which they might reach Lake Erie, and soon came upon a small river,
which was probably the Huron. Here, while the sick men rested,
their companions made a canoe. There were no birch-trees; and they
were forced to use elm bark, which at that early season would not
slip freely from the wood until they loosened it with hot water.
Their canoe being made, they embarked in it, and for a time floated
prosperously down the stream, when at length the way was barred by a
matted barricade of trees fallen across the water. The sick men could
now walk again, and, pushing eastward through the forest, the party
soon reached the banks of the Detroit.
La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and go to
Michillimackinac, the nearest harborage. With the remaining two, he
crossed the Detroit on a raft, and, striking a direct line across the
country, reached Lake Erie, not far from Point Pelée. Snow, sleet,
and rain pelted them with little intermission; and when, after a walk
of about thirty miles, they gained the lake, the Mohegan and one of
the Frenchmen were attacked with fever and spitting of blood. Only
one man now remained in health. With his aid, La Salle made another
canoe, and, embarking the invalids, pushed for Niagara. It was Easter
Monday when they landed at a cabin of logs above the cataract,
probably on the spot where the “Griffin” was built. Here several
of La Salle’s men had been left the year before, and here they
still remained. They told him woful news. Not only had he lost the
“Griffin,” and her lading of ten thousand crowns in value, but a ship
from France, freighted with his goods, valued at more than twenty-two
thousand livres, had been totally wrecked at the mouth of the St.
Lawrence; and, of twenty hired men on their way from Europe to join
him, some had been detained by his enemy, the Intendant Duchesneau,
while all but four of the remainder, being told that he was dead, had
found means to return home.
His three followers were all unfit for travel: he alone retained his
strength and spirit. Taking with him three fresh men at Niagara,
he resumed his journey, and on the sixth of May descried, looming
through floods of rain, the familiar shores of his seigniory and the
bastioned walls of Fort Frontenac. During sixty-five days, he had
toiled almost incessantly, travelling, by the course he took, about a
thousand miles through a country beset with every form of peril and
obstruction; “the most arduous journey,” says the chronicler, “ever
made by Frenchmen in America.” Such was Cavelier de la Salle. In him,
an unconquerable mind held at its service a frame of iron, and tasked
it to the utmost of its endurance. The pioneer of western pioneers
was no rude son of toil, but a man of thought, trained amid arts and
letters.
He had reached his goal; but for him there was neither rest nor
peace. Man and Nature seemed in arms against him. His agents had
plundered him; his creditors had seized his property; and several
of his canoes, richly laden, had been lost in the rapids of the St.
Lawrence. He hastened to Montreal, where his sudden advent caused
great astonishment; and where, despite his crippled resources and
damaged credit, he succeeded, within a week, in gaining the supplies
which he required, and the needful succors for the forlorn band on
the Illinois. He had returned to Fort Frontenac, and was on the
point of embarking for their relief, when a blow fell upon him more
disheartening than any that had preceded. On the twenty-second of
July, two _voyageurs_, Messier and Laurent, came to him with a letter
from Tonty, who wrote that soon after La Salle’s departure nearly all
the men had deserted, after destroying Fort Crèvecoeur, plundering
the magazine, and throwing into the river all the arms, goods, and
stores which they could not carry off. The messengers who brought
this letter were speedily followed by two of the _habitants_ of
Fort Frontenac, who had been trading on the lakes, and who, with a
fidelity which the unhappy La Salle rarely knew how to inspire, had
travelled day and night to bring him their tidings. They reported
that they had met the deserters, and that, having been reinforced by
recruits gained at Michillimackinac and Niagara, they now numbered
twenty men. They had destroyed the fort on the St. Joseph, seized
a quantity of furs belonging to La Salle at Michillimackinac, and
plundered the magazine at Niagara. Here they had separated, eight of
them coasting the south side of Lake Ontario to find harborage at
Albany, a common refuge at that time of this class of scoundrels;
while the remaining twelve, in three canoes, made for Fort Frontenac,
along the north shore, intending to kill La Salle, as the surest
means of escaping punishment.
He lost no time in lamentation. Of the few men at his command, he
chose nine of the trustiest, embarked with them in canoes, and went
to meet the marauders. After passing the Bay of Quinté, he took his
station, with five of his party, at a point of land suited to his
purpose, and detached the remaining four to keep watch. In the
morning, two canoes were discovered, approaching without suspicion,
one of them far in advance of the other. As the foremost drew near,
La Salle’s canoe darted out from under the leafy shore; two of the
men handling the paddles, while he, with the remaining two, levelled
their guns at the deserters, and called on them to surrender.
Astonished and dismayed, they yielded at once; while two more, who
were in the second canoe, hastened to follow their example. La Salle
now returned to the fort with his prisoners, placed them in custody,
and again set forth. He met the third canoe upon the lake at about
six o’clock in the evening. His men vainly plied their paddles in
pursuit. The mutineers reached the shore, took post among rocks and
trees, levelled their guns, and showed fight. Four of La Salle’s men
made a circuit to gain their rear and dislodge them, on which they
stole back to their canoe, and tried to escape in the darkness. They
were pursued, and summoned to yield; but they replied by aiming their
guns at their pursuers, who instantly gave them a volley, killed two
of them, and captured the remaining three. Like their companions,
they were placed in custody at the fort, to await the arrival of
Count Frontenac.
Francis Parkman, _La Salle and the Discovery of
the Great West_. By permission of the publishers,
Little, Brown & Company.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
The editors have found these additional selections very useful in
teaching historical narrative:
Guedalla, Philip. _The Second Empire_, Part III, _The Emperor_. G.
P. Putnam’s Sons.
Parkman, Francis. _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_,
particularly Chapter XV, _Indian Conquerors_. Little, Brown &
Company.
Roosevelt, Theodore. _The Winning of the West_, Vol. IV, Chapter
II, _Mad Anthony Wayne_. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Strachey, Lytton. _Queen Victoria_, particularly pages 67-70.
Harcourt, Brace and Company.