THE BEGINNING OF THE END
The growing power of England, on the sea, in America, and in India,
was only equalled by the increasing jealousy of the Catholic nations
of Europe, and especially of her ancient rival France. The question of
the Austrian succession, in which these two conspicuous opposites
stood for and against Maria Theresa, supplied a pretext for war; yet
it hardly concealed the real purpose of each power to destroy the
other; and the battles of Fontenoy, Nollwitz, and Dettingen, though
fought in the heart of Europe, were as decisive for an Eastern and a
Western empire as was the warfare on the frontiers of India, or the
sullen conflict in the Ohio valley.
Across the Atlantic, France, as usual, dealt the first blow. With a
thousand soldiers from Louisbourg, Du Vivier assailed Annapolis Royal;
but neither by investment nor assault could the French overcome the
small but indomitable garrison; and at length, after weeks of useless
cannonade, the besiegers stole back to their stronghold in Cape
Breton. This gallant repulse of a desperate attempt to regain Acadia
prompted New England to an expedition against the strong fortress of
Louisbourg--the standing menace to peaceful colonial development. Were
it but reduced, the English seaboard would be henceforth free from all
danger of French attack.
Such large considerations fired the English colonists with an
enthusiasm which took little thought for the grave dangers attending
such an enterprise. Excepting the citadel of Quebec itself, there was
no fortress on the American continent to compare in strength with
Louisbourg. Built on a narrow rocky cape which projected out into the
Atlantic, the ocean girded it on three sides, and on the fourth side a
morass made it difficult of approach. A powerful fortification, known
as the Island Battery, protected the mouth of the harbour, and the
guns of Grand Battery frowned over the inner basin. The French
garrison numbered thirteen hundred chosen men. Such was the fortress
which Governor Shirley of Massachusetts planned to destroy, and
against which the daring Pepperell presently threw the ill-trained
levies of New England.
One night, when the citadel of Louisbourg was brilliant with
festivity, the colonists dancing and all unconscious of danger, a
hundred transports from New England entered Gabarus Bay. The citizens
would have held it a foolish dream that any attempt could be made to
capture Louisbourg, but there, in the early morning of April 30th,
1745, Pepperell's army was disembarking before their eyes, and in the
offing Commodore Warren, with four British battleships, stood
blockading the harbour. The bells of the martial little town rang
madly in alarm, and the booming of cannon at once brought the dismayed
citizens to the ramparts.
[Illustration: LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL, BART.]
Without loss of time Pepperell began to make his way across the
marshes lying between his camp and Louisbourg, erecting batteries as
he went to answer the cannonade of the garrison. Each morning saw the
intrepid besiegers closer to the walls, having advanced their
intrenchments under cover of the darkness. A daring assault had
meanwhile carried the grand battery, and from a salient post on
Light-house Point Pepperell's guns were soon able to silence the
island redoubt at the mouth of the harbour. The battle swayed from
side to side as the desperate garrison made a sortie, or the besiegers
impetuously rushed to the attack. But even the walls of Louisbourg
could not for long withstand that furious and ceaseless cannonade,
which shattered the heaviest bastions; and when the gallant fort could
hold out no longer, a white flag fluttered from the broken ramparts,
and the brave Duchambon, his veteran garrison decimated, marched out
with the honours of war.
The loss of Louisbourg was the severest blow yet sustained by New
France, and without delay a powerful expedition was organised to
recapture the fortress and take revenge upon the enemy. No such
formidable and menacing armada had ever left the shores of France as
now sailed out of Rochelle, under command of the Duc d'Anville.
Thirty-nine ships of the line convoyed transports bearing a veteran
army westward; and the English colonists trembled for its coming.
However, the advance tidings of this terrible flotilla were all that
reached the New World; for hardly had D'Anville lost sight of the
French coast before two of his ships fell a prey to British gunboats,
and a succession of storms scattered the rest in all directions.
At length, after weeks of delay, the surviving vessels struggled one
by one into the harbour of Chedabucto. In deadly dejection, D'Anville
had succumbed to apoplexy; moreover, his successor, the Admiral
D'Estournelle, had committed suicide; and the new commander was
La Jonquière, a distinguished naval officer, then on his way to
Quebec to assume the office of Governor-General. His sorry fleet
notwithstanding, La Jonquière decided to strike a blow at Annapolis.
Thither he shaped his course; but again a violent storm overtook them
on the way, and the ships, unable to weather the tempest, steered
straight for France once more.
Even in the face of these dark disasters France was unwilling to
abandon Louisbourg, and in 1747 another powerful naval force under La
Jonquière set out for Acadia. Like its magnificent but hapless
predecessor, this fleet had hardly cleared the Bay of Biscay before it
came to grief. Falling in with a British squadron under Admiral Anson
off Cape Finisterre, it was almost totally destroyed.
In other quarters, however, France had received amends from fortune,
and in the following year the European powers signed the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, Louisbourg being restored to France in exchange for
the Indian province of Madras, which had passed from English hands
during the war. To New England, whose blood and valour had achieved
the demolition of the frowning fortress, this restitution was a
sorrowful blow. But only ten years were to pass before this menace was
removed for ever.
La Jonquière, Governor-designate of Quebec, had been taken prisoner at
the naval battle of Finisterre; and, pending his release, the Marquis
de la Galissonière presided over the fortunes, or misfortunes, of New
France. The indefiniteness of the western boundary between French and
English territory was perhaps the chief source of his perplexity; and
to put an end to persistent English encroachments in the valley of the
Ohio, Galissonière sent Céloron de Bienville, a colonial captain, to
establish a formal boundary line. This expedition nominally
accomplished its purpose; but, judging from the report submitted to
the Governor of Quebec, its chief result was a painful revelation. It
was shown that, in spite of an expensive chain of fortified posts, the
great West was fast slipping from the martial grasp of New France, and
passing under the stronger influence of English trade. The huge,
unwieldy empire was clearly falling to pieces, and La Jonquière's
arrival in Quebec brought no improvement to the situation. Of high
merit as a naval officer, the new Governor had less distinction in
morals, and he had frankly come to Canada to mend his fortune. His
administration marks the advent of that official robbery which
disgraced Quebec and sapped the remaining vitality of the country.
Though the country had prospered materially under Vaudreuil, the
subsequent war had stopped all progress, and the people were dreaming
of empire when they needed bread.
[Illustration: BIENVILLE
(Governor of Louisiana, 1732)]
To-day, walking down Palace Hill and turning near the bottom into the
Rue St. Vallier, you will find yourself close to the site of the
ancient intendancy, where the official ruin of New France began. Here
it was that François Bigot, the evil genius of Quebec, held corrupt
sway in the guise of a royal minister. Here stood, in mordant comment,
the Palais de Justice, so wickedly profaned by the last of the
intendants. Through several fires and two sieges of later generations
parts of this ancient structure persisted in surviving. Only a few
years ago the heavier timber still hanging together was called "The
King's Wood-yard." But nothing now remains of it, and imagination only
summons the haunting spirit of this creature of La Pompadour, whose
mischievous influence lost Louis XV his colonial empire, and whose
infamies sealed the fate of the Bourbons.
François Bigot arrived at Quebec in 1748, a year in which the fortunes
of New France had reached so low an ebb that nothing but the most
loyal administration might now save her. Even then a strong honest
man might possibly have weathered the storm already lowering over this
New World dominion; but, with pitiable perverseness, every trait in
Bigot's character helped it on to ruin. In private life vain, selfish,
heartless, extravagant to the point of folly; in public life mercenary
and venal beyond shame--such were the characteristics of the man whom
Louis's favourite chose to be civil administrator at Quebec, where the
patriotic faith and labour of a gallant and high-hearted people were
rewarded by plunder, mis-rule, and that neglect which gave them at
last into the hands of the conqueror.
[Illustration: DE BOUGAINVILLE
(General under Montcalm, 1759)]
On his arrival, the Intendant speedily surrounded himself by
sycophants and knaves who joined him in the reckless pursuit of
pleasure, and became ready instruments to further his darker designs.
A man of ability, adroitness, and culture, Bigot might have won public
favour, but his habits instantly estranged the better people of the
colony. The _honnêtes gens_, a party which included the great
Montcalm, the brave Bougainville, La Corne de St. Luc, M. de Lévis,
and M. de Saint-Ours, would have nothing to do with him, and he was
left in the hands of servile flatterers, ready enough to serve him.
Deschenaux, his _fidus Achates_, was a cobbler's son, whom experience
alone had educated and fate and unscrupulousness had advanced. Cadet,
his commissary-general, was the gross son of a butcher, and had spent
his dissatisfied youth in the pasture-fields of Charlesbourg.
Hughes Péan was the town major of Quebec, but his chief hold on Bigot
lay in the beauty of his wife, the charming Angélique des Meloises.
This woman, whose beauty, wit, and _diablerie_ are a subject of
popular tradition, possessed a fascination which gave her an influence
at the intendancy analogous to that exerted at Versailles by her
notorious contemporary, La Pompadour.
Ruled by this coterie of dark spirits, Quebec became the scene of a
profligacy unparalleled in her history. The Palace, instead of being a
hall of justice, was the abode of debauchery and gambling; and the mad
revellers, whom a cynical fate had placed at the head of affairs,
allowed the ship of state to drift upon the rocks. Even the fine
palace within the city gave too little scope for the diversion of the
Intendant and his confederates, and, accordingly, a rustic château was
built near the high hill of Charlesbourg. Here they paused when tired
of the chase, and the revels of the mysterious _Maison de la Montagne_
added sad but vivid colouring to the closing decade of French rule.
To-day there is an air of pathetic interest about the picturesque ruin
of Château Bigot. The high walls are covered with ivy, and its graded
walks and beds of flowers have disappeared long since. The immense
thickness of the walls has enabled "Beaumanoir" to elude destroying
Time, but only enough now remains to suggest the hapless revels of a
bygone day.
These things, however, are of the private sins of Bigot and his
_entourage_. Their public malefactions were more flagrant. The
Intendant's salary could by no means meet his appalling extravagances,
and he therefore robbed the country and the King by falsifying
official accounts as they passed through his hands. As Intendant it
was his duty to supply the needs of those chains of forts by which
France held her vast dominion; but while he shamelessly neglected
these outposts, he did not fail to debit the royal treasury for
supplies which were never forwarded. In this way he and his intriguing
friends enriched themselves. They presently adopted another and more
contemptible device. Constant hostility towards the British had
deprived the farms of their cultivators, and the supply of wheat was
greatly reduced throughout the colony. Every day the land grew more
distressed, and it was not difficult to foresee a time of famine. Not
far from _Le Palais_ stood a huge building which went by the name of
the King's Storehouse, and the Intendant resolved to fill this with
wheat. He had an ancient precedent in Egyptian history, but his motive
was not that of provident Joseph. Fixing the price of grain by an
edict, and imposing penalties on those who refused to sell, his agents
went through the country gathering up maize and wheat; and when
famine came at length, the starving people flocked to the warehouse in
Lower Town, and were compelled to buy back their grain at exorbitant
prices. They called this warehouse _La Friponne_--the Cheat--and they
cursed the name of Bigot who had so deceived them.
[Illustration: RUINS OF CHÂTEAU BIGOT]
The interesting legend of _Le Chien d'Or_ has its origin in the
mercenary practices of this last Intendant of Quebec. Among the
merchants of the city was one Nicholas Jaquin, _dit_ Philibert, whose
warehouse stood at the top of Mountain Hill, on the site of the
present Post-Office. Philibert was one of the _honnêtes gens_, and he
devoted his wealth and energy to a commercial battle with _La
Friponne_, determined to supply the people with food at low prices.
The enmity between Philibert and the Intendant was common talk, and
over his doorway the merchant had hung, beneath the figure of a dog in
bas-relief, the following whimsical quatrain:--
[Illustration: LE CHIEN D'OR]
"Je suis un chien qui ronge l'os,
En le rongeant je prends mon repos;
Un jour viendra, qui n'est pas venu,
Que je mordrai qui m'aura mordu."
The bitter conflict continued until Philibert was murdered in the
street. The escape of the assassin was well contrived; but there was
no avoiding the vengeance of Philibert's son, who, after years of
searching, struck down his father's slayer in far-off Pondicherry.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the walls and bastions of Louisbourg were rising stronger
than ever upon their old foundations, and the French Acadians, relying
upon the Cape Breton stronghold and the nearer fortress of Beauséjour,
grew more and more restless beneath the English yoke. By founding
Halifax in 1749, England had taken faster hold upon the peninsula, and
through every possible means she had endeavoured to secure the true
allegiance of her Acadian subjects. In spite of all these efforts,
however, Acadia was sown with treason, and when at last disloyalty
became intolerable and dangerous, the innocent as well as the guilty
must reap the harvest of tears and bitterness. There could only be one
end to it all; and however hard the fate, the land of Acadia now
ceased to be the home of its makers, who had been goaded and inveigled
into covert rebellion and treason.
"This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that
beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of
the huntsman?
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for ever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the
ocean--
Nought but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand Pré."
So sang Longfellow in his sorrowful tale of _Evangeline_; and the cold
page of history is hardly less mournful.
The 5th of September, 1755, was a day memorable alike to the Acadians
and to those whose bitter duty it was to carry out King George's
orders for their expulsion from the peninsula. At three o'clock in the
afternoon the peasants of Grand Pré, Piziquid, Chipody, and the other
parishes assembled in their chapels to listen to a royal proclamation
declaring their lands and houses forfeited to the Crown, and
themselves condemned to exile. The scenes following this unexpected
order wrung the hearts of the rugged soldiers who were sent to execute
the sentence. Reluctantly and forbearingly they carried out the royal
command, and soon six thousand Acadians, who had persistently refused
allegiance to the English in the vain belief that New France would
regain the peninsula, found themselves transported to the English
colonies farther south. Those who swore allegiance were left
undisturbed; while many, escaping both deportation and the oath of
subjection, fled to Quebec. These were doomed, however, to misery far
greater than that of their comrades who were set down as strangers
among the English colonists. Quebec, which had fomented and abetted
their treason, now declined to share the burden of their misfortune.
The years of Bigot's _régime_ were the lean years of the city, and
this influx of a thousand new starvelings was a most unwelcome
addition to the population. Yet even the unfavourable circumstances of
the time cannot justify the official neglect and the cruel
inhospitality with which the miserable exiles were received in the
capital of New France. "In vain," says a chronicler, "they asked that
the promises they had received should be kept, and they pleaded the
sacrifices they had made for France. All was useless. The former
necessity for their services had passed away. They were looked upon as
a troublesome people, and if they received assistance they were made
to feel that it was only granted out of pity. They were almost reduced
to die of famine. The little food they obtained, its bad quality,
their natural want of cleanliness, their grief, and their idleness
caused the death of many. They were forced to eat boiled leather
during the greater part of the winter, and to wait for spring in the
hope that their condition would be bettered. On this point they were
deceived."[24]
"To supplement a miserable daily ration of four ounces of bread and
horseflesh," says another writer, "they were obliged to seek scraps
in the gutters; and those who survived starvation were brought low
with a virulent smallpox, which carried off whole families in its
loathsome tumbril."
[Footnote 24: Archives of Nova Scotia.]
* * * * *
In the meantime, a series of events had happened in the Ohio valley
which set the New World on fire. Céloron de Bienville had indeed
staked out his boundary line, but the new Governor of Quebec, the
Marquis Duquesne, saw clearly that a line of bayonets was the only
limit which English expansionists would respect. Accordingly, a strong
French force marched into the troublesome valley, and established
themselves at a new post called Fort Le Boeuf.
The report of this incursion was evil news for Governor Dinwiddie of
Virginia, the most diligent and watchful of the thirteen governors of
the English colonies. Having never ceased to regard Lake Erie as a
northern boundary of British territory, this latest invasion on the
part of the French was to him beyond endurance, and he forthwith
despatched the Adjutant-General of the Virginia Militia to deliver
England's protest to the French commander. The messenger was a tall
handsome youth of twenty-one, and the message was the first important
commission of George Washington.
[Illustration: Plan of the
CITY OF QUEBEC 1759]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ISAAC BARRE
(Paymaster of Wolfe's Forces)]
In spite of the studied courtesy of his reception by Legardeur de
Saint-Pierre, the English envoy saw the hopelessness of his errand,
and hastened back to Williamsburg with his report. Dinwiddie thereupon
resolved to meet force with force. Although he scarcely persuaded the
disunited colonies to take a serious view of the French invasion, he
was presently able to send George Washington back again into the Ohio
valley at the head of a company of regulars and three hundred
soldiers of the Old Dominion.
Meanwhile the French had seized an English trading-post at the
junction of the Ohio and Monongahela rivers, and named it Fort
Duquesne. This post was Washington's immediate objective, and as he
approached it his advance-guard met a French reconnoitring party under
Jumonville, sent, it is alleged, by the commandant of Fort Duquesne to
warn the Virginians off French soil. The precise purpose served by
this handful of Frenchmen has never, however, been fully determined.
Jumonville's movements are certainly hard to reconcile with the theory
of a peaceful mission, and to Major Washington they certainly appeared
hostile. In the sharp fight which followed, Jumonville and nine others
were killed, while of the remaining twenty-three only one escaped. By
the English, the affair was described as a successful skirmish, by the
French as the "_Assassinat de Jumonville_"; for all it meant
precipitation of the death-struggle for North America.
Anticipating the French attack, Washington fell back upon Great
Meadows, and the hasty and inadequate intrenchments which he there
threw up received the name of Fort Necessity. Here he awaited an
assault with a short supply of ammunition and almost no provisions.
Nor was his patience long tried; for nine hundred Frenchmen under
Coulon de Villiers, brother of the unfortunate Jumonville, were
already marching against him through the woods. Wishing to entice them
to an immediate attack, Washington had arrayed his men on the open
meadow before the fort; but as his opponent declined to be drawn from
the cover of the surrounding hills, the Virginians also took shelter
in their shallow intrenchments. A blind fusillade now began in
torrents of rain and was maintained for nine hours, punctuated by the
booming of a few light swivel guns upon the ramparts.
At nightfall, however, the French proposed a parley, and having
weighed the chances of his little army against such overwhelming
numbers, Washington agreed to capitulate. Next day the English marched
out of Fort Necessity with beating drums and flying colours; but
heart-sick and weary they toiled back over the mountains to Virginia,
leaving the valley of the Ohio in the full possession of the enemy.
Moreover, the defeat at Fort Necessity was a double blow, for it threw
the fickle Indians back into the arms of the French, a consideration
of great weight in border warfare.
In Europe the rival powers were still maintaining the semblance of
peace, while yet secretly abetting the open enmity of their American
colonies. The despatch of Major-General Braddock with two regiments
of the line, although accounted for by the lips of diplomacy, was,
with equally pacific assurances, promptly checkmated by France.
Eighteen ships of war, carrying the six battalions of La Reine,
Bourgogne, Languedoc, Guienne, Artois, and Béarn, and convoyed by an
auxiliary squadron of nine battleships, were hurried off to New France
under the joint command of Baron Dieskau and the Marquis de Vaudreuil,
the new Governor of Quebec. As in the case of former expeditions on so
large a scale, some of the vessels failed to reach their destination,
and two frigates fell into the hands of Admiral Boscawen, who had
secret orders to intercept this French flotilla.
Braddock and his thousand regulars were now regarded as the salvation
of the English colonies, whose representatives had at last agreed upon
a scheme for defending their frontiers. The English general, it was
decided, should destroy Fort Duquesne, Governor Shirley attacking the
French fort of Niagara; while Colonel William Johnson, a settler of
the Upper Hudson, and chiefly remarkable for his influence with the
Mohawks, was to proceed against Crown Point. None of these intentions
was fulfilled in its entirety, although Johnson, in the course of his
operations in the district of Lake Champlain, was able to inflict a
crushing defeat upon the French under Dieskau, and on the scene of
his triumph to erect Fort William Henry.
[Illustration: SIR HUGH PALLISER, BART.
(Raised first English flag over Quebec, 1759)]
The feature of the summer campaign of 1755 was, however, the fate of
Braddock and his column. Setting out from Fort Cumberland on the
Potomac, the English General made his way north-westward at the head
of twenty-two hundred men, four hundred and fifty of these being
veteran Virginians under the command of Colonel George Washington. But
the overweening Braddock considered these raw colonials to be the
least effective of his troops. From the first the progress of this
imposing force was painfully slow. "Instead of pushing on with vigour
without regarding a little rough road," writes George Washington, "we
were halted to level every mole-hill, and compelled to erect bridges
over every brook, by which means we were four days in getting twelve
miles." Declining colonial advice, Braddock preferred to regulate his
motions by the text-book of war; and as he knew nothing of the country
through which he made his way, and still less of the tactics of his
foe, the sequel was almost inevitable.
"It was the 10th of June," says Parkman, "before the army
was well on its march. Three hundred axemen led the way,
to cut and clear the road; and the long train of
pack-horses, waggons, and cannon toiled on behind, over
the stumps, roots, and stones of the narrow track, the
regulars and provincials marching in the forest close on
either side. Squads of men were thrown out on the flanks,
and scouts ranged the woods to guard against surprise;
for, with all his scorn of Indians and Canadians,
Braddock did not neglect reasonable precautions. Thus,
foot by foot, they advanced into the waste of lonely
mountains that divided the streams flowing into the
Atlantic from those flowing into the Gulf of Mexico--a
realm of forests ancient as the world. The road was but
twelve feet wide, and the line of march often extended
four miles. It was like a thin, long, parti-coloured
snake, red, blue, and brown, trailing slowly through the
depth of leaves, creeping round inaccessible heights,
crawling over ridges, moving always in dampness and
shadow, by rivulets and waterfalls, crags and chasms,
gorges and shaggy steeps. In glimpses only, through
jagged boughs and flickering leaves, did this wild
primeval world reveal itself, with its dark green
mountains, flecked with the morning mist, and its distant
peaks pencilled in dreamy blue. The army passed the main
Alleghany, Meadow Mountain, and traversed the funereal
pine-forest afterwards called the Shadows of Death."[25]
Meanwhile, French scouts had brought news of the approaching column,
and Beaujeu, an officer at Fort Duquesne, conceiving the idea of
attacking Braddock as he came up a deep wooded ravine lying about
eight miles from the fort, repaired thither with a force of nine
hundred men, including French regulars, Canadians, and Indians.
The English troops toiled on, and when the defenceless vanguard was
well advanced up the pass, Beaujeu gave the signal which sent down a
hail of deadly bullets upon them. Still the redcoats held their
ground bravely, firing steady volleys against the hidden foe. By this
time the main army also had entered the pass, only to be thrown into
instant confusion, their solid ranks offering a target to the French
sharpshooters. Bewildered by the converging fire, the column huddled
together at the bottom of the pass, while the bullets mowed them down
pitilessly. The brave but headstrong general exhorted them to preserve
the order of their ranks, and when they would have fled in terror, he
beat them back into line with his own sword. The Virginians alone knew
how to avert a massacre, and spreading out quickly into skirmish
order, they took cover behind the trees and rocks to meet their wily
foe on even terms. But the brave and stubborn Braddock was blind to so
obvious an expedient, and with oaths he ordered the irregulars back
into the death-line.
[Footnote 25: Parkman, _Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. i. chap. vii.]
All the long July afternoon the carnage continued. Four horses fell
dead beneath the indomitable General, and two were killed under the
gallant Washington who, with his Virginian rangers, covered the
retreat of Braddock's miserable remnant when at last they resolved on
flight. Only six hundred escaped out of that fatal valley, while the
General himself, in spite of his command that they should leave him
where he fell, was borne away fatally wounded in the lungs.
So ended the summer campaign of 1755; and even Johnson's brilliant
success at Fort William Henry could not offset the terrible disaster
which had befallen British arms in the valley of the Ohio.