they inculcate to the savages, of the humanity and gentleness they ought
to practise, even in time of war. It is especially ever since about
seventeen years ago, that they do not cease declaiming against those
barbarous and sanguinary methods of proceeding that seem innate to them.
On this principle it is, that in the written maxims of conduct for them,
care has been taken to insert a chapter, which, from the beginning to
the end, places before their eyes the extreme horror they ought to have
of such enormities. Their children particularly are sedulously taught
this whole chapter, whence it comes, that one may daily perceive them
growing more humane, and more disposed to listen, on this head, to the
remonstrances of the missionaries.
[_To this plea of innocence in the French missionaries, as to any
instigation of the savages to hostilities against the English, we shall
oppose the testimony of their own court, in the following words of the
French ministry, in the very same year_, 1751.
"His Majesty (the French king) has already observed, that the savages
have hitherto been in the most _favorable dispositions_; and it even
appears, that the conduct of the general C--n--ll--s, with respect to
them, has only served to exasperate them more and more. It is of the
_greatest importance_, both for the present and future, to keep them up
to that spirit. The _missionaries_ amongst them, are more than any one
at hand to _contribute thereto_, and his majesty has _reason_ to be
_satisfied_ with the _pains_ they take in it. Our governor must excite
these _missionaries_ not to _slacken their endeavours_ on this head. But
he should advise them to _contain_ their _zeal_ within due bounds, so as
not to render themselves _obnoxious_ to the English, unless for very
good purpose, and so as to avoid giving handle for just complaints."
_In this his most Christian Majesty has been faithfully served by these
missionaries, in all points, except that political injunction of not
giving a handle for just complaints, which they overshot in the ardor of
their zeal; since it is undoubted matter of fact, that the missionaries
openly employed all their arts, and all the influence of religion, to
invenom the savages against us. Thence, besides a number of horrid
cruelties, the most treacherous and base murder of captain How, at a
conference, by some savages they set on, who perpetrated it within sight
of the French forces. The publishing, however, of the foregoing memorial
may have this good effect, that it will apprise the English of the
matter of accusation against them, and enable them to counter-work those
holy engines of state, and emissaries of ambition. It is also certain,
that this very memorial was drawn up by a French priest, purely to
furnish the French ministry a specious document to oppose to the most
just representations of the British government. Besides the fictions
with which it abounds, he has taken care to suppress the acts of cruelty
committed, and the atrocious provocations given by the savages, at the
instigation of his fellow-laborers sedition and calumny._]
LETTER
FROM
Mons. DE LA VARENNE,
TO HIS
FRIEND at ROCHELLE.
_Louisbourg_, the 8th of _May_, 1756.
Though I had, in my last, exhausted all that was needful to say on our
private business, I could not see this ship preparing for France,
especially with our friend _Moreau_ on board, without giving you this
further mark of how ardently I wish the continuance of our
correspondence. It will also serve to supplement any former deficiencies
of satisfaction to certain points of curiosity you have stated to me;
this will give to my letter a length beyond the ordinary limits of one:
and I have before-hand to excuse to you, the loose desultory way in
which you will find I write, as things present themselves to my mind,
without such method or arrangement, as a formal design of treating the
subject would exact. But who looks for that in a letter?
I need not tell you how severely our government has felt the
dismemberment of that important tract of country already in the
possession of the English, under the name of Acadia; to say nothing of
their further pretentions, which would form such terrible encroachments
on Canada. And no wonder it should feel it, considering the extent of so
fruitful, and valuable a country as constitutes that peninsula. It might
of itself form a very considerable and compact body of dominion, being,
as you know, almost everywhere surrounded by the sea, and abounding with
admirable and well-situated ports. It is near one hundred leagues in
length, and about sixty in breadth. Judge what advantages such an area
of country, well-peopled, and well-cultivated, and abounding in mines,
might produce. It is full of hills, though I could not observe any of an
extraordinary heighth, except that of Cape Doree, at the mouth of the
river _des Mines_, the most fertile part of it in corn and grain, and
once the best peopled. There are a number of rivers very rapid, but not
large, except that of St. John's, which is the finest river of all
Acadia, where good water is rather scarce.
The soil in the vallies is rich, and even in the uplands, commonly
speaking, good. The grains it yields are wheat, pease, barley, oats,
rye, and Indian corn, and especially that of the vallies, for the higher
ground is not yet cultivated. The pastures are excellent and very
common, and more than sufficient to supply Cape-Breton, with the cattle
that may be raised. There is fine hunting, and a plentiful fishing for
cod, salmon, and other fish, particularly on the east-side, which is
full of fine harbours at the distance of one, two, three, four, or of
six or seven leagues at farthest from one another, within the extent of
ninety leagues of coast. It is thought, in short, this fishery is better
than any on the coasts belonging to France.
The air is extreamly wholesome, which is proved by the longevity of its
inhabitants. I myself know some of above an hundred years of age,
descendants from the French established in Acadia. Distempers are very
rare. I fancy the climate is pretty near the same as in the north of
China, or Chinese-Tartary. This country too, being rather to the
southward of Canada, is not so cold as that; the snow not falling till
towards St. Andrew's day: nor does it lie on the ground above two or
three days at most, after which it begins to soften; and though the thaw
does not take place, the weather turns mild enough to allow of working,
and undertaking journeys. In short, what may be absolutely called cold
weather, may be reduced to about twenty-five or thirty days in a winter,
and ceases entirely towards the end of March, or at latest, the middle
of April. Then comes the seed-time. Then are made the sugar and syrups
of maple, procured from the juice or sap of that tree, by means of
incisions in the bark; which sap is carefully received in proper
vessels.
I could never find any ginseng-root; yet I have reason to believe there
may be some in or near the hills, as the climate and situation have so
much affinity to the northern provinces of China, or Northwest Tartary,
as described to us by our missionaries.
We have very little knowledge of the medicinal herbs in this country,
though some of them have certainly great virtue. There are the
maiden-hair, the saxi-frage, and the sarsaparilla. There is also a
particular root in this country of an herb called _Jean Hebert_, about
the ordinary size of the _Salsifix_, or _Goatsbread_, with knots at
about an inch, or an inch and an half distance from one another, of a
yellowish colour, white in the inside, with a sugarish juice, which is
excellent for the stomach.
There has been lately discovered in these parts a poisonous root, much
resembling, in color and substance, a common carrot. When broke it has a
pleasing smell; but between the flakes may be observed a yellowish
juice, which is supposed to be the poison. Of four soldiers that had
eaten of it in their soup lately, two were difficultly preserved by dint
of antidotes; the other two died in the utmost agonies of pain, and
convulsions of frenzy. One of them was found in the woods sticking by
the head in a softish ground, into which he had driven it, probably in
the excess of his torture. Such a vegetable must afford matter of
curious examination to a naturalist; for as it does so much harm, it may
also be capable of great good, if sought into by proper experiments.
The spirit of turpentine is much used by the inhabitants. The gum itself
is esteemed a great vulnerary; and purges moderately those who are full
of bilious, or gross humors.
For the rest there is, I believe, hardly any sort of grain, tree, or
vegetable, especially in the north of France that might not be
successfully raised in Acadia. The rains are frequent in every season of
the year. There are indeed often violent squalls of wind, especially
from the South, and seem the West, but nothing like the hurricanes in
the West-Indies. It is a great rarity if thunder does any mischief. Some
years ago there was a man killed in his hut by it; but the oldest men of
the country never remembered to have known or heard of any thing like it
before. There have been earthquakes felt but rarely, and not very
violent. This country produces no venomous beasts, at least, that I
could hear of. In the warmer season there are sometimes found snakes,
not, however, thicker than one's finger, but their bite is not known to
be attended with any fatal consequences, There are no tygers, nor lions,
nor other beasts of prey to be afraid of unless bears, and that only in
their rutting-time, and even then it is very rare that they attack. As
there are then no carnivorous animals except the lynxes, who have a
beautiful skin, and these rarely fall upon any living creatures; the
sheep, oxen, and cows, are turned out into the woods or commons, without
any fear for them. Partridges are very common, and are large-sized, with
flesh very white. The hares are scarce, and have a white fur. There are
a great many beavers, elks, cariboux, (moose-deer) and other beasts of
the cold northern countries.
The original inhabitants of this country are the savages, who may be
divided into three nations, the _Mickmakis_, the _Maricheets_, or
_Abenaquis_, (being scarcely different nations) and the _Canibats_.
The _Mickmakis_ are the most numerous, but not accounted so good
warriors as the others: but they are all much addicted to hunting, and
to venery; in which last, however, they observe great privacy. They are
fond of strong liquors, and especially of brandy: that is their greatest
vice. They are also very uncurious of paying the debts they contract,
not from natural dishonesty, but from their having no notion of
property, or of meum or tuum. They will sooner part with all they have,
in the shape of a gift, than with any thing in that of payment. Honors
and goods being all in common amongst them, all the numerous vices,
which are founded upon those two motives, are not to be found in them.
Yet it is true, that they have chiefs to whom they give the title of
_Sagamo_; but all of them almost, at some time or other, assume to
themselves this quality, which is never granted by universal consent,
but to the personal consideration of distinguished merit in councils, or
in arms. Their troops have this particularity, that they are, for the
most part, composed of nothing but officers; insomuch that it is rare to
find a savage in the service that will own himself a private man. This
want of subordination does not, however, hinder them from concurring
together in action, when their native ferocity and emulation stand them,
in some sort, instead of discipline.
They are extreamly vindictive, of which I shall give you one example.
Mons. _Daunay_, a French captain, with a servant, being overset in a
canoe, within sight of some savages, they threw themselves into the
water to save them, and the servant was actually saved. But the savage,
who had pitched upon Mons. _Daunay_, seeing who it was, and remembering
some blows with a cane he had a few days before received from him, took
care to souse him so often in the water, that he drowned him before he
got ashore.
It is remarked, that in proportion as the Europeans have settled in this
country, the number of the savages considerably diminishes. As they live
chiefly upon their hunting, the woods that are destroyed to cultivate
the country, must in course contract the district of their chace, and
cause a famine amongst them, that must be fatal to them, or compel them
to retire to other countries. The English, sensible of this effect, and
who seemed to place their policy in exterminating these savage nations,
have set fire to the woods, and burnt a considerable extent of them. I
have myself crossed above thirty leagues together, in which space the
forests were so totally consumed by fire, that one could hardly at night
find a spot wooded enough to afford wherewithal to make an extempore
cabbin, which, in this country, is commonly made in the following
manner: Towards night the travellers commonly pitch upon a spot as near
a rivulet or river as they can; and as no one forgets to carry his
hatchet with him, any more than a Spanish don his toledo, some cut down
wood for firing for the night; others branches of trees, which are stuck
in the ground with the crotch uppermost, over which a thatching is laid
of fir-boughs, with a fence of the same on the weather-side only. The
rest is all open, and serves for door and window. A great fire is then
lighted, and then every body's lodged. They sup on the ground, or upon
some leaved branches, when the season admits of it; and afterwards the
table serves for a bed. The savages themselves rarely have any fixed
hut, or village, that maybe called a permanent residence. If there are
any parts they most frequently inhabit, it is only those which abound
most in game, or near some fishing-place. Such were formerly for them,
before the English had driven them away, _Artigoneesch_, _Beaubassin_,
_Chipoody_, _Chipnakady_, _Yoodayck_, _Mirtigueesh_, _La Héve Cape
Sable_, _Mirameeky_, _Fistigoisch_, _La Baye des Chaleurs Pentagony_,
_Medochtek_, _Hokepack_, and _Kihibeki_.
At present these savage nations bear an inveterate antipathy to the
English, who might have easily prevented or cured it, if instead of
rigorous measures, they had at first used conciliative ones: but this it
seems they thought beneath them. This it is, that has given our
missionaries such a fair field for keeping them fixed to the French
party, by the assistance of the difference of religion, of which they do
not fail to make the most. But lest you may imagine I am giving you only
my own conjectures, take the following extract from, a letter of father
Noel de Joinville, of a pretty antient date.
"I have remarked in this country so great an aversion in the
convert-savages to the English, caused by difference of religion, that
these scarce dare inhabit any part of Acadia but what is under their own
guns. These savages are so zealous for the Roman Catholick church, that
they always look with horror upon, and consider as enemies those who are
not within the pale of it. This may serve to prove, that if there had
been _priests_ provided in time, to work at the conversion of the
savages of New-England, before the English had penetrated into the
interior of the county as far as they have done, it would not have been
possible for them to appropriate to themselves such an extent of country
as, at this day, makes of New-England alone the most magnificent colony
on the face of the earth." [This pompous epithet might have yet been
more just, if the improvement of that colony had been enough the care of
the state, to have been pushed all the lengths of which it was so
susceptible. Few Englishmen will, probably, on reflexion deny, that if
but a third of those sums ingulphed by the ungrateful or slippery powers
on the continent, upon interests certainly more foreign to England than
those of her own colonies, or lavished in a yet more destructive way,
that of corrupting its subjects in elections: if the third, I say, of
those immense sums, had been applied to the benefit of the plantations,
to the fortifying, encouraging, and extending them, there would, by this
time, have hardly been a Frenchman's name to be heard of in
North-America especially.]
But with this good father's leave, he attributes more influence to
religion, though as the priests manage it, it certainly has a very
considerable one, than in fact belongs to it. Were it not for other
concurring circumstances that indispose the savages against the English,
religion alone would not operate, at least so violently, that effect.
Every one knows, that the savages are at best but slightly tinctured
with it, and have little or no attachment to it, but as they find their
advantage in the benefits of presents and protection, it procures to
them from the French government. In short, it is chiefly to the conduct
of this English themselves, we are beholden for this favorable aid of
the savages. If the English at first, instead of seeking to exterminate
or oppress them by dint of power, the sense of which drove them for
refuge into our party, had behaved with more tenderness to them, and
conciliated their affection by humoring them properly, and distributing
a few presents, they might easily have made useful and valuable subjects
of them. Whereas, disgusted with their haughtiness, and scared at the
menaces and arbitrary encroachments of the English, they are now their
most virulent and scarce reconcileable enemies. This is even true of
more parts in America, where, though the English have liberally given
presents to ten times the value of what our government does, they have
not however had the same effect. The reason of which is clear: they make
them with so ill a grace, and generally time their presents so
unjudiciously, as scarce ever to distribute them, but just when they
want to carry some temporary point with the savages, such, especially,
as the taking up the hatchet against the French. This does not escape
the natural sagacity of the savages, who are sensible of the design
lurking at bottom of this liberality, and give them the less thanks for
it. They do not easily forget the length of time they had been
neglected, slighted, or unapplied to, unless by their itinerant traders,
who cheat them in their dealings, or poison them with execrable spirits,
under the names of brandy and rum. Whereas, on the contrary, the French
are assiduously caressing and courting them. Their missionaries are
dispersed up and down their several cantonments, where they exercise
every talent of insinuation, study their manners, nature, and
weaknesses, to which they flexibly accommodate themselves, and carry
their points by these arts. But what has, at least, an equal share in
attaching the savages to our party, is the connivence, or rather
encouragement the French government has given to the natives of France,
to fall into the savage-way of life, to spread themselves through the
savage nations, where they adopt their manners, range the woods with
them, and become as keen hunters as themselves. This conformity endears
our nation to them, being much better pleased with seeing us imitate
them, than ready to imitate us, though some of them begin to fall into
our notions, as to trafficking and bartering, and knowing the use of
money, of which they were before totally ignorant. We employ besides a
much more effectual method of uniting them to us, and that is, by the
intermarriages of our people with the savage-women, which is a
circumstance that draws the ties of alliance closer. The children
produced by these are generally hardy, inured to the fatigues of the
chace and war, and turn out very serviceable subjects in their way.
But what is most amazing is, that though the savage-life has all the
appearance of being far from eligible, considering the fatigues, the
exposure to all weathers, the dearth of those articles which custom has
made a kind of necessaries of life to Europeans, and many other
inconveniencies to be met with in their vagabond course; yet it has such
charms for some of our native French, and even for some of them who have
been delicately bred, that, when once they have betaken themselves to it
young, there is hardly any reclaiming them from it, or inducing them to
return to a more civilized life. They prefer roving in the woods,
trusting to the chapter of accidents for their game which is their chief
support, and lying all night in a little temporary hut, patched up of a
few branches; to all the commodiousness they might find in towns, or
habitations, amongst their own countrymen. By degrees they lose all
relish for the European luxuries of life, and would not exchange for
them the enjoyments of that liberty, and faculty of wandering about, for
which, in the forests, they contract an invincible taste. A gun with
powder and ball, of which they purchase a continuation of supplies with
the skins of the beasts they kill, set them up. With these they mix
amongst the savages, where they get as many women as they please: some
of them are far from unhandsome, and fall into their way of life, with
as much passion and attachment, as if they had never known any other.