receive with open arms those _refugees_, whom their fear or hatred of
the English drove out of that country; they gave them temporary places
of habitation, both for them and their cattle, besides provisions, arms,
tools, &c. till they should fix a settlement in some part of the French
dominions here, which they recommended especially in the island of, or
on the banks of the river of St. John; but they were at first very loth
to come to a determination. And surely, these unfortunate victims of
their attachment to the French government deserved all the reparation in
its power to give them, for what they had quitted for the sake of
preserving allegiance to it, even after their country had been
transferred to another sovereign. I cannot, however, consistently with
truth say, they were received as kindly as they deserved, which probably
bred that undetermination of their's to fix a new settlement, as they
were pressed to do by the French government. They retained still a
hankering after their old habitations: the temporary new ones were far
from being equally agreeable or convenient; and even the ancient
settlers in those places where these refugees were provisionally
cantoned, began to make complaints of their encroaching upon them, and
to represent their apprehensions of their becoming burthensome to them.
Some of our people in power, more sollicitous for their own private
interest, than for the public good, were but too remiss in relieving and
comforting these poor people. This, at length, indisposed them so, that
after very pathetic remonstrances on the hardship of their case, and the
motives upon which they thus suffered, great numbers of them began to
listen seriously to the proposals made them by the English, to return
upon very inviting terms to the settlements they had quitted. In short,
it required the utmost art of the missionaries, and even a kind of
coercion from the military power, to keep them from accepting the
English offers. For when they presented a petition to Mons. _de Vergor_,
for leave to return to the English district, this commander, after
having remonstrated to them that he could not grant their request, nor
decide any thing of himself in a matter of that importance, was forced,
at length, to declare to them, that he would _shoot_ any man who should
attempt to go over to the English. [It should here be remarked, that
these very people had taken the oath of allegiance to the crown of
England, agreeable to the tenor of the treaty of Utrecht. But the
French, not content with harbouring these causeless malecontents, that
were actually deserters over to them, kept continually, by means of the
priests, plying such as staid behind with exhortations, promises,
menaces, in short, with every art of seduction, to engage them to
withdraw their sworn allegiance to their now lawful sovereign. In short,
if all the transactions of the French in those parts were thrown into a
history, it would lay open to the world such a scene of complicated
villainy, rebellion, perjury, subornation of perjury, perfidiousness,
and cruelty, as would for ever take from that nation the power of
pluming itself, as it now so impudently does, on its sincerity,
fairness, and moderation. The English, on the other hand, too conscious
of the justice of their cause at bottom, have been too remiss in their
confutation of the French falsities: content with being in the right,
they cared too little for having the appearance of being so, as if the
world was not governed by appearances.] Thus these poor people remained
under this deplorable dilemma. Some of them too, had not even
habitations to go back if they would: they had been forced into the
measure of deserting their country, and passing over to the French side,
by the violence of the Abbot de Loutre, who had not only preached them
into this spirit, but ordered the savages, whom he had at his disposal,
to set fire to their habitations, barns, &c. particularly at
_Mirtigueesh_. [The reader is desired to observe, that in the memorials
delivered into the English court by the French ministers, this burning
of villages was specifically made an article of complaint, at the same
time that it was their own incendiary agent, at their own instigation,
who had actually caused fire to be set to them by his savages. Could
then impudence be pushed farther than it was on this occasion?]
In the mean time the French did not spare, at least, the consolation of
words and promises to these distrest Refugee-acadians. They were
assured, that they would infallibly be relieved on the regulation of the
limits taking place, which was then on the point of being settled, by
commissaries, between the two crowns. [The truth is, that in these
assurances the French government, which never intended a conclusion, but
only an amusement, did not scruple equally deceiving the English, and
these infatuated Acadian subjects of ours, who, to the French interest
had sacrificed their own, their possessions in their country, their
sworn faith, in short, their ALL. Whoever has the patience to go through
the French memorials, in their procedure with our commissaries, may see
such instances of their pitiful prevarications, petty-fogging chicanery,
quirks, and evasions, as would nauseate one. The whole stress of their
argument, in short, turns merely upon names, where the things themselves
were absolutely out of the question, from the manifest notoriety of
them.] This hope, in some sort, pacified them; and they lived as well as
they could in the expectation of a final decision, which was not so soon
to come.
Yet even this example of the sufferings of these people, purely on
account of their attachment to the French government, could not out
balance with the French Acadians, who remained in the English district,
the assiduous applications of our priests to keep them firm in the
French interest. They never ceased giving every mark in their power of
their preference of our government to that, under which the treaty of
Utrecht had put them. The English, however, at length finding that,
neither by fair nor foul means, could they reclaim or win them over to
their purpose, so as that they might in future depend upon them, came at
once to a violent resolution. They surprized and seized every French
Acadian-man they could lay their hands on, (the women they knew would
follow of course) and, to clear the country effectually of them,
dispersed them into the remotest parts of their other settlements in
North-America, where they thought they could do the least mischief to
them. Some were shipped off for England: the priests shared the same
fate, and were conveyed to Europe. With this evacuation, the very
existence of the French Acadians may be said to have ended; for in
Acadia there are scarce any traces of them left, few or none having
escaped this general seizure and transportation, for the necessity of
which, the English were perhaps more to be pitied than blamed.
In the mean time our government had so far succeeded, as to force the
English, thus to deprive themselves of such a number of subjects, who,
but for the reasons above deduced, might have been very valuable ones,
and a great strengthening of their new colony. Hitherto then our
neighborhood has made it almost as irksome, and uncomfortable to them,
as we could wish; and this fine spot of dominion does not nigh produce
to them the advantages that might otherwise naturally be expected from
it. Numbers of themselves begin to exclaim against it, as if its value
and importance had been overrated; not considering, that it is on the
circumstances of their possession, and not on the nature of the
possession itself, that their complaints and murmurings should fall. It
is very likely, that whenever we get it back again, we shall know very
well what to do with it. They have begun to teach us the value of what
we thus inadvertently parted with to them; and it will be hard, indeed,
on recovering it, if we do not improve upon their lessons.
In the mean time you in Europe are cruelly mistaken, if you do not annex
an idea of the highest consequence and value, to the matters of dominion
now in dispute, between the crowns of France and Great Britain, between
whom the war is in a manner begun, by the capture of the Alcides and
Lys, and which, even without that circumstance, was inevitable. I know
that our (French) government, is indeed fully sensible of the capital
importance to it of its interest in these parts, and has proceeded in
consequence. But it is not so, I find by your letters, and the reports
of others, with numbers in Europe, who do not conceive, that the present
object of the war is so considerable as it really is.
To say nothing of the vast extent of country that falls under the claim
of the English to Acadia (Nova-Scotia) which alone would form an immence
mass of dominion, greatly improveable in a number of points, its
situation is yet of greater weight. By the English possessing it, Canada
itself would be so streightened, so liable to harrassment, and
especially to the comptrol of its navigation, that it would scarce be
tenable, and surely not worth the expence of keeping. The country
pretended to have been ceded is far preferable to it; and the masters of
it would be equally masters of the sea all over North-America. Hallifax,
for example, according to which of the nation's hand it should be in,
may be equally an effectual check on Quebec, or Boston.
You will then allow, that was there even nothing more in dispute than
the limits of the cession of Acadia, or Nova-Scotia, together with its
necessary dependence, that alone would form such a considerable object,
as not easily to be given up on either side. The commissaries appointed
by both crowns, then failing of coming to any agreement or regulation,
it is no wonder to see the appeal lodged with the sword; especially when
there is another point yet remains, of perhaps equal, if not superior,
importance, depending on the issue of the war: and that is, the western
inland frontiers of the English colonies. Should we ever command the
navigation of the lakes and rivers, behind their settlements, you can
easily figure to yourself, not only the vast advantages of preserving
that communication of Canada, with New Orleans and the Mississippi, so
absolutely essential to both these our colonies, but the facility it
will give us on all occasions of distressing the English, where neither
their marine-force can succor them, nor can they be able to resist the
attack, since we may make it wherever ever we please, and effectually
dodge any land-force they might assemble in any one or two parts to
oppose us. We may then carry the war into the quarter most convenient;
and most safe for us, if we should ever have the whole navigation of the
lakes so far at our disposal, as to prevent their constructing any
material number vessels to dispute it with us. Thus we can penetrate
into the heart of any of their colonies, that may best suit us,
especially with the concurrent aid of the savages, whom we have found
means to attach so strongly to us, and on whom we can greatly depend for
the effectual harrassment of, especially, the back-plantations of the
English.
You see then, Sir, by this summary sketch of the points in contest, that
the war being once engaged, it will not be so easy a matter as many in
Europe imagine, to adjust the pretensions, so various and so important,
of the respective nations, so as to be able to procure a peace. Some, of
the points appear to me absolutely _untreatable_. You may observe too,
that I do not so much as touch upon the dispute about Tabago,
Santa-Lucia, or any of the Leeward islands, which are not, however, of
small consequence. In short, the war must, in all human probability, be
a much longer one, than is commonly believed. Neither nation can
materially relax of its claims, without such a thorough sacrifice of its
interest in America, as nothing but the last extremities of weakness can
compel.
Long as this letter is, I cannot yet close it without mentioning to you
a singular phenomenon of nature, in the island of St. John. You know it
is a flat, level island, chiefly formed out of the congestion of sand
and soil from the sea. Tradition, experience, and authentic public acts
(_Procés verbaux_) concur to attest that every seven years, it is
visited by swarms either of locusts, or of field-mice, alternately,
never together; without its being possible to discover hitherto either
the reason, or the origin of these two species, which thus in their
turns, at the end of every seventh year, pour out all of a sudden in
amazing numbers, and having committed their ravages on all the fruits of
the earth, precipitate themselves into the sea. Neither has any
preventive remedy for this evil been yet discovered. It is well known
how they perish, but, once more, how they are produced no one, that I
could learn, has as yet been able to trace. The field-mice are
undoubtedly something in the nature of those swarms of the sable-mice,
that sometimes over-run Lapland and Norway, though I do not know that
these return so regularly, and at such stated periods, as those of this
island.
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient,
Humble servant.
CHARACTER
OF THE
SAVAGES of NORTH-AMERICA,
EXTRACTED FROM
A LETTER of the Father CHARLEVOIX,
TO
A LADY of Distinction,
To give you, Madam, a summary sketch of the character of the savages in
this country, I am to observe to you, that under a savage appearance,
with manners and customs, that favor entirely of barbarism, may be found
a society exempt from almost all the faults that so often vitiate the
happiness of ours.
They appear to be without passion, but they are in cold blood, and
sometimes even from principle, all that the most violent and most
unbridled passion can inspire into those, who no longer listen to
reason.
They seem to lead the most miserable of lives, and they are, perhaps,
the only happy of the earth. At least those of them are still so,
amongst whom the knowledge of those objects that disturb and seduce us,
has not yet penetrated, or awakened in them, those pernicious desires
which their ignorance kept happily dormant: it has not, however,
hitherto made great ravages amongst them.
There may be perceived a mixture in them of the most ferocious and the
most gentle manners; of the faults reproachable to the carnivorous
beasts, with those virtues and qualities of the head and heart, that do
the most honor to human-kind.
One would, at first, imagine, that they had no sort of form of
government, that they knew no laws nor subordination, and that living in
an entire independence, they suffered themselves to be entirely guided
by chance, or by the most wild, untamed caprice: yet they enjoy almost
all the advantages, which a well-regulated authority can procure to the
most civilized nations. Born free and independent, they hold in horror
the very shadow of despotic power; but they rarely swerve from certain
principles and customs, founded upon good-sense, which stand them in the
stead of laws, and supplement in some sort to their want of legal
authority. All constraint mocks them; but reason alone hold them in a
kind of subordination, which, for its being voluntary, does not the less
answer the proposed end.
A man, whom they should greatly esteem, would find them tractable and
ductile enough, and might very nearly make them do any thing he had a
mind they should; but it is not easy to gain their esteem to such a
point. They grant it only to merit, and that merit a very superior one,
of which they are as good judges as those, who, amongst us, value
themselves the most upon being so. They are, especially, apt to be taken
with physiognomy; and there are not in the world, perhaps, men who are
greater _connoisseurs_ in it: and that is, because they have for no man
whatever, any of those respects that prejudice or impose on us, and that
studying only nature, they understand it well. As they are not slaves to
ambition or interest, those two passions that have chiefly cancelled in
us that sentiment of humanity, which the author of nature had engraved
in our hearts; the inequality of conditions is not necessary to them,
for the support of society.
There are not therefore, Madam, to be seen amongst them, or at least,
are rarely to be met with, those arrogant haughty characters, who, full
of themselves of their greatness, or their merit, look on themselves
almost as a species a-part, and disdain the rest of mankind, of whom
consequently they can never have the confidence or love. Their equals
these rarely know any thing of, because the jealousy that reigns amongst
the great, hinders them from being intimate enough with one another.
Neither do they know themselves, from their never studying themselves,
and from their constant self-flattery. They never reflect, that to gain
admission into the hearts of men, they must make themselves their
equals; so that with this pretended superiority of enlightened
understanding, which they look on as an essential property of the rank
they hold, the most part of them live groveling in a proud and incurable
ignorance of all that it would be the most important for them to know,
and never enjoy the true sweets of life.
In all this how wretchedly different from the savages! In this country,
all the men esteem themselves equally men; and in man, what they most
esteem is, the man. No distinction of birth; no prerogative attributed
to rank, to the prejudice of the other free members of society; no
pre-eminence annexed to merit that can inspire pride, or make others
feel too much their inferiority. There is, perhaps, less delicacy in
their sentiments than amongst us, but surely more uprightness; less
ceremony; less of all that can form a dubious character; less of the
temptations or illusions or self-love.
Religion only can perfect these people in what is good in them, and
correct what bad. This indeed is not peculiar to them, but what is so,
is, that they bring with them fewer obstacles to religious devotion when
once they have begun to believe, which can only be the effect of a
special grace. It is also true, that to establish firmly the empire of
religion over them, it would be necessary that they should see it
practised in all its purity by those who profess it. They are extremely
susceptible of the scandal given by bad Christians, as are all those who
are, for the first time, instructed in the principles of the
Gospel-morality.
You will perhaps ask me, Madam, if they have a religion? To this I
answer, that it cannot be said they have not one, though it is difficult
to give a definition of what it is. I shall sometime or other, take
occasion to enter into more particulars on this head. This letter, like
most of the others that have preceded it, prove sufficiently that I do
not pretend to write to you methodically.
I shall then now only content myself with adding, by way of finishing,
to this picture of the savages, that even in their most indifferent
actions, may be perceived the traces of the primitive natural religion,
but which escape those who do not study them enough, because they are
yet more defaced by the want of instruction, [This want of instruction
is wretchedly supplemented amongst the savage-converts to the Popish
religion, by that superstitious worship, and those fabulous traditions,
its missionaries have introduced amongst them, and which must be only
the more execrable, for their being a superstructure on so fair a
foundation as that of the truths of the Gospel. At least, the savages,
in their genuine unsophisticated state, have no such base, absurd,
derogatory ideas of the Deity, as are implied by the doctrines of
transubstantiation, purgatory, absolution, and the like fictions in the
Romish church, which have been the more than mines of Mexico and Peru,
of its clergy.] than adulterated by the mixture of a superstitious
worship, and by fabulous traditions.
_FINIS._