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[Illustration: Frontenac arms and signature]
THE MAKERS OF CANADA
COUNT
FRONTENAC
BY
WILLIAM D. LE SUEUR
TORONTO
MORANG & CO., LIMITED
1909
_Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the
year 1906 by Morang & Co., Limited, in the Department of
Agriculture_
PREFACE
The author of the following work desires to acknowledge his obligations
to two preceding writers who have dealt with the life and times of Count
Frontenac, the late Mr. Parkman, and M. Henri Lorin. The merits of the
former are too well known and too thoroughly established to need any
commendation at this time. If he charms by the lucidity and
picturesqueness of his style, none the less does he achieve a high level
of historical accuracy, and manifest the control of the true spirit of
historical criticism. The work of M. Lorin is, perhaps, less attractive
in point of style, but it treats the whole subject from an independent
point of view, and in a very comprehensive manner. It is a
treasure-house of carefully sifted facts in relation to the career of
Canada's most famous governor under the old regime. A certain French
writer once complimented another--a dim recollection suggests that it
was Buffon who so complimented President Debrosses in regard to his work
on language--by saying that whoever treated the same subject "_apres
lui_" would also have to do it "_d'apres lui_"; and such the author
inclines to think has, to some extent, been his situation in relation to
his two able and industrious predecessors. At the same time the present
work has not been written without consultation of original sources, and
it is trusted that it will be found--for Canadian readers especially--a
not unserviceable or uninteresting narrative.
W. D. LE SUEUR
CONTENTS
_CHAPTER I_ Page
CANADA BEFORE FRONTENAC, 1603 TO 1632 1
_CHAPTER II_
CANADA BEFORE FRONTENAC, 1632 TO 1672 23
_CHAPTER III_
THE BEGINNING OF FRONTENAC'S ADMINISTRATION 61
_CHAPTER IV_
THE COMMENCEMENT OF TROUBLES 87
_CHAPTER V_
DIVIDED POWER 105
_CHAPTER VI_
THE LIFE OF A COLONY 131
_CHAPTER VII_
GOVERNORSHIP OF M. DE LA BARRE, 1682 TO 1685 171
_CHAPTER VIII_
GOVERNORSHIP OF MARQUIS DE DENONVILLE, 1685 TO 1689 197
_CHAPTER IX_
FRONTENAC TO THE RESCUE 229
_CHAPTER X_
FRONTENAC DEFENDER OF CANADA 263
_CHAPTER XI_
FIRE AND SWORD ON THE BORDER 305
_CHAPTER XII_
THE DRAMA OF WAR--PEACE AT THE LAST 333
INDEX 365
CHAPTER I
CANADA BEFORE FRONTENAC
1608 TO 1632
When Count Frontenac landed at Quebec, in the month of September 1672,
to administer the government of Canada or, as it was then more generally
called, New France, the country had been for a period of a little over
sixty years under continuous French rule. The period may, indeed, be
limited to exactly sixty years if we take as the starting-point the
commission issued to Samuel de Champlain on the 15th of October 1612 as
"Commander in New France," under the authority of the Count de Soissons,
who had been appointed by the queen regent, Marie de Medicis, as
lieutenant-general of that territory. What had been accomplished during
those sixty odd years? How had the country developed, and what were the
elements of the situation which confronted Frontenac on his arrival?
Answers to these questions may be gathered, it is hoped, from the
following brief introductory narrative.
The territorial claims of France in the gulf and valley of the St.
Lawrence were founded on the discoveries made in the name of the French
king, Francis I, by that brave Breton mariner, Jacques Cartier, in the
celebrated voyages undertaken by him in the years 1534 and 1535. An
attempt at colonization made in the latter year, the site chosen being
the left bank of the St. Charles near Quebec, failed miserably; nor were
the similar attempts made in 1541 by Cartier and in 1542 by Roberval any
more successful. Cartier did not again return to Canada, and all efforts
in the direction of colonization were suspended for sixty years, though
French fishermen continued to visit the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In the
year 1603 a notable figure appears upon the scene, Samuel Champlain, the
true founder of French power on the continent of America. A few years
previously a certain naval captain named Chauvin, who enjoyed
considerable influence at court, had applied for and obtained from King
Henry IV a patent granting him exclusive trading privileges in the St.
Lawrence. This he had done at the instance of one Pontgrave, a leading
merchant of St. Malo, well acquainted with the St Lawrence trade, whose
business instinct had led him to see that the fur trade alone of that
region might be a source of vast wealth to any single company
controlling it. One condition of the grant was that not less than five
hundred persons should be settled in the country, and another that
provision should be made for the religious instruction both of the
settlers and of the natives. Having obtained the patent, neither Chauvin
nor Pontgrave, whom he appointed as his lieutenant, seems to have
thought of anything but the conversion of their privilege into money.
They sailed to the St. Lawrence, but proceeded no further than
Tadousac, where they set up a trading establishment. At the end of the
first summer season they returned to France, leaving some sixteen men
behind them so ill provided for that eleven died during the winter of
disease and hardship. The rest would have died of starvation had not
friendly Indians supplied them with food. Chauvin made two more trips to
the St. Lawrence without doing anything to redeem his engagements, and
in the year 1601 he died.
The death of Chauvin having voided his patent, the king was moved to
constitute Knight Commander de Chastes, Governor of Dieppe, his
representative in the western world. A company was formed, and an
expedition was organized and placed under the command of Pontgrave, as a
man having special knowledge of the St. Lawrence navigation. By request
of de Chastes, Champlain was associated with him. At this time Champlain
was thirty-six years of age, and had already distinguished himself as
soldier, sailor, explorer, and geographer. His chief work in the two
latter characters had been done in connection with a voyage which he had
made to the West Indies and Mexico in one of the vessels of the King of
Spain. On his return he described the places he had visited in a work,
still extant, illustrated by curious maps and pictures of his own
drawing. Champlain had higher views than mere money making and no more
valuable man could have been assigned to the expedition. Setting sail
with Pontgrave from Honfleur on the 15th March 1603, he arrived at
Tadousac on the 24th May. How earnestly he was bent on carrying the
Catholic faith into the wilds of Canada is shown by a conversation he
reports having had with an Algonquin chief, into whose mind he was
trying to instil correct views as to the origin of things, and
particularly of the human race. The Algonquin had been under the
impression that the Creator had placed arrows in the ground, and then
turned them into men. Champlain assured him that this was an error, man
having been made in the first place out of clay, and woman from a rib
taken from his side while he slept. He dwelt somewhat also on the
propriety and duty of the invocation of saints, with a view, as the Abbe
Faillon hints,[1] to counteracting any prejudice against that doctrine
which Chauvin and his companions, who were Calvinists, might have
endeavoured to create in the savage mind. Judging, however, by the
Algonquin's replies to Champlain's catechising, his mental attitude was
one of admirable neutrality, securely founded on nescience, regarding
any or all of the doctrines in debate between Rome and Geneva. Chauvin
had attended strictly to business.
Before returning to France, Champlain explored the river St. Lawrence as
far as the Lachine Rapids. On the way up he anchored before Quebec, the
situation of which he describes; doubtless he recognized it as the place
near which Jacques Cartier and his men had spent their terrible winter.
In passing Three Rivers he noticed how advantageously it was situated
both for trade and for defence. He explored the country in the vicinity
of the Lachine Rapids sufficiently to recognize that the land to his
right, as he ascended, was an island (Montreal). Of the rapids
themselves he says that never had he seen a torrent rushing with such
impetuosity. Returning to Tadousac he proceeded down the river to Gaspe
and Perce and entered the Baie des Chaleurs. After making, according to
his custom, as many observations and inquiries as possible in regard to
the character and outlines of the country, he returned to Tadousac, and,
gathering his party, which had meanwhile been doing some profitable
trading with the natives, set sail for France, where he arrived on the
20th September. M. de Chastes, under whose authority he and Pontgrave
were acting, had died in the month of May. Champlain, therefore, went
alone to court, exhibited to the king a map he had made of the country,
and gave such information as to its resources and capabilities as he had
personally gathered. The king was much interested; and, desiring that
the work so well begun should be vigorously prosecuted, he issued a
patent to a Huguenot gentleman, Pierre Dugas, Sieur de Monts and
Governor of Pons conferring upon him exclusive trading privileges for a
period of ten years not only in Canada, but in Acadia. The essential
condition of this grant, it has been said, was the establishment in the
countries mentioned of the "Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman faith"; but,
if such was the case, the terms of the document seem a little lacking in
precision, as they speak only of instructing the natives in the
principles of Christianity and the knowledge of God, and thus bringing
them to the light of faith and the practice of the Christian religion.
As de Monts was a Huguenot the generality of these terms may not have
been without significance.
De Monts had been in Canada before, having accompanied Chauvin on one or
two of his voyages to Tadousac. He had also some knowledge of Acadia,
and had conceived a preference for that region, as being more favourably
situated and milder in climate than Canada so far as he knew it. To that
quarter, therefore, he directed the expedition, which left Havre under
his command in March 1604. The result was complete failure owing to
causes into which it is impossible in this hasty narrative to enter.
Suffice it to say that, opposition having been raised to the privileges
enjoyed by de Monts, the king, who was an accomplished politician--it
was he who had thought Paris "well worth a mass"--cancelled his patent,
and thus destroyed all the expectations which he and his business
associates, who had incurred great expense in equipping the expedition,
had founded thereon. Some progress had been made in settlement at Port
Royal, and excellent relations had been established with the natives,
when in the fall of 1607 the whole colony was recalled to France.
Champlain, who had accompanied this expedition, turned it to good
account in increasing his stores of geographical knowledge. In the
following year, 1608, de Monts succeeded in obtaining a renewal of his
patent for one year. After consultation with Champlain he decided that
Quebec would be the best place at which to attempt a settlement. He
accordingly equipped two vessels for the enterprise, and placed them
under the command of Champlain, whom he appointed as his lieutenant with
full powers of control over the whole expedition. He himself remained
behind in Paris to watch over his interests, which were subject at every
moment to attack. His lieutenant sailed from Honfleur on the 13th April
1608, and arrived at Tadousac on the 3rd of June, and at Quebec on the
3rd of July. Having disembarked his men, Champlain set them to work at
once to clear the level piece of land at the base of the rock, erect a
storehouse and dwellings, and surround the whole with a palisade and
ditch. Thus in the summer of 1608 was the city of Quebec founded, and
the power of France formally established on the North American
continent.
The first event of note in the annals of the new colony was certainly
not an auspicious one: a plot that was formed by some of the men of the
expedition against the life of their commander. Had the designs of the
conspirators not been brought to light in time, the course of Canadian
history, as we know it, might have been seriously turned aside. Four
men were found guilty, and sentenced to death; the ringleader only, a
Norman named Jean Duval, was executed, the others were sent to France
where their sentences were commuted. Lescarbot, a contemporary writer,
to whom we are indebted for much information respecting the events of
the period, states that the men were dissatisfied with their food; but
from Champlain's own narrative it appears that the plot was formed, if
not before the expedition left France, at least before it reached
Quebec, and that the whole motive of the conspirators was gain, their
intention being to deliver over all Champlain's goods to the Basques and
Spaniards fishing and trading at Tadousac, and to escape on their
vessels with the proceeds of their treason. This danger, however, having
been happily averted, work was proceeded with on what Champlain in his
narrative calls the "habitation," and by the time winter set in the
dwellings were in readiness. The winter was destined to be a most
unhappy one. As before, when Cartier took up his quarters on the banks
of the St. Charles in the winter of 1535-6, scurvy broke out, and twenty
men out of a company of twenty-eight died.
In the spring of 1609 a reinforcement for the shrunken colony was
brought out by Pontgrave. It was in the summer of that year that
Champlain, with little thought of the consequences his action would
entail, carried out a promise previously made to the Algonquins and
Hurons to assist them in their feud with the Iroquois. Taking eleven
Frenchmen with him in a ship's boat, and accompanied by about three
hundred savages in their canoes, he proceeded as far as the mouth of the
Richelieu River. There most of the savages changed their minds, and
deserted the party. Finding that the boat was not suited to the
navigation of the Richelieu River up which the route to the enemy's
country lay, Champlain sent it back to Quebec and nine men with it. He
with two Frenchmen and sixty Indians proceeded in canoes, and on the
30th of July a band of Iroquois on the war-path was encountered on the
shore of what has since been known as Lake Champlain. The story is
briefly told. Champlain, who had loaded his arquebus with four balls,
brought down at the first shot three Iroquois chiefs, two instantly
killed, and the third mortally wounded. His men did further execution.
The Iroquois, astounded at such swift death, turned and fled. In the
pursuit others were killed. Commenting on this campaign, and a somewhat
similar one of the year following, the Abbe Faillon observes that if
Champlain, instead of siding with the Algonquins and Hurons against the
Iroquois, had declared himself the friend of all the tribes, he would
not only have done more honour to the French name, but would have gained
access for himself and for the missionaries who were to follow him to
all the Indian communities. By the course he actually followed he
inspired the most powerful and best organized of the Indian tribes with
a hatred for the French race and for the religion they professed, which
during a long series of years wreaked itself in countless deeds of
blood, and more than once brought the colony of New France to the verge
of extinction. The massacre of Lachine (1689) was a late harvest of the
blood sown on the shores of Lake Champlain eighty years before.
The vessels which brought out recruits brought also the news that the
exclusive privilege of trade granted to de Monts had been cancelled, or
at least had not been renewed, though de Monts still retained his
position as the king's lieutenant in New France. Champlain was therefore
obliged to return to France in the autumn and discuss matters. Leaving
Quebec on the 5th September he reached Honfleur on the 14th October. He
saw the king, reported progress, and showed him some of the products of
the country. De Monts renewed his efforts to be reinstated in his
privileges, but without success. In the end it was arranged that
Champlain should return to Canada, which he did, leaving Honfleur on the
8th April 1610, and arriving at Quebec early in May. We pass over the
second attack on the Iroquois, made in the month of June of this year,
in which Champlain was slightly wounded. It is interesting, however, to
learn that, on returning from his campaign, he found a piece of land
near his "habitation" at Quebec, which he had brought under
cultivation, yielding good crops of vegetables, Indian corn, wheat,
rye, and barley. He had been much annoyed on reaching Quebec in the
spring to find that no care had been taken of some grape vines that he
had carefully laid down the previous fall. This was but one example of
an indolent neglect only too characteristic, unhappily, of the Quebec
colonists in after years.
Towards the end of this summer grave news arrived. The king, Henry IV,
had fallen under the dagger of an assassin. Champlain and Pontgrave both
thought it desirable to return to France without delay, as it was
impossible to say how their interests might be affected by the change of
government. The only incident of importance, so far as is known, which
happened during Champlain's stay in France on this occasion, was his
marriage to a Protestant young lady named Helen Boulle, whom, on account
of her tender years--she was only twelve years old--he left to grow up
under her father's roof, but who brought him as her dowry a much needed
subsidy of six thousand francs. Thus financially reinforced he sailed
again for Canada in the spring of 1611. He had an appointment to keep,
made the previous year, with certain Indians to meet them at the Grand
Saut (Lachine Rapids) to discuss matters of trade and war. He arrived
there on the 28th May, a few days later than he had said, but found no
Indians. Not being a man to waste time he employed himself while waiting
in prospecting the Island of Montreal and erecting a wall, as the
commencement of a fort, almost on the very spot selected thirty-one
years afterwards by Maisonneuve for the same purpose. It has been
conjectured that, if Champlain had known all the advantages possessed by
Montreal, as compared with Quebec, before he began to construct
buildings at the latter place, Montreal would probably have been the
first capital of New France. This, however, seems hardly probable. It
was important that the capital should be a place naturally strong in a
military point of view--"natura fortis," as the motto of the city of
Quebec has it--and of comparatively easy access from the sea; and these
obvious advantages Quebec possessed in a much higher degree than
Montreal.
De Monts was at last convinced that, under existing conditions, there
was no money in the enterprise to which he was committed. Others could
engage in the fur trade as freely as he, without having any
establishments in Canada to keep up; so he willingly resigned his empty
honours as lieutenant-general, in order to see what he could do as a
private trader, or private member of a trading company. The office of
lieutenant-general passed into the hands of a more powerful person, the
Duke of Conde, who wisely made Champlain his lieutenant, and under whose
auspices a powerful company was formed, consisting of all the traders of
Rouen and St. Malo who wished to join it. The merchants of La Rochelle
had also been invited to take a share in the enterprise, but they held
off, and were consequently left out of the arrangement. Champlain had
returned to France in September 1611, and the difficulties and
oppositions of one kind and another to which the organization of the new
company gave rise kept him there till the spring of 1613, when, again
setting sail for Canada, he arrived at Quebec about the 1st of May. It
was in the early summer of this year that he made his celebrated trip up
the Ottawa River as far as Allumette Island, about one hundred miles
above the city of Ottawa, after which he again returned to France.
Up to this time nothing had been done by the various trading companies
that had been formed towards the evangelization of the native tribes,
nor even for meeting the spiritual necessities of the Europeans settled
or trading in New France. Champlain, who remained in France during the
whole of the following year (1614), thought it time to take the matter
in hand. He therefore arranged with the Provincial of the Recollet
Fathers, a sub-order of the Franciscans, that six of their members
should go out to New France as missionaries, their maintenance and
lodging to be provided by the company. Four of the fathers sailed with
him from France in the ship _St. Etienne_ of three hundred and fifty
tons, on the 24th April 1615, and arrived at Quebec about the 1st of
June. They were received with many tokens of satisfaction, but the good
fathers were not long in discovering that there was very little zeal for
religion in the colony, and that their work was going to be beset with
the most serious difficulties and discouragements. A Recollet writer,
Theodat Sagard, who came to Canada a year or two later, and who wrote a
most interesting record of his experiences, says that the French
themselves, who were supposed to be Christians, were by their scandalous
lives the greatest impediment to the conversion of the Indians. We
gather from Champlain's narrative that the first celebration of the mass
took place at Riviere des Prairies, a few miles below Montreal, before a
few French and a large number of Indians, "who were full of admiration
at the ceremonies practised, and the ornaments used, the latter in
particular seeming to them, unaccustomed as they were to such things,
very beautiful and interesting."
Champlain himself was present on this solemn occasion, and it is a cause
of regret to know that he was at the moment under a promise to join the
Huron Indians in another attack on the Iroquois. It was in connection
with this expedition that some of his most interesting geographical
discoveries were made. The point of rendezvous for the warriors was a
Huron village to the west of Lake Simcoe called Cahiague. To reach it
Champlain's Indian guides took the route by the Ottawa River to Lake
Nipissing, thence by the French River into the Georgian Bay, and down
through the clustering islands on its eastern coast to some point not
far from Penetanguishene. Beyond Allumette Island on the Ottawa all was
new to Champlain. He now saw for the first time Lake Simcoe, Sturgeon
Lake, Rice Lake, and finally Lake Ontario. He describes the country he
passed through as most beautiful. The expedition, however, was fated to
be unsuccessful, and came very near to proving most disastrous. The
attack made on a fortified position of the enemy was repelled; Champlain
himself received two painful arrow wounds; and if the Iroquois had only
sent a party to capture and destroy the canoes of the Hurons, the whole
invading force might easily have been annihilated. It was about the
middle of October that the fight took place. Champlain, as soon as his
wounds were healed, was anxious to be conducted back to the Grand Saut,
whence he might make his way to Quebec; but his allies pleaded the
impossibility of sparing men and canoes for the purpose, and he was
consequently obliged to spend the winter with them. Not unnaturally the
French at Quebec had almost given him up for lost, when he made his
appearance among them some time in the month of June 1616.
Little of interest occurred in the colony, if we may call it by that
name, for several years after this. In 1620 Champlain began the
construction of the Chateau St. Louis on a portion of the ground now
covered by Dufferin Terrace; yet at this date the whole population of
Quebec did not exceed fifty persons. Amongst these there was only one
who could be called a settler in the true sense of the word. This was
Louis Hebert who had come to Canada in 1617 under a contract with the
company, the terms of which do not give us a favourable opinion of the
liberality of that corporation or of their desire to open up the
country. Hebert, who was a chemist and apothecary by profession, was
bound to serve the company for three years for a hundred crowns a year,
his wife and children being also liable to be called upon for any help
they could render. He received an allotment of land; but he could only
work on it at such times as his services were not required by the
company. At the end of three years he might grow crops, but he must sell
his produce to the company at such prices as were current in France.
Notwithstanding these restrictions, Hebert managed in the course of time
to establish himself in comfort, and to become a substantial _bourgeois_
of the new colony.
The Recollet fathers had now been five years in the country, yet the
interests of religion were not flourishing. They found that they were
not receiving the assistance from the company that had been promised;
and, not only so, but that their influence with the natives was
constantly being undermined by the company's agents and servants, whose
one preoccupation was trade. In their perplexity and discouragement--for
they were really making no headway at all--it occurred to them that, if
they could have the assistance of a few Jesuit fathers, the situation
might be materially improved, their impression being that the Jesuits,
if they came, would probably have some independent means of their own,
and moreover that the high credit they enjoyed in France would stand
them in good stead in the colony. They consequently sent home one of
their number to conduct negotiations to that end. The result was that,
in the month of June 1625, three Jesuit fathers and two coadjutors came
out to Quebec, to begin that career of evangelization and of dauntless,
self-sacrificing effort which has won for their order an imperishable
name in the annals of French colonization in North America.
What may be called the first chapter in the history of New France was
now drawing to a close. In 1621 the Duke of Conde had, with the royal
approval, transferred the lieutenant-generalship to the Duke of
Montmorency for a consideration of eleven thousand francs. Some changes
were at the same time made in the organization of the trading company.
In 1625 Montmorency in turn passed over the office to his nephew, Henri
de Levis, Duke of Ventadour. These changes in no way improved the
situation of the settlement at Quebec which, under all managements, was
consistently starved and kept down to the level of a precarious
trading-post. The French during these years were more and more losing
influence with their Indian allies, the Hurons and Montagnais, whose
attitude at times became very menacing, and who actually committed
several murders for which it was impossible to bring them to punishment.
The chief reason for the change of temper on the part of the natives
was that they found they were being systematically cheated by the French
traders, who beat them down to the lowest price for their furs, and
charged them the highest price for commodities sold. A Recollet writer
tells a story of an Indian chief which places the character of the red
man in a much more favourable light than that of the civilized Europeans
with whom he was dealing. The chief, at the request of some of his
people, was begging one of the agents of the company to treat them with
a little more fairness and humanity. The agent, after considerable
discussion, offered the chief to do business with him personally on more
liberal terms, but said he could not make any change as regards the
other Indians. "You are insulting me then," said the chief, "for if I
were to consent to such an arrangement I should deserve to be hanged by
my own people. I am their captain; it is for them I am speaking, not for
myself."
Things had reached such a pass that Champlain thought it necessary to
speak very plainly to the home authorities. Cardinal Richelieu, who was
at this time at the head of affairs in France, and specially in charge
of the maritime interests of the kingdom, determined on what he hoped
would be a radical measure of reform, namely the formation of a company
on a much wider basis than any preceding one, and consisting of persons
of higher mark and responsibility, who should hold their powers directly
from himself. The edict establishing the company, the legal name of
which was the Company of New France, but which was afterwards more
commonly known as the Company of the Hundred Associates, bore date the
29th April 1627. The preamble set forth in forcible terms the lamentable
failure of all the previous trading associations to redeem their pledges
in the matter of colonization; and the new associates were, by the terms
of their charter, bound in the most formal and positive manner, to
convey annually to the colony, beginning in the following year, 1628,
from two to three hundred _bona fide_ settlers, and in the fifteen
following years to transport thither a total of not less than four
thousand persons male and female. The settlers were to be maintained for
three years, until they could get their land under cultivation, and then
for one season till they had reaped their crops. Provision was also to
be made for the maintenance of a sufficient number of clergy to meet the
spiritual wants both of the settlers and of the native population. In
consideration of these services all French possessions between Florida
and the Arctic Circle, and from Newfoundland as far west as the company
should be able to possess the land, were handed over to them in absolute
sovereignty, saving only the supreme authority of the French king. They
had, of course, a complete monopoly of trade, with the sole exception of
the cod and whale fisheries which, as before, were to be open to all
French subjects.
A most unexpected event, however, was destined to delay for some years
the carrying out of the plans of the great cardinal. In the very year in
which the new company was formed war broke out between France and
England. The general result of the war was both disastrous and
inglorious for England; but a notable incident of it was the capture of
Quebec by a small fleet of privateers under the command of Captain David
Kirke, sailing under letters of marque from the English king, Charles I,
authorizing him to attack the French in Canada, and drive them out of
the country if possible. Kirke's first exploit was to defeat and
capture, early in 1628, not far from Gaspe, a French fleet of eighteen
vessels carrying a considerable number of colonists, and also a large
quantity of provisions, goods of all kinds, and munitions of war for the
colony of New France. To what dire extremities the loss of these
supplies reduced the already feeble settlement is movingly described in
Champlain's own narrative. Kirke, after his victory, stripped the
vessels of the enemy of whatever they contained that was valuable, burnt
the smaller ones, and took the larger ones to Newfoundland. Then, after
destroying the French settlements in Acadia, he sailed for England with
his prisoners and a portion of the booty. This gave the colony at Quebec
a year's respite from attack; but owing to a series of misfortunes no
succour was received from France during the interval. The consequence
was that, when Kirke returned in the following year to the St.
Lawrence, and sent two of his brothers, Louis and Thomas, with three
small but well-appointed vessels--he himself remaining at Tadousac--to
demand the surrender of Quebec, the only course open to Champlain, who
not only had no adequate means of defence, but whose little garrison was
on the point of starvation, was to make an honourable capitulation. It
was agreed that the French should evacuate the place carrying with them
their arms, clothing, and any furs they might individually own, and
should be allowed to return to France in a vessel of their own
providing. As they had difficulty in procuring a suitable vessel, Kirke
in the end furnished one of two hundred and fifty tons, manned by
seventy of his own sailors, and landed them, to the number of over a
hundred, in England. The preliminary articles of capitulation were
signed on the 19th July 1629, and two days later the English flag was
raised on the Chateau St. Louis, to the accompaniment of salvos of
artillery, fired both from the ships in the river and the land
batteries, of which the English had now taken possession.
While all this was going on the Kirke brothers and Champlain were alike
unaware that, three months previously, peace had been signed between
England and France. The disappointment and chagrin of David Kirke when
he landed the Quebec garrison in England, and learned that the capture
had been made in time of peace and would probably have to be restored,
may be imagined. Champlain made it his business to go at once and see
the French ambassador in London, in order to report what had taken place
and urge the restitution of the colony to France. The matter was taken
up by the French government, and Charles promised to restore Canada, but
made no engagement respecting Acadia. The French king, Louis XIII, about
this time had his hands full with domestic sedition and foreign war. His
own brother, Gaston de France, with the sympathy both of the queen and
of the queen mother, was in revolt against him, as well as the Duke of
Montmorency, former lieutenant-general of Canada. The rebellion was
crushed through the vigorous action of Cardinal Richelieu, and
Montmorency was brought to the block; but meantime the negotiations with
England had remained in suspense. Finally they were brought to a
conclusion in 1632, Charles agreeing to restore both Canada and Acadia.
The probability is that had he refused to do so the matter would not
have been pressed--at least not to the point of war--and that Canada and
Acadia would have remained English possessions. Never, in the course of
history, did a country more distinctly stand at the parting of the ways;
and it is singular to reflect that, in all probability, it is owing to
the restitution of Canada to France at that time that the Dominion of
Canada is to-day a British possession.
[Footnote 1: _Histoire de la Colonie Francaise en Canada_, vol. i. p.
79.]