1749-1753
Conflict for the West
The Iroquois, or Five Nations, sometimes called Six Nations after the
Tuscaroras joined them, had been a power of high importance in American
international politics. In a certain sense they may be said to have held
the balance between their French and English neighbors; but their
relative influence had of late declined. So many of them had emigrated
and joined the tribes of the Ohio, that the centre of Indian population
had passed to that region. Nevertheless, the Five Nations were still
strong enough in their ancient abodes to make their alliance an object
of the utmost consequence to both the European rivals. At the western
end of their "Long House," or belt of confederated villages, Joncaire
intrigued to gain them for France; while in the east he was counteracted
by the young colonel of militia, William Johnson, who lived on the
Mohawk, and was already well skilled in managing Indians. Johnson
sometimes lost his temper; and once wrote to Governor Clinton to
complain of the "confounded wicked things the French had infused into
the Indians' heads; among the rest that the English were determined, the
first opportunity, to destroy them all. I assure your Excellency I had
hard work to beat these and several other cursed villanous things, told
them by the French, out of their heads."[26]
[Footnote 26: _Johnson to Clinton, 28 April_, 1749.]
In former times the French had hoped to win over the Five Nations in a
body, by wholesale conversion to the Faith; but the attempt had failed.
They had, however, made within their own limits an asylum for such
converts as they could gain, whom they collected together at
Caughnawaga, near Montreal, to the number of about three hundred
warriors.[27] These could not be trusted to fight their kinsmen, but
willingly made forays against the English borders. Caughnawaga, like
various other Canadian missions, was divided between the Church, the
army, and the fur-trade. It had a chapel, fortifications, and
storehouses; two Jesuits, an officer, and three chief traders. Of these
last, two were maiden ladies, the Demoiselles Desauniers; and one of the
Jesuits, their friend Father Tournois, was their partner in business.
They carried on by means of the Mission Indians, and in collusion with
influential persons in the colony, a trade with the Dutch at Albany,
illegal, but very profitable.[28]
[Footnote 27: The estimate of a French official report, 1736, and of Sir
William Johnson, 1763.]
[Footnote 28: _La Jonquière au Ministre, 27 Fév. 1750. Ibid., 29 Oct.
1751. Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, 1751. Notice biographique
de la Jonquière_. La Jonquifère, governor of Canada, at last broke up
their contraband trade, and ordered Tournois to Quebec.]
Besides this Iroquois mission, which was chiefly composed of Mohawks and
Oneidas, another was now begun farther westward, to win over the
Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. This was the establishment of Father
Piquet, which Céloron had visited in its infancy when on his way to the
Ohio, and again on his return. Piquet was a man in the prime of life, of
an alert, vivacious countenance, by no means unprepossessing;[29] an
enthusiastic schemer, with great executive talents; ardent, energetic,
vain, self-confident, and boastful. The enterprise seems to have been of
his own devising; but it found warm approval from the Government.[30] La
Présentation, as he called the new mission, stood on the bank of the
River Oswegatchie where it enters the St. Lawrence. Here the rapids
ceased, and navigation was free to Lake Ontario. The place commanded the
main river, and could bar the way to hostile war-parties or contraband
traders. Rich meadows, forests, and abundance of fish and game, made it
attractive to Indians, and the Oswegatchie gave access to the Iroquois
towns. Piquet had chosen his site with great skill. His activity was
admirable. His first stockade was burned by Indian incendiaries; but it
rose quickly from its ashes, and within a year or two the mission of La
Présentation had a fort of palisades flanked with blockhouses, a chapel,
a storehouse, a barn, a stable, ovens, a saw-mill, broad fields of corn
and beans, and three villages of Iroquois, containing, in all,
forty-nine bark lodges, each holding three or four families, more or
less converted to the Faith; and, as time went on, this number
increased. The Governor had sent a squad of soldiers to man the fort,
and five small cannon to mount upon it. The place was as safe for the
new proselytes as it was convenient and agreeable. The Pennsylvanian
interpreter, Conrad Weiser, was told at Onondaga, the Iroquois capital,
that Piquet had made a hundred converts from that place alone; and that,
"having clothed them all in very fine clothes, laced with silver and
gold, he took them down and presented them to the French Governor at
Montreal, who received them very kindly, and made them large
presents."[31]
[Footnote 29: I once saw a contemporary portrait of him at the mission
of Two Mountains, where he had been stationed.]
[Footnote 30: _Rouillé à la Jonquière_, 1749. The Intendant Bigot gave
him money and provisions. _N.Y. Col. Docs., X_. 204.]
[Footnote 31: _Journal of Conrad Weiser,_ 1750.]
Such were some of the temporal attractions of La Présentation. The
nature of the spiritual instruction bestowed by Piquet and his
fellow-priests may be partly inferred from the words of a proselyte
warrior, who declared with enthusiasm that he had learned from the
Sulpitian missionary that the King of France was the eldest son of the
wife of Jesus Christ.[32] This he of course took in a literal sense, the
mystic idea of the Church as the spouse of Christ being beyond his
savage comprehension. The effect was to stimulate his devotion to the
Great Onontio beyond the sea, and to the lesser Onontio who represented
him as Governor of Canada.
[Footnote 32: Lalande, _Notice de L'Abbé Piquet, in Lettres Édifiantes_.
See also Tassé in _Revue Canadienne,_ 1870, p. 9.]
Piquet was elated by his success; and early in 1752 he wrote to the
Governor and Intendant: "It is a great miracle that, in spite of envy,
contradiction, and opposition from nearly all the Indian villages, I
have formed in less than three years one of the most flourishing
missions in Canada. I find myself in a position to extend the empire of
my good masters, Jesus Christ and the King, even to the extremities of
this new world; and, with some little help from you, to do more than
France and England have been able to do with millions of money and all
their troops."[33]
[Footnote 33: _Piquet à la Jonquière et Bigot, 8 Fév._ 1752. See
Appendix A. In spite of Piquet's self-laudation, and in spite also of
the detraction of the author of the _Mémoires sur le Canada,_ 1749-1760,
there can be no doubt of his practical capacity and his fertility of
resource. Duquesne, when governor of the colony, highly praises "ses
talents et son activité pour le service de Sa Majesté."]
The letter from which this is taken was written to urge upon the
Government a scheme in which the zealous priest could see nothing
impracticable. He proposed to raise a war-party of thirty-eight hundred
Indians, eighteen hundred of whom were to be drawn from the Canadian
missions, the Five Nations, and the tribes of the Ohio, while the
remaining two thousand were to be furnished by the Flatheads, or
Choctaws, who were at the same time to be supplied with missionaries.
The united force was first to drive the English from the Ohio, and next
attack the Dog Tribe, or Cherokees, who lived near the borders of
Virginia, with the people of which they were on friendly terms. "If,"
says Piquet, "the English of Virginia give any help to this last-named
tribe,--which will not fail to happen,--they [_the war-party_] will do
their utmost against them, through a grudge they bear them by reason of
some old quarrels." In other words, the missionary hopes to set a host
of savages to butchering English settlers in time of peace![34] His
wild project never took effect, though the Governor, he says, at first
approved it.
[Footnote 34: Appendix A.]
In the preceding year the "Apostle of the Iroquois," as he was called,
made a journey to muster recruits for his mission, and kept a copious
diary on the way. By accompanying him, one gets a clear view of an
important part of the region in dispute between the rival nations. Six
Canadians paddled him up the St. Lawrence, and five Indian converts
followed in another canoe. Emerging from among the Thousand Islands,
they stopped at Fort Frontenac, where Kingston now stands. Once the
place was a great resort of Indians; now none were here, for the English
post of Oswego, on the other side of the lake, had greater attractions.
Piquet and his company found the pork and bacon very bad, and he
complains that "there was not brandy enough in the fort to wash a
wound." They crossed to a neighboring island, where they were soon
visited by the chaplain of the fort, the storekeeper, his wife, and
three young ladies, glad of an excursion to relieve the monotony of the
garrison. "My hunters," says Piquet, "had supplied me with means of
giving them a pretty good entertainment. We drank, with all our hearts,
the health of the authorities, temporal and ecclesiastical, to the sound
of our musketry, which was very well fired, and delighted the
islanders." These islanders were a band of Indians who lived here.
Piquet gave them a feast, then discoursed of religion, and at last
persuaded them to remove to the new mission.
During eight days he and his party coasted the northern shore of Lake
Ontario, with various incidents, such as an encounter between his dog
Cerberus and a wolf, to the disadvantage of the latter, and the meeting
with "a very fine negro of twenty-two years, a fugitive from Virginia."
On the twenty-sixth of June they reached the new fort of Toronto, which
offered a striking contrast to their last stopping-place. "The wine here
is of the best; there is nothing wanting in this fort; everything is
abundant, fine, and good." There was reason for this. The Northern
Indians were flocking with their beaver-skins to the English of Oswego;
and in April, 1749, an officer named Portneuf had been sent with
soldiers and workmen to build a stockaded trading-house at Toronto, in
order to intercept them,--not by force, which would have been ruinous
to French interests, but by a tempting supply of goods and brandy.[35]
Thus the fort was kept well stocked, and with excellent effect. Piquet
found here a band of Mississagas, who would otherwise, no doubt, have
carried their furs to the English. He was strongly impelled to persuade
them to migrate to La Présentation; but the Governor had told him to
confine his efforts to other tribes; and lest, he says, the ardor of his
zeal should betray him to disobedience, he reimbarked, and encamped six
leagues from temptation.
[Footnote 35: On Toronto, _La Jonquière et Bigot au Ministre, 1749. La
Jonquière au Ministre, 30 Août, 1750. N.Y. Col. Docs. X_. 201, 246.]
Two days more brought him to Niagara, where he was warmly received by
the commandant, the chaplain, and the storekeeper,--the triumvirate who
ruled these forest outposts, and stood respectively for then: three
vital principles, war, religion, and trade. Here Piquet said mass; and
after resting a day, set out for the trading-house at the portage of the
cataract, recently built, like Toronto, to stop the Indians on their way
to Oswego.[36] Here he found Joncaire, and here also was encamped a
large band of Senecas; though, being all drunk, men, women, and
children, they were in no condition to receive the Faith, or appreciate
the temporal advantages that attended it. On the next morning, finding
them partially sober, he invited them to remove to La Présentation; "but
as they had still something left in their bottles, I could get no answer
till the following day." "I pass in silence," pursues the missionary,
"an infinity of talks on this occasion. Monsieur de Joncaire forgot
nothing that could help me, and behaved like a great servant of God and
the King. My recruits increased every moment. I went to say my breviary
while my Indians and the Senecas, without loss of time, assembled to
hold a council with Monsieur de Joncaire." The result of the council was
an entreaty to the missionary not to stop at Oswego, lest evil should
befall him at the hands of the English. He promised to do as they
wished, and presently set out on his return to Fort Niagara, attended by
Joncaire and a troop of his new followers. The journey was a triumphal
progress. "Whenever was passed a camp or a wigwam, the Indians saluted
me by firing their guns, which happened so often that I thought all the
trees along the way were charged with gunpowder; and when we reached the
fort, Monsieur de Becancour received us with great ceremony and the
firing of cannon, by which my savages were infinitely flattered."
[Footnote 36: _La Jonquière au Ministre, 23 Fév. 1750. Ibid., 6 Oct_.
1751. Compare _Colonial Records of Pa_., V. 508.]
His neophytes were gathered into the chapel for the first time in their
lives, and there rewarded with a few presents. He now prepared to turn
homeward, his flock at the mission being left in his absence without a
shepherd; and on the sixth of July he embarked, followed by a swarm of
canoes. On the twelfth they stopped at the Genesee, and went to visit
the Falls, where the city of Rochester now stands. On the way, the
Indians found a populous resort of rattlesnakes, and attacked the
gregarious reptiles with great animation, to the alarm of the
missionary, who trembled for his bare-legged retainers. His fears proved
needless. Forty-two dead snakes, as he avers, requited the efforts of
the sportsmen, and not one of them was bitten. When he returned to camp
in the afternoon he found there a canoe loaded with kegs of brandy. "The
English," he says, "had sent it to meet us, well knowing that this was
the best way to cause disorder among my new recruits and make them
desert me. The Indian in charge of the canoe, who had the look of a
great rascal, offered some to me first, and then to my Canadians and
Indians. I gave out that it was very probably poisoned, and immediately
embarked again."
He encamped on the fourteenth at Sodus Bay, and strongly advises the
planting of a French fort there. "Nevertheless," he adds, "it would be
still better to destroy Oswego, and on no account let the English build
it again." On the sixteenth he came in sight of this dreaded post.
Several times on the way he had met fleets of canoes going thither
or returning, in spite of the rival attractions of Toronto and Niagara.
No English establishment on the continent was of such ill omen to the
French. It not only robbed them of the fur-trade, by which they lived,
but threatened them with military and political, no less than commercial,
ruin. They were in constant dread lest ships of war should be built
here, strong enough to command Lake Ontario, thus separating Canada from
Louisiana, and cutting New France asunder. To meet this danger, they
soon after built at Fort Frontenac a large three-masted vessel, mounted
with heavy cannon; thus, as usual, forestalling their rivals by
promptness of action.[37] The ground on which Oswego stood was claimed
by the Province of New York, which alone had control of it; but through
the purblind apathy of the Assembly, and their incessant quarrels with
the Governor, it was commonly left to take care of itself. For some
time they would vote no money to pay the feeble little garrison; and
Clinton, who saw the necessity of maintaining it, was forced to do so on
his own personal credit.[38] "Why can't your Governor and your great men
[_the Assembly_] agree?" asked a Mohawk chief of the interpreter, Conrad
Weiser.[39]
[Footnote 37: _Lieutenant Lindesay to Johnson, July, 1751._]
[Footnote 38: _Clinton to Lords of Trade, 30 July, 1750._]
[Footnote 39: _Journal of Conrad Weiser, 1750._]
Piquet kept his promise not to land at the English fort; but he
approached in his canoe, and closely observed it. The shores, now
covered by the city of Oswego, were then a desolation of bare hills and
fields, studded with the stumps of felled trees, and hedged about with a
grim border of forests. Near the strand, by the mouth of the Onondaga,
were the houses of some of the traders; and on the higher ground behind
them stood a huge blockhouse with a projecting upper story. This
building was surrounded by a rough wall of stone, with flankers at the
angles, forming what was called the fort.[40] Piquet reconnoitred it
from his canoe with the eye of a soldier. "It is commanded," he says,
"on almost every side; two batteries, of three twelve-pounders each,
would be more than enough to reduce it to ashes." And he enlarges on the
evils that arise from it. "It not only spoils our trade, but puts the
English into communication with a vast number of our Indians, far and
near. It is true that they like our brandy better than English rum; but
they prefer English goods to ours, and can buy for two beaver-skins at
Oswego a better silver bracelet than we sell at Niagara for ten."
[Footnote 40: Compare _Doc. Hist. N.Y._, I. 463.]
The burden of these reflections was lightened when he approached Fort
Frontenac. "Never was reception more solemn. The Nipissings and
Algonkins, who were going on a war-party with Monsieur Belêtre, formed a
line of their own accord, and saluted us with three volleys of musketry,
and cries of joy without end. All our little bark vessels replied in the
same way. Monsieur de Verchères and Monsieur de Valtry ordered the
cannon of the fort to be fired; and my Indians, transported with joy at
the honor done them, shot off their guns incessantly, with cries and
acclamations that delighted everybody." A goodly band of recruits joined
him, and he pursued his voyage to La Présentation, while the canoes of
his proselytes followed in a swarm to their new home; "that
establishment"--thus in a burst of enthusiasm he closes his
Journal--"that establishment which I began two years ago, in the midst
of opposition; that establishment which may be regarded as a key of the
colony; that establishment which officers, interpreters, and traders
thought a chamaera,--that establishment, I say, forms already a mission
of Iroquois savages whom I assembled at first to the number of only six,
increased last year to eighty-seven, and this year to three hundred and
ninety-six, without counting more than a hundred and fifty whom Monsieur
Chabert de Joncaire is to bring me this autumn. And I certify that thus
far I have received from His Majesty--for all favor, grace, and
assistance--no more than a half pound of bacon and two pounds of bread
for daily rations; and that he has not yet given a pin to the chapel,
which I have maintained out of my own pocket, for the greater glory of
my masters, God and the King."[41]
[Footnote 41: _Journal qui peut servir de Mémoire et de Relation du
Voyage que j'ay fait sur le Lac Ontario pour attirer au nouvel
Établissement de La Présentation les Sauvages Iroquois des Cinq Nations,
1751_. The last passage given above is condensed in the rendering, as
the original is extremely involved and ungrammatical.]
In his late journey he had made the entire circuit of Lake Ontario.
Beyond lay four other inland oceans, to which Fort Niagara was the key.
As that all-essential post controlled the passage from Ontario to Erie,
so did Fort Detroit control that from Erie to Huron, and Fort
Michillimackinac that from Huron to Michigan; while Fort Ste. Marie, at
the outlet of Lake Superior, had lately received a garrison, and changed
from a mission and trading-station to a post of war.[42] This immense
extent of inland navigation was safe in the hands of France so long as
she held Niagara. Niagara lost, not only the lakes, but also the Valley
of the Ohio was lost with it. Next in importance was Detroit. This was
not a military post alone, but also a settlement; and, except the
hamlets about Fort Chartres, the only settlement that France owned in
all the West. There were, it is true, but a few families; yet the hope
of growth seemed good; for to such as liked a wilderness home, no spot
in America had more attraction. Father Bonnecamp stopped here for a day
on his way back from the expedition of Céloron. "The situation," he
says, "is charming. A fine river flows at the foot of the
fortifications; vast meadows, asking only to be tilled, extend beyond
the sight. Nothing can be more agreeable than the climate. Winter lasts
hardly two months. European grains and fruits grow here far better than
in many parts of France. It is the Touraine and Beauce of Canada."[43]
The white flag of the Bourbons floated over the compact little
palisaded town, with its population of soldiers and fur-traders; and
from the blockhouses which served as bastions, one saw on either hand
the small solid dwellings of the _habitants_, ranged at intervals along
the margin of the water; while at a little distance three Indian
villages--Ottawa, Pottawattamie, and Wyandot--curled their wigwam smoke
into the pure summer air.[44]
[Footnote 42: _La Jonquière au Ministre, 24 Août, 1750_.]
[Footnote 43: _Relation du Voiage de la Belle Rivière, 1749_.]
[Footnote 44: A plan of Detroit is before me, made about this time by
the engineer Lery.]
When Céloron de Bienville returned from the Ohio, he went, with a royal
commission, sent him a year before, to command at Detroit.[45] His late
chaplain, the very intelligent Father Bonnecamp, speaks of him as
fearless, energetic, and full of resource; but the Governor calls him
haughty and insubordinate. Great efforts were made, at the same time, to
build up Detroit as a centre of French power in the West. The methods
employed were of the debilitating, paternal character long familiar to
Canada. All emigrants with families were to be carried thither at the
King's expense; and every settler was to receive in free gift a gun, a
hoe, an axe, a ploughshare, a scythe, a sickle, two augers, large and
small, a sow, six hens, a cock, six pounds of powder, and twelve pounds
of lead; while to these favors were added many others. The result was
that twelve families were persuaded to go, or about a twentieth part of
the number wanted.[46] Detroit was expected to furnish supplies to the
other posts for five hundred miles around, control the neighboring
Indians, thwart English machinations, and drive off English interlopers.
[Footnote 45: _Le Ministre à la Jonquière et Bigot, 14 Mai, 1749. Le
Ministre à Céloron, 23 Mai, 1749_.]
[Footnote 46: _Ordonnance du 2 Jan. 1750. La Jonquière et Bigot au
Ministre, 1750_. Forty-six persons of all ages and both sexes had been
induced by La Galissonière to go the year before. _Lettres communes de
la Jonquière et Bigot, 1749_. The total fixed population of Detroit and
its neighborhood in 1750 is stated at four hundred and eighty-three
souls. In the following two years, a considerable number of young men
came of their own accord, and Céloron wrote to Montreal to ask for girls
to marry them.]
La Galissonière no longer governed Canada. He had been honorably
recalled, and the Marquis de la Jonquière sent in his stead.[47] La
Jonquière, like his predecessor, was a naval officer of high repute; he
was tall and imposing in person, and of undoubted capacity and courage;
but old and, according to his enemies, very avaricious.[48] The Colonial
Minister gave him special instructions regarding that thorn in the side
of Canada, Oswego. To attack it openly would be indiscreet, as the two
nations were at peace; but there was a way of dealing with it less
hazardous, if not more lawful. This was to attack it vicariously by
means of the Iroquois. "If Abbé Piquet succeeds in his mission," wrote
the Minister to the new Governor, "we can easily persuade these savages
to destroy Oswego. This is of the utmost importance; but act with great
caution."[49] In the next year the Minister wrote again: "The only means
that can be used for such an operation in time of peace are those of the
Iroquois. If by making these savages regard such an establishment
[_Oswego_] as opposed to their liberty, and, so to speak, a usurpation
by which the English mean to get possession of their lands, they could
be induced to undertake its destruction, an operation of the sort is not
to be neglected; but M. le Marquis de la Jonquière should feel with what
circumspection such an affair should be conducted, and he should labor
to accomplish it in a manner not to commit himself."[50] To this La
Jonquière replies that it will need time; but that he will gradually
bring the Iroquois to attack and destroy the English post. He received
stringent orders to use every means to prevent the English from
encroaching, but to act towards them at the same time "with the greatest
politeness."[51] This last injunction was scarcely fulfilled in a
correspondence which he had with Clinton, governor of New York, who had
written to complain of the new post at the Niagara portage as an
invasion of English territory, and also of the arrest of four English
traders in the country of the Miamis. Niagara, like Oswego, was in the
country of the Five Nations, whom the treaty of Utrecht declared
"subject to the dominion of Great Britain."[52] This declaration,
preposterous in itself, was binding on France, whose plenipotentiaries
had signed the treaty. The treaty also provided that the subjects of the
two Crowns "shall enjoy full liberty of going and coming on account of
trade," and Clinton therefore demanded that La Jonquière should disavow
the arrest of the four traders and punish its authors. The French
Governor replied with great asperity, spurned the claim that the Five
Nations were British subjects, and justified the arrest.[53] He
presently went further. Rewards were offered by his officers for the
scalps of Croghan and of another trader named Lowry.[54] When this
reached the ears of William Johnson, on the Mohawk, he wrote to Clinton
in evident anxiety for his own scalp: "If the French go on so, there is
no man can be safe in his own house; for I can at any time get an Indian
to kill any man for a small matter. Their going on in that manner is
worse than open war."
[Footnote 47: _Le Ministre à la Galissonière, 14 Mai, 1749_.]
[Footnote 48: _Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760_. The charges made here
and elsewhere are denied, somewhat faintly, by a descendant of La
Jonquière in his elaborate _Notice biographique_ of his ancestor.]
[Footnote 49: _Le Ministre à La Jonquière, Mai, 1749_. The instructions
given to La Jonquière before leaving France also urge the necessity of
destroying Oswego.]
[Footnote 50: _Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres; à MM. de la
Jonquière et Bigot, 15 Avril, 1750_. See Appendix A. for original.]
[Footnote 51: _Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, 1750_.]
[Footnote 52: Chalmers, _Collection of Treaties_, I. 382.]
[Footnote 53: _La Jonquière à Clinton, 10 Août, 1751_.]
[Footnote 54: Deposition of Morris Turner and Ralph Kilgore, in
_Colonial Records of Pa._, V. 482. The deponents had been prisoners at
Detroit.]
The French on their side made counter-accusations. The captive traders
were examined on oath before La Jonquière, and one of them, John Patton,
is reported to have said that Croghan had instigated Indians to kill
Frenchmen.[55] French officials declared that other English traders were
guilty of the same practices; and there is very little doubt that the
charge was true.
[Footnote 55: _Précis des Faits, avec leurs Pièces justificatives_,
100.]
The dispute with the English was not the only source of trouble to the
Governor. His superiors at Versailles would not adopt his views, and
looked on him with distrust. He advised the building of forts near Lake
Erie, and his advice was rejected. "Niagara and Detroit," he was told,
"will secure forever our communications with Louisiana."[56] "His
Majesty," again wrote the Colonial Minister, "thought that expenses
would diminish after the peace; but, on the contrary, they have
increased. There must be great abuses. You and the Intendant must look
to it."[57] Great abuses there were; and of the money sent to Canada for
the service of the King the larger part found its way into the pockets
of peculators. The colony was eaten to the heart with official
corruption; and the centre of it was François Bigot, the intendant. The
Minister directed La Jonquière's attention to certain malpractices
which had been reported to him; and the old man, deeply touched,
replied: "I have reached the age of sixty-six years, and there is not a
drop of blood in my veins that does not thrill for the service of my
King. I will not conceal from you that the slightest suspicion on your
part against me would cut the thread of my days."[58]
[Footnote 56: _Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres_, 1750.]
[Footnote 57: _Ibid., 6 Juin_, 1751.]
[Footnote 58: _La Jonquière au Ministre, 19 Oct_. 1751.]
Perplexities increased; affairs in the West grew worse and worse. La
Jonquière ordered Céloron to attack the English at Pickawillany; and
Céloron could not or would not obey. "I cannot express," writes the
Governor, "how much this business troubles me; it robs me of sleep; it
makes me ill." Another letter of rebuke presently came from Versailles.
"Last year you wrote that you would soon drive the English from the
Ohio; but private letters say that you have done nothing. This is
deplorable. If not expelled, they will seem to acquire a right against
us. Send force enough at once to drive them off, and cure them of all
wish to return."[59] La Jonquière answered with bitter complaints
against Céloron, and then begged to be recalled. His health, already
shattered, was ruined by fatigue and vexation; and he took to his bed.
Before spring he was near his end.[60] It is said that, though very
rich, his habits of thrift so possessed his last hours that, seeing
wax-candles burning in his chamber, he ordered others of tallow to be
brought instead, as being good enough to die by. Thus frugally lighted
on its way, his spirit fled; and the Baron de Longueuil took his place
till a new governor should arrive.
[Footnote 59: _Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres_, 1751.]
[Footnote 60: He died on the sixth of March, 1752 (_Bigot au Ministre, 6
Mai_); not on the seventeeth of May, as stated in the _Mémoires sur le
Canada_, 1749-1760.]
Sinister tidings came thick from the West. Raymond, commandant at the
French fort on the Maumee, close to the centre of intrigue, wrote: "My
people are leaving me for Detroit. Nobody wants to stay here and have
his throat cut. All the tribes who go to the English at Pickawillany
come back loaded with gifts. I am too weak to meet the danger. Instead
of twenty men, I need five hundred.... We have made peace with the
English, yet they try continually to make war on us by means of the
Indians; they intend to be masters of all this upper country. The tribes
here are leaguing together to kill all the French, that they may have
nobody on their lands but their English brothers. This I am told by
Coldfoot, a great Miami chief, whom I think an honest man, if there is
any such thing among Indians.... If the English stay in this country we
are lost. We must attack, and drive them out." And he tells of war-belts
sent from tribe to tribe, and rumors of plots and conspiracies far and
near.
Without doubt, the English traders spared no pains to gain over the
Indians by fair means or foul; sold them goods at low rates, made ample
gifts, and gave gunpowder for the asking. Saint-Ange, who commanded at
Vincennes, wrote that a storm would soon burst on the heads of the
French. Joncaire reported that all the Ohio Indians sided with the
English. Longueuil informed the Minister that the Miamis had scalped two
soldiers; that the Piankishaws had killed seven Frenchmen; and that a
squaw who had lived with one of the slain declared that the tribes of
the Wabash and Illinois were leaguing with the Osages for a combined
insurrection. Every letter brought news of murder. Small-pox had broken
out at Detroit. "It is to be wished," says Longueuil, "that it would
spread among our rebels; it would be fully as good as an army.... We are
menaced with a general outbreak, and even Toronto is in danger....
Before long the English on the Miami will gain over all the surrounding
tribes, get possession of Fort Chartres, and cut our communications with
Louisiana."[61]
[Footnote 61: _Dépêches de Longueuil; Lettres de Raymond; Benoit de
Saint-Clere à la Jonquière, Oct. 1751._]
The moving spirit of disaffection was the chief called Old Britain, or
the Demoiselle, and its focus was his town of Pickawillany, on the
Miami. At this place it is said that English traders sometimes mustered
to the number of fifty or more. "It is they," wrote Longueuil, "who are
the instigators of revolt and the source of all our woes."[62] Whereupon
the Colonial Minister reiterated his instructions to drive them off and
plunder them, which he thought would "effectually disgust them," and
bring all trouble to an end.[63]
[Footnote 62: _Longueuil au Ministre, 21 Avril, 1752._]
[Footnote 63: _Le Ministre à la Jonquière, 1752. Le Ministre à Duquesne,
9 Juillet, 1752._]
La Jonquière's remedy had been more heroic, for he had ordered Céleron
to attack the English and their red allies alike; and he charged that
officer with arrogance and disobedience because he had not done so. It
is not certain that obedience was easy; for though, besides the garrison
of regulars, a strong body of militia was sent up to Detroit to aid the
stroke,[64] the Indians of that post, whose co-operation was thought
necessary, proved half-hearted, intractable, and even touched with
disaffection. Thus the enterprise languished till, in June, aid came
from another quarter. Charles Langlade, a young French trader married to
a squaw at Green Bay, and strong in influence with the tribes of that
region, came down the lakes from Michillimackinac with a fleet of canoes
manned by two hundred and fifty Ottawa and Ojibwa warriors; stopped a
while at Detroit; then embarked again, paddled up the Maumee to
Raymond's fort at the portage, and led his greased and painted rabble
through the forest to attack the Demoiselle and his English friends.
They approached Pickawillany at about nine o'clock on the morning of the
twenty-first. The scared squaws fled from the cornfields into the town,
where the wigwams of the Indians clustered about the fortified warehouse
of the traders. Of these there were at the time only eight in the place.
Most of the Indians also were gone on their summer hunt, though the
Demoiselle remained with a band of his tribesmen. Great was the
screeching of war-whoops and clatter of guns. Three of the traders were
caught outside the fort. The remaining five closed the gate, and stood
on their defence. The fight was soon over. Fourteen Miamis were shot
down, the Demoiselle among the rest. The five white men held out till
the afternoon, when three of them surrendered, and two, Thomas Burney
and Andrew McBryer, made their escape. One of the English prisoners
being wounded, the victors stabbed him to death. Seventy years of
missionaries had not weaned them from cannibalism, and they boiled and
eat the Demoiselle.[65]
[Footnote 64: _La Jonquière à Céleron, 1 Oct. 1751._]
[Footnote 65: On the attack of Pickawillany, _Longueuil au Ministre, 18
Août, 1752; Duquesne au Ministre, 25 Oct. 1752; Colonial Records of
Pa._, V. 599; _Journal of William Trent_, 1752. Trent was on the spot a
few days after the affair.]
The captive traders, plundered to the skin, were carried by Langlade to
Duquesne, the new governor, who highly praised the bold leader of the
enterprise, and recommended him to the Minister for such reward as
befitted one of his station. "As he is not in the King's service, and
has married a squaw, I will ask for him only a pension of two hundred
francs, which will flatter him infinitely."
The Marquis Duquesne, sprung from the race of the great naval commander
of that name, had arrived towards midsummer; and he began his rule by a
general review of troops and militia. His lofty bearing offended the
Canadians; but he compelled their respect, and, according to a writer of
the time, showed from the first that he was born to command. He
presently took in hand an enterprise which his predecessor would
probably have accomplished, had the Home Government encouraged him.
Duquesne, profiting by the infatuated neglect of the British provincial
assemblies, prepared to occupy the upper waters of the Ohio, and secure
the passes with forts and garrisons. Thus the Virginian and
Pennsylvanian traders would be debarred all access to the West, and the
tribes of that region, bereft henceforth of English guns, knives,
hatchets, and blankets, English gifts and English cajoleries, would be
thrown back to complete dependence on the French. The moral influence,
too, of such a movement would be incalculable; for the Indian respects
nothing so much as a display of vigor and daring, backed by force. In
short, the intended enterprise was a master-stroke, and laid the axe to
the very root of disaffection. It is true that, under the treaty,
commissioners had been long in session at Paris to settle the question
of American boundaries; but there was no likelihood that they would come
to agreement; and if France would make good her Western claims, it
behooved her, while there was yet time, to prevent her rival from
fastening a firm grasp on the countries in dispute.
Yet the Colonial Minister regarded the plan with distrust. "Be on your
guard," he wrote to Duquesne, "against new undertakings; private
interests are generally at the bottom of them. It is through these that
new posts are established. Keep only such as are indispensable, and
suppress the others. The expenses of the colony are enormous; and they
have doubled since the peace." Again, a little later: "Build on the Ohio
such forts as are absolutely necessary, but no more. Remember that His
Majesty suspects your advisers of interested views."[66]
[Footnote 66: _Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres_, 1753.]
No doubt there was justice in the suspicion. Every military movement,
and above all the establishment of every new post, was an opportunity to
the official thieves with whom the colony swarmed. Some band of favored
knaves grew rich; while a much greater number, excluded from sharing the
illicit profits, clamored against the undertaking, and wrote charges of
corruption to Versailles. Thus the Minister was kept tolerably well
informed; but was scarcely the less helpless, for with the Atlantic
between, the disorders of Canada defied his control. Duquesne was
exasperated by the opposition that met him on all hands, and wrote to
the Minister: "There are so many rascals in this country that one is
forever the butt of their attacks."[67]
[Footnote 67: _Duquesne au Ministre, 29 Sept._ 1754.]
It seems that unlawful gain was not the only secret spring of the
movement. An officer of repute says that the Intendant, Bigot,
enterprising in his pleasures as in his greed, was engaged in an
intrigue with the wife of Chevalier Péan; and wishing at once to console
the husband and to get rid of him, sought for him a high command at a
distance from the colony. Therefore while Marin, an able officer, was
made first in rank, Péan was made second. The same writer hints that
Duquesne himself was influenced by similar motives in his appointment of
leaders.[68]
[Footnote 68: Pouchot, _Mémoire sur la dernière Guerre de l'Amérique
septentrionale (ed._ 1781), I. 8.]
He mustered the colony troops, and ordered out the Canadians. With the
former he was but half satisfied; with the latter he was delighted; and
he praises highly their obedience and alacrity. "I had not the least
trouble in getting them to march. They came on the minute, bringing
their own guns, though many people tried to excite them to revolt; for
the whole colony opposes my operations." The expedition set out early in
the spring of 1753. The whole force was not much above a thousand men,
increased by subsequent detachments to fifteen hundred; but to the
Indians it seemed a mighty host; and one of their orators declared that
the lakes and rivers were covered with boats and soldiers from Montreal
to Presquisle.[69] Some Mohawk hunters by the St. Lawrence saw them as
they passed, and hastened home to tell the news to Johnson, whom they
wakened at midnight, "whooping and hollowing in a frightful manner."[70]
Lieutenant Holland at Oswego saw a fleet of canoes upon the lake, and
was told by a roving Frenchman that they belonged to an army of six
thousand men going to the Ohio, "to cause all the English to quit those
parts."[71]
[Footnote 69: _Duquesne au Ministre, 27 Oct._ 1753.]
[Footnote 70: _Johnson to Clinton, 20 April_, 1753, in _N.Y. Col.
Docs._, VI. 778.]
[Footnote 71: _Holland to Clinton, 15 May_, 1753, in _N.Y. Col. Docs._,
VI. 780.]
The main body of the expedition landed at Presquisle, on the
southeastern shore of Lake Erie, where the town of Erie now stands; and
here for a while we leave them.