In April, 1660, a young officer named Daulac, commandant of the garrison
at Montreal, asked leave of Maisonneuve, the governor, to lead a party
of volunteers against the Iroquois. His plan was bold to desperation. It
was known that Iroquois warriors, in great numbers, had wintered among
the forests of the Ottawa. Daulac proposed to waylay them on their
descent of the river, and fight them without regard to disparity of
force; and Maisonneuve, judging that a display of enterprise and
boldness might act as a check on the audacity of the enemy, at last gave
his consent.
Adam Daulac was a young man of good family, who had come to the colony
three years before, at the age of twenty-two. He had held some military
command in France, though in what rank does not appear. He had been busy
for some time among the young men of Montreal, inviting them to join him
in the enterprise he meditated. Sixteen of them caught his spirit. They
bound themselves by oath to accept no quarter; and, having gained
Maisonneuve’s consent, they made their wills, confessed, and received
the sacraments.
After a solemn farewell they embarked in several canoes, well supplied
with arms and ammunition. They were very indifferent canoe-men, and it
is said that they lost a week in vain attempts to pass the swift current
of Ste. Anne, at the head of the Island of Montreal. At length they were
successful, and entering the mouth of the Ottawa, crossed the Lake of
Two Mountains, and slowly advanced against the current.
About the first of May they reached the foot of the formidable rapid
called the Long Sault, where a tumult of waters, foaming among ledges
and boulders, barred the onward way. It was needless to go farther. The
Iroquois were sure to pass the Sault, and could be fought here as well
as elsewhere. Just below the rapid, where the forests sloped gently to
the shore, among the bushes and stumps of a rough clearing made in
constructing it, stood a palisade fort, the work of an Algonquin
war-party in the past autumn. It was a mere enclosure of trunks of small
trees planted in a circle, and was already in ruins. Such as it was, the
Frenchmen took possession of it. They made their fires and slung their
kettles, on the neighboring shore; and here they were soon joined by
forty Hurons and four Algonquins. Daulac, it seems, made no objection to
their company, and they all bivouacked together. Morning, noon, and
night, they prayed in three different tongues; and when at sunset the
long reach of forest on the farther shore basked peacefully in the level
rays, the rapids joined their hoarse music to the notes of their evening
hymn.
In a day or two their scouts came in with tidings that two Iroquois
canoes were coming down the Sault. Daulac had time to set his men in
ambush among the bushes at a point where he thought the strangers likely
to land. He judged aright. Canoes, bearing five Iroquois, approached,
and were met by a volley fired with such precipitation that one or more
of them escaped, fled into the forest, and told their mischance to their
main body, two hundred in number, on the river above. A fleet of canoes
suddenly appeared, bounding down the rapids, filled with warriors eager
for revenge. The allies had barely time to escape to their fort, leaving
their kettles still slung over the fires. The Iroquois made a hasty
attack, and were quickly repulsed. They next opened a parley, hoping, no
doubt, to gain some advantage by surprise. Failing in this, they set
themselves, after their custom on such occasions, to building a rude
fort of their own in the neighboring forest.
This gave the French a breathing-time, and they used it for
strengthening their defences. Being provided with tools, they planted a
row of stakes within their palisade, to form a double fence, and filled
the intervening space with earth and stones to the height of a man,
leaving some twenty loopholes, at each of which three marksmen were
stationed. Their work was still unfinished when the Iroquois were upon
them again. They had broken to pieces the birch canoes of the French and
their allies, and, kindling the bark, rushed up to pile it blazing
against the palisade; but so brisk and steady a fire met them that they
recoiled, and at last gave way. They came on again, and again were
driven back, leaving many of their number on the ground, among them the
principal chief of the Senecas.
This dashed the spirits of the Iroquois, and they sent a canoe to call
to their aid five hundred of their warriors, who were mustered near the
mouth of the Richelieu. These were the allies whom, but for this
untoward check, they were on their way to join for a combined attack on
Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal. It was maddening to see their grand
project thwarted by a few French and Indians ensconced in a paltry
redoubt, scarcely better than a cattle-pen, but they were forced to
digest the affront as best they might.
Meanwhile, crouched behind trees and logs, they beset the fort,
harassing its defenders day and night with a spattering fire and a
constant menace of attack. Thus five days passed. Hunger, thirst, and
want of sleep wrought fatally on the strength of the French and their
allies, who, pent up together in their narrow prison, fought and prayed
by turns. Deprived as they were of water, they could not swallow the
crushed Indian corn, or “hominy,” which was their only food. Some of
them, under cover of a brisk fire, ran down to the river and filled such
small vessels as they had; but this pittance only tantalized their
thirst. They dug a hole in the fort, and were rewarded at last by a
little muddy water oozing through the clay.
Among the assailants were a number of Hurons, adopted by the Iroquois,
and fighting on their side. These renegades now tried to seduce their
countrymen in the fort. Half dead with thirst and famine, they took the
bait, and one, two, or three at a time, climbed the palisade and ran
over to the enemy, amid the hootings and execrations of those whom they
deserted. Their chief stood firm; and when he saw his nephew join the
other fugitives, he fired his pistol at him in a rage. The four
Algonquins, who had no mercy to hope for, stood fast, with the courage
of despair.
On the fifth day an uproar of unearthly yells from seven hundred savage
throats, mingled with a clattering salute of musketry, told the
Frenchmen that the expected reënforcement had come; and soon, in the
forest and on the clearing, a crowd of warriors mustered for the attack.
Knowing from the Huron deserters the weakness of their enemy, they had
no doubt of an easy victory. They
[Illustration: THE DEATH OF DAULAC]
advanced cautiously, as was usual with the Iroquois before their blood
was up, screeching, leaping from side to side, and firing as they came
on; but the French were at their posts, and every loophole darted its
tongue of fire. The Iroquois, astonished at the persistent vigor of the
defence, fell back discomfited. The fire of the French, who were
themselves completely under cover, had told upon them with deadly
effect. Three days more wore away in a series of futile attacks, made
with little concert or vigor; and during all this time Daulac and his
men, reeling with exhaustion, fought and prayed as before, sure of a
martyr’s reward.
The uncertain temper common to all Indians now began to declare itself.
Some of the Iroquois were for going home. Others revolted at the
thought, and declared that it would be an eternal disgrace to lose so
many men, at the hands of so paltry an enemy, and yet fail to take
revenge. It was resolved to make a general assault, and volunteers were
called for to lead the attack. No precaution was neglected. Large and
heavy shields, four or five feet high, were made by lashing together
with the aid of cross-bars three split logs. Covering themselves with
these mantelets, the chosen band advanced, followed by the motley throng
of warriors. In spite of a brisk fire, they reached the palisade, and,
crouching below the range of shot, hewed furiously with their hatchets
to cut their way through. The rest followed close, and swarmed like
angry hornets around the little fort, hacking and tearing to get in.
Daulac had crammed a large musketoon with powder and plugged up the
muzzle. Lighting the fuse inserted in it, he tried to throw it over the
barrier, to burst like a grenade among the crowd of savages without; but
it struck the ragged top of one of the palisades, fell back among the
Frenchmen, and exploded, killing or wounding several of them, and nearly
blinding others. In the confusion that followed, the Iroquois got
possession of the loopholes, and, thrusting in their guns, fired on
those within. In a moment more they had torn a breach in the palisade;
but, nerved with the energy of desperation, Daulac and his followers
sprang to defend it. Daulac was struck dead, but the survivors kept up
the fight. With a sword or a hatchet in one hand and a knife in the
other, they threw themselves against the throng of enemies, striking and
stabbing with the fury of madmen; till the Iroquois, despairing of
taking them alive, fired volley after volley, and shot them down. All
was over, and a burst of triumphant yells proclaimed the dear-bought
victory.
Searching the pile of corpses, the victors found four Frenchmen still
breathing. Three had scarcely a spark of life, and, as no time was to be
lost, they burned them on the spot. The fourth, less fortunate, seemed
likely to survive, and they reserved him for future torments. As for the
Huron deserters, their cowardice profited them little. The Iroquois,
regardless of their promises, fell upon them, burned some at once, and
carried the rest to their villages for a similar fate. Five of the
number had the good fortune to escape, and it was from them, aided by
admissions made long afterwards by the Iroquois themselves, that the
French of Canada derived all their knowledge of this glorious disaster.
To the colony it proved a salvation. The Iroquois had had fighting
enough. If seventeen Frenchmen, four Algonquins, and one Huron, behind a
picket fence, could hold seven hundred warriors at bay so long, what
might they expect from many such, fighting behind walls of stone? For
that year they thought no more of capturing Quebec and Montreal, but
went home dejected and amazed, to howl over their losses, and nurse
their dashed courage for a day of vengeance.--FRANCIS PARKMAN.