1700-1750.
THE CHAIN OF POSTS.
OPPOSING CLAIMS.--ATTITUDE OF THE RIVAL NATIONS.--AMERICA A FRENCH
CONTINENT--ENGLAND A USURPER.--FRENCH DEMANDS.--MAGNANIMOUS
PROPOSALS.--WARLIKE PREPARATION.--NIAGARA.--OSWEGO.--CROWN POINT.--THE
PASSES OF THE WEST SECURED.
We have seen that the contest between France and England in America divided
itself, after the Peace of Utrecht, into three parts,--the Acadian contest;
the contest for northern New England; and last, though greatest, the
contest for the West. Nothing is more striking than the difference, or
rather contrast, in the conduct and methods of the rival claimants to this
wild but magnificent domain. Each was strong in its own qualities, and
utterly wanting in the qualities that marked its opponent.
On maps of British America in the earlier part of the eighteenth century,
one sees the eastern shore, from Maine to Georgia, garnished with ten or
twelve colored patches, very different in shape and size, and defined, more
or less distinctly, by dividing lines which, in some cases, are prolonged
westward till they touch the Mississippi, or even cross it and stretch
indefinitely towards the Pacific. These patches are the British provinces,
and the westward prolongation of their boundary lines represents their
several claims to vast interior tracts, founded on ancient grants, but not
made good by occupation, or vindicated by any exertion of power.
These English communities took little thought of the region beyond the
Alleghanies. Each lived a life of its own, shut within its own limits, not
dreaming of a future collective greatness to which the possession of the
West would be a necessary condition. No conscious community of aims and
interests held them together, nor was there any authority capable of
uniting their forces and turning them to a common object. Some of the
servants of the Crown had urged the necessity of joining them all under a
strong central government, as the only means of making them loyal subjects
and arresting the encroachments of France; but the scheme was plainly
impracticable. Each province remained in jealous isolation, busied with its
own work, growing in strength, in the capacity of self-rule and the spirit
of independence, and stubbornly resisting all exercise of authority from
without. If the English-speaking populations flowed westward, it was in
obedience to natural laws, for the King did not aid the movement, the royal
governors had no authority to do so, and the colonial assemblies were too
much engrossed with immediate local interests. The power of these colonies
was that of a rising flood slowly invading and conquering, by the
unconscious force of its own growing volume, unless means be found to hold
it back by dams and embankments within appointed limits.
In the French colonies all was different. Here the representatives of the
Crown were men bred in an atmosphere of broad ambition and masterful and
far-reaching enterprise. Achievement was demanded of them. They recognized
the greatness of the prize, studied the strong and weak points of their
rivals, and with a cautious forecast and a daring energy set themselves to
the task of defeating them.
If the English colonies were comparatively strong in numbers, their numbers
could not be brought into action; while if the French forces were small,
they were vigorously commanded, and always ready at a word. It was union
confronting division, energy confronting apathy, military centralization
opposed to industrial democracy; and, for a time, the advantage was all on
one side.
The demands of the French were sufficiently comprehensive. They repented of
their enforced concessions at the Treaty of Utrecht, and in spite of that
compact, maintained that, with a few local and trivial exceptions, the
whole North American continent, except Mexico, was theirs of right; while
their opponents seemed neither to understand the situation, nor see the
greatness of the stakes at issue.
In 1720 Father Bobé, priest of the Congregation of Missions, drew up a
paper in which he sets forth the claims of France with much distinctness,
beginning with the declaration that "England has usurped from France nearly
everything that she possesses in America," and adding that the
plenipotentiaries at Utrecht did not know what they were about when they
made such concessions to the enemy; that, among other blunders, they gave
Port Royal to England when it belonged to France, who should "insist
vigorously" on its being given back to her.
He maintains that the voyages of Verrazzano and Ribaut made France owner of
the whole continent, from Florida northward; that England was an interloper
in planting colonies along the Atlantic coast, and will admit as much if
she is honest, since all that country is certainly a part of New France. In
this modest assumption of the point at issue, he ignores John Cabot and his
son Sebastian, who discovered North America more than twenty-five years
before the voyage of Verrazzano, and more than sixty years before that of
Ribaut.
When the English, proceeds Father Bobé, have restored Port Royal to us,
which they are bound to do, though we ceded it by the treaty, a French
governor should be at once set over it, with a commission to command as far
as Cape Cod, which would include Boston. We should also fortify ourselves,
"in a way to stop the English, who have long tried to seize on French
America, of which they know the importance, and of which," he observes with
much candor, "they would make a better use than the French do...The
Atlantic coast, as far as Florida, was usurped from the French, to whom it
belonged then, and to whom it belongs now." [Footnote: "De maniere qu'on
puisse arreter les Anglois, qui depuis longtems tachent de s'emparer de
l'Amerique françoise, dont ils conoissent l'importance et dont ils feroient
un meillieur usage que celuy qui les françois en font."] England, as he
thinks, is bound in honor to give back these countries to their true owner;
and it is also the part of wisdom to do so, since by grasping at too much,
one often loses all. But France, out of her love of peace, will cede to
England the countries along the Atlantic, from the Kennebec in New France
to the Jordan [Footnote: On the river Jordan, so named by Vasquez de
Ayllon, see _Pioneers of France in the New World_, pp. 11, 39 (revised
edition) _note_. It was probably the Broad River of South Carolina.]
in Carolina, on condition that England will restore to her all that she
gave up by the Treaty of Utrecht. When this is done, France, always
generous, will consent to accept as boundary a line drawn from the mouth of
the Kennebec, passing thence midway between Schenectady and Lake Champlain
and along the ridge of the Alleghanies to the river Jordan, the country
between this line and the sea to belong to England, and the rest of the
continent to France.
If England does not accept this generous offer, she is to be told that the
King will give to the Compagnie des Indes (Law's Mississippi Company) full
authority to occupy "all the countries which the English have usurped from
France;" and, pursues Father Bobé, "it is certain that the fear of having
to do with so powerful a company will bring the English to our terms." The
company that was thus to strike the British heart with terror was the same
which all the tonics and stimulants of the government could not save from
predestined ruin. But, concludes this ingenious writer, whether England
accepts our offers or not, France ought not only to take a high tone
(_parler avec hauteur_), but also to fortify diligently, and make good
her right by force of arms. [Footnote: _Second Mémoire concernant les
Limites des Colonies présenté en 1720 par Bobé, prêtre de la Congrégation
de la Mission_ (Archives Nationales).]
Three years later we have another document, this time of an official
character, and still more radical in its demands. It admits that Port Royal
and a part of the Nova Scotian peninsula, under the name of Acadia, were
ceded to England by the treaty, and consents that she shall keep them, but
requires her to restore the part of New France that she has wrongfully
seized,--namely, the whole Atlantic coast from the Kennebec to Florida;
since France never gave England this country, which is hers by the
discovery of Verrazzano in 1524. Here, again, the voyages of the Cabots, in
1497 and 1498, are completely ignored.
"It will be seen," pursues this curious document, "that our kings have
always preserved sovereignty over the countries between the 30th and the
50th degrees of north latitude. A time will come when they will be in a
position to assert their rights, and then it will be seen that the
dominions of a king of France cannot be usurped with impunity. What we
demand now is that the English make immediate restitution." No doubt, the
paper goes on to say, they will pretend to have prescriptive rights,
because they have settled the country and built towns and cities in it; but
this plea is of no avail, because all that country is a part of New France,
and because England rightfully owns nothing in America except what we, the
French, gave her by the Treaty of Utrecht, which is merely Port Royal and
Acadia. She is bound in honor to give back all the vast countries she has
usurped; but, continues the paper, "the King loves the English nation too
much, and wishes too much to do her kindness, and is too generous to exact
such a restitution. Therefore, provided that England will give us back Port
Royal, Acadia, and everything else that France gave her by the Treaty of
Utrecht, the King will forego his rights, and grant to England the whole
Atlantic coast from the 32d degree of latitude to the Kennebec, to the
extent inland of twenty French leagues [about fifty miles], on condition
that she will solemnly bind herself never to overstep these limits or
encroach in the least on French ground."
Thus, through the beneficence of France, England, provided that she
renounced all pretension to the rest of the continent, would become the
rightful owner of an attenuated strip of land reaching southward from the
Kennebec along the Atlantic seaboard. The document containing this
magnanimous proposal was preserved in the Château St. Louis at Quebec till
the middle of the eighteenth century, when, the boundary dispute having
reached a crisis, and commissioners of the two powers having been appointed
to settle it, a certified copy of the paper was sent to France for their
instruction. [Footnote: _Demandes de la France_, 1723 (Archives des
Affaires Etrangères).]
Father Bobé had advised that France should not trust solely to the justice
of her claims, but should back right with might, and build forts on the
Niagara, the Ohio, the Tennessee, and the Alabama, as well as at other
commanding points, to shut out the English from the West. Of these
positions, Niagara was the most important, for the possession of it would
close the access to the Upper Lakes, and stop the Western tribes on their
way to trade at Albany. The Five Nations and the Governor of New York were
jealous of the French designs, which, however, were likely enough to
succeed, through the prevailing apathy and divisions in the British
colonies. "If those not immediately concerned," writes a member of the New
York council, "only stand gazing on while the wolff is murthering other
parts of the flock, it will come to every one's turn at last." The warning
was well founded, but it was not heeded. Again: "It is the policy of the
French to attack one colony at a time, and the others are so besotted as to
sit still." [Footnote: _Colonel Heathcote to Governor Hunter, 8 July_,
1715. _Ibid, to Townshend, 12 July_, 1715.]
For gaining the consent of the Five Nations to the building of a French
fort at Niagara, Vaudreuil trusted chiefly to his agent among the Senecas,
the bold, skilful, and indefatigable Joncaire, who was naturalized among
that tribe, the strongest of the confederacy. Governor Hunter of New York
sent Peter Schuyler and Philip Livingston to counteract his influence. The
Five Nations, who, conscious of declining power, seemed ready at this time
to be all things to all men, declared that they would prevent the French
from building at Niagara, which, as they said, would "shut them up as in a
prison." [Footnote: _Journal of Schuyler and Livingston_, 1720.] Not
long before, however, they had sent a deputation to Montreal to say that
the English made objection to Joncaire's presence among them, but that they
were masters of their land, and hoped that the French agent would come as
often as he pleased; and they begged that the new King of France would take
them under his protection. [Footnote: _Vaudreuil au Conseil de
Marine_, 24 _Oct._ 1717.] Accordingly, Vaudreuil sent them a
present, with a message to the effect that they might plunder such English
traders as should come among them. [Footnote: _Vaudreuil et Bégon au
Conseil de Marine_, 26 _Oct._ 1719]
Yet so jealous were the Iroquois of a French fort at Niagara that they sent
three Seneca chiefs to see what was going on there. The chiefs found a few
Frenchmen in a small blockhouse, or loopholed storehouse, which they had
just built near Lewiston Heights. The three Senecas requested them to
demolish it and go away, which the Frenchmen refused to do; on which the
Senecas asked the English envoys, Schuyler and Livingston, to induce the
Governor of New York to destroy the obnoxious building. In short, the Five
Nations wavered incessantly between their two European neighbors, and
changed their minds every day. The skill and perseverance of the French
emissaries so far prevailed at last that the Senecas consented to the
building of a fort at the mouth of the Niagara, where Denonville had built
one in 1687; and thus that important pass was made tolerably secure.
Meanwhile the English of New York, or rather Burnet, their governor, were
not idle. Burnet was on ill terms with his Assembly, which grudged him all
help in serving the province whose interests it was supposed to represent.
Burnet's plan was to build a fortified trading-house at Oswego, on Lake
Ontario, in the belief that the Western Indians, who greatly preferred
English goods and English prices, would pass Niagara and bring their furs
to the new post. He got leave from the Five Nations to execute his plan,
bought canoes, hired men, and built a loopholed house of stone on the site
of the present city of Oswego. As the Assembly would give no money, Burnet
furnished it himself; and though the object was one of the greatest
importance to the province, he was never fully repaid. [Footnote: "I am
ashamed to confess that he built the fort at his private expense, and that
a balance of above £56 remains due to his estate to this very day." Smith,
_History of New York_, 267 (ed. 1814).] A small garrison for the new
post was drawn from the four independent companies maintained in the
province at the charge of the Crown.
The establishment of Oswego greatly alarmed and incensed the French, and a
council of war at Quebec resolved to send two thousand men against it; but
Vaudreuil's successor, the Marquis de Beauharnois, learning that the court
was not prepared to provoke a war, contented himself with sending a summons
to the commanding officer to abandon and demolish the place within a
fortnight. [Footnote: _Mémoire de Dupuy_, 1728. Dupuy was intendant of
Canada. The King approved the conduct of Beauharnois in not using force.
_Dépêche du Roy, 14 Mai, 1728._] To this no attention was given; and
as Burnet had foreseen, Oswego became the great centre of Indian trade,
while Niagara, in spite of its more favorable position, was comparatively
slighted by the Western tribes. The chief danger rose from the obstinate
prejudice of the Assembly, which, in its disputes with the Royal Governor,
would give him neither men nor money to defend the new post.
The Canadian authorities, who saw in Oswego an intrusion on their domain
and a constant injury and menace, could not attack it without bringing on a
war, and therefore tried to persuade the Five Nations to destroy it,--an
attempt which completely failed. [Footnote: When urged by the younger
Longueuil to drive off the English from Oswego, the Indians replied, "Drive
them off thyself." _"Chassez-les toi-même." Longueuil fils au Ministre,
19 Oct. 1728._] They then established a trading-post at Toronto, in the
vain hope of stopping the Northern tribes on their way to the more
profitable English market, and they built two armed vessels at Fort
Frontenac to control the navigation of Lake Ontario.
Meanwhile, in another quarter the French made an advance far more
threatening to the English colonies than Oswego was to their own. They had
already built a stone fort at Chambly, which covered Montreal from any
English attack by way of Lake Champlain. As that lake was the great highway
between the rival colonies, the importance of gaining full mastery of it
was evident. It was rumored in Canada that the English meant to seize and
fortify the place called Scalp Point (_Pointe à la Chevelure_) by the
French, and Crown Point by the English, where the lake suddenly contracts
to the proportions of a river, so that a few cannon would stop the passage.
As early as 1726 the French made an attempt to establish themselves on the
east side of the lake opposite Crown Point, but were deterred by the
opposition of Massachusetts. This eastern shore was, however, claimed not
only by Massachusetts, but by her neighbor, New Hampshire, with whom she
presently fell into a dispute about the ownership, and, as a writer of the
time observes, "while they were quarrelling for the bone, the French ran
away with it." [Footnote: Mitchell, _Contest in America_, 22.]
At length, in 1731, the French took post on the western side of the lake,
and began to intrench themselves at Crown Point, which was within the
bounds claimed by New York; but that province, being then engrossed, not
only by her chronic dispute with her Governor, but by a quarrel with her
next neighbor, New Jersey, slighted the danger from the common enemy, and
left the French to work their will. It was Saint-Luc de la Corne,
Lieutenant du Roy at Montreal, who pointed out the necessity of fortifying
this place, [Footnote: _La Corne au Ministre, 15 Oct. 1730._] in order
to anticipate the English, who, as he imagined, were about to do so,--a
danger which was probably not imminent, since the English colonies, as a
whole, could not and would not unite for such a purpose, while the
individual provinces were too much absorbed in their own internal affairs
and their own jealousies and disputes to make the attempt. La Corne's
suggestion found favor at court, and the Governor of Canada was ordered to
occupy Crown Point. The Sieur de la Fresnière was sent thither with troops
and workmen, and a fort was built, and named Fort Frédéric. It contained a
massive stone tower, mounted with cannon to command the lake, which is here
but a musket-shot wide. Thus was established an advanced post of France,--a
constant menace to New York and New England, both of which denounced it as
an outrageous encroachment on British territory, but could not unite to rid
themselves of it. [Footnote: On the establishment of Crown Point,
_Beauharnois et Hocquart au Roy_, 10 Oct. 1731; _Beauharnois et
Hocquart au Ministre_, 14 Nov. 1731.]
While making this bold push against their neighbors of the South, the
French did not forget the West; and towards the middle of the century they
had occupied points controlling all the chief waterways between Canada and
Louisiana. Niagara held the passage from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. Detroit
closed the entrance to Lake Huron, and Michillimackinac guarded the point
where Lake Huron is joined by Lakes Michigan and Superior; while the fort
called La Baye, at the head of Green Bay, stopped the way to the
Mississippi by Marquette's old route of Fox River and the Wisconsin.
Another route to the Mississippi was controlled by a post on the Maumee to
watch the carrying-place between that river and the Wabash, and by another
on the Wabash where Vincennes now stands. La Salle's route, by way of the
Kankakee and the Illinois, was barred by a fort on the St. Joseph; and even
if, in spite of these obstructions, an enemy should reach the Mississippi
by any of its northern affluents, the cannon of Fort Chartres would prevent
him from descending it.
These various Western forts, except Fort Chartres and Fort Niagara, which
were afterwards rebuilt, the one in stone and the other in earth, were
stockades of no strength against cannon. Slight as they were, their
establishment was costly; and as the King, to whom Canada was a yearly
loss, grudged every franc spent upon it, means were contrived to make them
self-supporting. Each of them was a station of the fur-trade, and the
position of most of them had been determined more or less with a view to
that traffic.
Hence they had no slight commercial value. In some of them the Crown itself
carried on trade through agents who usually secured a lion's share of the
profits. Others were farmed out to merchants at a fixed sum. In others,
again, the commanding-officer was permitted to trade on condition of
maintaining the post, paying the soldiers, and supporting a missionary;
while in one case, at least, he was subjected to similar obligations,
though not permitted to trade himself, but only to sell trading licenses to
merchants. These methods of keeping up forts and garrisons were of course
open to prodigious abuses, and roused endless jealousies and rivalries.
France had now occupied the valley of the Mississippi, and joined with
loose and uncertain links her two colonies of Canada and Louisiana. But the
strength of her hold on these regions of unkempt savagery bore no
proportion to the vastness of her claims or the growing power of the rivals
who were soon to contest them. [Footnote: On the claim of France that all
North America, except the Spanish colonies of Mexico and Florida, belonged
to her, see Appendix A.]