1686-1697
D’IBERVILLE SWEEPS THE BAY (_Continued_)
The French were now in complete possession of the south end of Hudson
Bay. Iberville’s brother, Maricourt, with a handful of men remained
at Albany to guard the captured forts. Some of the English, who had
taken to the woods in flight, now found the way to Severn River,
half-way north between Albany and Nelson, where they hastily rushed
up rude winter quarters and boldly did their best to keep the Indians
from communicating with the French. Among the refugees was Chouart
Groseillers, who became one of the chief advisers at Nelson. Two of
his comrades had promptly deserted to the French side. For ten years,
Hudson Bay became the theater of such escapades as buccaneers might
have enacted on the Spanish Main. England and France were at peace. A
Treaty of Neutrality, in 1686, had provided that the bay should be held
in common by the fur traders of both countries, but the Company of the
North in Quebec and the English Adventurers of London had no notion of
leaving their rights in such an ambiguous position. Both fitted out
their raiders to fight the quarrel to the end, and in spite of the
Treaty of Neutrality, the King of France issued secret instructions
to the bush-rovers of Quebec “_to leave of the English forts on the
Northern Bay, not a vestige standing_.” If the bay were to be held in
common, and the English abandoned it, all rights would revert to France.
The year 1687 saw the tireless Iberville back at Rupert River. The
Hudson’s Bay sloop, _The Young_, had come to port. Iberville seized
it without any ado and sent four spies over to Charlton Island where
_The Churchill_, under Captain Bond, was wintering. Three of the French
spies were summarily captured by the English fur traders and thrown
into the hold of the ship, manacled, for the winter. In spring, one was
brought above decks to give the English sailors a helping hand. The
fellow waited till six of the crew were up the ratlines, then he seized
an axe, tip-toed up behind two Englishmen, brained them on the spot,
rushing down the hatchway liberated his two comrades, took possession
of all firearms and at pistol point kept the Englishmen up the mast
poles till he steered the vessel across to Iberville at Rupert River,
where a cargo of provisions saved the French from famine.
It was in vain that the English sent rescue parties south from Nelson
and Severn to recapture Albany. Captain Moon had come down from Nelson
with twenty-four men to Albany, reinforced by the crews of the two
ships, _Hampshire_ and _North-West Fox_, when Iberville came canoeing
across the ice floes with his Indian bandits. The English ships were
locked in the ice before the besieged fort. Iberville ambushed his men
in the tamarack swamps till eighty-two English had landed. Then, he
rushed the deserted vessels, took possession of one with its cargo of
furs, and as the ice cleared sailed gayly out of Albany for Quebec. The
astounded English set fire to the other ship and retreated overland
to Severn. At the straits, Iberville ran full-tilt into the fleet of
incoming English vessels, but that was nothing to disconcert this
blockade-runner, not though the ice closed round them all, holding
French and English prisoners within gunshot of each other. Iberville
ran up an English flag on his captured ship and had actually signaled
the captains of the English frigates to come across the ice and visit
him when the water cleared, and away he sailed.
Perhaps success bred reckless carelessness on the part of the French.
From 1690 to ’93, Iberville was absent from the bay on the border
raids of Schenectady, and Pemaquid in New England. Mike Grimmington
of _The Perpetuana_ was at last released from captivity in Quebec and
came to England with rage in his heart and vengeance in his hands for
France. It was now almost impossible for the English Adventurers to
hire captains and crews for the dangerous work of their trade on the
bay. The same pensions paid by the State were offered by the Company in
case of wounds or death, and in addition a bonus of twenty shillings
a month was guaranteed to the sailors, of from £50 to £200 a year to
the captains. A present of £10 plate was given to Grimmington for his
bravery and he was appointed captain. Coming out to Nelson in ’93,
Grimmington determined to capture back Albany for the English. Three
ships sailed down to Albany from Nelson. The fort looked deserted.
Led by Grimmington, the sailors hacked open the gates. Only four
Frenchmen were holding the fort. The rest of the garrison were off
hunting in the woods, and in the woods they were forced to remain
that winter; for Grimmington ransacked the fort, took possession and
clapped the French under Mons. Captain Le Meux, prisoners in the hold
of his vessel. With Grimmington on this raid was his old mate in
captivity—Smithsend. Albany was the largest fort on the bay at this
time. As the two English captains searched the cellars they came on a
ghastly sight—naked, covered with vermin, shackled hands to feet and
chained to the wall was a French criminal, who had murdered first the
surgeon, then the priest of the fort. He, too, was turned adrift in the
woods with the rest of the garrison.
* * * * *
Mons. Le Meux, carried to England captive, is examined by the English
Adventurers. From his account, all the French garrisons are small and
France holds but lightly what she has captured so easily. Captain
Grimmington is given a tankard worth £36 for his distinguished
services. Captain Edgecombe of _The Royal Hudson’s Bay_, who, in spite
of the war, has brought home a cargo of twenty-two thousand beaver, is
given plate to the value of £20 as well as a gratuity of £100. Captain
Ford, who was carried prisoner to France by Iberville, is ransomed, and
_The Hampshire_ vessel put up at auction in France is bid in by secret
agents of the English company. Chouart Groseillers is welcomed home
to London, and given a present of £100 and allowed to take a graceful
farewell of the Company, as are all its French servants. The Company
wants no French servants on the bay just now—not even Radisson to whom
Mons. Péré, now escaped to France, writes tempting offers. Sargeant,
who lost Albany in 1686, is first sued for £20,000 damages for
surrendering the fort so easily, and is then rewarded £350 for holding
it so bravely. Phipps has refused point-blank to serve as governor
any longer at so dangerous a point as Nelson for so small a salary as
£200 a year. Phipps comes home. Abraham tries it for a year. He, too,
loses relish for the danger spot, and Walsh goes to Nelson as governor
with the apprentice boy Henry Kelsey, risen to be first lieutenant. In
spite of wars and raids and ambuscades, there is a dividend of 50 per
cent. in ’88, (the King refusing to receive it personally as it might
prejudice him with France) and of 50 per cent. in ’89, and of 25 per
cent. in ’90 on stock which had been trebled, which was equivalent to
75 per cent. dividends; and there are put on record in the Company’s
minutes these sentiments: “_being thoroughly sensible of the great
blessing it has pleased Almighty God to give the company by the arrival
of the shippes, the comp’y doo thinke fitt to show some testimony
of their Humble thankfulness for Gods so great a mercy and doo now
unanimously resolve that the sum of £100 bee sett aparte as charity
money to be distributed amongst such persons as shall dye or be wounded
in the companies’ service, their widows or children & the secretary is
to keep a particular account in the company’s books for the future_.”
Stock forfeited for the breaking of rules is also to go to wounded men
and widows.
And the Company is equally generous to itself; no shilling pay for
committeemen now but a salary of £300 a year to each committeeman of
the weekly meetings on the Company’s business.
The upshot of the frequent meetings and increasing dividends was—the
Company resolved on a desperate effort to recapture the lost forts.
The English now held—Nelson, the great fur emporium of the North; New
Severn to the South, which had been built by refugees from Albany,
burnt twice to escape bush-raiders and as promptly rebuilt when the
French withdrew; and Albany, itself, which Mike Grimmington had
captured back.
The French held Moose and Rupert on the south of the bay.
[Illustration:
Terms of surrender between Le Moyne d’Iberville and Governor Walsh at
York Fort. These terms, the Hudson’s Bay Company averred in petitions,
were grossly violated by the French. Original in the H. B. C. Memorial
Books transferred to Public Records. ]
James Knight, who had acted variously as apprentice, trader and captain
from the beginning of the Company—was now appointed commander of the
south end of the bay, with headquarters at Albany, at a salary of £400
a year. Here, he was to resist the French and keep them from advancing
north to Nelson. New Severn, next north, was still to serve as a refuge
in case of attack. At Nelson, in addition to Walsh, Bailey—a new
man—Geyer, a captain, and Kelsey were to have command as officers.
Three frigates—_The Dering_, _The Hudson’s Bay_ and _The Hampshire_
are commissioned to the bay with letters of marque to war on all
enemies, and three merchantmen—_The Prosperous_, _The Owner’s Love_
and _The Perry_ are also to go to the bay. Mutinous of voyages to the
bay, seamen are paid in advance, and two hundred and twenty gallons of
brandy are divided among the ships to warm up courage as occasion may
require.
* * * * *
But Iberville was not the man to let his winnings slip through his
fingers. It had now become more than a guerrilla warfare between
gamesters of the wilderness. It was a fight for ascendency on the
continent. It was a struggle to determine which nation was to command
the rivers leading inland to the unknown West. If the French raiders
were to hold the forts at the bottom of the bay, they must capture the
great stronghold of the English—Nelson.
Taking on board one hundred and twenty woodrangers, Iberville sailed
from Quebec on August 10, 1694. He had two frigates—_The Poli_ and
_Salamander_. By September 24, he was unloading his cannon below the
earthworks of one hundred great guns at Nelson. Steady bombardment
from his frigates poured bombs into the fort from September 25 to
October 14, and without ceasing, the fort guns sent back a rain of
fire and ball. Chateauguay, Iberville’s brother, landed to attempt
a rush with his bush-rovers by the rear. He was met at the pickets
by a spattering fire and fell shot as other brave sons of the Le
Moyne family fell—wounded in front, shouting a rally with his dying
breath. The death of their comrade redoubled the fury of the raiders.
While long-range guns tore up the earthworks and cut great gashes
in the shattered palisades to the fore, the bushrangers behind had
knocked down pickets and were in a hand-to-hand fight in the ditch
that separated the rows of double palisades. In the hope of saving
their furs, Walsh and Kelsey hung out a tablecloth as flag of truce.
For a day, the parley lasted, the men inside the pickets seizing the
opportunity to eat and rest, and spill all liquor on the ground and
bury ammunition and hide personal treasures. The weather had turned
bitterly cold. Winter was impending. No help could come from England
till the following July. Walsh did his best in a bad bargain, asking
that the officers be lodged till the ships came the next year, that the
English be allowed the same provisions as the French, that no injury be
offered the English traders during the winter, and that they should be
allowed to keep the Company’s books.
Iberville was depending on loot to pay his men, and would not hear
of granting the furs to the English, but he readily subscribed to
the other conditions of surrender, and took possession of the fort.
When Iberville hastily sailed away to escape through the straits
before winter closed them, he left De la Forêst commander at Nelson,
Jeremie, interpreter. And De la Forêst quickly ignored the conditions
of surrender. He was not a good man to be left in charge. He was one
of those who had outfitted Radisson in ’83 and lost when Radisson
turned Nelson over to the English in ’84. Early next year, the English
ships would come. If De la Forêst could but torture some of the
English officers, who were his prisoners, into betraying the secret
signals of the ships, he might lure them into port and recoup himself
for that loss of ten years ago. Only four officers were kept in the
fort. The rest of the fifty-three prisoners were harried and abused
so that they were glad to flee to the woods. Beds, clothes, guns and
ammunition—everything, was taken from them. Eight or ten, who hung
round the fort, were treated as slaves. One Englishman was tied to a
stake and tortured with hot irons to compel him to tell the signals
of the English ships. But the secret was not told. No English ships
anchored at Port Nelson in the summer of ’95. The sail that hove on
the offing was a French privateer. In the hold of this, the English
survivors were huddled like beasts, fed on pease and dogs’ meat. The
ship leaked, and when the water rose to mid-waist of the prisoners,
they were not allowed to come above decks, but set to pumping the
water out. On the chance of ransom money, the privateer carried the
prisoners in irons to France because—as one of the sufferers afterward
took oath—“_we had not the money to grease the commander’s fist for
our freedom_.” Of the fifty-three Hudson’s Bay men turned adrift from
Nelson, only twenty-five survived the winter.
So the merry game went on between the rival traders of the North,
French and English fighting as furiously for a beaver pelt as the
Spanish fought for gold. The English Adventurers’ big resolutions to
capture back the bay had ended in smoke. They had lost Nelson and now
possessed only one fort on the bay—Albany, under Governor Knight;
but one thing now favored the English. Open war had taken the place
of secret treaty between France and England. The Company applied to
the government for protection. The English Admiralty granted two
men-of-war, _The Bonaventure_ and _Seaforth_, under Captain Allen.
These accompanied Grimmington and Smithsend to Nelson in ’96, so when
Iberville’s brother, Serigny, came out from France with provisions on
_The Poli_ and _Hardi_ for the French garrisons at Nelson, he found
English men-of-war lined up for attack in front of the fort. Serigny
didn’t wait. He turned swift heel for the sea, so swift, indeed, that
_The Hardi_ split on an ice floe and went to the bottom with all hands.
On August 26, Captain Allen of the Royal Navy, demanded the surrender
of Nelson from Governor De la Forêst. Without either provision or
powder, La Forêst had no choice but to capitulate. In the fort, Allen
seized twenty thousand beaver pelts.
Nelson or York—as it is now known—consisted under the French rule of
a large square house, with lead roof and limestone walls. There were
four bastions to the courtyard—one for the garrisons’ lodgings, one
for trade, one for powder, one for provisions. All the buildings were
painted red. Double palisades with a trench between enclosed the yard.
There were two large gates, one to the waterside, one inland, paneled
in iron with huge, metal hinges showing the knobs of big nail heads.
A gallery ran round the roof of the main house, and on this were
placed five cannon. Three cannon were also mounted in each bastion.
The officers’ mess room boasted a huge iron hearth, oval tables, wall
cupboards, and beds that shut up in the wall-panels.
Captain Allen now retaliated on the French for their cruelty to English
captives by taking the entire garrison prisoners. Loaded with furs to
the water-line, the English ships left Bailey and Kelsey at Nelson and
sailed slowly for England. Just at the entrance to the straits—the
place already made so famous by Indian attack on Hudson’s crew, and
French raid on _The Perpetuana_, a swift-sailing French privateer bore
down on the fleet, singled out Allen’s ship which was separated from
the other, poured a volley of shot across her decks which killed Allen
on the spot, and took to flight before the other ship could come to the
rescue. Was this Iberville’s brother—Serigny—on his way home? It will
never be known, for as the ships made no capture, the action is not
reported in French records.
The war had reduced the Hudson’s Bay Company to such straits that
several of the directors had gone bankrupt advancing money to keep the
ships sailing. No more money could be borrowed in England, and agents
were trying to raise funds in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, the Company
presented the captains—Smithsend and Grimmington—with £100 each for
capturing York. The captured furs replenished the exhausted finances
and preparation was made to dispatch a mighty fleet that would forever
settle mastery of the bay.
Two hundred extra mariners were to be engaged. On _The Dering_,
Grimmington, now a veteran campaigner, was to take sixty fighting men.
Captain Moon was to have eighteen on the little frigate, _Perry_.
Edgecombe’s _Hudson’s Bay_, frigate, was to have fifty-five; Captain
Fletcher’s _Hampshire_, sixty; the fire ship _Prosperous_ another
thirty under a new man, Captain Batty. These mariners were in addition
to the usual seamen and company servants. On _The Hudson’s Bay_ also
went Smithsend as adviser in the campaign. Every penny that could be
raised on sales of beaver, all that the directors were able to pledge
of their private fortunes, and all the money that could be borrowed by
the Adventurers as a corporate company, went to outfit the vessels for
what was to be the deciding campaign. With Bailey in control at Nelson
and old Governor Knight down at Albany—surely the French could be
driven completely from the bay.
* * * * *
Those captives that Allen’s ship had brought to England, lay in prison
five months at Portsmouth before they were set free. Released at last,
they hastened to France where their emaciated, ragged condition spoke
louder than their indignant words. Frenchmen languishing in English
prison! Like wildfire ran the rumor of the outrage! Once before when
Péré, the Frenchman, had been imprisoned on Hudson Bay, Iberville
had thrust the sword of vengeance into the very heart of the English
fastness. France turned again to the same Robin Hood of Canada’s rude
chivalry. Iberville was at this time carrying havoc from hamlet to
hamlet of Newfoundland, where two hundred English had already fallen
before his sword and seven hundred been captured.
On the 7th of April, 1697, Scrigny, his brother, just home from Nelson,
was dispatched from France with five men-of-war—_The Pelican_, _The
Palmier_, _The Profound_, _The Violent_, _The Wasp_—to be placed under
Iberville’s command at Placentia, Newfoundland, whence he was to
proceed to Hudson Bay with orders, “to leave not a vestige remaining”
of the English fur trade in the North.
The squadron left Newfoundland on July 8. By the 25th, the ships had
entered the straits amid berg and floe, with the long, transparent
daylight, when sunset merges with sunrise. Iberville was on _The
Pelican_ with Bienville, his brother, two hundred and fifty men and
fifty guns. The other brother, Serigny, commanded _The Palmier_, and
Edward Fitzmaurice of Kerry, a Jacobite, had come as chaplain. A gun
gone loose in the hold of _The Wasp_, created a panic during the
heavy seas of the Upper Narrows in the straits—the huge implement of
terror rolling from side to side of the dark hold with each wash of
the billows in a way that threatened to capsize the vessel—not a man
daring to risk his life to stop the cannon’s roll; and several gunners
were crushed to death before _The Wasp_ could come to anchor in a quiet
harbor to mend the damage. On _The Pelican_, Iberville’s ship, forty
men lay in their berths ill of scurvy. The fleet was stopped by ice at
Digges’ Island at the west end of the straits—a place already famous
in the raiders’ history. Here, the icepans, contracted by the straits,
locked around the vessels in iron grip. Fog fell concealing the ships
from one another, except for the ensigns at the mastheads, which showed
all the fleet anchored southward except Iberville’s _Pelican_. For
eighteen days the impatient raider found himself forcibly gripped to
the ice floes in fog, his ship crushed and banged and bodily lifted
until a powder blast relieved pressure, or holes drilled and filled
with bombs broke the ice crush, or unshipping the rudder, his own
men disembarked and up to the waist in ice slush towed _The Pelican_
forward.
On the 25th of August at four in the morning, the fog suddenly lifted.
Iberville saw that _The Palmier_ had been carried back in the straits.
_The Wasp_ and _Violent_ had disappeared, but straight to the fore,
ice-jammed, were _The Profound_, and—Iberville could scarcely believe
the evidence of his eyes—three English men-of-war, _The Hampshire_, and
_Dering_, and _Hudson’s Bay_ closing in a circle round the ill-fated
and imprisoned French ship. Just at that moment, the ice loosened.
Iberville was off like a bird in _The Pelican_, not waiting to see what
became of _The Profound_, which escaped from the ice that night after
a day’s bombardment when the English were in the act of running across
the ice for a hand-to-hand fight.
On the 3rd of September, Iberville anchored before Port Nelson.
Anxiously, for two days, he scanned the sea for the rest of his fleet.
On the morning of the fifth, the peaked sails of three vessels rose
above the offing. Raising anchor, Iberville hastened out to meet them,
and signaled a welcome. No response signaled back. The horrified watch
at the masthead called down some warning. Then the full extent of the
terrible mistake dawned on Iberville. These were not his consort ships
at all. They were the English men-of-war, _The Hampshire_, Captain
Fletcher, fifty-two guns and sixty soldiers; _The Dering_, Captain
Grimmington, thirty guns and sixty men; _The Hudson’s Bay_, Edgecombe
and Smithsend, thirty-two guns and fifty-five men—hemming him in a
fatal circle between the English fort on the land and their own cannon
to sea.
One can guess the wild whoop of jubilation that went up from the
Englishmen to see their enemy of ten years’ merciless raids, now
hopelessly trapped between their fleet and the fort. The English
vessels had the wind in their favor and raced over the waves all sails
set like a war troop keen for prey. Iberville didn’t wait. He had
weighed anchor to sail out when he thought the vessels were his own,
and now he kept unswervingly on his course. Of his original crew, forty
were invalided. Some twenty-five had been sent ashore to reconnoiter
the fort. Counting the Canadians and Indians taken on at Newfoundland,
he could muster only one hundred and fifty fighting men. Quickly, ropes
were stretched to give the mariners hand-hold over the frost-slippery
decks. Stoppers were ripped from the fifty cannon, and the batterymen
below, under La Salle and Grandville, had stripped naked in preparation
for the hell of flame and heat that was to be their portion in the
impending battle. Bienville, Iberville’s brother, swung the infantrymen
in line above decks, swords and pistols prepared for the hand-to-hand
grapple. De la Potherie got the Canadians to the forecastle, knives and
war hatchets out, bodies stripped, all ready to board when the ships
knocked keels. Iberville knew it was to be like those old-time raids—a
Spartan conflict—a fight to the death; death or victory; and he swept
right up to _The Hampshire_, Fletcher’s frigate, the strongest of the
foe, where every shot would tell. _The Hampshire_ shifted broadsides to
the French; and at nine in the morning, the battle began.
_The Hampshire_ let fly two roaring cannonades that ploughed up the
decks of _The Pelican_ and stripped the French bare of masts to the
hull. At the same instant, Grimmington’s _Dering_ and Smithsend’s
_Hudson’s Bay_ circled to the left of the French and poured a stream of
musketry fire across _The Pelican’s_ stern. At one fell blast, forty
French were mowed down; but the batterymen below never ceased their
crash of bombs straight into _The Hampshire’s_ hull.
Iberville shouted for the infantrymen to fire into _The Dering’s_
forecastle, to pick off Grimmington if they could; and for the Canadian
sharp-shooters to rake the decks of _The Hudson’s Bay_.
For four hours, the three-cornered battle raged. The ships were so
close, shout and counter-shout could be heard across decks. Faces were
singed with the closeness of the musketry fire. Ninety French had
been wounded. _The Pelican’s_ decks swam in blood that froze to ice,
slippery as glass, and trickled down the clinker boards in reddening
splashes. Grape shot and grenade had set the fallen sails on fire.
Sails and mastpoles and splintered davits were a mass of roaring flame
that would presently extend to the powder magazines and blow all to
eternity. Railings had gone over decks; and when the ship rolled, only
the tangle of burning débris kept those on deck from washing into the
sea. The bridge was crumbling. A shot had torn the high prow away; and
still the batterymen below poured their storm of fire and bomb into
the English hull. The fighters were so close, one old record says, and
the holes torn by the bombs so large in the hull of each ship that the
gunners on _The Pelican_ were looking into the eyes of the smoke-grimed
men below the decks of _The Hampshire_.
For three hours, the English had tacked to board _The Pelican_, and for
three hours the mastless, splintered _Pelican_ had fought like a demon
to cripple her enemy’s approach. The blood-grimed, half-naked men of
both decks had rushed _en masse_ for the last leap, the hand-to-hand
fight, when a frantic shout went up!
Then silence, and fearful confusion, and a mad panic back from the
tilting edges of the two vessels with cries from the wounded above the
shriek of the sea!
The batteries of _The Hampshire_ had suddenly silenced. The great
ship refused to answer to the wheel. That persistent, undeviating
fire bursting from the sides of _The Pelican_ had done its work. _The
Hampshire_ gave a quick, back lurch. Before the amazed Frenchmen could
believe their senses, amid the roar of flame and crashing billows and
hiss of fires extinguished in an angry sea, _The Hampshire_, all sails
set, settled and sank like a stone amid the engulfing billows. Not a
soul of her two hundred and fifty men—one hundred and ninety mariners
and servants, with sixty soldiers—escaped.
The screams of the struggling seamen had not died on the waves before
Iberville had turned the batteries of his shattered ship full force on
Smithsend’s _Hudson’s Bay_. Promptly, _The Hudson’s Bay_ struck colors,
but while Iberville was engaged boarding his captive and taking over
ninety prisoners, Grimmington on _The Dering_ showed swift heel and
gained refuge in Fort Nelson.
* * * * *
In the fury and heat of the fight, the French had not noticed the
gathering storm that now broke with hurricane gusts of sleet and rain.
The whistling in the cordage became a shrill shriek—warning a blizzard.
Presently the billows were washing over decks with nothing visible of
the wheel but the drenched helmsman clinging for life to his place. The
pancake ice pounded the ships’ sides with a noise of thunder. Mist
and darkness and roaring sleet drowned the death cries of the wounded,
washed and tossed and jammed against the railing by the pounding
seas. _The Pelican_ could only drive through the darkness before the
storm-flaw, “the dead” says an old record, “floating about on the decks
among the living.” The hawser, that had towed the captive ship, snapped
like thread. Captor and captive in vain threw out anchors. The anchors
raked bottom. Cables were cut, and the two ships drove along the sands.
The deck of _The Pelican_ was icy with blood. Every shock of smashing
billows jumbled dead and dying _en masse_. The night grew black as
pitch. The little railing that still clung to the shattered decks of
_The Pelican_ was now washed away, and the waves carried off dead and
wounded. Tables were hurled from the cabin. The rudder was broken, and
the water was already to the bridge of the foundering ship, when the
hull began to split, and _The Pelican_ buried her prow in the sands,
six miles from the fort.
All small boats had been shot away. The canoes of the Canadians
swamped in the heavy sea as they were launched. Tying the spars of
the shattered masts in four-sided racks, Iberville had the surviving
wounded bound to these and towed ashore by the others, half-swimming,
half-wading. Many of the men sprang into the icy sea bare to mid-waist
as they had fought. Guns and powderhorns carried ashore in the
swimmers’ teeth were all that were saved of the wreck. Eighteen more
men lost their lives going ashore in the dark. For twelve hours they
had fought without pause for food, and now shivering round fires
kindled in the bush, the half-famished men devoured moss and seaweed
raw. Two feet of snow lay on the ground, and when the men lighted
fires and gathered round in groups to warm themselves, they became
targets for sharp-shooters from the fort, who aimed at the camp fires.
Smithsend, who escaped from the wrecked _Hudson’s Bay_ and Grimmington,
who had succeeded in taking _The Dering_ into harbor—put Governor
Bailey on guard. Their one hope was that Iberville might be drowned.
It was at this terrible pass that the other ships of Iberville’s fleet
came to the rescue. They, too, had suffered from the storm, _The
Violent_ having gone to bottom; _The Palmier_ having lost her steering
gear, another ship her rudder.
Nelson or York under the English was the usual four-bastioned fur post,
with palisades and houses of white fir logs a foot thick, the pickets
punctured for small arms, with embrasures for some hundred cannon. It
stood back from Hayes River, four miles up from the sea. The seamen
of the wrecked _Hudson’s Bay_ carried word to Governor Bailey of
Iberville’s desperate plight. Nor was Bailey inclined to surrender
even after the other ships came to Iberville’s aid. With Bailey in the
fort were Kelsey, and both Grimmington and Smithsend who had once been
captives with the French in Quebec. When Iberville’s messenger was led
into the council hall with flag of truce and bandaged eyes to demand
surrender, Smithsend advised resistance till the English knew whether
Iberville had been lost in the wreck. Fog favored the French. By the
11th, they had been able to haul their cannon ashore undetected by the
English and so near the fort that the first intimation was the blow
of hammers erecting platforms. This drew the fire of the English, and
the cannonading began on both sides. On the 12th, Serigny entered the
council again to demand surrender.
“If you refuse, there will be no quarter,” he warned.
“Quarter be cursed,” thundered the old governor. Then turning to his
men, “Forty pounds sterling to every man who fights.”
But the Canadians with all the savagery of Indian warfare, had begun
hacking down palisades to the rear.
Serigny came once more from the French. “They are desperate,” he
urged, “they must take the fort, or pass the winter like beasts in the
wilds.” Bombs had been shattering the houses. Bailey was induced to
capitulate, but game to the end, haggled for the best bargain he could
get. Neither the furs nor the armaments of the fort were granted him,
but he was permitted to march out with people unharmed, drums beating,
flags unfurled, ball in mouth, matches lighted, bag and baggage, fife
screaming its shrillest defiance—to march out with all this brave
pomp to a desolate winter in the wilds, while the bush-lopers, led
by Boisbriant, ransacked the fort. In the surrender, Grimmington
had bargained for his ship, and he now sailed for England with the
refugees, reaching the Thames on October 26. Bailey and Smithsend with
other refugees, resolutely marched overland in the teeth of wintry
blasts to Governor Knight at Albany. How Bailey reached England, I do
not know. He must have gone overland with French coureurs to Quebec;
for he could not have sailed through the straits after October, and he
arrived in England by December.
That the blow of the last loss paralyzed the Company—need not be told.
Of all their forts on the bay, they now had only Albany, and were in
debt for the last year’s ships. They had not money to pay the captains’
wages. Nevertheless, they borrowed money enough to pay the wages of
all the seamen and £20 apiece extra, for those who had taken part in
the fight. Just at this time, the Treaty of Ryswick put an end to war
between England and France, but, as far as the Company was concerned,
it left them worse than before, for it provided that the contestants on
the bay should remain as they were at the time, which meant that France
held all the bay except Albany. Before this campaign, the loss of the
English Adventurers from the French raiders had been £100,000. Now the
loss totaled more than £200,000.
Chouart Groseillers had long since been created a nobleman for
returning to France. In spite of the peace, this enigmatical
declaration is found in the private papers of the King of France:
“Owing to the peace, the King of England has given positive orders that
goods taken at Hudson Bay, must be paid for; but the French King relies
on getting out of this affair.”
Iberville sailed away to fresh glories. A seigniory had been granted
him along the Bay of Chaleurs. In 1699, he was created Chevalier of
St. Louis. The rest of his years were passed founding the colony of
Louisiana, and he visited Boston and New York harbors with plans of
conquest in his mind, though as the Earl of Belomont reported “he
pretended it was for wood and water.” In the war of the Barbadoes,
Iberville had hoped to capture slaves for Louisiana, and he had
transported hundreds, but yellow fever raged in the South and Iberville
fell a victim to it on July 9, 1706, at Havana. He was, perhaps, the
most picturesque type of Canada’s wildwood chivalry, with all its
savage faults and romantic heroism.
And His Majesty, the King of France, well pleased with the success
of his brave raiders sends out a dispatch that reads: “His Majesty
declines to accept the white bear sent to him from Hudson Bay, but he
will permit the fur traders to exhibit the animal.”
_Notes on Chapter XIII._—The English side of the story related in this
chapter is taken from the records of Hudson’s Bay House, London, and of
the Public Records Office. The French side of the story, from the State
Papers of the Marine Archives. _Bacqueville de la Potherie_, who was
present in the fight of ’97, gives excellent details in his _Historie
de l’Amerique Septentrionale_ (1792). _Jeremie_, who was interpreter
at York, wrote an account, to be found among other voyages in the
_Bernard Collection of Amsterdam_. For side-lights from early writers,
the reader is referred to _Doc. Relatifs Nouvelle France_; _Oldmixon_;
_Doc. Hist. N. Y._; _Quebec Hist. So. Collection_ in which will be
found _Abbé Belmont’s Relation_ and _Dollier de Casson’s_.
* * * * *
It will be noticed that one of the conditions of surrender was that
the English should be permitted to march out “match-lighted; ball
in mouth.” The latter term needs no explanation. The ball was held
ready to be rammed down the barrel. With reference to the term
“match-lighted,” in the novel, “Heralds of Empire,” I had referred
to “matches” when the argus-eyed critic came down with the criticism
that “matches” were not invented until after 1800. I stood corrected
till I happened to be in the Tower of London in the room given over
to the collection of old armor. I asked one of the doughty old “beef
eaters” to take down a musket of that period, and show me exactly
what “match-lighted” must have meant. The old soldier’s explanation
was this: In time of war, not flint but a little bit of inflammable
punk did duty as “match-lighter.” This was fastened below the trigger
like the percussion cap of a later day. The privilege of surrendering
“match-lighted” meant with the punk below the trigger. I offer this
explanation for what it is worth, and as he is the keeper of the finest
collection of old armor in the world, the chances are he is right and
that matches preceded 1800.
* * * * *
At first sight, there may seem to be discrepancies in the numbers on
the English ships, but the 200 mariners were extra men, in addition to
the 50 or 60 seamen on each frigate, and the 50 or 60 servants on each
boat sent out to strengthen the forts.