1773-1782.
Company Suffers from the Rivalry of Canadians -- Cumberland
House built -- Debauchery and license of the Rivals --
Frobisher Intercepts the Company's Indians -- The Smallpox
Visitation of 1781 -- La Pérouse appears before Fort Prince of
Wales -- Hearne's Surrender -- Capture of York Fort by the
French -- The Post Burned and the Company's Servants carried
away Prisoners.
The Company was not immediately advised of the ruinous proceedings of
the Montreal traders by its governors at York and Churchill. But at
length the diminution of trade became marked. The Indians continued to
bring in reports of other white traders speaking English, who
intercepted them and gave them trinkets and rum in exchange for their
furs. They declared they were conscious of having made a bad bargain
in not continuing onward to the Company's posts, but what could they
do? "The _Bostonnais_[77] was cunning and he deceived the Indian." At
last, in view of this, it was felt that further delay were folly.
[Sidenote: Cumberland House built.]
In the spring of 1773 instructions were sent out to Governor Norton to
despatch Hearne westward and establish a post in the interior. By this
time the rival Canadian traders had carried the trade beyond the
French limits, although, for reasons to be disclosed, all their
activity was in vain, so far as material results either to themselves
or their employers or capitalists were concerned, not to mention the
aborigines themselves.
Hearne hit upon what he considered a good site for the new post at
Sturgeon Lake, on the eastern bank, in latitude 53°, 56 and longitude
102°, 15. The post prospered almost from its foundation. The
neighbouring tribes found that here were to be procured a larger and
better assortment of goods than the Canadians brought them, and
frequented it in preference.[78]
For several years now a trade with the Indians had been carried on in
the footsteps of the French license-holders.
[Illustration: VISIT TO AN INDIAN ENCAMPMENT.]
What was to be expected when the character of the Montreal traders
themselves, and the commerce they prosecuted, was considered, soon
happened. This army of half-wild men, armed to the teeth, unhampered
by legal restraint, constantly drinking, carousing and quarrelling
amongst themselves, gradually spread over the north-west, sowing crime
and anarchy wherever they went. The country they traded in was so
distant, and their method of transportation so slow, that they were
fortunate if they reached their winter quarters without leaving the
corpses of several of their number to mark their path.
Was it singular that trade carried on in such a fashion, and with
results so ruinous, should cause the "partners," as these unhappy
individuals, who had furnished the funds, were called, to contemplate
the future with dismay? Season after season the "winterers" returned
to the Grand Portage with the same tale; and season after season were
better profits promised, but never, alas, for their dupes, were these
promises fulfilled!
[Sidenote: Frobisher intercepts Company's Indians.]
Matters were thus going from bad to worse in this way, when one sober
and enterprising trader, Joseph Frobisher, resolved to leave the
beaten track and penetrate nearer to the Company's Factory, at
Churchill, than had yet been done. In the spring of 1775, as a band of
Indians were on their way as usual to Prince of Wales' Fort, they were
met by Frobisher, who caused them to halt and to drink and smoke with
him. The chiefs imagined he was one of the Company's factors, and
Frobisher did not choose to undeceive them. His wares being of a
better quality than those of his compeers, the Indians suffered
themselves to be persuaded to trade on the spot, which was at a
portage afterwards called by the Montreal traders La Traite, on
account of this episode. The Indians, nevertheless, resumed their
journey to Churchill River, where the indignation of Hearne and the
Council knew no bounds. He informed the Indians that a "scurvy trick"
had been played upon them; and so characterized it in his journal. A
few having still some of the heavier furs by them, were paid double,
as an encouragement to their future discrimination. Nevertheless, in
spite of all, the "scurvy trick" was repeated by Frobisher the
following year, both times securing enormous booty.[79]
The difficulties and sufferings of these two undertakings, however,
affected him with a distaste for a repetition; but he sent his brother
Benjamin to explore the region still farther. This he accomplished,
going as far west as the Lake of Isle a la Crosse.
The difficulties of transport are pointed out in letters of Frobisher
and McGill. The value of each canoe load, on arrival at
Michilimackinac, had been estimated, in 1780, to be £660 currency,
equal to $2,640, showing the cost of transport by the Ottawa to have
been $640 for each canoe; the value at Montreal having been $2,000. In
April, 1784, Benjamin Frobisher wrote that twenty-eight canoes were
ready to be sent off, valued at £20,000 currency, or $80,000, a sum
for each canoe largely in excess of the estimate of four years before.
Frobisher's success in intercepting the Company's Indians induced
others to attempt a similar course. The idea was, of course, to give
goods of a better character, and to travel so far into the savage
country as to relieve the Indian, who always contemplated the annual
journey to the Company's post with repugnance of such necessity. In
1779 Peter Pond, an able, but desperate character, was the first to
attempt storing such goods as he could not bring back immediately, in
one of the wintering huts at Elk River, against his return the
following season. This imitation of a Company's post proved
successful, and led to its being repeated on a larger scale.
But matters were not equally propitious with the vast bulk of the
peddlers, bushrangers, swashbucklers, and drunken half-breeds who were
comprised in the Canadian trading fraternity. A numerous crew of them
got from their winter quarters at Saskatchewan to the Eagle Hills in
the spring of 1780. Here they held high carouse amidst a body of
Indians as drunken, and much more noisy and abandoned, as themselves.
One of the traders becoming tired of the continued application of an
Indian for more grog, gave him a dose of laudanum. The savage
thereupon staggered a few steps away, lay down and died. A cry went up
from the man's wives, a skirmish ensued, and the sun went down on
seven corpses. One of the traders, two of his men, and four half-breed
voyageurs lost their lives, and the rest were forced to abandon their
all and take to flight.
[Illustration: INDIAN TRAPPERS.
(_From "Picturesque Canada," by permission._)]
The same spring, two of the Canadian posts on the Assiniboine River
were assailed during a quarrel. Several white men and a large number
of Indians were killed.
[Sidenote: Terrible smallpox epidemic.]
The fearful act of vengeance which might now have been meditated at
this juncture was never carried out, for in 1781 an epidemic of
smallpox broke out, wreaking a memorable destruction upon all the
Indians of Rupert's Land.
It is worthy of remark, the extraordinary and fatal facility with
which this disease had always made headway among the aborigines of the
North American continent. There must have been some predisposition in
their constitutions which rendered them an easy prey to this scourge
of Europe. Later, when the boon, brought into Europe by Lady Mary
Montague arrested and partially disarmed the monster, smallpox had
wrought unmitigated havoc amongst whole tribes and circles of the Red
men, more than decimating the entire population and occasionally
destroying whole camps, while leaving scarcely more than one
shrivelled hag to relate to the Company's factors the fell tale of
destruction.
The scourge which depopulated vast regions naturally cleared the
country of white traders. Two parties did, indeed, set out from
Montreal in 1781-82, with the avowed intention of making permanent
settlements on Churchill River and at Athabasca. But the smallpox had
not yet done its worst, and drove them back with only seven packages
of beaver. This season was a better one than the preceding for the
Company's factories; but an event now happened scarcely foreseen by
anyone. England and France had been again at war, but none had as yet
dreamt of a sea attack on the Company's posts in the Bay. Such a thing
had not happened for upwards of eighty years, and the conquest of
Canada seemed to so preclude its probability that the Adventurers had
not even instructed its governors to be on the alert for a possible
foe.
Up to the era of the terrible smallpox visitation in 1782, the remote
Chippewas and far-off tribes from Athabasca and the Great Slave Lake,
travelling to Prince of Wales' Fort, must have gazed with wonder at
its solid masonry and formidable artillery. The great cannon whose
muzzles stared grimly from the walls had already been woven into
Indian legend, and the Company's factors were fond of telling how the
visiting Red men stood in astonishment for hours at a time before this
fortress, whose only parallel on the continent was Quebec itself.
[Sidenote: French attack Fort Prince of Wales, 1782.]
Fort Prince of Wales had been built, as we have seen, at a time when
the remembrance of burned factories and posts easily captured and
pillaged by French and Indians was keen amongst the Honourable
Adventurers. But that remembrance had long since faded; the reasons
for which the fort had been built had seemingly vanished. Wherefore
gradually the garrison waned in numbers, until on the 8th of August,
1782, only thirty-nine defenders[80] within its walls witnessed the
arrival of three strange ships in the Bay. Instantly the word ran from
mouth to mouth that they were three French men-of-war. All was
consternation and incredulity at first, quickly succeeded by anxiety.
Two score pair of English eyes watched the strangers, as pinnace, gig
and long-boat were lowered, and a number of swarthy whiskered sailors
began busily to sound the approaches to the harbour. As may be
believed, an anxious night was passed in the fort by Governor Samuel
Hearne and his men. Daybreak came and showed the strangers already
disembarking in their boats, and as the morning sun waxed stronger, an
array of four hundred troops was seen to be drawn up on the shore of
Churchill Bay, at a place called Hare Point. Orders were given to
march, and with the flag of France once more unfurled on these distant
sub-Arctic shores, the French attacking party approached the Company's
stronghold.
When about four hundred yards from the walls they halted, and two
officers were sent on ahead to summon the Governor to surrender. The
French ships turned out to be the _Sceptre_, seventy-four guns, the
_Astarte_, and the _Engageante_, of thirty-six guns each, and the
force possessed besides four field guns, two mortars, and three
hundred bomb-shells. This fleet was in command of Admiral Pérouse.
It appears that La Pérouse had counted on arriving just in time to
secure a handsome prize in the Company's ships, for which he had lain
in wait in the Bay. Hearne seems to have been panic-stricken and
believed resistance useless.
To the surprise of the French, a table cloth snatched up by the
Governor was soon seen waving from the parapet of the fort. Fort
Prince of Wales had thus yielded without a shot being fired on either
side.
The French admiral lost no time in transporting what guns he could
find to his ships, and replenishing his depleted commissariat from the
well-filled provision stores of the fort.[81]
La Pérouse was both angry and disappointed at the escape of the
Company's ships and cargoes. One of these ships, bound for Fort
Churchill, he had met in the Bay and immediately sent a frigate in
pursuit. But Captain Christopher, by the steering of the French
frigate, judged rightly that her commander knew nothing of the
course, and so resorted to strategy. When night came he furled his
sails, as if about to anchor, a proceeding which the French captain
imitated. When he had anchored, the Company's vessel re-set her sails,
and was soon many leagues distant by the time the French fleet reached
Churchill River.
Possession was followed by license on the part of the soldiers, and
the utter looting of the fort. An attempt was made, occupying two
days, to demolish it; but although French gunpowder was freely added
to the Company's store, yet the walls resisted their best efforts.
[Illustration: RUINS OF FORT PRINCE OF WALES.]
Of solid masonry, indeed, was Prince of Wales' Fort. The French
artillerymen could only displace the upper rows of the massive granite
stones, dismount its guns, and blow up the gateway, together with the
stone outwork protecting it.
It has been remarked as strange that Hearne, who had proved his
personal bravery in his Arctic travels, should have shown such a
craven front on this occasion to the enemy.
Indeed, Umfreville, who was himself taken prisoner at the capture of
the fort, declared that he, with others, were disgusted at the
Governor's cowardice. He asserted that the French were weak and
reduced in health after a long sea voyage, most of them wretchedly
clad, and half of the entire number barefoot.
"I assume, your Honours," wrote John Townsend, "that had we shown a
front to the enemy, our fort would have outlasted their ammunition,
and then they would have been completely at our mercy."
[Sidenote: Hearne blamed for surrendering.]
The Company was very indignant at the conduct of Governor Hearne. They
demanded the reason of his not sending a scout overland to apprise the
Governor of York Factory of the enemy's proximity. To this Hearne
replied that he was given no opportunity, and that any such scout
would have been inevitably seized and slain.
On the 11th of August the French fleet set sail for Port Nelson and
anchored there. One of the Company's ships was in the harbour at the
time, and the captain, perceiving the approach of three large ships,
and scenting danger, put out to sea in the night. He was instantly
pursued by a frigate, which obviously outsailed him. Whereupon Captain
Fowler tacked and made for the south in the hope of enticing the
Frenchman into shallow water. But her commander was by no means to
become so easy a prey to destruction, and refused to follow.
On the following day the news was brought to the Governor that the
enemy was landing in fourteen boats, provided with mortars, cannon,
scaling ladders, and about three hundred men, exclusive of marines.
York Factory at this time was garrisoned by sixty English and twelve
Indians. Its defence consisted of thirteen cannon, twelve and nine
pounders, which formed a half-moon battery in front; but it being
thought probable that the enemy would arrive in the night and turn
these guns against the fort, they were overturned into the ditch. On
the ramparts were twelve swivel guns mounted on carriages, and within
were abundance of small arms and ammunition. Besides, a rivulet of
fresh water ran within the stockades; and there were also thirty head
of cattle and as many hogs within the confines of the fort.
On the 22nd, two Indian scouts were sent out to obtain intelligence;
these returned in about three hours with the information that, in
their judgment, the enemy were less than a league distant. Indeed they
had heard several guns fired in the neighbourhood of the fort; and at
sunset of that day all could plainly discern a large fire, presumably
kindled by the French about a mile and a half to the west.
[Sidenote: French attack York factory.]
At ten o'clock the next morning, the enemy appeared before the gates.
"During their approach," says one of those in the fort at the time, "a
most inviting opportunity offered itself to be revenged on our
invaders by discharging the guns on the ramparts, which must have done
great execution."
Unhappily, the Governor was hardly the man for such an occasion. He
knew nothing of war, and had a wholesome dread of all armed and
equipped soldiery. He trembled so that he could scarcely stand, and
begged the surgeon, "for God's sake to give him a glass of liquor to
steady his nerves." There being none at hand, he swallowed a tumbler
of raw spirits of wine. This so far infused courage and determination
into his blood, that he peremptorily declared he would shoot the first
man who offered to fire a gun. Dismay took possession of many of the
Company's servants, and the second in command and the surgeon
endeavoured to expostulate. To avert this, the Governor caught up a
white sheet with his own hand and waved it from a window of the fort.
This was answered by the French officer displaying his pocket
handkerchief.
Under the sanction of this flag of truce, a parley took place. The
Governor was summoned to surrender within two hours.
But no such time was needed by the Governor; and the fort was most
ingloriously yielded in about ten minutes. In vain did the council
plead that this fort might have withstood the united efforts of double
the number of those by whom it was assailed in an attack with small
arms. In vain they demonstrated that from the nature of the enemy's
attack by way of Nelson River, they could not use their mortars or
artillery, the ground being very bad and interspersed with woods,
thickets and bogs. The Governor was resolved to yield the place, and
he carried out his intention much to the astonishment and satisfaction
of La Pérouse.
[Sidenote: Unwise surrender.]
The unwisdom of the surrender was afterwards made too apparent. It was
made to a half-starved, half-shod body of Frenchmen, worn out by
fatigue and hard labour, not a man of whom was familiar with the
country. It was perceived also, when it was too late, that the enemy's
ships lay at least twenty miles from the factory, in a boisterous sea.
Consequently, they could not co-operate with their troops on shore,
save with the greatest difficulty and uncertainty, and if the fort had
held out a few weeks it would have been impossible. The French troops
could have received no supplies but what came from the ships; and
cold, hunger and fatigue were working hourly in favour of the
Company's men.
La Pérouse now issued orders for the fort to be evacuated and burned,
and the Company's people were taken prisoners.
The Company suffered great loss by the capture of York Factory, which
had, as we have seen, remained in their possession since the Treaty of
Utrecht. The whole of the furs which had not yet been sent on board
the ship were destroyed, as well as a large quantity of stores,
implements and appliances which had been collecting for nearly seventy
years.
This expedition had resulted in two cheap conquests for La Pérouse.
But the fortunes of war bade fair to alter the situation. The Company
sent in a bill to the British Government of many thousands of pounds
for failing to protect their fort on Churchill River; and when peace
was proclaimed, the French plenipotentiary agreed on behalf of his
master to settle this bill.
Fort Prince of Wales was never rebuilt. Its ruins stand, to-day, to
mark the most northern fortress on the continent of North America,
scarcely inferior in strength to Louisburg or to Quebec. "Its site,"
remarks Dr. Bell, "was admirably chosen; its design and armament were
once perfect; interesting still as a relic of bygone strife, but
useful now only as a beacon for the harbour it had failed to protect."
Although the French themselves sustained no loss from the English in
their brief campaign against the fort; yet, owing to the severity of
the climate and their own inexperience, they lost five large boats, a
considerable quantity of merchandise and fifteen soldiers who were
drowned in Hays' River after the surrender of the fort.
FOOTNOTES:
[77] The Eastern traders were always known by this title, as though
hailing from Boston, in contradistinction to the "King George men."
[78] Upon the new post was bestowed the name of Cumberland House.
[79] The following were the prices paid by the Company about 1780, at
its inland posts:--
A gun 20 Beaver skins.
A strand blanket 10 do.
A white do. 8 do.
An axe of one pound weight 3 do.
Half a pint of gunpowder 1 do.
Ten balls 1 do.
The principal profits accrued from the sale of knives, beads, flint,
steels, awls and other small articles. Tobacco fetched one beaver skin
per foot of "Spencer's Twist," and rum "not very strong," two beaver
skins per bottle.
[80] "What folly," asks one of the Company's servants, "could be more
egregious than to erect a fort of such extent, strength and expense
and only allow thirty-nine men to defend it?"
[81] An account of Hearne's journey was found in MS. among the papers
of the Governor, and La Pérouse declares in his memoirs that Hearne
was very pressing that it should be returned to him as his private
property. "The goodness of La Pérouse's heart induced him to yield to
this urgent solicitation, and he returned the MS. to him on the
express condition, however, that he should print and publish it
immediately on his arrival in England." "Notwithstanding this,"
observes Mr. Fitzgerald, "Hearne's travels did not appear until 1795,
_i.e._, twenty-three years after they were performed." This gentleman,
so distinguished in his zeal to prove a case against the Company,
evidently overlooks the circumstance of the gist of travels having
been issued in pamphlet form in 1773 and again in 1778-80. The volume
of 1795 was merely an application--the product of Hearne's leisure
upon retirement.