chamber of the fort, breathless and cold, lay the hardy frame which war,
the wilderness, and the sea had buffeted so long in vain. After two
months and a half of illness, Champlain, at the age of sixty-eight, was
dead. His last cares were for his colony and the succor of its suffering
families. Jesuits, officers, soldiers, traders, and the few settlers of
Quebec followed his remains to the church; Le Jeune pronounced his
eulogy, and the feeble community built a tomb to his honor.
The colony could ill spare him. For twenty-seven years he had labored
hard and ceaselessly for its welfare, sacrificing fortune, repose, and
domestic peace to a cause embraced with enthusiasm and pursued with
intrepid persistency. His character belonged partly to the past, partly
to the present. The _preux chevalier_, the crusader, the romance-loving
explorer, the curious, knowledge-seeking traveller, the practical
navigator, all claimed their share in him. His views, though far beyond
those of the mean spirits around him, belonged to his age and his creed.
He was less statesman than soldier. He leaned to the most direct and
boldest policy, and one of his last acts was to petition Richelieu for
men and munitions for repressing that standing menace to the colony,
the Iroquois. His dauntless courage was matched by an unwearied
patience, a patience proved by life-long vexations, and not wholly
subdued even by the saintly follies of his wife. He is charged with
credulity, from which few of his age were free, and which in all ages
has been the foible of earnest and generous natures, too ardent to
criticise, and too honorable to doubt the honor of others. Perhaps in
his later years the heretic might like him more had the Jesuit liked him
less. The adventurous explorer of Lake Huron, the bold invader of the
Iroquois, befits but indifferently the monastic sobrieties of the fort
of Quebec and his sombre environment of priests. Yet Champlain was no
formalist, nor was his an empty zeal. A soldier from his youth, in an
age of unbridled license, his life had answered to his maxims; and when
a generation had passed after his visit to the Hurons, their elders
remembered with astonishment the continence of the great French
war-chief.
His books mark the man,--all for his theme and his purpose, nothing for
himself. Crude in style, full of the superficial errors of carelessness
and haste, rarely diffuse, often brief to a fault, they bear on every
page the palpable impress of truth.
A MILITARY MISSION.
Quebec was without a governor. Who should succeed Champlain? and would
his successor be found equally zealous for the Faith, and friendly to
the mission? These doubts, as he himself tells us, agitated the mind of
the Father Superior, Le Jeune; but they were happily set at rest, when,
on a morning in June, he saw a ship anchoring in the basin below, and,
hastening with his brethren to the landing-place, was there met by
Charles Huault de Montmagny, a Knight of Malta, followed by a train of
officers and gentlemen. As they all climbed the rock together, Montmagny
saw a crucifix planted by the path. He instantly fell on his knees
before it; and nobles, soldiers, sailors, and priests imitated his
example. The Jesuits sang Te Deum at the church, and the cannon roared
from the adjacent fort. Here the new governor was scarcely installed,
when a Jesuit came in to ask if he would be godfather to an Indian about
to be baptized. "Most gladly," replied the pious Montmagny. He repaired
on the instant to the convert's hut, with a company of gayly apparelled
gentlemen; and while the inmates stared in amazement at the scarlet and
embroidery, he bestowed on the dying savage the name of Joseph, in honor
of the spouse of the Virgin and the patron of New France. Three days
after, he was told that a dead proselyte was to be buried, on which,
leaving the lines of the new fortification he was tracing, he took in
hand a torch, De Lisle, his lieutenant, took another, Repentigny and
St. Jean, gentlemen of his suite, with a band of soldiers, followed, two
priests bore the corpse, and thus all moved together in procession to
the place of burial. The Jesuits were comforted. Champlain himself had
not displayed a zeal so edifying.
A considerable reinforcement came out with Montmagny, and among the rest
several men of birth and substance, with their families and dependants.
"It was a sight to thank God for," exclaims Father Le Jeune, "to behold
these delicate young ladies and these tender infants issuing from their
wooden prison, like day from the shades of night." The Father, it will
be remembered, had for some years past seen nothing but squaws, with
pappooses swathed like mummies and strapped to a board.
Both Montmagny and De Lisle were half churchmen, for both were Knights
of Malta. More and more the powers spiritual engrossed the colony. As
nearly as might be, the sword itself was in priestly hands. The Jesuits
were all in all. Authority, absolute and without appeal, was vested in a
council composed of the governor, Le Jeune, and the syndic, an official
supposed to represent the interests of the inhabitants. There was no
tribunal of justice, and the governor pronounced summarily on all
complaints. The church adjoined the fort; and before it was planted a
stake bearing a placard with a prohibition against blasphemy,
drunkenness, or neglect of mass and other religious rites. To the stake
was also attached a chain and iron collar; and hard by was a wooden
horse, whereon a culprit was now and then mounted by way of example and
warning. In a community so absolutely priest-governed, overt offences
were, however, rare; and, except on the annual arrival of the ships
from France, when the rock swarmed with godless sailors, Quebec was a
model of decorum, and wore, as its chroniclers tell us, an aspect
unspeakably edifying.
In the year 1640, various new establishments of religion and charity
might have been seen at Quebec. There was the beginning of a college and
a seminary for Huron children, an embryo Ursuline convent, an incipient
hospital, and a new Algonquin mission at a place called Sillery, four
miles distant. Champlain's fort had been enlarged and partly rebuilt in
stone by Montmagny, who had also laid out streets on the site of the
future city, though as yet the streets had no houses. Behind the fort,
and very near it, stood the church and a house for the Jesuits. Both
were of pine wood; and this year, 1640, both were burned to the ground,
to be afterwards rebuilt in stone.
Aside from the fur trade of the Company, the whole life of the colony
was in missions, convents, religious schools, and hospitals. Here on the
rock of Quebec were the appendages, useful and otherwise, of an
old-established civilization. While as yet there were no inhabitants,
and no immediate hope of any, there were institutions for the care of
children, the sick, and the decrepit. All these were supported by a
charity in most cases precarious. The Jesuits relied chiefly on the
Company, who, by the terms of their patent, were obliged to maintain
religious worship.
Quebec wore an aspect half military, half monastic. At sunrise and
sunset, a squad of soldiers in the pay of the Company paraded in the
fort; and, as in Champlain's time, the bells of the church rang morning,
noon, and night. Confessions, masses, and penances were punctiliously
observed; and, from the governor to the meanest laborer, the Jesuit
watched and guided all. The social atmosphere of New England itself was
not more suffocating. By day and by night, at home, at church, or at his
daily work, the colonist lived under the eyes of busy and over-zealous
priests. At times, the denizens of Quebec grew restless. In 1639,
deputies were covertly sent to beg relief in France, and "to represent
the hell in which the consciences of the colony were kept by the union
of the temporal and spiritual authority in the same hands."
The very amusements of this pious community were acts of religion. Thus,
on the fete-day of St. Joseph, the patron of New France, there was a
show of fireworks to do him honor. In the forty volumes of the Jesuit
_Relations_ there is but one pictorial illustration; and this represents
the pyrotechnic contrivance in question, together with a figure of the
Governor in the act of touching it off. But, what is more curious, a
Catholic writer of the present day, the Abbe Faillon, in an elaborate
and learned work, dilates at length on the details of the display; and
this, too, with a gravity which evinces his conviction that squibs,
rockets, blue-lights, and serpents are important instruments for the
saving of souls. On May-Day of the same year, 1637, Montmagny planted
before the church a May-pole surmounted by a triple crown, beneath which
were three symbolical circles decorated with wreaths, and bearing
severally the names, _Iesus_, _Maria_, _Ioseph;_ the soldiers drew up
before it, and saluted it with a volley of musketry.
On the anniversary of the Dauphin's birth there was a dramatic
performance, in which an unbeliever, speaking Algonquin for the profit
of the Indians present, was hunted into Hell by fiends. Religious
processions were frequent. In one of them, the Governor in a court
dress and a baptized Indian in beaver-skins were joint supporters of the
canopy which covered the Host. In another, six Indians led the van,
arrayed each in a velvet coat of scarlet and gold sent them by the King.
Then came other Indian converts, two and two; then the foundress of the
Ursuline convent, with Indian children in French gowns; then all the
Indian girls and women, dressed after their own way; then the priests;
then the Governor; and finally the whole French population, male and
female, except the artillery-men at the fort, who saluted with their
cannon the cross and banner borne at the head of the procession. When
all was over, the Governor and the Jesuits rewarded the Indians with a
feast.
Now let the stranger enter the church of Notre-Dame de la Recouvrance,
after vespers. It is full, to the very porch: officers in slouched hats
and plumes, musketeers, pikemen, mechanics, and laborers. Here is
Montmagny himself; Repentigny and Poterie, gentlemen of good birth;
damsels of nurture ill fitted to the Canadian woods; and, mingled with
these, the motionless Indians, wrapped to the throat in embroidered
moose-hides. Le Jeune, not in priestly vestments, but in the common
black dress of his Order, is before the altar; and on either side is a
row of small red-skinned children listening with exemplary decorum,
while, with a cheerful, smiling face, he teaches them to kneel, clasp
their hands, and sign the cross. All the principal members of this
zealous community are present, at once amused and edified at the grave
deportment, and the prompt, shrill replies of the infant catechumens;
while their parents in the crowd grin delight at the gifts of beads and
trinkets with which Le Jeune rewards his most proficient pupils.
The methods of conversion were simple. The principal appeal was to fear.
"You do good to your friends," said Le Jeune to an Algonquin chief, "and
you burn your enemies. God does the same." And he painted Hell to the
startled neophyte as a place where, when he was hungry, he would get
nothing to eat but frogs and snakes, and, when thirsty, nothing to drink
but flames. Pictures were found invaluable. "These holy
representations," pursues the Father Superior, "are half the instruction
that can be given to the Indians. I wanted some pictures of Hell and
souls in perdition, and a few were sent us on paper; but they are too
confused. The devils and the men are so mixed up, that one can make out
nothing without particular attention. If three, four, or five devils
were painted tormenting a soul with different punishments,--one applying
fire, another serpents, another tearing him with pincers, and another
holding him fast with a chain,--this would have a good effect,
especially if everything were made distinct, and misery, rage, and
desperation appeared plainly in his face."
The preparation of the convert for baptism was often very slight. A
dying Algonquin, who, though meagre as a skeleton, had thrown himself,
with a last effort of expiring ferocity, on an Iroquois prisoner, and
torn off his ear with his teeth, was baptized almost immediately. In the
case of converts in health there was far more preparation; yet these
often apostatized. The various objects of instruction may all be
included in one comprehensive word, submission,--an abdication of will
and judgment in favor of the spiritual director, who was the interpreter
and vicegerent of God.
MASSACHUSETTS ATTACKS QUEBEC.
Like Montreal, Quebec transformed itself in time lost much of its
character of a mission, and became the seat of the colonial government.
In short, it became secularized, though not completely so; for the
priesthood still held an immense influence and disputed the mastery with
the civil and military powers.
In the beginning of William and Mary's War, Count Frontenac, governor of
Canada, sent repeated war-parties to harass the New England borders;
and, in 1690, the General Court of Massachusetts resolved to retort by a
decisive blow. Sir William Phips was chosen to command the intended
expedition. Phips is said to have been one of twenty-six children, all
of the same mother, and was born in 1650 at a rude border settlement,
since called Woolwich, on the Kennebec. His parents were ignorant and
poor; and till eighteen years of age he was employed in keeping sheep.
Such a life ill suited his active and ambitious nature. To better his
condition, he learned the trade of ship-carpenter, and, in the exercise
of it, came to Boston, where he married a widow with some property,
beyond him in years, and much above him in station. About this time, he
learned to read and write, though not too well, for his signature is
like that of a peasant. Still aspiring to greater things, he promised
his wife that he would one day command a king's ship and own a "fair
brick house in the Green Lane of North Boston," a quarter then occupied
by citizens of the better class. He kept his word at both points.
Fortune was inauspicious to him for several years; till at length, under
the pressure of reverses, he conceived the idea of conquering fame and
wealth at one stroke, by fishing up the treasure said to be stored in a
Spanish galleon wrecked fifty years before somewhere in the West Indian
seas. Full of this project, he went to England, where, through
influences which do not plainly appear, he gained a hearing from persons
in high places, and induced the Admiralty to adopt his scheme. A frigate
was given him, and he sailed for the West Indies; whence, after a long
search, he returned unsuccessful, though not without adventures which
proved his mettle. It was the epoch of the buccaneers; and his crew,
tired of a vain and toilsome search, came to the quarter-deck, armed
with cutlasses, and demanded of their captain that he should turn pirate
with them. Phips, a tall and powerful man, instantly fell upon them with
his fists, knocked down the ringleaders, and awed them all into
submission. Not long after, there was a more formidable mutiny; but,
with great courage and address, he quelled it for a time, and held his
crew to their duty till he had brought the ship into Jamaica, and
exchanged them for better men.
Though the leaky condition of the frigate compelled him to abandon the
search, it was not till he had gained information which he thought would
lead to success; and, on his return, he inspired such confidence that
the Duke of Albemarle, with other noblemen and gentlemen, gave him a
fresh outfit, and despatched him again on his Quixotic errand. This time
he succeeded, found the wreck, and took from it gold, silver, and jewels
to the value of three hundred thousand pounds sterling. The crew now
leagued together to seize the ship and divide the prize; and Phips,
pushed to extremity, was compelled to promise that every man of them
should have a share in the treasure, even if he paid it himself. On
reaching England, he kept his pledge so well that, after redeeming it,
only sixteen thousand pounds was left as his portion, which, however,
was an ample fortune in the New England of that day. He gained, too,
what he valued almost as much, the honor of knighthood. Tempting offers
were made him of employment in the royal service; but he had an ardent
love for his own country, and thither he presently returned.
Phips was a rude sailor, bluff, prompt, and choleric. He never gave
proof of intellectual capacity; and such of his success in life as he
did not owe to good luck was due probably to an energetic and
adventurous spirit, aided by a blunt frankness of address that pleased
the great, and commended him to their favor. Two years after the
expedition against Quebec, the king, under the new charter, made him
governor of Massachusetts, a post for which, though totally unfit, he
had been recommended by the elder Mather, who, like his son Cotton,
expected to make use of him. He carried his old habits into his new
office, cudgelled Brinton, the collector of the port, and belabored
Captain Short of the royal navy with his cane. Far from trying to hide
the obscurity of his origin, he leaned to the opposite foible, and was
apt to boast of it, delighting to exhibit himself as a self-made man.
New England writers describe him as honest in private dealings; but, in
accordance with his coarse nature, he seems to have thought that
anything is fair in war. On the other hand, he was warmly patriotic, and
was almost as ready to serve New England as to serve himself.
Returning from an expedition to Acadia, he found Boston alive with
martial preparation. Massachusetts of her own motion had resolved to
attempt the conquest of Quebec. She and her sister colonies had not yet
recovered from the exhaustion of Philip's War, and still less from the
disorders that attended the expulsion of the royal governor and his
adherents. The public treasury was empty, and the recent expeditions
against the eastern Indians had been supported by private subscription.
Worse yet, New England had no competent military commander. The Puritan
gentlemen of the original emigration, some of whom were as well fitted
for military as for civil leadership, had passed from the stage; and, by
a tendency which circumstances made inevitable, they had left none
behind them equally qualified. The great Indian conflict of fifteen
years before had, it is true, formed good partisan chiefs, and proved
that the New England yeoman, defending his family and his hearth, was
not to be surpassed in stubborn fighting; but, since Andros and his
soldiers had been driven out, there was scarcely a single man in the
colony of the slightest training or experience in regular war. Up to
this moment, New England had never asked help of the mother country.
When thousands of savages burst on her defenceless settlements, she had
conquered safety and peace with her own blood and her own slender
resources; but now, as the proposed capture of Quebec would inure to the
profit of the British crown, Governor Bradstreet and his council thought
it not unfitting to ask for a supply of arms and ammunition, of which
they were in great need. The request was refused, and no aid of any kind
came from the English government, whose resources were engrossed by the
Irish war.
While waiting for the reply, the colonial authorities urged on their
preparations, in the hope that the plunder of Quebec would pay the
expenses of its conquest. Humility was not among the New England
virtues, and it was thought a sin to doubt that God would give his
chosen people the victory over papists and idolaters; yet no pains were
spared to insure the divine favor. A proclamation was issued, calling
the people to repentance; a day of fasting was ordained; and, as Mather
expresses it, "the wheel of prayer was kept in continual motion." The
chief difficulty was to provide funds. An attempt was made to collect a
part of the money by private subscription; but, as this plan failed, the
provisional government, already in debt, strained its credit yet
farther, and borrowed the needful sums. Thirty-two trading and fishing
vessels, great and small, were impressed for the service. The largest
was a ship called the "Six Friends," engaged in the dangerous West India
trade, and carrying forty-four guns. A call was made for volunteers, and
many enrolled themselves; but, as more were wanted, a press was ordered
to complete the number. So rigorously was it applied that, what with
voluntary and enforced enlistment, one town, that of Gloucester, was
deprived of two thirds of its fencible men. There was not a moment of
doubt as to the choice of a commander, for Phips was imagined to be the
very man for the work. One John Walley, a respectable citizen of
Barnstable, was made second in command, with the modest rank of major;
and a sufficient number of ship-masters, merchants, master mechanics,
and substantial farmers, were commissioned as subordinate officers.
About the middle of July, the committee charged with the preparations
reported that all was ready. Still there was a long delay. The vessel
sent early in spring to ask aid from England had not returned. Phips
waited for her as long as he dared, and the best of the season was over
when he resolved to put to sea. The rustic warriors, duly formed into
companies, were sent on board; and the fleet sailed from Nantasket on
the ninth of August. Including sailors, it carried twenty-two hundred
men, with provisions for four months, but insufficient ammunition and no
pilot for the St. Lawrence.
The delay at Boston, waiting aid from England that never came, was not
propitious to Phips; nor were the wind and the waves. The voyage to the
St. Lawrence was a long one; and when he began, without a pilot, to
grope his way up the unknown river, the weather seemed in league with
his enemies. He appears, moreover, to have wasted time. What was most
vital to his success was rapidity of movement; yet, whether by his fault
or his misfortune, he remained three weeks within three days' sail of
Quebec. While anchored off Tadoussac, with the wind ahead, he passed the
idle hours in holding councils of war and framing rules for the
government of his men; and, when at length the wind veered to the east,
it is doubtful if he made the best use of his opportunity.
When, after his protracted voyage, Phips sailed into the Basin of
Quebec, one of the grandest scenes on the western continent opened upon
his sight: the wide expanse of waters, the lofty promontory beyond, and
the opposing heights of Levi; the cataract of Montmorenci, the distant
range of the Laurentian Mountains, the warlike rock with its diadem of
walls and towers, the roofs of the Lower Town clustering on the strand
beneath, the Chateau St. Louis perched at the brink of the cliff, and
over it the white banner, spangled with _fleurs-de-lis_, flaunting
defiance in the clear autumnal air. Perhaps, as he gazed, a suspicion
seized him that the task he had undertaken was less easy than he had
thought; but he had conquered once by a simple summons to surrender, and
he resolved to try its virtue again.