Canada

Year after year saw the settlements almost denuded of their young men, who had been lured away by the fascinations of the fur trade in the forest fastnesses of the west. The government found all their plans for increasing the population and colonising the country thwarted by the nomadic habits of a restless youth. The young man, whether son of the gentilhomme, or of the humble habitant, was carried away by his love for forest life, and no enactments, however severe—not even the penalty of death—had the effect of restraining his restlessness. That the majority of the coureurs de bois were a reckless, dare-devil set of fellows, it is needless to say. On their return from their forest haunts, after months of savage liberty, they too often threw off all restraint, and indulged in the most furious orgies. Montreal was their favourite place of resort, for here were held the great fairs for the sale of furs. The Ottawas, Hurons, and other tribes came from distant parts of the North and West, and camped on the shores in the immediate vicinity of the town. When the fair was in full operation, a scene was represented well worthy of the bold brush of a Doré. The royal mountain, then as now, formed a background of rare sylvan beauty. The old town was huddled together on the low lands near the river, and was for years a mere collection of low wooden houses and churches, all surrounded by palisades. On the fair ground were to be seen Indians tricked out in their savage finery; coureurs de bois in equally gorgeous apparel; black-robed priests and busy merchants from all the towns, intent on wheedling the Indians and bush rangers out of their choicest furs.

The principal rendezvous in the west was Mackinac or Michillimackinac. Few places possessed a more interesting history than this old headquarters of the Indian tribes and French voyageurs. Mackinac may be considered, in some respects, the key of the upper lakes. Here the tribes from the north to the south could assemble at a very short notice and decide on questions of trade or war. It was long the metropolis of a large portion of the Huron and Ottawa nations, and many a council, fraught with the peace of Canada, was held there in the olden times. It was on the north side of the straits that Father Marquette—whose name must ever live in the west—some time in 1671 founded the mission of St. Ignace, where gradually grew up the most important settlement which the French had to the northwest of Fort Frontenac or Cataraqui. The French built a chapel and fort, and the Hurons and Ottawas lived in palisaded villages in the neighbourhood. The coureurs de bois were always to be seen at a point where they could be sure to find Indians in large numbers. Contemporary writers state that the presence of so many unruly elements at this distant outpost frequently threw the whole settlement into a sad state of confusion and excitement, which the priests were at times entirely unable to restrain. Indians, soldiers, and traders became at last so demoralised, that one of the priests wrote, in his despair, that there seemed no course open except "deserting the missions and giving them up to the brandy-sellers as a domain of drunkenness and debauchery."

But it would be a mistake to judge all the coureurs de bois by the behaviour of a majority, who were made up necessarily from the ruder elements of the Canadian population. Even the most reckless of their class had their work to do in the opening up of this continent. Despising danger in every form, they wandered over rivers and lakes and through virgin forests, and "blazed" a track, as it were, for the future pioneer. They were the first to lift the veil of mystery that hung, until they came, on many a solitary river and forest. The posts they raised by the side of the western lakes and rivers, were so many videttes of that army of colonisers who have built up great commonwealths in that vast country, where the bushranger was the only European two centuries ago. The most famous amongst their leaders was the quick-witted Nicholas Perrot—the explorer of the interior of the continent. Another was Daniel Greysolon Duluth, who became a Canadian Robin Hood, and had his band of bushrangers like any forest chieftain. For years he wandered through the forests of the West, and founded various posts at important points, where the fur trade could be prosecuted to advantage. Posterity has been more generous to him than it has been to others equally famous as pioneers, for it has given his name to a city at the head of Lake Superior. Like many a forest which they first saw in its primeval vastness, these pioneers have disappeared into the shadowy domain of an almost forgotten past, and their memory is only recalled as we pass by some storm-beat cape, or land-locked bay, or silent river, to which may still cling the names they gave as they swept along in the days of the old régime.

XIII.

THE PERIOD OF EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY:
FRANCE IN THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

(1672-1687.)

Sault St. Marie was the scene of a memorable episode in the history of New France during the summer of 1671. Simon François Daumont, Sieur St. Lusson, received a commission from the government of Quebec to proceed to Lake Superior to search for copper mines, and also to take formal possession of the basin of the lakes and its tributary rivers. With him were two men, who became more famous than himself—Nicholas Perrot and Louis Jolliet, the noted explorers and rangers of the West. On an elevation overlooking the rapids, around which modern enterprise has built two ship-canals, St. Lusson erected a cross and post of cedar, with the arms of France, in the presence of priests in their black robes, Indians bedecked with tawdry finery, and bushrangers in motley dress. In the name of the "most high, mighty, and redoubted monarch, Louis XIV. of that name, most Christian King of France and of Navarre," he declared France the owner of Sault Ste. Marie, Lakes Huron and Superior, and Isle of Mackinac, and "all of adjacent countries, rivers, and lakes, and contiguous streams." As far as boastful words and, priestly blessings could go, France was mistress of an empire in the great West.

Three names stand out in bold letters on the records of western discovery: Jolliet, the enterprising trader, Marquette, the faithful missionary, and La Salle, the bold explorer. The story of their adventures takes up many pages in the histories of this fascinating epoch. Talon may be fairly considered to have laid the foundations of western exploration, and it was left for Louis de Baude, Comte de Frontenac, who succeeded Courcelles as governor in 1672, to carry out the plans of the able intendant when he left the St. Lawrence.

Jolliet, a Canadian by birth, was wisely chosen by Talon—and Frontenac approved of the choice—to explore the West and find the "great water," of which vague stories were constantly brought back by traders and bushrangers. Jolliet was one of the best specimens of a trader and pioneer that Canadian history gives us. His roving inclinations were qualified by a cool, collected brain, which carried him safely through many a perilous adventure. He had for his companion Father Marquette, who was then stationed at the mission of St. Ignace, and had gathered from the Indians at his western missions—especially at La Pointe on Lake Superior—valuable information respecting the "great water" then called the "Missipi." Both had many sympathies in common. Jolliet had been educated by the Jesuits in Canada, but unlike La Salle, he was in full accord with their objects. Marquette possessed those qualities of self-sacrifice and religious devotion which entitle him to rank with Lalemant, Jogues, and Brebeuf. While Jolliet was inspired by purely ambitious and trading instincts, the missionary had no other hope or desire than to bring a great region and its savage communities under the benign influence of the divine being whose heavenly face seemed ever present, encouraging him to fresh efforts in her service. It was in the spring of 1673 that these two men started with five companions in two canoes on their journey through that wilderness, which stretched beyond Green Bay—an English corruption of Grande Baie. Like Nicolet, they ascended the Fox River to the country of the Mascoutins, Foxes, and Kickapoos, where they obtained guides to lead them across the portage to the Wisconsin. The adventurers had now reached the low "divide" between the valleys of the Lakes and the Mississippi. The Fox River and its affluents flowed tranquilly to the great reservoirs of the St. Lawrence, while the Wisconsin, on which they now launched their canoes, carried them to a mighty river, which ended they knew not where. A month after leaving St. Ignace they found themselves "with a great and inexpressible joy"—to quote Marquette's words—on the rapid current of a river which they recognised as the Missipi. As they proceeded they saw the low-lying natural meadows and prairies where herds of buffalo were grazing, marshes with a luxuriant growth of wild rice, the ruined castles which nature had in the course of many centuries formed out of the rocks of the western shores, and the hideous manitous which Indian ingenuity had pictured on the time-worn cliffs. They had pleasant interviews with the Indians that were hunting the roebuck and buffalo in this land of rich grasses. Their canoes struggled through the muddy current, which the Missouri gave as its tribute to the Missipi, passed the low marshy shores of the Ohio, and at last came near the mouth of the Arkansas, where they landed at an Indian village which the natives called Akamsea. Here they gathered sufficient information to enable them to form the conclusion that the great river before their eyes found its way, not to the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, but to the Gulf of Mexico. Then they decided not to pursue their expeditions further at that time, but to return home and relate the story of their discovery. When they came to the mouth of the Illinois River, they took that route in preference to the one by which they had come, followed the Des Plaines River,—where a hill still bears Jolliet's name—crossed the Chicago portage, and at last found themselves at the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. It was then the end of September, and Jolliet did not reach Canada until the following summer. When nearly at his journey's end, Fate dealt him a cruel blow, his canoe was capsized after running the Lachine Rapids just above Montreal, and he lost all the original notes of his journey. Frontenac, however, received from him a full account of his explorations, and sent it to France.

Two centuries later than this memorable voyage of Jolliet, a French Canadian poet-laureate described it in verse fully worthy of the subject, as the following passage and equally spirited translation[1] go to show:

Jolliet's companion, the Jesuit missionary, never realised his dream of many years of usefulness in new missions among the tribes of the immense region claimed by France. In the spring of 1675 he died by the side of a little stream which finds its outlet on the western shore of Lake Michigan, soon after his return from a painful journey he had taken, while in a feeble state of health, to the Indian communities of Kaskaskia between the Illinois and Wabash rivers. A few months later his remains were removed by some Ottawas, who knew and loved him well, and carried to St. Ignace, where they were buried beneath the little mission chapel. His memory has been perpetuated in the nomenclature of the western region, and his statue stands in the rotunda of that marble capitol which represents, not the power and greatness of that France which he loved only less than his Church, but the national development of those English colonies which, in his time, were only a narrow fringe on the Atlantic coast, separated from the great West by mountain ranges which none of the most venturesome of their people had yet dared to cross.

The work that was commenced by Jolliet and Marquette, of solving the mystery that had so long surrounded the Mississippi, was completed by Réné Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, a native of Rouen, who came to Canada when quite a young man, and obtained a grant of land from the Sulpician proprietors of Montreal at the head of the rapids, then known as St. Louis. Like so many Canadians of those days he was soon carried away by a spirit of adventure. He had heard of the "great water" in the west, which he believed, in common with others, might lead to the Gulf of California. In the summer of 1669 he accompanied two Sulpician priests, of Montreal, Dollier de Casson and Gallinée, on an expedition they made, under the authority of Governor Courcelles, to the extreme western end of Ontario, where he met Jolliet, apparently for the first time, and probably had many conversations with him respecting the west and south, and their unknown rivers. He decided to leave the party and attempt an exploration by a southerly route, while the priests went on to the upper lakes as far as the Sault. Of La Salle's movements for the next two years we are largely in the dark—in some respects entirely so. It has been claimed by some that he first discovered the Ohio, and even reached the Mississippi, but so careful an historian as Justin Winsor agrees with Shea's conclusion that La Salle "reached the Illinois or some other affluent of the Mississippi, but made no report and made no claim, having failed to reach the great river." It was on his return from these mysterious wanderings, that his seigniory is said to have received the name of La Chine as a derisive comment on his failure to find a road to China. In the course of years the name was very commonly given, not only to the lake but to the rapids of St. Louis.

We now come to sure ground when we follow La Salle's later explorations, on which his fame entirely rests. Frontenac entered heartily into his plans of following the Mississippi to its mouth, and setting at rest the doubts that existed as to its course. He received from the King a grant of Fort Frontenac and its surrounding lands as a seigniory. This fort had been built by the governor in 1673 at Cataraqui, now Kingston, as an advanced trading and defensive post on Lake Ontario. La Salle considered it a most advantageous position for carrying on his ambitious projects of exploration. He visited France in 1677 and received from the King letters-patent authorising him to build forts south and west in that region "through which it would seem a passage to Mexico can be discovered." On his return to Canada he was accompanied by a Recollet friar, Father Louis Hennepin, and by Henry de Tonty, the son of an Italian resident of Paris, both of whom have associated their names with western exploration. Of all his friends and followers, Tonty, who had a copper hand in the place of the one blown off in an Italian war, was the most faithful and honest, through the varying fortunes of the explorer's career from this time forward. To Father Hennepin I refer in another place.

Both Hennepin and Tonty accompanied La Salle on his expedition of 1678 to the Niagara district, where, above the great falls, near the mouth of Cayuga Creek, he built the first vessel that ever ventured on the lakes, and which he named the "Griffin" in honour of Frontenac, whose coat-of-arms bore such a heraldic device. The loss of this vessel, while returning with a cargo of furs from Green Bay to Niagara, was a great blow to La Salle, who, from this time until his death, suffered many misfortunes which might well have discouraged one of less indomitable will and fixity of purpose. On the banks of the Illinois River, a little below the present city of Peoria, he built Fort Crèvecoeur, probably as a memorial of a famous fort in the Netherlands, not long before captured by the French. While on a visit to Canada, this post was destroyed by some of his own men in the absence of Tonty, who had been left in charge. These men were subsequently captured not far from Cataraqui, and severely punished.

In the meantime, three Frenchmen, Father Hennepin, Michel Accaut, and one Du Gay, in obedience to La Salle's orders, had ventured to the upper waters of the Mississippi, and were made prisoners by a wandering tribe of Sioux. Not far from the falls of St. Anthony Father Hennepin met with the famous forest ranger, Duluth, who was better acquainted with the Sioux country than any other living Frenchman, and was forming ambitious designs to explore the whole western region beyond Lake Superior. Father Hennepin, who had been adopted by an aged Sioux chief, was free to follow Duluth back to the French post at the Straits of Mackinac. This adventure of Father Hennepin is famous in history, not on account of any discoveries he actually made, but on account of the claim he attempted to establish some years after his journey, of having followed the Mississippi to the Gulf. In the first edition of his book, printed in 1683—Description de la Louisiane—no such claim was ever suggested, and it was only in 1697 that the same work appeared in an enlarged form,—La Nouvelle Découverte—crediting Hennepin with having descended the great river to its outlet. It is not necessary here to puncture a falsehood which was long ago exposed by historical writers. His history of having reached the Gulf of Mexico is as visionary as the traveller's tales of Norumbega. Indeed, he could not even claim a gift of fertile invention in this case, as the very account of his alleged discovery was obviously plagiarised from Father Membré's narrative of La Salle's voyage of 1682, which appears in Le Clercq's Premier Établissement de la Foy.

When La Salle was again able to venture into the west he found the villages of the Illinois only blackened heaps of ruins—sure evidence of the Iroquois having been on the warpath. During the winter of 1681 he remained at a post he had built on the banks of the St. Joseph in the Miami country, and heard no news of his faithful Tonty. It was not until the spring, whilst on his way to Canada for men and supplies, that he discovered his friend at Mackinac, after having passed through some critical experiences among the Iroquois, who, in conjunction with the Miamis, had destroyed the villages of the Illinois, and killed a number of those Indians with their customary ferocity. Tonty had finally found rest and security in a village of the Pottawattomies at the head of Green Bay.

On the 6th of February, 1682, La Salle passed down the swift current of the Mississippi on that memorable voyage which led him to the Gulf of Mexico. He was accompanied by Tonty, and Father Membré, one of the Recollet order, whom he always preferred to the Jesuits. The Indians of the expedition were Abenakis and Mohegans, who had left the far-off Atlantic coast and Acadian rivers, and wandered into the great west after the unsuccessful war in New England, which was waged by the Sachem Metacomet, better known as King Philip, and only ended with his death in 1676, and the destruction of many settlements in the colony of Plymouth.

They met with a kindly reception from the Indians encamped by the side of the river, and, for the first time, saw the villages of the Taënsas and Natchez, who were worshippers of the sun. At last on the 6th of April, La Salle, Tonty, and Dautray, went separately in canoes through the three channels of the Mississippi, and emerged on the bosom of the great Gulf. Not far from the mouth of the river where the ground was relatively high and dry, a column was raised with the inscription:

"Louis le Grand, roy de France et de Navarre,
regne; le neuviesme Avril, 1682."

And La Salle took possession of the country with just such ceremonies as had distinguished a similar proceeding at Sault Ste. Marie eleven years before. It can be said that Frenchmen had at least fairly laid a basis for future empire from the Lakes to the Gulf. It was for France to show her appreciation of the enterprise of her sons and make good her claim to such a vast imperial domain. The future was to show that she was unequal to the task.

The few remaining years of La Salle's life were crowded with misfortunes. Duchesneau, the intendant, who had succeeded Talon, was an enemy of both Frontenac and the explorer. The distinguished governor was recalled by his royal master, who was tired of the constant complaints of his enemies against him, and misled by their accusations. La Barre, the incompetent governor who followed Frontenac, took possession of Fort St. Louis, which La Salle had succeeded, after his return from the Gulf of Mexico, in erecting at Starved Rock on the banks of the Illinois not far from the present city of Ottawa, where a large number of Indians had returned to their favourite home. In France, however, the importance of his discovery was fully recognised, and when he visited his native country in 1683-4 he met with a very cordial reception from the King, and Seignelay, who had succeeded his father, Colbert, when he resigned. The King ordered that La Salle's forts be restored to him, and gave him a commission to found colonies in Louisiana, as the new country through which the Mississippi flowed had been called since 1682. By a strange irony of Fate, the expedition of 1684 passed the mouth of the Mississippi, and La Salle made the first French settlement on the Gulf somewhere in the vicinity of Matagorda Bay, in the present State of Texas. Misery was the lot of the little colony from the very first moment it landed on that lonely shore. When his misfortunes were most grievous, La Salle decided to make an effort to reach the Illinois country, but he was assassinated by two of his own men—-Duhaut and Liotot—near a branch of the Trinity River. His nephew Moranget, Nika, a faithful Shawnee who had been by his side for years, and Sayet, his own servant, suffered the same fate. The leader of the murderers was killed soon afterwards by one of his accomplices, and the others found a refuge among the Indians; but of their subsequent fate we know nothing positively, except that they were never brought to justice, if any one of them returned to Canada or France. The few Frenchmen remaining in Texas were either killed or captured by unfriendly Indians, before the Spaniards could reach the place to expel these intruders on their domain. La Salle himself never found a burial place, for his body was left to wolves and birds of prey. His name has not been perpetuated in Louisiana, though it has been given to a county of Texas as well as to a city and county of Illinois, which was originally included in French Louisiana. The most noteworthy tribute to his memory has been paid by the historian Parkman, who has elevated him almost to the dignity of a hero. La Salle's indomitable energy, his remarkable courage in the face of disaster, his inflexibility of purpose under the most adverse circumstances, must be always fully recognised, but at the same time one may think that more tact and skill in managing men, more readiness to bend and conciliate, might have spared him much bitterness and trouble, and even saved his life at the end. That he did good service for France all will admit, though his achievement in reaching the Mississippi was rendered relatively easy after the preliminary expedition of Jolliet and Marquette.

[1] Mr. W. Wilfrid Campbell, F.R.S.C., a well-known English-Canadian poet, has translated for "The Story of Canada" these verses of his French contemporary Fréchette.

XIV.

CANADA AND ACADIA: FROM FRONTENAC
TO THE TREATY OF UTRECHT.

(1672-1713.)

In the previous chapter I have shown the important part that the Count de Frontenac took in stimulating the enterprise of La Salle and other explorers, and it now remains for me to review those other features of the administration of that great governor, which more or less influenced the fortunes of the province committed to his charge.

A brave and bold soldier, a man of infinite resources in times of difficulty, as bold to conceive as he was quick to carry out a design, dignified and fascinating in his manner when it pleased him, arrogant and obstinate when others thwarted him, having a keen appreciation of the Indian character, selfish where his personal gain was concerned, and yet never losing sight of the substantial interests of France in America, the Count de Frontenac was able, for nineteen years, to administer the affairs of New France with remarkable ability, despite his personal weaknesses, to stimulate and concentrate her energies and resources, and to make her when he died a power in America far beyond what her population or actual strength seemed to justify. The Iroquois learned at last to tremble at his name, and the Indian allies of Canada, from the Abenakis of Acadia to the Illinois of the West, could trust in his desire and ability to assist them against their ferocious enemy. As is the case with all great men, his faults and virtues have been equally exaggerated. The Recollets, whom he always favoured, could never speak too well of him, whilst the Jesuits, whom he distrusted, did all they could to tarnish his reputation.

It is not profitable or necessary in this story of Canada to dwell on the details of Frontenac's administration of public affairs during the first years of his régime (1672-1682), which were chiefly noted for the display of his faults of character—especially his obstinacy and impatience of all opposition. He was constantly at conflict with the bishop, who was always asserting the supremacy of his Church, with the intendant Duchesneau, who was simply a spy on his actions, with the Jesuits, whom he disliked and accused of even being interested in the sale of brandy, and with traders like Governor Perrot of Montreal who eventually found himself in the Bastile for a few days for having defied the edict of the King against the coureurs de bois who were under his influence and helped him in the fur trade.

The complaints against Frontenac from influential people in Canada at last became so numerous that he was recalled to France in 1682. His successor, La Barre, proved himself thoroughly incapable. The interests of the province were seriously threatened at that time by the intention of the Iroquois to destroy the Illinois and divert the western traffic to the Dutch and English, whose carriers they wished to become. La Barre was well aware how much depended on the protection of the Illinois and the fidelity of the Indians on the lakes. La Hontan, a talkative but not always veracious writer, who was in Canada at this time, gives us an insight into the weakness of the governor, whose efforts to awe the Iroquois ended in an abortive expedition which was attacked by disease and did not get beyond La Famine, now Salmon River, in the Iroquois country. The famous "La Grande Gueule," or Big Mouth,—so called on account of his eloquence,—made a mockery of the French efforts to deceive him by a pretence of strength, and openly declared the intention of the Iroquois to destroy the Illinois, while La Barre dared not utter a defiant word in behalf of his allies. This incapable governor was soon recalled and the Marquis de Denonville, an officer of dragoons, sent in his place. One of the most notable incidents of the new administration was the capture of the fortified trading-posts belonging to the English Company of Hudson's Bay, by the Chevalier de Troyes and a number of Canadians from Montreal, among whom were the three famous sons of Charles Le Moyne, Iberville, Sainte-Hélène, and Maricourt, the former of whom became ere long the most distinguished French Canadian of his time. The next event of importance was the invasion of the country of the Senecas, and the destruction of their villages and stores of provisions. This was a most doubtful triumph, since it left the Senecas themselves unhurt. How ineffectual it was even to awe the Iroquois, was evident from the massacre of La Chine, near Montreal, in the August of 1689, when a large band fell upon the village during a stormy night, burned the houses, butchered two hundred men, women and children, and probably carried off at least one hundred and twenty prisoners before they left the island of Montreal, where the authorities and people seemed paralysed for the moment. The whole history of Canada has no more mournful story to tell than this massacre of this unhappy settlement by the side of the beautiful lake of St. Louis. The Iroquois had never forgiven the treachery of the governor during the winter of 1687, at Fort Frontenac, where he had seized a large number of friendly Indians of the Five Nations who had settled in the neutral villages of Kenté (now Quinté) and Ganneious (now Gananoque), not many miles from the fort. Some of the men were distributed among the missions of Quebec, and others actually sent to labour in the royal galleys of France, where they remained until the survivors were brought back by Frontenac, when he and other Frenchmen recognised the enormity of the crime that had been committed by Denonville, who is immediately responsible for the massacre of La Chine. The Iroquois never forgot or forgave.

The French authorities soon recognised the fact that Denonville was entirely unequal to the critical condition of things in Canada, and decided in 1689 to send Frontenac back. During his second term, which lasted for nearly ten years, there was now and then some friction between himself and the intendant, on matters of internal government, and between himself and the bishop and the Jesuits with respect to amusements which the clergy always discountenanced; but he displayed on the whole more tact and judgment in his administration of public affairs. Undoubtedly the responsibilities now resting upon him tasked the energies of a man of seventy-two years of age to the utmost. In Acadia, whose interests were now immediately connected with those of Canada, he had to guard against the aggressive movements of New England. The English of New York and the adjacent colonies were intriguing with the Iroquois and the Foxes, always jealous of French encroachments in the northwest, and encouraging them to harass the French settlers. The efforts of the English to establish themselves in Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland, had to be met by vigorous action on the part of Canadians. In fact, we see on all sides the increasing difficulties of France in America, on account of the rapid growth of the English colonies.

When Frontenac arrived in Canada, war had been, declared between France and England. James II. had been deposed and William of Orange was on the English throne. Before the governor left France a plan had been devised at the suggestion of Callières, the governor of Montreal, for the conquest of New York. An expedition of regular troops and Canadian volunteers were to descend from Canada and assault New York by land, simultaneously with an attack by a French squadron from the sea. Unforeseen delays prevented the enterprise from being carried out, when success was possible. Had New York and Albany been captured, Callières was to have been the new governor. Catholics alone would be allowed to remain in the province, and all the other inhabitants would be exiled—an atrocious design which was to be successfully executed sixty years later, by the English authorities, in the Acadian settlements of Nova Scotia.

Count de Frontenac organised three expeditions in 1690 against the English colonies, with the view of raising the depressed spirits of the Canadians and showing their Indian allies how far Onontio's arm would reach. The first party, led by Mantet and Sainte-Hélène, and comprising among the volunteers Iberville, marched in the depth of winter on Corlaer (Schenectady), surprised the sleeping and negligent inhabitants, killed a considerable number, took many prisoners, and then burned nearly all the houses. The second party, under the command of François Hertel, destroyed the small settlement of Salmon Falls on the Piscataqua, and later formed a junction with the third party, led by Portneuf of Quebec, and with a number of Abenakis under Baron de Saint-Castin. The settlement at Casco Bay, defended by Fort Loyal (Portland) surrendered after a short struggle to these combined forces, and the garrison was treated with great inhumanity. The cruelties practised by the Indian allies invested these raids with additional terrors.

While Frontenac was congratulating himself on the success of this ruthless border warfare, and on the arrival at Montreal of a richly laden fleet of canoes from the west, the English colonies concerted measures of retaliation in a congress held at New York. The blow first fell on Acadia, which had been in the possession of France since the treaty of Breda. Port Royal was taken without difficulty in 1690 by Sir William Phipps, and the shore settlements at La Hève and Cape Sable ravaged by his orders.

Another expedition organised in New York and Connecticut to attack Montreal, was a failure, although a raid was made by Captain John Schuyler into the country, south of Montreal, and a number of persons killed at La Prairie. A more important expedition was now given to the command of Phipps, a sturdy figure in colonial annals, who had sprung from humble parentage in Maine, and won both money and distinction by the recovery of the riches of a Spanish galleon which had been wrecked on the Spanish Main half a century before. His fleet, consisting of thirty-two vessels—including several men-of-war, and carrying 2300 troops, exclusively provincials, fishermen, farmers, and sailors—appeared in the middle of October, 1690, off Quebec, whose defences had been strengthened by Frontenac, and where a large force had assembled from the French towns and settlements. As soon as the fleet came to an anchorage, just below the town, Phipps sent a messenger to present a letter to Frontenac, asking him to surrender the fort. This envoy was led blindfolded up the heights and brought into the presence of the governor, who was awaiting him in the fort, surrounded by a number of officers dressed in the brilliant uniform of the French army. As soon as he had recovered from the surprise which for the moment he felt, when the bandage was taken off his eyes, and he saw so brilliant an array of soldierly men, he read the letter, which, "by the orders of the King and Queen of England and of the government of the colony of New England," demanded "the surrender of the forts and castles undemolished, and of all munitions untouched, as also an immediate surrender of your persons and property at my discretion." The envoy, when the whole letter was read, took out his watch, and remarking that it was ten o'clock, asked that he be sent back by eleven. Count de Frontenac's answer was defiant. He refused to recognise William of Orange as the lawful sovereign of England, and declared him an "usurper." The haughty governor continued in the same strain for a few moments longer, and when he had closed, Phipps's messenger asked that the answer be given in writing. "No," he replied, "I have none to give but by the mouth of my cannon; and let your general learn that this is no way to send a summons to a man like me. Let him do the best on his side, as I am resolved to do on mine."

Phipps and his officers determined to attack Quebec in the rear by the way of Beauport, simultaneously with a fierce cannonading by the fleet. A considerable force, under the command of Major Walley, landed, and after some days of unhappy experiences, during which Phipps showed his incapacity to manage the siege, the former was obliged to find refuge in the ships, without having succeeded in crossing the St. Charles. By this time Frontenac had at least three thousand men, many of them veterans, in Quebec, and Phipps considered it his only prudent course to return to Boston, where he arrived with the loss of many vessels and men, chiefly from disasters at sea. The French had lost very few men by the cannonading and in the skirmishing on the St. Charles—probably not more than sixty killed and wounded—and celebrated their victory with great enthusiasm. Religious processions marched through the streets to the cathedral and churches, Te Deums were chanted, the colonial admiral's flag, which had been cut down by a lucky shot from the fort, was borne aloft in triumph, a new church was consecrated to Notre Dame de la Victoire, and a medal was struck in Paris in commemoration of the event. In Boston, the people received with dismay the news of the failure of an expedition which had ended so ignobly and involved them so heavily in debt.

The Iroquois, in league with the English of New York, where the able governor Dongan and his successor Andros, carefully watched over the interests of their colony, continued to be a constant menace to the French on the St. Lawrence, and to their allies in the West. In order to strengthen themselves with the Five Nations, the New York authorities sent Major Peter Schuyler, with a force of Mohawks, Dutch, and English, to harass the settlements near Montreal. An obstinate fight occurred at La Prairie between him and a considerable force of troops, Canadians, Hurons, and Iroquois of the Canadian mission under Varennes, an able officer, but Schuyler succeeded in breaking through the ranks of his enemies and reaching the Richelieu, whence he returned to Albany without further losses. In Acadia, however, the French gained an advantage by the recovery of Port Royal by Villebon.

At this time occurred an interesting episode. A young girl of only fourteen years, Magdeleine, daughter of the seigneur of Verchères, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, ten miles from Montreal successfully held her father's fort and block-house against a band of Iroquois, with the aid of only six persons, two of whom were boys, and one an old man. Day and night, for a week, she was on the watch against surprise by the Indians, who were entirely deceived by her actions, and supposed the fort was held by a garrison. At last a reinforcement came to the succour of the brave girl, and the Indians retreated. The courage displayed by this Canadian heroine is an evidence of the courage shown by the people of Canada generally, under the trying circumstances that so constantly surrounded them throughout the whole of the French régime.

In 1693 the Mohawks were punished by an expedition composed of regulars, militia, and bush-rangers, with a large Indian contingent, chiefly drawn from the Iroquois mission near Montreal, the modern settlement of Caughnawaga. This force was led by Mantet, Courtemanche, and La Noue, who succeeded in destroying the Mohawk villages after a fierce fight, in killing a large number, and in capturing several hundreds. The English, who had early information of the invasion, sent Major Peter Schuyler to pursue the retreating force, but it was too late. The immediate result of this success was a revival of trade. A large fleet of canoes came down from the upper lakes with a rich store of furs, that had been accumulating at Mackinac and other posts for nearly three years, on account of the Iroquois. Frontenac's triumph was complete, and he was called far and wide "the father of the people, the preserver of the country."

Returning for the moment to the Atlantic shores of Acadia, we find that the French arms triumphed in 1696 at Pemaquid, always an important point in those days of border warfare.

The fort, which was of some pretensions, was captured by the French under Iberville and the Abenakis under Saint-Castin, and after its destruction Iberville went on to Newfoundland, where the French ruined the English settlements at St. John and other places. Then the fleet proceeded to Hudson's Bay, where the French recaptured the trading posts which had been retaken a short time previously by the English.

In the meantime Frontenac had decided on an expedition against the Onondagas. Early in July, 1696, despite his age, he led the expedition to Fort Frontenac, which he had restored, and after a delay of a few days he went on to the Onondaga town, which he destroyed with all its stores of provisions, and its standing fields of maize. The Oneida village was also destroyed, and a number of men taken prisoners as hostages for their good behaviour. The Onondagas had fled, and the only one captured was an aged chief, who was wantonly tortured to death. It was now clear to the Iroquois that the English of New York could not defend them from the constant raids of the French, and they now made offers of peace, provided it did not include the western allies of France. Frontenac, however, was resolved to make no peace, except on terms which would ensure the security of the French for many years. He died in the November of 1698 amid the regrets of the people of all classes who admired his great qualities as a leader of men.

Callières, of Montreal, an able and brave soldier, who succeeded him, soon brought the Iroquois difficulty to an issue. The calumet was smoked and peace duly signed, in a great council held in the August of 1701, at Montreal, where assembled representatives of the Indian nations of the West, of the Abenakis, and of the Iroquois. From that time forward, Canada had no reason to fear the Iroquois, who saw that the French were their masters. The trade with the West was now free from the interruptions which had so long crippled it.