How far the opinions of those who favoured the traffic were disinterested may be open to question. Traders are apt to consider exclusively the immediate interests of trade; and the love of gain is often sufficient to stifle the instincts of humanity. The church looked upon the Indians as its wards; but the majority of the settlers, it is to be feared, thought only of exploiting, if not of actually plundering, them. It is difficult to read the little treatise composed about twenty-five years after these events, under the title of the History of Brandy in Canada, without feeling persuaded that there was more ground for the position taken by the clergy than the seigneurs and others who assembled at Quebec were willing to admit. From what the anonymous writer, evidently a missionary in close touch with the facts, says, it is clear that brandy was often made an instrument for the robbery of the unhappy Indian. We are told of one man at Three Rivers who, having made an Indian drunk, insisted next day that the score for the brandy the poor savage had taken amounted to thirty moose skins. The author of the treatise is convinced that the horrible massacre at Lachine, of which we shall have to speak in a later chapter, was a direct manifestation of the anger of God at the drink traffic, of which that place in particular was the headquarters. If so, the warning unfortunately was not taken to heart, for the writer himself tells us that the traffic was resumed and prosecuted as vigorously as ever as soon as the village was rebuilt.
When Laval, who had just laid the corner-stone of his seminary at Quebec, saw the way things were going, he decided to start for France himself, to see what he could effect for the cause he had so deeply at heart by personal representations. The decision of the court, however, was what might have been expected under the circumstances. Two edicts were issued in the following year, one dated the 25th April 1679, confirming the regulations previously laid down respecting the coureurs de bois, but allowing the governor to grant hunting permits good from the 15th January to the 15th April of each year; and the other, dated 24th May, expressly prohibiting the holders of such permits from carrying liquor to the Indians, under pain of a fine of one hundred francs for the first offence, three hundred for the second, and corporal punishment for the third. The French of the settlements on the other hand were left free to sell liquor to the Indians resorting thither. The bishop was at the same time requested to make the "reserved case" apply only to those selling under illegal conditions, which, with no little reluctance, he consented to do.
It is to be noted that the second edict contains a clause expressly entrusting its enforcement to "Sieur, Comte de Frontenac, governor and lieutenant-general for his Majesty in the said country," and not as previously to the intendant. Frontenac thus had it in his power, M. Lorin observes, "to free himself in practice from the time limits imposed, or even tacitly to authorize the hunters to carry a few goods to the Indians." This writer, who is an ardent admirer of Frontenac, seems to regard it as a thing quite to be expected that the king's representative should seize the opportunity to violate the king's regulations. The motive, however, which he assigns for such probable disobedience is a very high one: the governor was anxious to keep in touch, through the traders, with the outlying Indian tribes, in order that he might watch the course of their trade, study their dispositions, and thus be enabled to take timely measures to maintain them in right relations with the French colony. Were there ground for assurance that this was his only, or even his greatly predominant, motive, we might well join with M. Lorin in considering such far-sighted devotion to the king's interests as more than a set-off to a technical irregularity. But can we? The question is one in regard to which the documents before us, consisting mainly of the correspondence of Frontenac and Duchesneau with the court, render it difficult to arrive at a positive conclusion. The matter will be discussed in the following chapter; meanwhile let us briefly note the further development of the coureur de bois question to the end of Frontenac's first administration.
It does not appear that the ordinance of April 1679 improved the situation in the least. The law continued to be violated, as Duchesneau affirms, with the connivance of the governor, and, as Frontenac says, with the active assistance (in favour of his special friends) of the intendant. In the month of November 1680 Duchesneau writes to the minister, observing that the only thing to do is to try and find the best means to induce these men to return "without prejudice to the absolute submission they owe to the king's will." He proceeds to hint at something like a conditional amnesty, lenient treatment to be promised to all those who, returning home promptly on the publication of the king's proclamation, should "make a sincere and frank declaration in court of the time they have been absent, for what persons they were trading in the Indian country, who furnished them with goods, how many skins they procured, and how they disposed of them." Evidently M. Jacques Duchesneau was in pursuit of information; and there can be little doubt with what intent. What Frontenac wrote on the subject is not on record. It seems probable that he too suggested an amnesty; but we may doubt whether he recommended the condition proposed by his friend the intendant. The court in the month of May following granted an amnesty, the sole condition of which was that the persons concerned should return to their homes immediately on being notified to do so. This was not to imply any indulgence for the offence in future, as another edict was passed in the course of the same month, providing severer punishments than had previously been prescribed—flogging and branding on a first conviction, and perpetual servitude in the galleys on a second. When these edicts reached Quebec it was noticed that to the council was given the duty, not only of registering, but of publishing and executing them. The governor, however, intervened, and, upon his promising to take the whole responsibility upon himself, the council agreed to leave the publication and execution in his hands. "Under this pretext," says M. Lorin, "Frontenac could send officers to all the posts of the upper country; and if he was anxious to do so, it was less to participate, despite the king's orders, in the fur trade, than to control the proceedings of the merchants and missionaries." The word "less" can hardly be said to imply unambiguous praise. Moreover who can say what motive was predominant?
Under the edict of 1679 the governor had the power of issuing an unlimited number of permits for hunting exclusively. The privilege had clearly been abused; and orders were now issued that in future twenty-five permits only should be granted each year, the holder of a permit to be entitled to take or send one canoe only with three men. In this way the amount of trade which could be done under a permit was limited. In all only twenty-five canoe loads of merchandise could be sent out annually. Moreover the intention in granting these permits was less to promote trade at a distance—an object the court never had at heart—than to reward certain supposedly meritorious individuals. It was a species of patronage which was placed in the governor's hands, and which he was expected to distribute in a judicious manner. If the holder of a permit did not wish to use it himself, he could sell it to some one else; and it not infrequently happened that a single trader would buy a number of permits, and send quite a little fleet of canoes up the river. The era of "trusts" was not as yet, but even here we can see the trust in germ.
The great trouble in Canada was that it was an over-governed country. The whole population when Frontenac arrived was but little over six thousand souls, scattered over a territory stretching from Matane and Tadousac in the east, to the western limit of the Island of Montreal. What these people needed in the first place was freedom to seek their living in their own way, and secondly, an extremely simple form of government. Instead of this they were hampered in their trade, and made continually to feel their dependence on the central power; while, in the matter of political organization, they were placed under the precise system which prevailed in the provinces of the French kingdom. In the Sovereign Council they had the equivalent of a parliament in the French—by no means in the English—sense; that is to say, a body for registering, and so bestowing a final character of validity upon, the decrees of the sovereign, and for administering justice. The executive power was divided between governor and intendant with very doubtful results. Below the Sovereign Council, as a judicial body, was the court of the Prévôté. The one thing the people were not allowed to have was anything in the way of representative institutions. Colbert, perhaps by immediate royal direction, gave the keynote of monarchical absolutism when he said, in words already quoted: "Let every man speak for himself; let no one presume to speak for all." Thus was the king in his strength and majesty placed over against the solitary protesting individual. Doubtless self-government in the full sense would not have been possible at the time, seeing that self-government implies, as its first condition, pecuniary independence, and the country was not in a position to provide all the money required for its civil and military expenditure. However, possible or impossible, the thing was not thought of, or to be thought of, at the time. The result of the elaborate organization actually established was that administrators and councillors, having far too little to do, fell to quarrelling with one another in the manner already seen and yet to be seen. The Canadian colony was not really peculiar in this respect. Any one who reads in Clément's great work the voluminous correspondence of Colbert will see that strife and jealousy was the rule throughout the whole colonial service. The same spirit, in fact, prevailed which was exhibited in the daily life of the court, where every one was desperately struggling for the sunshine of royal favour, and where, consequently, questions of precedence and etiquette were regarded as of surpassing importance. And now a most serious question of this nature was to blaze forth in Canada.
In various despatches from the court, Frontenac had been spoken of as "President of the Sovereign Council," though that office had never in any formal way been attached to the governorship. Shortly after Duchesneau's appointment as intendant, a royal ordinance was issued conferring the title in question upon him. In this there was no intention whatever to diminish the rank or prestige of the governor. The idea was rather to relieve him from the drudgery of presiding at meetings of the council, by giving to the latter a permanent working head in the person of the intendant, a man assumed to be accustomed to routine business and to have the trained official's capacity for details. Any other man than Frontenac would have seen the matter in this light, and rejoiced that a substitute had been found for him in a most uninteresting duty. He still had access to the council, and whenever he chose to attend, he occupied the seat of honour as the king's immediate representative, while a lower functionary would act as chairman, put questions to the vote, and sign the minutes. To the mind of Frontenac, unfortunately, the thing presented itself in a very different light; he saw his prerogative attacked, his dignity impaired. If he was not president of the council, why was he ever so addressed in official despatches? M. Duchesneau, on the other hand, took his stand on the stronger ground of a special ordinance appointing him to the office. Behold the elements of a mighty quarrel!
In the early days of Frontenac's governorship the preamble of the proceedings in council used to read: "The council having assembled, at which presided the high and mighty lord, Messire Louis de Buade Frontenac, chevalier, Comte de Palluau," etc. Later it was simplified so as to read: "At which presided his Lordship, the governor-general." After the arrival of Duchesneau a new formula was adopted. In the minutes of the 23rd September 1675, the intendant is mentioned as "having taken his seat as president"; and in those of 30th September we find the words "acting as president according to the declaration of the king." The bickering began almost from the date of Duchesneau's arrival; but it was not till the winter of 1678-9 that it developed into actual strife. The minister received many tiresome communications on the subject, and in April 1679 he seems to think that the chief fault is on the side of the intendant, for he writes to him sharply: "You continually speak as if M. de Frontenac was always in the wrong. . . . You seem to put yourself in a kind of parallel with him. The only reply I can make to all these despatches of yours is that you must strive to know your place, and get a proper idea into your head of the difference between a governor and lieutenant-general representing the person of the sovereign, and an intendant." This was hard enough, but what follows is a shade worse: he is told that in making his reports, particularly when they contain accusations, he "should be very careful not to advance anything that is not true." Finally, he is warned that until he learns the difference between the king's representative and himself, he will be in danger, not only of being rebuked, but of being dismissed. Frontenac's turn came a few months later. Colbert writes in December of the same year, and tells him that the king is getting very tired of all this squabbling, and has come to the conclusion that he (Frontenac) "is not capable of that spirit of union and conciliation which is necessary to prevent the troubles that are continually arising, and which are so fraught with ruin to a new colony." The king had heard of the trouble that was being made over this petty question, and Colbert expresses his Majesty's surprise that Frontenac should bother his head about such a thing.
When this despatch reached Canada, Frontenac had gone much further in the matter than either the king or the minister suspected. Peuvret, clerk of the council, had been imprisoned because he would not disobey the orders of the council, in the matter of his minutes, in order to obey those of the governor. During four months the routine business of the council had been suspended while this wretched business was being fought over. Three of the councillors had been banished from Quebec, being ordered to remain in their country-houses till permitted to return. A more discreditable state of things could not well be imagined, nor one of worse example for the country. At last a compromise was proposed by d'Auteuil, the attorney-general, which was that the minutes should mention the presence of the governor and intendant at the meetings of the council, without speaking of either as presiding or as president. Frontenac at first would not have anything to do with such an arrangement, but finally he consented to it till the king's pleasure could be known.
The king this time lost patience. When an answer came back, it was his displeasure that was known, and displeasure with his "high and mighty Lordship, the governor." The king told him plainly that he had on various occasions advanced claims that had very little foundation, and that in this matter his pretensions were directly opposed to a royal ordinance. His Majesty added: "I am sure you are the only man in my kingdom who, being honoured with the titles of governor and lieutenant-general, would care to be styled chief and president of a council such as that at Quebec." Colbert dealt with the matter officially, and quoted this opinion of the king's almost in the same words. He also observed that, if Frontenac had any wish to give satisfaction to his Majesty, he would have to change entirely the line of conduct he had hitherto pursued. It seemed, however, as if the court could not afford to give a clear victory to Duchesneau, for, as a practical settlement of the point at issue, it was ordered that the modus vivendi suggested by the attorney-general and actually in force should be adopted as a permanent rule—a classical example of political trimming.
It is difficult to understand how any man in Frontenac's position could fail to feel profoundly humbled and chastened by so emphatic a reproof emanating direct from his sovereign master, and echoed in an official despatch from the minister in charge of colonies. We look in vain, however, for evidence that any such effect was produced on the spirit of the governor. He doubtless felt that he had achieved at least half a victory. The title had been depreciated in the despatches from the court; it was not worth his having, and Duchesneau was not to have it. For a time there was what looked like a truce between the two heads of the state, and shortly afterwards we find Duchesneau writing to say that he and the governor are now on excellent terms; that he is omitting nothing on his side that can give satisfaction to the latter; that he communicates the very smallest things to him, and that he hopes, by sheer force of amiability, to secure a little show of kindness in return. Seeing, however, that in the same despatch in which these excellent sentiments occur, he enters into lengthy accusations against Frontenac on the trading question, and that the latter was engaged about the same time in working up similar charges against him, as appears by a document bearing date the following year, we may reasonably doubt whether very amicable or charitable feelings prevailed on either side.
D'Auteuil, the attorney-general, who had been for some time in a failing condition, and whose health had probably not been improved by his occasional stormy interviews with the governor, by whom he was cordially detested, died in the early winter of 1679-80. Duchesneau, in anticipation of this event, had obtained the king's permission to name a successor, and had secured a signed commission which, to be complete, only required to have a name filled in. Auteuil's son, François Madeleine, had been assisting him for a couple of years in his office, and as he was a very assuming youth—he was not yet twenty-one—and bitterly hostile to the governor, he was naturally the intendant's choice. Young d'Auteuil had hardly entered on his duties before he picked a quarrel with Boulduc, prosecutor of the lower court, known as a firm ally of Frontenac, whom he ordered to wait upon him at his office every Saturday to prepare cases for the court under his (d'Auteuil's) supervision. Boulduc refused. The council took the matter up, but found it hard to decide, and the squabble dragged during most of the year 1680. In the following year facts came to light which caused Boulduc to be charged with embezzlement, and d'Auteuil pushed the matter with great zeal. Frontenac, anxious to save his friend, tried to represent the accusation as the outcome of private vengeance; unfortunately the facts were against the procureur, who was condemned, and dismissed from office.
Some of the side issues that were raised on this occasion brought out strikingly the spirit of Canadian official society. Villeray, first councillor, a man more obnoxious to Frontenac on account of his extreme devotion to the ecclesiastical authorities perhaps than by reason of his dubious antecedents,[19] gave himself, in certain pleadings, the title of "esquire." Frontenac denied that he had any right to it, and held the pleadings invalid. Frontenac's secretary, Le Chasseur, appeared on a summons before the council, but refused to answer because he had been described in the summons as "secretary of Monsieur, the Governor," instead of "Monseigneur the Governor." Thus were the king's instructions to all and sundry to practise peace and concord being observed! A worse affair was that of the councillor, Damours, who, in the summer of 1681, obtained a congé from Frontenac to go as far as Matane where he had a property, and who was arrested by order of the governor on his return a few weeks later for having in some way exceeded the terms of his permit. Damours' wife appealed to the council, but Frontenac objected to having her letter read. Duchesneau urged the council to take cognizance of the case, but some of the members did not feel it safe to do so, and finally the papers were referred to the king—another quarrel for his Majesty to adjust! Meantime Damours remains in confinement for about six weeks. His Majesty of course disapproves of such harshness. In a letter dated 30th April 1681, after giving his representative various other cautions, he begs him to divest his mind of all those private animosities which up to the present have been almost the sole motive of his actions. "It is hard," he adds, "for me to give you my full confidence when I see that everything gives way to your personal enmities."
A question reserved for consideration in this chapter was as to how far there was foundation for the charges of illegitimate trading brought so continually by the intendant against the governor, and retorted by the latter against the intendant. What may be noticed in the first place is the slight amount of attention apparently paid by the court to these charges and counter-charges. The king could not openly approve of trading on the part of his high officers; he was obliged to condemn it in strong and precise terms; but he knew at the same time that they had starvation salaries, and it is possible that he was not wholly unwilling that they should, in a quiet way, make a little money out of the traffic in furs. Frontenac and Duchesneau were both recalled in the end; but it was not for trading; it was for quarrelling, playing at cross-purposes, and sacrificing the welfare of the country to their mutual jealousies. M. Lorin, whose sympathy with Frontenac is conspicuous, is disposed to admit that he did not wholly abstain from trading; but he thinks he did it in a more respectable and less rapacious manner than Duchesneau. He observes that Frontenac's partners, if partners he had, were chiefly the great explorers, La Salle, Du Lhut and others; while the associates of Duchesneau were traders pure and simple, men like Lebert, Le Moyne and La Chesnaye. On the other hand the court does not seem to have taken Frontenac's accusations against the intendant seriously. The king indeed informs him that he regards his charges as "mere recriminations." Duchesneau, it will be remembered, had been warned not to put into his despatches things that were not true; possibly he was worrying the minister and the king with information they would rather not receive. The correspondence of 1679 shows clearly the hostile relations of the two administrators.
In the summer and fall of that year the governor spent nearly three months at Montreal. On the 6th November, having returned to Quebec, he writes to the king: "I have received diverse advices from the Jesuit fathers and other missionaries that General Andros (Governor of New York) was lately soliciting the Iroquois in an underhand way to break with us, and that he was about convening a meeting of the Five Nations, in order to propose matters of a nature to disturb our trade with them." Four days later the intendant takes up his parable and informs the minister that the governor "had made the news he pretended to have received regarding the plans of the English general, Andros, to debauch the Iroquois," the whole thing being a mere pretext for making a prolonged stay at Montreal at the height of the trading season. He charges the governor with exacting presents from the Indians in return for the protection afforded them by his guards, and with having taken seven packages of beaver skins from the Ottawas in consideration of his having settled a dispute into which they had got with some Frenchmen at Montreal. It will be remembered, and the fact certainly has an air of significance, that, when it was a question of granting amnesty to the coureurs de bois, it was Duchesneau who suggested that each man should be required to give the fullest information as to what trade he had been carrying on, and on whose account. The amnesty was granted without this condition. Evidently the court did not want an embarrassment of information. Duchesneau's trouble was an excess of not wholly disinterested zeal.
The case is not overstated by Frontenac's latest and fullest biographer, M. Lorin, when he says that "the lack of a good understanding between the two administrators had divided Canadian society, or at least that portion of it which came into contact with the king's officers, into two camps." Street brawls arising out of the embitterment of feeling were not infrequent. An illustrative incident was the imprisonment of young Duchesneau, son of the intendant, for singing in the streets some snatches of a song disrespectful to the governor. The patience of the court was at last exhausted, and in the summer of 1682, Frontenac and Duchesneau were simultaneously recalled; and thus was brought to a close the count's first term of office as governor of Canada.
Some larger questions relating to this period may now profitably occupy our attention. One of the earliest acts of Frontenac, it will be remembered, was to summon the Iroquois to meet him in conference at Cataraqui, where, by his happy manner of dealing with them, he established a remarkable personal ascendency over their minds, and succeeded, for the time at least, in placing the relations between them and the French upon an excellent footing. The frequent visits which he subsequently paid to his favourite fort gave him opportunities of improving his acquaintance with his dusky lieges and of strengthening the good understanding that had been brought about. For some years things worked smoothly, and the colony enjoyed a comfortable sense of security. From the first, however, the influence of Onontio was more felt by the eastern and nearer members of the confederacy than by the western and more remote; and, as time wore on, the latter, particularly the Senecas, began to show a quarrelsome and insolent temper. They did not venture to attack the French, but they committed various acts of aggression on native tribes allied with them and under their protection. Several years before they had waged war with the Illinois and driven them from their habitations. Then they turned southwards and engaged in a prolonged conflict with a tribe known as the Andostagnés, during which time the Illinois, having recovered in a measure from their losses, ventured to return to their former abodes. The explorations of La Salle had brought these people into alliance with the French; but when the Senecas had successfully concluded their war with the Andostagnés they were not disposed to refrain from attacking them anew on that account. After various preliminary raids, they sent, in the spring of 1680, an army of five or six hundred men into the Illinois territory and committed great havoc. It was on this occasion that Tonty, La Salle's lieutenant, nearly lost his life at Fort Crèvecoeur. The question now was whether the French would stand idly by and see their allies destroyed. If they did, not only would their influence over the tribes trusting in their protection be annihilated, but they might soon have to fight for their own preservation without any native assistance. Frontenac sent messages to the Iroquois enjoining them to keep the peace; but the voice that once had charmed and overawed sounded now a very ineffectual note. Father Lamberville, Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois, wrote to say that the upper tribes had lost all fear of the French, and that a slight provocation would cause them to make war on Canada.
Frontenac and Duchesneau both discuss the matter in their despatches of the year 1681, the latter as usual blaming the former, hinting that he shirked his duty in not going up to Cataraqui in the previous summer in order to meet the tribes and use his personal influence in favour of peace. Frontenac writes as if he had not much confidence in that method; he asks for five or six hundred soldiers to quell the rebellious tribes. He thinks it would be quite enough to patrol Lake Ontario with a respectable force in order to bring them to submission. After this despatch had gone, news arrived of a most regrettable incident which threatened to precipitate war. This was the murder of a Seneca chief by an Illinois on the territory of the Kiskakons, one of the Ottawa tribes in alliance with the French. According to Indian usage the Kiskakons were responsible for the crime, and the Senecas were hot for revenge. Appreciating the gravity of the situation, Frontenac sends a special message to request the offended tribe to stay their hands, promising to hold himself responsible for seeing that full atonement is made for the wrong done. They consent, but ask that he will meet them somewhere in or near Iroquois territory on the 15th June of the following year. No pledge is given on this point, but messengers are sent to the Ottawas to tell them that they must be prepared to make full amends, and that, if they will send delegates to Montreal, the matter will be discussed and arranged there.
The winter of 1681-2 was clearly an anxious one for the colony. Frontenac thought it well to summon the wisest heads in the country to meet in the Jesuit Seminary at Quebec in order to discuss the Indian question in all its bearings. Those taking part in the conference, in addition to himself, were the intendant, the provost, and three Jesuit fathers, who had had long experience in mission work and knew the savage tribes thoroughly. The general opinion of the meeting was that Frontenac should go to Fort Frontenac to meet the Iroquois, as they had requested, in the following month of June. Frontenac, for some reason or other, did not like the idea. He did not want to go further than Montreal. Moreover, there was no use, he said, in meeting the Iroquois till he knew what the Ottawas were going to do; and they would not reach Montreal till late in the summer. The governor had his way. The Ottawas, including the Kiskakons, came in August. Only with great difficulty were they persuaded to give the necessary satisfaction to the Iroquois, who, they said, no doubt with truth, were much keener in seeking satisfaction for wrongs than in giving it when wrong was done by themselves. The Iroquois sent delegates to Montreal in the following month; and by dint of presents and promises a somewhat doubtful arrangement was patched up for the temporary maintenance of peace. Frontenac took advantage of his visit to Montreal to survey the fortifications and give instructions for strengthening them at several points. These were virtually the final acts of his administration, for in the last week of September his successor landed at Quebec.
What at this time were the resources of the colony in population? In 1668, under the administration of Courcelles, Talon, the intendant, had reported the population at 6282. In 1673, a year after his arrival, Frontenac made a return showing a total of 6705 souls. The king, Colbert said, was much disappointed at these figures and thought they could not be correct, as there were more people in the country ten years before. Where his Majesty got this information we do not know, but probably from some agent of the West India Company interested in exaggerating the prosperity of the country. He seems to have completely overlooked Talon's figures for 1668, not to mention two previous returns made by the same careful officer in 1666 and 1667; the first showing a population of 3418 only, and the second one of 4312. It seems probable, however, that Frontenac's figures were somewhat short, as the increase they showed was less than seven per cent. over Talon's for 1668, five years earlier; while a return which he made two years later gave a population of 7832, indicating a gain of nearly seventeen per cent. in that comparatively brief period. Even these figures did not satisfy the king, who insisted that he had sent over more people himself in the fifteen years or so that the country had been under his direct control.
It is to be remarked that for some years after Frontenac's arrival in Canada immigration received a serious check. His commission as governor was nearly even in date with the commencement of Louis XIV's buccaneering war against Holland, in which he was joined by his English cousin Charles II. The heroic stand made by the Dutch against the united power of the French and English monarchies is one of the glories of their history. It was not a good time for French immigrant ships to be abroad; moreover, all available Frenchmen were wanted for military service, over 200,000 having been drafted into the land forces alone, and the losses by war continually calling for recruits. A natural increase, however, was going on in the colony all the time; and in 1679 Duchesneau reported the population of Canada at 9400, and that of Acadia at 515. Three years later, at the end of Frontenac's first administration, the number had increased to over 10,000.
Trade, however, was not prosperous. Duchesneau, in November 1681, speaks of it as declining; though he tries to show that the West India trade in particular had increased in his time. The reason why trade was not prosperous is not far to seek: it was hampered and strangled by various forms of political control. The West India Company, called into existence by Colbert in 1663, had not fared much better than the Company of New France organized by Richelieu. The reflections which Clément makes on this subject in his life of Colbert are much to the point. "If ever a company," he says, "was placed in circumstances where everything seemed to promise success, assuredly it was the West India Company as reconstituted by Colbert. Monopolizing the commerce of a large part of the West Indies and of the settlements on the west coast of Africa, absolute and sovereign proprietor of all the territory in which its privilege was exercised, receiving large premiums on all that it exported or imported, one would naturally expect it to surpass the expectations of its founders. The contrary, however, was what happened, and new mortifications were added to all that had gone before. . . . By the year 1672 the company was bankrupt."[20] The chief cause of the failure M. Clément believes to have been the prohibition of trade with foreigners. Certainly what Canada most wanted was an outlet for its productions; and, could foreign vessels have freely visited the country to buy fish, lumber, potash, and skins, not to mention their own supplies, Canada would have had an open and really unlimited market during nearly the whole season of navigation. This restriction of foreign trading continued unfortunately after the king had bought out the rights of the bankrupt company in the year 1674. Having only the market of France to depend on, the trade of the colony was subject to all the vicissitudes by which that market was affected. It thus suffered severely through the war with Holland, which brought an enormous strain to bear, for a period of six years (1672-8), on the finances of the kingdom. In the years 1675 and 1676 starvation was stalking through the land; the courtiers, in driving from Paris to Versailles, would frequently see the corpses of the wretched victims of famine strewing the highway; while in Brittany and one or two other provinces the hangman was doing a merry business in swinging off the unfortunates whose misery had driven them to theft or other acts of disorder. "Gallows and instruments of torture were to be seen at all the crossways," says Henri Martin. Madame de Sévigné gives the most horrible details in regard to the severities exercised, but with very little show of sympathy for the unhappy people whom she speaks of as a "canaille revoltée"—rebellious riff-raff. "This province" [Brittany], she says, "will be a fine example for the rest and will teach the lower orders to respect the higher powers." To the same fluent and graceful pen we owe the almost Tacitean utterance: "The punishments are easing off: by dint of vigorous hanging, there will be no more hanging to do." "They make a desert," says Tacitus, "and they call it peace."
Such was the industrial stagnation prevalent about this time throughout the kingdom that very often vessels arriving at certain ports could not find return freights; there was nothing to export. Colbert's efforts to build up great industries by means of bounties and restrictive tariffs had, after a temporary flash of success, resulted in dismal failure; and when peace was made with Holland in 1678, one of the conditions agreed upon was that "reciprocal liberty of trade between France and the United Provinces was not to be forbidden, limited, or restrained by any privilege, customs duty, or concession, and that neither country should give any immunities, benefits, premiums, or other advantages not conceded equally to subjects of the other." Thus was Colbert's leading principle of commercial policy completely overthrown, and that after a war which had brought him to the verge of despair to provide the means for carrying it on.
Those were the days, however, of "imperialism" in a very real sense. Whatever the state of commerce might be in the Mother Country, Canada still had to trade with her alone; and, even so, all mercantile operations were hampered by an arbitrary fixing of prices. This was so under the sway of the company, and continued to be so to a large extent after its privileges had been swept away. Very imperial was the rule of Louis XIV. In his youth he had seen an attempt by the parliament of Paris to assert its prerogatives. In January 1649, just about the time when the scaffold was being prepared for Charles I of England, he and the court hardly knew where to turn for shelter; and he never forgot one night which they had to spend in fireless rooms without any attendance. The royal power, astutely guided by Mazarin, asserted itself eventually over parliaments and princes alike; and Louis XIV, arrived at manhood, determined that no such trouble should occur again in his time. Gaillardin, in his history of the reign of Louis XIV, fixes upon the year 1672—the year in which Frontenac was sent to Canada—as the epoch of the most complete enslavement of the parliaments. The historic function which those bodies were supposed to exercise, apart from their judicial powers, was that of registering the royal edicts; and in theory such registration was necessary in order to give any edict the full force of law. Manifestly this privilege might, like the control over money votes exercised by the English House of Commons, have developed into an effective check upon monarchical absolutism. The possibility was not overlooked, and marvellously clear and precise is the declaration by which Louis XIV, in the year 1673, put all the parliaments of his kingdom into the precise position he meant them to occupy. "First of all," the decree reads, "silent obedience: the courts [parliaments] are strictly forbidden to listen to any opposition to the registration of the letters of the king; clerks are forbidden to enter such oppositions on the records; bailiffs are forbidden to give notification of them. . . . The courts are ordered to register the letters of the king without any modification, restriction, or condition which might cause delay or impediment to their execution." When this duty has been submissively performed, then, if the parliaments have any observations to make, they may make them; but, when once the king has replied, there is to be no further discussion of any kind, simply prompt obedience. The registration of the royal edicts became henceforth a mere matter of form; and remonstrances of any kind, even such as the king graciously permitted after registration, ceased to be made. The Chancellor d'Aguesseau[21] says that none were made during the remaining forty-two years of the king's lifetime.
It may be objected, perhaps, that this is French and not Canadian history; if so the answer must be that it is impossible to understand the history of Canada in this period unless we have a sufficient comprehension of the political system to which Canada was bound by the most vital of ties. We get a strong light upon the character of Frontenac when we rightly grasp that of his master, the Roi-Soleil, as he allowed himself to be called, the man who, daring the fate of Herod or Nebuchadnezzar, once said, "It seems to me as if any glory won by another was robbed from myself." Some years before he had put on record the sentiment: "It is God's will that whoever is born a subject should not reason but obey."
To return, however, to Canada, when the king bought out the rights of the bankrupt company, monopoly was not at an end, for he proceeded to put up the trade of the country, under limited leases, to the highest bidders. Those who obtained leases were called the "farmers," and were entitled to ten per cent. of the value of all furs taken in the country. The Sovereign Council at Quebec undertook to fix the prices of goods except as regards dealings with the Indians; and non-resident merchants, while they might establish warehouses, and there sell to the French inhabitants, were not allowed to deal directly with the Indians, these being left to the mercy of local traders who made a practice of charging them excessive prices for all that they sold. Frontenac and Duchesneau both report to the home government that the Indians get twice as much from the English and Dutch in exchange for their furs as they do from the French; and yet the aim of both is to force all the Indians in their jurisdiction to sell their furs exclusively in Canada. Canadians who went to the English settlements, either in New England or in what is now New York, were amazed at the cheapness of goods. Duchesneau, in one of his later despatches, speaks of the commercial prosperity of Boston and the large fortunes accumulated by some of its citizens. Nothing similar was to be seen in Canada, where there was a settled belief on the part of the governing powers in whatever was most restrictive and illiberal in commercial policy.
The first administration of Frontenac will always be associated with the intrepid enterprises of the great western explorers, Jolliet, La Salle, Du Lhut, Nicolas Perrot, and others. To Jolliet is reasonably assigned the first discovery of the Mississippi. Starting from Green Bay, or, as it was then called, Baie des Puants, on the west shore of Lake Michigan, in company with the Jesuit father, Marquette, he worked his way to the Wisconsin River, which he followed to its junction with the Mississippi; and then descended the latter river till he reached latitude 33°, or about as far as the northern boundary of the present state of Louisiana. Fear of falling into the hands of the Spaniards, who, as he was informed by the Indians, had settlements not far to the south, caused him to retrace his steps. When he was just completing his return journey, his canoe upset close to Montreal, and all his papers were lost, including the notes he had made of his observations, and a map of the region through which he had passed. He himself narrowly escaped with his life—the laws of nature were in fact suspended, as he gravely declares, in his behalf—but a young savage whom he was bringing from the country of the Illinois was drowned.[22] He reached Quebec in the month of August 1674, and the thrilling account which he gave of his adventures produced a strong impression on the mind of the governor. Nevertheless when, two years later, he asked permission to go with twenty men to make further explorations in the same direction, Colbert refused his request. A possible explanation is that his previous journey with Père Marquette had established relations which Frontenac did not quite approve between him and the Jesuits in the western country, who had lost no time in pushing their missions towards the south. However this may have been, Frontenac had his eye at this very time upon a man who seemed to him much better suited to be an agent of his policy.
It has already been mentioned that Robert Cavelier de la Salle obtained from the king in the year 1675 a grant of the fort erected by Frontenac at Cataraqui. The conditions of the grant were that he was to reimburse the cost of construction, estimated at ten thousand livres; keep it in good repair; maintain a sufficient garrison; employ twenty men for two years in clearing the land conceded to him in the neighbourhood; provide a priest or friar to perform divine service and administer the sacraments; form villages of Indians and French; and have all his lands cleared and improved within twenty years. On these terms he was to have four square leagues of land, that is to say, eight leagues in length along the river and lake front, east and west of the fort, by half a league in depth, together with the islands opposite. But what was of most value in a pecuniary sense, and what he depended on to compensate his outlay, was the right of hunting and fishing in the neighbouring region, and of trading with the Indians. To what extent La Salle actually developed the property thus conceded to him is a matter of dispute. The Abbé Faillon, who perhaps has some little animus against him, says that he did nothing worth mentioning towards establishing such a colony as the king intended. The king, on the other hand, when granting La Salle authority to undertake explorations in the direction of the Mississippi speaks approvingly of the work he had done on his concession. The information may have been derived from La Salle himself, who went to France in the autumn of 1677 to obtain sanction for his proposed expedition; but it is hardly likely that he would lay altogether false information before the minister for submission to the king. It seems to be certain that he did at least put the fort in a good condition of defence. He pulled down the old one, which consisted merely of a wooden palisade banked up with earth and having a circumference of one hundred and twenty yards, and replaced it by one having a circumference of seven hundred and twenty yards, and protected by four stone bastions.
The probability is that La Salle, from the first, looked upon his establishment at the fort partly as an advanced base for the further explorations he had in view, and partly as a means of providing the funds without which his schemes could not be realized. The proposition which he laid before the government, was that he should erect at his own expense two forts, one at the mouth of the Niagara River on the east side, the other at the southern extremity of Lake Michigan; and that he should be commissioned to proceed to the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi, and be granted the exclusive right of trading with the Indians inhabiting the countries to be visited. The trade he was most anxious to control was that in buffalo hides, a sample of which he had brought with him to France. Having obtained all necessary powers, he sailed for Canada in the summer of 1678, bringing with him as much money as he could persuade his family and friends to advance, together with a large quantity of goods. The pecuniary obligations thus assumed were to be paid off, as he hoped, partly by the profits of his trade at Cataraqui, and partly by those of his operations in the more distant West. The story of his struggles and tribulations is too long to give in any detail here, but the main points may be hurriedly sketched.
The first care of the explorer on arriving at Quebec in the autumn was to load several canoes with goods to the value of several thousands of francs, and despatch them with a party of men to the Illinois country. In the spring carpenters were sent forward to Niagara to commence the construction of a fort. He himself followed in a large canoe laden with provisions and goods. His first misadventure was the loss of this canoe and its freight, not far from the mouth of the Niagara River. The accident was due to the inattention of his men while he was on shore. A little above the Falls of Niagara he began the construction of a forty-five ton vessel, destined for the trade between that point and an establishment he proposed to make at the southern end of Lake Michigan. The Iroquois of the neighbourhood did not like these proceedings, but did not make any active opposition. The vessel was completed and La Salle and his men sailed away in her through Lake Erie, the St. Clair River, and Lake Huron into Lake Michigan. Severe storms were encountered on the way. Near Green Bay the men whom he had sent forward with goods the previous fall met him with a number of canoes, all laden with skins, the result of their trading with the Illinois. This was more expedition than he had counted on, for he had told them to await his arrival. He caused the goods, however, to be transferred to his vessel, the Griffon, as she was called, and sent her back to Niagara with a sufficient crew. She was never heard of more; but the Indians reported that, shortly after she left shelter, a terrible storm had arisen on Lake Michigan. They watched her for some time as she was tossed about by the fury of the waves, and then they lost sight of her. Ignorant of this disaster, La Salle was making his way south. He established two forts on the Illinois River. The first, which he called St. Louis, was near the site of the present town of La Salle. The second, a little further south, near to Peoria, he named Crèvecoeur. The name is significant of "heartbreak," and his fortunes were then at their lowest ebb, for provisions were exhausted and a number of men had deserted; still it is not recorded that the name was given on that account. Leaving Henry Tonty, a man of great energy and resource, whom he had brought out from France, in charge of Fort Crèvecoeur he made his way back alone to Fort Frontenac and thence to Montreal.
It was at Fort Frontenac that La Salle first learnt the fate of his richly-laden Griffon; while at Montreal the news reached him of the loss of a vessel coming from France with a large quantity of goods for his trade. Such an accumulation of misfortunes was enough to break the spirit of an ordinary man; but La Salle was a man whom adversity could not conquer. Straining his credit to the utmost to procure supplies and reinforcements, he returns to the Illinois country to find Fort Crèvecoeur in ruins. It had been attacked by the Iroquois and its defenders scattered. Tonty, wounded in the skirmish, had gone to Michilimackinac. Getting no word of him, La Salle assumes that he is dead. Once more the long journey eastward must be faced. He reaches Montreal, and succeeds in organizing yet another expedition. Again he sets out for the West. It is late in the fall of 1680 when he reaches Michilimackinac, where he is overjoyed to find the lost Tonty. The two proceed together to the Illinois country. The year 1681 is spent in establishing or re-establishing posts and dealing or negotiating with the natives. On the 6th February 1682 La Salle strikes the Mississippi. Two months and three days later, or on the 9th of April, he is gazing forth over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
The tale is quickly told; but not so easy is it adequately to appraise the courage, determination and resource necessary for the accomplishment of such an enterprise. Knowing what we do of the man, the portrait of him in Margry's third volume seems to possess a certain convincing character, though Margry himself does not vouch for its authenticity. We see a face sensitive, perhaps sensuous, subtle, passionate, daring, tenacious. Such a man could not bind himself to the task of patient colonization at Fort Frontenac, or even find satisfaction in the more varied and exciting life of a frontiersman and trader. An overwhelming desire possessed him