1660

HOW MONTREAL SAVED NEW FRANCE

DOLLARD'S EXPLOIT AT THE LONG SAULT

UNIVERSAL FEAR OF IROQUOIS IN THE COLONY—THE GARRISON OFFICERS AT MONTREAL—ADAM DOLLARD, SIEUR DES ORMEAUX—THE PERMISSION FROM THE GOVERNOR TO LEAD AN ATTACK UP COUNTRY—HIS COMPANIONS—PREPARATIONS—WILLS AND THE SACRAMENTS—THE FLOTILLA OF CANOES—THE LONG SAULT REACHED—THE DILAPIDATED IROQUOIS WAR CAMP—ANONTAHA AND MITIWEMEG—THE AMBUSH AND ATTACK—THE RETREAT TO THE STOCKADE—THE SIEGE—THIRST—THE ALGONQUINS DESERT—FIVE HUNDRED IROQUOIS ALLIES ARRIVE—THE TERRIBLE ATTACK AND RESISTANCE—A GLORIOUS DEFEAT—RADISSON'S ACCOUNT—THE INVENTORY OF DOLLARD—UNPAID BILLS—THE NAMES OF THE "COMPANIONS"—NEW FRANCE SAVED—A CONVOY OF BEAVER SKINS REACHES MONTREAL—A REINFORCEMENT OF TROOPS FROM FRANCE ASKED FOR TO WIPE OUT THE IROQUOIS.

Ever since the flight to Montreal of the French from Onondaga under Dupuis on April 3, 1658, there had been constant fear of a concerted attempt by the Five Nations to exterminate, by fire and slaughter, the whole French population. In 1659 a Huron refugee to Quebec brought the news of the preparation of a great allied army for this fell purpose. This was confirmed at Quebec in the spring of 1660 by an Iroquois captive ally; that 800 Iroquois had assembled at Roche Fondue, near Montreal, to be joined by 400 more who were even then pouring down upon Quebec by way of Montreal and Three Rivers. Believing that Montreal and Three Rivers were besieged, Quebec was in the throes of alarm. The outlying houses were abandoned. Most of the settlers were either concentrated in the fort or in the Jesuit house, while the Ursulines and HospitaliÈres and others were in Upper Town; the rest barricaded themselves with many guards in the Lower Town. The monasteries, denuded of their occupants, were also guarded, and the cries of "qui vive?" of the patrol, each night warned the Iroquois lurking around that all were on the alert, and restrained any attempt to set fire to the houses.

That the enemy never came, is due to the heroic venturesomeness of a band of young Montrealers who had meanwhile bearded the lion in his den, and diverted the attack from the French, thus saving New France.

The garrison of Montreal had thought long of how to meet the threatened invasion, till at last the daring plan of a young officer of twenty-five years of age, Adam Dollard, was accepted. In the spring of 1660 the officers were now, besides the governor, Major Raphael Lambert Closse, M. Zacharie Dupuis, Pierre PicotÉ de BÉlestre and the young Adam Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux. Major Lambert Closse had been married on July 24, 1657, and he was now no longer living in the fort, for he had been given by the Associates, in recognition of his bravery and his merits, his own lands, the first fief granted in Montreal, a hundred arpents, "À simple hommage et sans justice." He had now received letters of nobility, for whereas before he has simply been styled sergeant major of the garrison, in his marriage contract he is named "Écuyer" (esquire), on December 9th after the arrival of Maisonneuve and that of the Sulpicians, he is called "noble homme, Écuyer." We have already mentioned that he was the commandant of the Island of Montreal. On leaving the fort Lambert Closse still retained his office of major, but he was replaced at the fort by M. Zacharie du Puis, the same who had been received coldly at Quebec after the retreat under him from Onondaga, but whose services were welcomed and esteemed at Montreal by the governor, de Maisonneuve, who named him assistant major; and he is also spoken of as "commandant of the Island of Montreal," a title found ascribed also to Lambert Closse. Then we may class Charles Le Moyne, the official interpreter and storekeeper, as in some way an officer. Among the late arrivals two others had been at least adjoined to the military staff. One of these was PicotÉ de BÉlestre, a doctor as well as a fighting man, and he proved of valuable assistance to the settlement. Dollier de Casson says of him that "he adorned this place, as well in war as in peace, on account of the advantageous qualities he possessed for one and the other." He is spoken of sometimes as a "commandant," sometimes as an officer of the garrison.

The other is Adam Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux, a young man of twenty-five years of age. There is little known of his antecedents. The actual date of his arrival is not certain but, according to the latest researches made by Mr. E. Z. Massicotte, city archivist of Montreal (April, 1912), the first document, in which his name appears as witnessing a land transfer, is dated September 10, 1658.

As he figures frequently in acts after this, it is not likely that he came much before that date, for he was not present on December 29, 1657, at the marriage of Jeanne Le Moyne with Jacques Leber, a young man of his own age, nor at that of Michel Messier and of Anne Le Moyne, February 18, 1658; while after the above date, on September 15, 1658, he was present at that of Jacques Mousseaux and of Marguerite Soviot, and on October 3, 1658, he was godfather to Elizabeth Moyen, daughter of Lambert Closse and Elizabeth Moyen, married the year previously, and thenceforward he appeared frequently at public ceremonies.

In this act, Dollard is styled "volontaire," a volunteer, which may signify that he was only as yet attached to the garrison or that he had taken service freely and not on wages. The Notary Basset gives him, sometimes, the title of "commandant"; at others that of "officer of the garrison."

Mr. Massicotte proves, from the inventory of Dollard's effects after his death, that he had intended to settle, having formed a building society, explained before as then customary, with PicotÉ de BÉlestre, to break land and to cultivate it in view of a future homestead. We have the record of de BÉlestre's concession and of a debt to be paid to the succession of "the late Adam Dollard" the sum of 79 livres, 10 sols, for fifty-three days' work, by men employed by the deceased to work on the same concession.

It is therefore probable that Dullard was contemplating his own homestead and that, in his turn, de BÉlestre would assist, according to the contracts before noticed.

Dollard was by no means wealthy; indeed the number of his personal effects at his death was less than those shown in the inventories of the greater part of the settlers dying before him, even of the bachelors. The sum total of these possessions has been estimated at eighty-five livres, or 1,700 sous! But we must remember that a sou would at that time buy five to ten times more than now.

The quality, however, of his varied but slight wardrobe and of the articles of toilette not mentioned in other inventories gives ground for the tradition that he was of a superior caste to the ordinary colonist. The ordinary tradition is, following Dollier de Casson, that this young man of good family had already had some command in the army in France, but had done some foolish act, and that he had joined Maisonneuve with the desire of doing some notable deed of valour or self-sacrifice to rehabilitate himself in his own eyes, and those of his friends.

The spelling of his name has been a subject of controversy. Mr. Massicotte has established that there is no doubt, since we have his signature at the city hall archives, that he signed himself "Dollard." "Daulat" and "Daulac," the variant readings, are the mistakes of copyists writing phonetically rather than orthographically, since the three are pronounced practically the same. There is a scarcely imperceptible nuance of sound differing. [84]

We have given these minute facts, since the exploit we are about to relate is one of the most stirring and notable in Canadian history, and the story of Montreal can well expatiate on one of its own heroes.

Adam Dollard it was who, by his boldness, persuaded de Maisonneuve from his Fabian policy of defence which had, as we have seen, made him, so far, content to drive the Iroquois away from the fort to their ambuscades around. In April, 1660, he obtained permission from the governor to take a band of volunteers up country and there do battle. The fear of the Iroquois must have been indeed desperate for one so young to have secured such a permission from Maisonneuve.

Dollard's enthusiasm, which had led the sixteen young men, two of whom were thirty and thirty-one years of age and the rest between twenty-one and twenty-seven, and most of whom had arrived in 1653, to strike hands with him to follow him if the governor gave consent, now spurred them on to make all the needful preparations. In order to purchase the necessary arms, food and boats to man the expedition, we find records extant of loans being sought as, for example, the following, signed by Dollard with his own private paraphe, or flourish, after his name, according to the custom of the time:

Major Closse, PicotÉ de BÉlestre and Charles Le Moyne would gladly have thrown in their lot with him, but prudence suggested to them that they should finish the spring seeding, and then to lead forth a body of forty men. The impetuous Dollard could not brook delay. Besides he wanted the command, and this was his opportunity in life. Moreover, his young men were eager to start. Before leaving on their perilous path to glory, they swore a sacred oath of fidelity among themselves not to ask for quarter, and the better to keep their plighted word and to face death without fear, they resolved each to make his will and to clear his consciences by a confession of his sins, and to approach in a body the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, the symbol of unity and fellowship.

Each point was faithfully carried out. The sight of these young men at this last solemn event in the parish church must have been thrilling to their friends and families, fearful, yet proud of the warriors who were setting out, perchance to die for their king and their faith. [85]

At last, on April 19th the flotilla of canoes started up the stream, but when nearby to an adjacent island (probably St. Paul) they heard a cry of alarm. Thinking that, near at hand, was the quarry they were going, so far, to seek, Dollard bore down upon the Iroquois, repulsing them with such vigour that had they not taken to the woods, leaving behind their canoes and spoils to save their lives, they would assuredly all have been captured.

But this victory was attended by the loss of three of his men—Nicholas Duval, a servant at the fort, killed by the Indians, and two others who, unaccustomed to the management of their canoe, had been drowned in the engagement. Dollard seized the spoils, left behind by the Iroquois, and, moreover, a canoe which served him in good stead later in the expedition. Meanwhile the party made their way back sadly to Ville Marie with the dead body, without doubt to assist at the burial of Nicholas Duval on April 20th, for the parish registers give this date. The other bodies had not as yet been discovered.

They were joined by one of the young men who had failed in his oath and penitently sought to redeem himself. Thus the seventeen was now complete.

As men, who might never see their friends again, they bade a general adieu to Ville Marie, and again embarked on the fateful journey whence no one returned to tell the tale. Though bold of heart, many of them were not expert at handling their canoes, so that they were delayed eight days at a rapid (Ste. Anne's) at the end of the Island of Montreal. But their indomitable courage surpassed their inexperience, and they reached, on May 1st, the end of the tumultuous rapids of the Long Leap, or the "Long Sault," at the foot of the ChaudiÈres Fall, on the Ottawa River, at a distance of about eight or ten leagues above Montreal.

There Dollard found a dilapidated war camp abandoned by the Iroquois, the previous autumn. It was not flanked, but defended only by a wretched palisading. It was dangerously overlooked too by a neighbouring wooden slope. Within this feeble fortress, for want of better protection, he cantoned his men and there awaited the canoes of the enemy who must come down the Sault in single file on their return from the chase.

Soon, to their surprise, a body of forty Hurons and four Algonquins came with credentials from the governor of Montreal, requesting Dollard to admit them to a share in their glorious enterprise. These were led by the chief, Anontaha, the Huron, and Mitiwemeg, the Algonquin. Anontaha had descended from Quebec with his Hurons, the relics of a once powerful nation, to waylay Iroquois returning from hunting, and at Three Rivers he had met Mitiwemeg with his Algonquins on a like quest. Having challenged each other's valour, they determined to push to Montreal, where likely there would be an opportunity with the Iroquois to test each other's courage in the fight. Arrived at Montreal the French, "whose fault, it is," says Dollier de Casson, "to talk too much," told them of the whereabouts of Dollard's expedition. Amazed at the daring of so slight a force, and jealous of having been forestalled in the work of falling upon the Iroquois, they sought permission to join them; there the vaunting chiefs could show their valour. Accordingly they arrived with de Maisonneuve's letter which warned Dollard not to put his trust in their bravery, but to act as if he had his Frenchmen alone to help him.

Dollard received their parties to his future sorrow. Thus reinforced the anxious warriors bivouacked around the redoubt, near the hoarse-sounding waters of the leaping rapids. At last, those on scout duty reported the coming of the advance guard of 300 Iroquois down the stream. These were on their way to join the 400 more at the Richelieu Islands to attack Three Rivers, Quebec and then Montreal.

Down to the place where they would likely land, Dollard led his men and ensconced them in ambush, till two canoes filled with Iroquois arrived, and no sooner had these put foot on land than the land force fired into their midst, but so precipitously that some escaped, and running across the woods to meet their party on the shore above, cried out: "We have been defeated at the little fort, which is quite near here. There is a party of French and Indians there."

Their approach found the party in prayer from which they arose hurriedly, seeking the shelter of the palisading and leaving in the confusion their kettles slung over the camp fires preparing for their meal.

The Iroquois quickly advanced towards the redoubt, thinking to reduce it easily, but they were frequently repulsed, with much loss and confusion. Driven back, and refused a parley, by which they sought to entice the Frenchmen from the fort, the enemy began to construct a retrenchment facing the redoubt, determined to begin the siege. Meanwhile, during this delay, the brave defenders strengthened their outworks (it would seem an obvious duty too long delayed) by building a second palisading within and filling in the space between, with stones and earth to a man's height, in such way, however, that they were loopholes large enough to put three gunmen at each. When the enemy began next to approach, they poured their scrap iron and lead into them with deadly effect. To add to their rage and humiliation the Iroquois saw the heads of their comrades placed on the tops of the stockade palisades. They now broke up the French and Huron canoes, and putting them into a blaze sought to fire the stockade with them. But finding themselves unable, even with their numbers, to capture the fort, they sent a canoe to warn the 500 at the Richelieu Islands to come to their assistance. While delaying for their reinforcement they blockaded the fort, thinking at least to force it to capitulate, through thirst. For a week the enemy's fire could not be of avail. Thirst, consequent on the dearth of water in the interior of the fort, might yet effect their surrender. Water was so scarce that the defenders could hardly swallow their hominy (rough Indian corn). Their efforts at digging were rewarded only by a little trickling stream of muddy water, altogether insufficient to quench their thirst. Thus they were forced to make sudden sallies to the river, 200 feet away, under shelter of the guns from the fort, to fill their small pots of water, since they had already lost their kettles and tin pans.

The Iroquois now called upon the parched Hurons cooped up within the wretched hole to give themselves up and receive good quarter. Else they would surely die, since a reinforcement of 500 men was coming.

These perfidious weaklings, listening to the voice of the tempters, yielded, and they were to be seen deserting stealthily by the gate or scrambling over the palisadings. This heartbreaking sight was too much for the brave chief Anontaha, who aimed his pistol at his fleeing nephew, "The Fly," but missed his aim in his bitter rage.

There were now only twenty-three to guard the fort, Dollard and his dauntless sixteen, Anontaha, and Mitiwemeg and his four faithful followers.

On the fifth day the 500 allies arrived. On they came to the fort with their frightful war cries but quickly they retired, leaving their dead around the fort and many others escaping, having lead within them that made them ill content. Thus for three days the fight was hourly renewed by the Iroquois, sometimes attacking in a body, sometimes in bands; sometimes they battered the fortress with trunks of trees; still the defenders would not yield, resolved to die to a man first. This obstinate and unexpected resistance made the enemy think that the fugitive Hurons had given a false tale of the numbers within the fort. So the time passed for the hungering and thirsting men within, weary and sleepless, but full of resolution, which they renewed with prayer, till called to fight again for dear life's sake.

On the eighth day, many Iroquois would fain have given up, but the eyes of others blazed with rage at the immortal disgrace they foresaw if they should be set to naught by a handful of whites. They determined to carry the fort by main force or perish in the attempt.

But this was a hardy and dangerous deed courting death. On such an occasion it was the custom when volunteers for the first ranks were needed, that sticks were thrown on to the ground and those that dared pick them up were considered the bravest, and took the foremost place of danger; so now the self-elected braves led the way for a bloody encounter, carrying each an impromptu shield or fence made of united logs each four or five feet in height lashed together, under shelter of which they moved with bowed heads and crouched forms. They crept nearer and nearer the palisade under the shower of shot from arquebus and musketoon that rained fire and shot upon them from the loopholes of the fort. At the gates, and on the palisade wall, the good axe and sabre of the Frenchmen dealt out death upon the stormers. At length, they had reached the palisade and strove to break their way in with axe and battering ram. As a last despairing act, Dollard, having loaded a heavy musketoon to the muzzle, and having lit the fuse, attempted to throw it over the palisading so that it would explode in the midst of the foe clambering up the posts or pulling them down. By ill luck it caught an obstacle on the inside of the palisading and it rebounded back, exploding in the fort, blinding many with its charge and killing several of the gallant whites. This gave great courage to the besiegers and the piles were wrenched away, and the gates forced. Breaches were made on all sides in the fortification and a fierce hand to hand fight of axe and sword and pistol ensued, and in the mÊlÉe the brave Dollard fell at last. Their leader fallen, each survivor fought like a lion brought to bay, dealing death around until his own turn came. With sword or hatchet in one hand and a knife in the other, maddened with hunger, thirst and exposure, and ablaze with religious and martial enthusiasm, they turned each upon their enemies, like madmen. But, unable to take them alive with their overpowering numbers, the Iroquois shot them down mercilessly, to fall upon the camp enclosure already heaped up high with their own dead.

At last not one of the defenders was standing and quickly the revengeful Iroquois searched among the bodies to see if any Christian lived and could be reserved for torture later. Three others were found on the point of death. These they shortly consigned to the flames but a fourth they took prisoner and reserved for cruel refinements later. Among those fallen were Anontaha, the Huron, and Mitiwemeg, the Algonquin, with his three faithful companions. As to the treacherous Hurons, they did not keep their word to them as they promised, but sent them to their Iroquois villages to be afterwards burned alive to satisfy their baulked revenge at their rough handling by the heroic seventeen.

Some five, however, escaped and it was through one of them Louis, "a good Christian but a poor soldier"—that the first news was brought at last to Montreal, on June 3d, that so many of the enemy had been killed within and without the fort that the bodies served to make a path to ascend the palisades and pass over into the fort. Gradually the news was confirmed by others arriving, and the truth was sifted from the conflicting accounts of these cowards, whose stories strove to shield their shameful desertion of their friends.

Shortly after the disaster the fur trader, Radisson, passed down the Long Sault after a brush with the Iroquois. He visited the palisaded fort and saw the gaping wounds in the stockade burnt by the assailants and saw the scalps of the Indians still flaunting from the pickets. In the neighbourhood there was not a tree, he remarks, that was not shot with bullets. "It was terrible," he says, "for we came there eight days after the defeat." Not until he reached Montreal did he learn of the full significance of what he had seen.

The dearly bought victory made the Iroquois shy for a time of engaging with the French, for if, they said, but seventeen could hold out so long in a paltry palisaded picket against such odds, and with such great loss to their assailants, it would be better to leave them alone in their own houses and settlements. Thus the tide of war was checked. The threatened extermination of the whites was averted. Quebec and Three Rivers breathed again. It was the voluntary sacrifice of the picked flowers of the Montreal youth, that found its Thermopylae at the Long Sault, and thus saved Canada!

"This was the common belief at the time," says Dollier de Casson, who arrived in Montreal in the sixth year after this event and whose relation is the basis of all modern accounts of this magnificent disaster, "for otherwise the country would have been swept away and lost, which leads men to say that even if the establishment of Montreal had only had the advantage of having saved the country in this adventure, and of having served as a public victim in the persons of seventeen of its sons who then lost their lives, it ought, for all posterity, if ever Canada comes to anything, to be accounted as of some considerable importance since it has saved it on this occasion, without mentioning others." [86]

We must now descend from the poetic to the commonplace of prose. In doing so, we shall have an insight into the customs of the time.

The inventory of the belongings of Adam Dullard, then in the possession of his partner, PicotÉ de BÉlestre, is preserved in the city archives dated October 6, 1660, as well as the record of the sale by auction which took place November 9, 1661, before the door of the house of Jean Gervaise. Every item is recorded, belonging to the deceased down to his night cap. Such things as a sword with a broken handle; a baldric, of English cow leather, with iron buckles; a poor jerkin of gray with a poor lining in the same colour; a little packet of poor linen; a poor black hat; a bad pair of Indian racquettes, and so on. The most valuable article was a jerkin with breeches and white hose, the whole of superior material, estimated at eighteen livres. But this apparel, according to the note adjoined, was returned by order of the governor to Sieur de Brigeac, to whom they belonged.

In the inventory is added the following unpaid bill:

"Declared by Jacques Beauchamp, fourteenth September, 1660. Seven days' work in the winter at 30 sols a day, 10 livres 10 sols; plus 2 days and a half at 40 sols, 5 livres; plus for his washing during six months, 7 livres 10 sols; plus for the making of 4 shirts and other smaller linens 4 livres; plus the sale of a black hat 4 livres."

The names of Dollard's companions are to be found in the parish register for June 3, 1660, as follows: 1. Adam Dollard (Sieur des Ormeaux), commander, aged 25 years; 2. Jacques Brassier, aged 25 years; 3. Jean Tavernier dit la LochetiÈre, armourer, aged 25 years; 4. Nicholas Tillemont, sawyer, aged 25 years; 5. Laurent HÉbert dit La RiviÈre, aged 27 years; 6. AloniÉ des Lestres, lime burner, aged 31 years; 7. Nicolas Josselin, aged 25 years; 8. Robert JuriÉ, aged 24 years; 9. Jacques Boisseau dit Cognac, aged 23 years; 10. Louis Martin, aged 21 years; 11. Christophe Augier dit des Jardins, aged 26 years; 12. Etienne Robin dit des Forges, aged 27 years; 13. Jean Valets, aged 27 years; 14. RenÉ Doussin (Sieur de Ste. CÉcile), soldier of the garrison, aged 30 years; 15. Jean Lecomte, aged 26 years; 16. Simon Grenet; 17. FranÇois Crusson dit Pilote, aged 24 years.

The date of the heroic adventure of the Long Sault is put by Dollier de Casson to May 26th or 27th, following the notice by M. Souart in the parish register for June 3rd, which says, on the testimony of the Huron Louis, that the exploit took place eight days before. But M. de Belmont places it on May 21st. This is more likely to be correct, since we have the records of the inventory of the goods of Jacques Boisseau, made on May 25th, and of Jean Valets, on May 26th.

Similar sales were made of the goods of the other heroes. It is to be noticed that nearly all left racquettes, or snowshoes, behind them, it then being spring.

Though Montreal was for the moment the Saviour of New France, de Maisonneuve had learned enough from the fugitives from the Long Sault to make him fear the downpour of the revengeful Iroquois either that autumn or the next spring. Consequently he put the town in a state of defence—by fortifying the fort, the HÔtel-Dieu, the mill on the hill, the lonely redoubts, St. Gabriel and Ste. Marie, recently constructed by de Queylus and the Sulpicians, and then hastened to give the news of the exploit of Dollard to Three Rivers and Quebec. The joyful tidings gave Quebec pause to breathe again in peace. For five months public prayers had been daily held in the churches for God's protection of the country and for the five weeks preceding the news, there had been no repose by day or by night.

Yet d'Argenson, the governor, also feared a descent upon Quebec before the harvest, and there would then be utter famine. On July 4th he wrote to France to have provisions sent back immediately, for "we are more in war than ever and in still greater famine.... We have little or no wheat, and there are three months to await for the harvest, which we are in great danger of not gathering, if the Iroquois carry out their resolution to ravage our lands."

Luckily there was no such disaster. Instead great joy was brought to the colony, for on August 19th [87] sixty canoes, led by 300 friendly Ottawan Indians, came to Ville Marie, laden with 200,000 livres' worth of beaver peltry. A quarter of this was left at Montreal and the rest taken to Three Rivers. This resumption of trade, so necessary for the colony, gave courage, for many were thinking of leaving the country on account of the continued warfare which crippled commerce. The merchants were in great part recouped for their losses and the people were enabled to buy from France the many necessities of life, which the money from the sale of beaver skins could alone provide.

But trade and peace and the progress of Christianity could only be secured by reinforcement from France, and this year we find d'Argenson writing to France to show the necessity of sending troops. The Jesuit "Relation" of this year urges the same. "Let France only say 'I wish it,' and with this word it opens heaven to an infinity of heathens; it gives life to this colony; it preserves for itself its New France and acquires a glory worthy of a most Christian kingdom.

"Saint Louis formerly planted the fleur-de-lys in the soil of the crescent. Today it would be a no less glorious conquest to make a country of infidels into a holy land than to wrest the Holy Land from the hands of the infidel. Once more, let France's will destroy the Iroquois and it is done. Two regiments of brave soldiers would overthrow them."

Hope entered into the hearts of the colonists now, since France was at peace, having concluded a treaty with Spain, and it was thought that now was the acceptable hour, the time of salvation, and for this purpose Father Le Jeune, then the procurator of the Jesuit missions in Paris, before the end of the year 1660 was asked to present a petition to Louis XIV and to plead for New France across the sea.

The king heard the "sighs and sobs of the poor afflicted colony," and promised troops; but again New France was forgotten, except by the Company of One Hundred Associates, inasmuch as they claimed the annual rental of a thousand beaver skins.

The call was not to be heard for some years yet.