Landing of the Loyalists, 1783 (Page 260)
Landing of the Loyalists, 1783 (Page 260)
Title page
ROMANCE OF EMPIRE
CANADA
BY
BECKLES WILLSON
AUTHOR OF 'THE GREAT FUR COMPANY,' 'LEDGER AND SWORD,' ETC.
WITH TWELVE REPRODUCTIONS FROM ORIGINAL COLOURED DRAWINGS BY
HENRY SANDHAM
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD.
35 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C., & EDINBURGH
1907
TO MY SON
GORDON
PREFACE
In the following pages is told the history of my native land, as a sagamore of the olden time might tell the legends of the past to the young braves of his tribe gathered round the lodge fire. Though primarily intended for youth, yet there is scarce any one of intelligence and spirit who may not find some entertainment in hearing of the doings of the valiant heroes, the bloodthirsty villains, the virtuous ladies who played their part in the Canadian drama, and then passed for ever away.
Elsewhere I have given the story of Hudson's Bay,[1] and what is recounted here of fur-traders and fur-trading forts owes much, as the reader will expect, to my former book.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CARTIER UNFURLS THE FLAG OF THE LILIES
CHAPTER II
POUTRAINCOURT GOES FORTH TO ACADIA
CHAPTER III
OF THE DOINGS OF GALLANT CHAMPLAIN
CHAPTER IV
ROMANCE OF THE TWO DE LA TOURS
CHAPTER V
THE FOUNDING OF MONTREAL
CHAPTER VI
THE FURY OF THE IROQUOIS
CHAPTER VII
STRANGE DOINGS AT PORT ROYAL
CHAPTER VIII
THE COMING OF FRONTENAC
CHAPTER IX
"QUEBEC FOR KING LOUIS"
CHAPTER X
KING LOUIS BUILDS A MIGHTY FORT
CHAPTER XI
HOW LOUISBURG SURRENDERED AND WAS GIVEN BACK
CHAPTER XII
THE ACADIANS ARE BANISHED FROM ACADIA
CHAPTER XIII
TERRIBLE FIGHTS OVER THE BORDER
CHAPTER XIV
HOW THE GALLANT WOLFE TOOK QUEBEC
CHAPTER XV
LEVIS AND THE NOBLES RETIRE TO OLD FRANCE
CHAPTER XVI
THE COMING OF THE LOYALISTS
CHAPTER XVII
HOW CANADA'S ENEMY WAS FOILED
CHAPTER XVIII
TRAITORS, REDCOATS, AND REDSKINS
INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Landing of the Loyalists, 1783 ... Frontispiece
Jacques Cartier and the Redskins
"The Order of a Good Time," 1606
De la Tour refuses to yield his Allegiance, 1630
Maisonneuve covering the Retreat of his Followers, 1644
Dollard strikes his Last Blow, 1658
"My Guns will give my Answer," Frontenac, 1690
Heroic Defence by Madeleine de VerchÈres and her Brothers, 1692
Wolfe's Army scaling the Cliff at Quebec, 1759
Laura Secord intercepted by the Mohawk Scouts
Meeting of the Nor'-Westers at Fort William, 1816
The Defeat of Louis Riel, Fish Creek, 1885.
THE ROMANCE OF CANADA
CHAPTER I
CARTIER UNFURLS THE FLAG OF THE LILIES
Nearly four centuries ago, in the spring of the year, the banks of the river Thames from Windsor to Greenwich were lined with a multitude of gaily-dressed lieges. Artisans and their wives, tradesmen and apprentices, farmers in smock frocks, gentlemen in doublets and hose, and ladies in farthingales, all came out to snatch a peep of a brave spectacle. From lip to lip ran the news that at last the royal barge in its crimson and gold trappings had set out from Windsor. Bluff "King Hal," as the people affectionately termed their monarch, and his new queen, Anne Boleyn, were that day making their first voyage together down the Thames to the royal palace at Greenwich.
Glance at this spectacle but a moment, for, if an English reader and more familiar with English than with Canadian history, it will serve to fix the date of my story's opening firmly in your mind. The banks are re-echoing with loyal cheers, the State bargemen are plying their oars and the State trumpeters their trumpets, while poor Anne Boleyn, little dreaming of the fate awaiting her, smiles and nods merrily at the crowds who wave their silken kerchiefs in the sunshine. So this first water pageant of the season passes along.
Now, History borrowing something of Romance, has so ordered it that on this self-same day, the 20th of April 1534, when the English King was setting out on the river journey with his new queen, on the other side of the English Channel another and very different embarkation was taking place, and a very different voyage was begun.
The object of this enterprise was far indeed from pleasure, and its consequences were very important and far-reaching, not only to the King of France, but to King Henry the Eighth's successors, the English people and the British Empire of our own day. Different as it was, there was here, too, cheering and waving of caps and cries of "Vive le Roi!" as the soldiers, sailors, and townsfolk on the dock at St. Malo bade lion-hearted Jacques Cartier godspeed on his adventurous voyage to the New World.
At this time, you must bear in mind, more than forty years had elapsed since Christopher Columbus had returned to Spain with tidings of his glorious discovery on the other side of the Atlantic. When Jacques Cartier, son of a Breton mariner, was born, all Europe was still ringing with the news. As the child grew up he heard tales of how often famous mariners had in turn sailed boldly to the west and claimed for Spain, Portugal, and England the lands which might lead to India and serve as gateway to the Spice Islands of the East. Amongst these sailors were John Cabot and his son Sebastian, who, although themselves Venetians, sailed from the port of Bristol and flew the English flag. In 1498 the Cabots explored the whole coast of North America from Labrador to South Carolina, and were the first Europeans actually to land in the country we to-day know as Canada. After the Cabots, who claimed the whole northern lands for England, came, a quarter of a century later, a Florentine navigator, named Verrazano, who declared the entire region annexed to the French Crown. And now, because of Verrazano's claim, King Francis of France was sending Jacques Cartier forth from St. Malo with two little ships and 120 men to explore inland and set up the French flag and a French colony in a New France beyond the sea. So this Frenchman, valiant, lean, and rugged, with his little band of compatriots, sailed away on that April day while Bluff King Hal of England was merrymaking on the Thames, well content with his little isle of England, giving no thought to Empire or distant deeds of discovery and conquest amongst the savage nations of the earth.
Straight towards the setting sun steered Cartier and his men. As they were not buffeted greatly by the waves, in twenty days' time, on the 10th of May, they reached the straits which led to the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. How their hearts leapt when they sighted land! On their left they saw the great island of Newfoundland and on the right Labrador's bleak shores stretched before them. "Surely," cried Cartier, "this is Cain's portion of the earth!" But their spirits rose when they sailed into the Gulf and came to rich forests of pine, maple, and ash, with abundance of blossom and wild berries on every hand. They had been afraid that the interior was as desolate as their first glimpse of Labrador. The few Indians on the banks gazed upon them with a wondering but friendly eye. The explorers were unprepared, too, for the great heat which overtook them. By day the land was bathed in intense sunshine, and at night a gorgeous moon lit up the broad waters, while owls and bats wheeled in air heavily perfumed with wild shrubs and flowers. A bay in which he anchored Cartier called Baie des Chaleurs. Sailing on, he came to a promontory, which he christened Cape GaspÉ, where he landed and set up a cross 30 feet high. On its front was a shield with the arms of France. As you travel through Eastern Canada to-day you will frequently come upon crosses by the wayside, where the country folk kneel and say their prayers. This at GaspÉ was the first cross erected in New France. While the pious sailors were erecting it a number of red-men flocked near and surveyed the proceeding jealously, as if the white newcomers were about to charm away their land; but Cartier explained as best he could to their medicine-men and distributed amongst them some knives and trinkets, of which he had brought out hither a goodly store.
Having quieted their suspicions, Cartier lured two of the young red-men into his ship, wishing to show them, on his return, to the King. Cartier had meant to continue his voyage much farther westward, but adverse winds met him, wherefore, abandoning this resolution, and taking counsel with his officers and pilots, he decided to set sail for France. As truly as Columbus he had discovered a new world, and from the two natives whom he bore away Jacques Cartier had learnt of the existence of the great river St. Lawrence. So much interest was awakened in France by Cartier's narrative of his voyage, that there was no difficulty about procuring the money for another expedition. The French Court and people were filled with enthusiasm about Canada, and so they continued to be for more than two centuries. How their hope and confidence were rewarded we shall see in due time.
When Jacques Cartier again took his departure from St. Malo, in May 1535, he commanded three ships and 110 sailors. A number of nobles and gentlemen, moreover, belonging to some of the proudest families in France, went with him, eager for adventure. They thought, as marine adventurers often thought in those days, that this time surely they would find the gateway to the passage of Cathay and win wealth untold. But they were not so lucky as at first; the winds were so bad that seven weeks elapsed before Cartier reached the Straits of Belle Isle. From this point the squadron steered for the Gulf St. Lawrence, so named by Cartier in honour of the saint upon whose day it was discovered. Keeping on, as his Indian interpreters bade him do, he sailed up that stream which the Indians called "The Great River of Canada."
Can you wonder at Cartier and his attendant nobles feeling a thrill of excitement as the landscape no white man had ever seen before slowly unfolded itself to view? Opposite the great mouth of the mysterious Saguenay red-men in birch bark canoes came to greet them. Their two interpreters could exchange language with these, although their many months' residence in France had made them very different in appearance from their brother savages of Canada. They wore now slashed crimson doublets and brilliant striped hose, while the massive feathers in their heads caused the Canadian Indians to regard them as chiefs of great renown. Cartier led his ships on to what the natives called "The Kingdom of Canada," which stretched along the St. Lawrence as far as the Island of Montreal, where the King of Hochelaga held his sway. To the fertile Isle of Orleans, which Cartier reached on the 9th of September, he gave the name of Isle of Bacchus, on account of the abundant grape vines growing upon it. From here the explorer could see on the north bank of the great river a towering promontory lit up by the morning sun. This was Cape Diamond, at whose base there crouched the Indian village of Stadacona. Cartier anchored here his little fleet, and the chief of the neighbouring tribe, Donacona, came to greet him, with twelve canoes full of warriors. After a speech of welcome, the women of the tribe, or squaws, danced and sang without ceasing, standing in water up to their knees.
Jacques Cartier was delighted with the country he had discovered, and lost no time in deciding to proceed up the river as far as Hochelaga. Donacona and the other chiefs, on hearing this, did their utmost to dissuade him by inventing stories about the dangers of the river. Perceiving these made little impression on the sturdy sailor, three Indians were forthwith dressed as devils, "with faces painted as black as coal, with horns as long as the arm, and covered with the skins of black and white dogs." Cartier was told that these devils were the servants of the Indian god at Hochelaga, who warned the European strangers that "there was so much snow and ice that all would die." To their astonishment, however, Cartier only laughed at such tricks, and told them that "their god was a mere fool, and that Jesus would preserve them from all danger if they would believe in Him." Wishing also to impress upon them his own great power, he ordered several pieces of artillery to be discharged in the presence of the chief and his warriors; whereupon they became filled with astonishment and dread. Never before had they heard such terrible sounds. What were these strangers who could produce thunder at will? To reassure them, the "pale-face" chief distributed trinkets, small crosses, beads, pieces of glass, and other trifles amongst them and sailed on boldly up the river.
In a fortnight a town, consisting of about fifty large huts or cabins surrounded by wooden palisades, came into view; 1200 souls belonging to a tribe called the Algonquins dwelt here in Hochelaga. The whole population assembled on the banks and gave the visitors friendly welcome. All that night the savages remained on the shore, burning bonfires, dancing, and crying out "Aguaze!" which was their word for welcome and joy. The poor Indians took Cartier and his men for gods. He distributed gifts amongst them and professed to heal their ailments.
Jacques Cartier and the Red-skins
Jacques Cartier and the Red-skins
Near the town of Hochelaga was a mountain, to which the Indians conducted their visitors. From the summit this first band of Europeans in Canada gazed down at the wonderful panorama spread before their eyes, glistening rivers, green meadows, and forests of maple brilliant in autumn scarlets and yellows. Naming this lofty eminence Mount Royal, Jacques Cartier and his companions returned to Stadacona. Having decided to spend the winter in Canada, a fort was forthwith built on the shore, but before the little colony could be more than half prepared, a fierce Canadian blizzard was upon them. Never had they known such cold and such tempests. From their lack of fresh food, scurvy rioted amongst them, and out of 110 men 25 died. When the disease was at its height an Indian told them that they could be cured by the juice of a spruce tree. Out of their fort they ran with the axes, and so quickly did they drink the juice that in six days the whole of a great tree had been consumed.
Thus was the little colony made well again. Lest the Indians should know how weak they were during that terrible winter, they continued to dread; but no attack was made upon them, and in the spring Cartier made ready to return to France. This time Donacona and four other chiefs were seized by stratagem and taken on board ship. A cross 30 feet high, with the fleur-de-lys fastened to it, was set up on the shore, and in the middle of May the waters of the St. Lawrence began to bear them down to the Gulf and the open Atlantic. Exactly one month later Cartier was being greeted by the cheers of the people of his native St. Malo.
Alas! Donacona and the other Indian braves whom the French had borne away never returned to Stadacona and their forest haunts. Before Cartier was ready to make another voyage to Canada, five years later, all had pined away and died. It was then that the Sieur de Roberval, a nobleman of Picardy, was appointed by King Francis as lieutenant, with the high-sounding titles of Governor of Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay, and of Baccalaos, as well as Lord of Norembaga, which latter country existed only in imagination. Roberval meant to have gone out with Cartier, but was detained until the following year. On his third voyage Jacques Cartier visited Hochelaga and tried to pass up the river beyond the village, but the dangerous rapids of Lachine caused him to pause. When he returned to France a year later, he took with him some small transparent stones which he supposed were diamonds, but which were really only quartz crystals; he also carried away what he deemed to be gold ore, but which turned out to be merely mica. On the way back he met the Sieur de Roberval, who afterwards built a fort on the St. Lawrence and explored the surrounding country. But Roberval wrought nothing, and famine at length reduced the survivors to a state of abject dependence upon the natives. In vain Roberval entreated the King to come to his rescue with supplies of colonists, food, and ammunition. Instead of acceding to this petition, King Francis despatched orders for his lieutenant to return home to France. Roberval reluctantly obeyed, and thus this first attempt to establish a French colony on the banks of the St. Lawrence ended in failure.
Cartier was allowed by the King to bear always the title of "Captain." He undertook no more voyages into unknown lands, but died about 1577 in his own manor-house close to St. Malo. While he was thus spending his later years in an enforced retirement, eating his heart out for want of adventure, a daring Spaniard, De Soto, was facing dangers at the other and southern end of the Continent, close to the triple mouths of the Mississippi, which he had discovered.
King Francis of France, years before, had been stricken by death, and thereupon his country became plunged in unhappy civil war. Catholic and Huguenot dipped their blades in each other's blood; but in the midst of the long and deadly strife Canada was not wholly forgotten. Frenchmen still spoke with pride of the valiant Cartier and the flag of the lilies which he had unfurled in the Western world.
CHAPTER II
POUTRAINCOURT GOES FORTH TO ACADIA
It was a terrible era for France. Catholics and Huguenots made fierce war upon one another, and in the midst of all the fighting and murders and massacres such as that of St. Bartholomew, which you may read about in French history, conquest and discovery languished. Although the King, the Court, and the Cardinals had no time to spare to Canada, yet you must not suppose that for the next fifty years there was no connection at all between the New World and France. The red-men, paddling up and down the mighty St. Lawrence, very often met with pale-face mariners eager to exchange guns and hatchets and beads for the furs of the animals trapped in the northern wilderness. Many European ships—often over a hundred sail—came every year to Newfoundland to the cod-fisheries off that coast, and some of these sailed onward into the Gulf and on to Tadoussac, and even as far as Three Rivers. At these places fur-trading stations were set up, and hither repaired each season the hardy mariners, who were not slow to discover more profit in Europe out of sable and beaver skins than out of cod-fish. Those wild animals, whose fur was esteemed in France and other lands, were so plentiful in Canada that in course of time the peltry trade, as it was called, grew to be the principal business of the country. As each spring came round the savage tribes, whose hunting-grounds were far in the interior, would pack their furs in canoes and paddle hundreds of miles down the lakes and rivers to the post where the white trader was awaiting them. When the Indian had bartered his furs, back he paddled again to his own hunting-grounds, and the trader in turn sailed back to France, to return the next season.
Meanwhile, too, English sailors, lieges to the great Elizabeth, had been visiting the New World which Cabot had claimed for England. First there came Martin Frobisher in 1576, who, looking for a short route to India, set foot on the shores of Labrador. Again, on the other side of the continent, Sir Francis Drake, sailing round the world, sighted the snowy peaks on the borders of British Columbia, which afterwards became a part of the Canadian Dominion. Then came Sir Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, with 260 men and several ships, to plant a colony in Newfoundland. Sir Humphrey's sovereign mistress, Elizabeth, had graciously granted him a charter of 600 miles in every direction from St. John's, whereby he became lord and master of what we know to-day as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and parts of Labrador and Quebec. It was on a serene August morning that the fleet reached harbour. Donning his most gorgeous doublet of lace and velvet, and surrounded by his stalwart retainers, Sir Humphrey landed at St. John's and took possession of Newfoundland in Elizabeth's name. When he had reconnoitred the coast, our courtier resolved to return with his people to England for provisions and reinforcements. Nowadays many of our bravest sailors would be afraid to trust themselves in the little ships that formed his fleet. They were very short, curved, and blunt, and, compared to our modern floating castles, were only giant cockle-shells. A few days out a hurricane arose, and in the midst of the raging seas Sir Humphrey's ship, the Squirrel, was doomed. But not even his dreadful fate, when it loomed around him, could fill the brave commander's soul with fear. With waves careering mast-high he sat placidly on deck with a Bible on his lap. "Cheer up, lads," cried he to his sailors, "we are as near heaven on sea as on land." And so the cruel billows rolled over the Squirrel, and it and the brave souls it bore were lost for ever. The expedition from which so much had been hoped in England was an utter failure. It was the sons of France who were destined to found and people Canada, and to perform such deeds of daring valour and endurance as are not to be surpassed in the history of our own island motherland. Englishmen, it is true, were to have all Canada at last, but nearly two hundred years were to roll by before their soldiers could wrest the mainland from their hereditary rivals.
Fifteen years had passed since Sir Humphrey Gilbert went down in the little Squirrel, when a French noble, the Marquis de la Roche, received a commission from King Henry the Fourth of France to colonise Canada. With the commission in his pocket the Marquis knew not which way to turn. It was not easy in those days to find Frenchmen ready to live in a country supposed to be ice and snow the whole year round. But "where there's a will there's a way," and the Marquis at last chose fifty sturdy convicts from the prisons and galleys, and, embarking with his retinue, set sail for the West. A long low sandbank called Sable Island guards the entrance to St. Lawrence Gulf, and here the Viceroy set forty of his convicts ashore while he explored the waters roundabout. At first the marooned convicts were delighted with their freedom. They roamed hither and thither, finding a lagoon of fresh water, frequented by wild cattle and coveys of wild ducks. Sweet berries flourished in abundance. During all that summer the convicts amused themselves, keeping a sharp look-out for the return of their lord and master, the Marquis, who had gone to find them a haven to settle in and build their dwellings. Day succeeded day, week followed week, but the Marquis never came back. A violent storm had arisen which drove his vessel eastward across the wide Atlantic to the very shores of France, where the hapless nobleman was seized by a powerful enemy and cast into prison. Can you not picture the rage and despair of the unhappy men on Sable Island when they realised their plight? Winter was fast approaching, and they had neither proper food, fuel, nor raiment. Quarrelling fiercely, they slew one another, while those who were left, huddled together in rude huts formed of wreckage, lived on raw flesh and dressed themselves in the hides of wild cattle. They gave themselves up for lost, but at length the Marquis de la Roche, far away in France, was able to tell the King of the predicament of the abandoned convicts. A ship was sent out to rescue them, and, like so many wild animals, with long matted hair and beards, they grovelled at the feet of their deliverers. After such hardships as they had undergone, King Henry was not the one to send them back to prison; he pardoned them instead, and all who had survived went back to their homes. De la Roche, broken in health and fortune, died soon after, so this project for starting a colony was, as you see, not a whit luckier than Cartier's or Roberval's or Sir Humphrey Gilbert's had been. Was the next attempt to reap greater success?
In that summer of 1599, when the convicts were still on Sable Island, to the north of them, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, fur-trading ships pressed forward under full canvas to the westward. These ships were owned by two men of King Henry's Huguenot subjects, named PontgravÉ and Chauvin, who had formed themselves into a partnership to buy and sell furs. No trader could lift a finger in those days without a royal charter or patent, and these men were influential enough to get a charter from the King bestowing upon them the exclusive right to the fur trade of Canada. It was hardly likely they could really make good such a right, or that the other Frenchmen who had been buying furs from the Indians would thereafter stop buying them on account of it. But it was a safe precaution, and made their rivals' operations illegal. On their part PontgravÉ and Chauvin promised the King that they would settle in Canada 500 colonists. In this they were promising more than they could perform; the most they actually did do was to induce sixteen men to remain all winter at Tadoussac, with insufficient food, clothing, and shelter. Alas! when the ships from France appeared in the St. Lawrence next year, the last year of the sixteenth century, they found most of the sixteen dead. Their surviving companions had married native wives and gone to live in the wigwams of the Indians. Once more you see this enterprise had not fared any better than those which had gone before, and, like the others, Chauvin died recognising bitterly that his scheme was a failure.
How was it with his partner, PontgravÉ? PontgravÉ was only a trader, but he was of dogged tenacity. He saw that if Canada could be colonised by his countrymen, there was a great fortune to be made out of the fur trade, and the way to do it, he reasoned, was to bring his chief rivals together to form a company, so that, instead of being enemies, all would work together to keep out the smaller traders or "pirates," and gradually establish proper trading-posts in Canada. An influential and wealthy old soldier named Aymar de Chastes, Governor of Rouen, interested himself in the scheme, and, being high in favour with the King of France, he procured a charter and set about seeing if he and his friends could not succeed where the others had been so signally defeated.
We have now reached the point in our story at which Samuel de Champlain, the real founder of New France, enters upon the scene. For Aymar de Chastes, casting about for an experienced and adventurous spirit to help in the new enterprise, bethought him of a valorous naval captain who had recently returned from Mexico and the Spanish main, ready for anything which would fill his purse or increase his renown. Captain de Champlain was a truly great man, no mere hot-blooded, roystering swashbuckler, as many adventurers were in those days, but romantic, pious, and humane. He was then about thirty-six years old. Offering with alacrity his sword and his skill on an exploring expedition up the St. Lawrence, Champlain went, in company with PontgravÉ and another adventure-loving nobleman of the Court, Pierre du Gast, better known as the Sieur de Monts. When these pioneers reached Tadoussac they left their ships and ascended the river in boats to the farthest point yet reached, the Rapids, just above Hochelaga, now the city of Montreal. Just as Jacques Cartier had done nearly seventy years before, Champlain toiled up the forest-clad slopes of Mount Royal in order to obtain a good view of the surrounding country. He, too, was charmed with all that met his eye, and having drawn up a map and written down a narrative of all he had seen, Champlain and his companions re-embarked in the autumn, when the Canadian woods were brilliant in their browns and purples, yellow and crimson foliage, and sailed back across the salt seas to France. What was their mortification to discover that during their absence their patron, De Chastes, had died, and the company he had exerted himself to make prosperous was all but broken up. But Champlain was not to be beaten. He showed his narrative and his maps to the good and wise King Henry, who was perfectly satisfied of his good faith, and agreed to allow De Monts and his friends to continue the work of colonising Canada and organising the fur trade. De Monts, who was a Huguenot, was forthwith appointed the King's Viceroy in New France, on condition that he and the others bore all the cost of the expedition, and by and by, in the spring of 1604, four vessels once more sailed away. It was arranged that two of the ships should engage in the fur trade on the St. Lawrence, while the other two were to carry out the colonists, soldiers, work-people, priests, gentlemen, and, as always happened, as always must happen, a few rogues, to whichever spot De Monts selected for the purpose. The little fleet steered farther south than was done in the last voyage, and thus it came to pass that it finally reached that part of New France then called Acadia, and to-day marked Nova Scotia on the map. How it came by its name of Nova Scotia you shall hear later on. One day, just before De Monts and his heterogeneous crew landed, they anchored in a harbour where one of their sheep (moutons) jumped overboard. So De Monts, who was not without a vein of humour in these matters, christened the harbour Port Mouton. All were delighted with the beauty of the landscape, the grassy meadows, the silvery streams replete with fish, the wooded mountains.
Besides De Monts and Champlain there was a third leader of the expedition, a certain rich nobleman of Picardy named Baron de Poutraincourt. It was Poutraincourt who named the place where he wished to found a colony Port Royal. It was, wrote Champlain afterwards, "the most commodious, pleasant place that we had yet seen in this country." Unhappily the leaders could not instantly make up their minds, and the landing and settlement actually took place many leagues farther along on the banks of a river which now forms the boundary between the two great countries of America and Canada, which river was then, and ever since has been, called the Holy Cross (Ste. Croix) River. What a scene of joyous bustle ensued! Eighty people disembarked from the ships, and were soon hard at work building the little fort and houses of the first French settlement on the coast of the North-American Continent. While the colony was thus industriously making ready for the winter, Champlain, thinking he might be better employed, went off exploring the coast in his ship, sailing up and down what was destined to become long before he died the territory of New England.
Great trials were in store for the little colony. Very quickly the settlers found that Holy Cross River was a very uncomfortable place, lacking sufficient shelter, with little or no fuel handy. What was far worse than the winter's cold, scurvy broke out amongst them, and by the time the leaves were putting forth their first blossoms thirty-six persons had perished of this disease. Poutraincourt's choice, Port Royal, after all, was best, and there in late spring they began to construct a town near what is now called Annapolis. De Monts and Poutraincourt returned in the autumn to France, and after much labour and trouble managed to induce a large number of mechanics and workers to come out to Acadia. It must be confessed that there were on board Poutraincourt's ship, the Jonas, which sailed from Rochelle in May 1600, some very reckless, unruly characters. But their leader felt convinced that they would make good colonists, if they were only shown the way. Amongst those to help him he had brought a very clever man, Lescarbot, a lawyer and poet, full of enthusiasm for the new project.
In the meantime what of the founders and original settlers of Port Royal? Thinking they had been deserted by their leaders, and lacking provisions and clothing, they became almost as discouraged as the poor convicts had been on Sable Island.
As the summer season wore on they constructed two little craft—the very first ships ever built in Canada—and straightway sailed for the Newfoundland fishery banks to seek some of their countrymen, leaving two only of their number and a wise old Indian chief, named Meinbertou, to greet the newcomers on board the Jonas. A peal of a cannon from the little fort testified to the joy of its inmates that the long-expected succour was at last at hand. A party was sent to overtake the little Port Royal ship to bring back the colonists. No sooner were they landed than Poutraincourt broached a hogshead of wine, and Port Royal became a scene of mirth and festivity. When Champlain and Poutraincourt went off to make further exploration, Lescarbot was left in charge of the colony. He set briskly to work to show the people how they should become prosperous. He ordered crops of wheat, rye, and barley to be sown in the rich meadows and gardens to be planted. Some he cheered, others he shamed into industry, never sparing himself, so that by and by it was not wonderful that everybody loved the merry, witty, bustling Lescarbot. Not a day passed but he set going some new and useful work. Until now the people had ground their corn with hand-mills, as their fathers and grandfathers had done for hundreds of years; Lescarbot showed them how to make a water-mill. He also taught them how to make fire-bricks and a furnace, and how to turn the sap of the trees into tar and turpentine. No wonder the Indians, astonished to see so many novel industries growing up before their eyes, cried out, "How many things these Normans know!" When the explorers returned to Port Royal, rather dispirited, Lescarbot arranged a masquerade to welcome them back, and all the ensuing winter, which was extremely mild, was given up to content and good cheer. Then it was that Champlain started his famous "Order of a Good Time," of which many stories have come down to us. The members of this order were the fifteen leading men of Port Royal. They met in Poutraincourt's great hall, where the great log fire roared merrily. For a single day each of the members was saluted by the rest as Grand Master and wore round his neck the splendid collar of office, while he busied himself with the duty of providing dinner and entertainment. One and all declared the fish and game were better than in Paris, and plenty of wine there was to toast the King and one another in turn. At the right hand of the Grand Master sat the guest of honour, the wrinkled sagamore, Membertou, nearly one hundred years old, his eyes gleaming with amusement as toast, song, and tale followed one another. On the floor squatted other Indians who joined in the gay revels. As a final item on the programme, the pipe of peace, with its huge lobster-like bowl, went round, and all smoked it in turn until the tobacco in its fiery oven was exhausted. Then, and not till then, the long winter evening was over.
'The Order of a Good Time' 1606
'The Order of a Good Time' 1606
What jolly times those were! If only they could have lasted! Port Royal might have become a great city and Acadia a populous province. But bad tidings for Port Royal came from France. The next ship that sailed into the harbour brought word that De Monts' charter had been revoked by the King, and his friends would support his scheme with no more money. So there appeared nothing to do but to bid good-bye to Port Royal and their Indian friends, who watched them depart with sadness, promising to look after the fort and its belongings until the white men should return from over the wide sea.
Champlain had already in his heart chosen another field—the lands far inland on the St. Lawrence; but as for Poutraincourt, he swore to deal a blow at his enemies in France and come back to take deep root in the fertile Acadian soil. While, therefore, Champlain was with his followers founding Quebec, and De Monts, discouraged, had lost all interest in Acadia, Poutraincourt busied himself to such purpose that three years later (1610), in spite of all the baffling obstacles he met with, he set out again for his promised land with a fresh shipload of settlers.
At this time King Henry the Fourth was surrounded by members of the Society of Jesus (called Jesuits), who had made themselves already very powerful in the politics of Europe. The King ordered Poutraincourt to take out a Jesuit priest to Acadia, but Poutraincourt, distrusting the Jesuits, evaded the priest who had been chosen to accompany him at Bordeaux, and took out one of his own choosing instead, Father La FlÈche. What was their joy when they landed in midsummer to find everything at Port Royal just as they had left it! One may be sure the Indians gave their pale-face friends a cordial greeting. Old Membertou, still alive, embraced Poutraincourt and declared that now he was ready to be baptized a Christian. The christening duly took place, and the ancient sagamore was renamed Henri, after the King, and his chief squaw was christened Marie, after the Queen. There were numerous other Indian converts, and great celebrations took place, for the colonists were religious enthusiasts and believed such doings would give great satisfaction to the King.
But, alas, the King was never to hear of it! Even while all this was happening, while the future of the colony promised so well, a terrible blow had fallen upon it and the realm of France. The brave and humane Henry the Fourth had been stabbed to death by the dagger of the assassin Ravaillac. The new King, Louis the Thirteenth, being only a little boy, all the power and influence of the Court fell into the hands of the Queen Dowager, Marie de Medici, a false and cruel woman. Her closest friends and advisers were the Jesuit priests. Now these Jesuits, although professing Christianity and brotherly love, held in horror anybody who did not think exactly as they did. They wanted especially, by whatever means, to make converts of the Canadian savages. They wanted too, being very ambitious, to get the direction of the affairs of the New World into their own hands.
Yet ignorant of the royal tragedy, Poutraincourt sent his son, Biencourt, a fine youth of eighteen, back in the ship to France, to report to his Majesty the success at Port Royal in converting the natives. Whereupon the Jesuits decided that the time had come to supplant Poutraincourt. They announced that they would send back two of their priests with young Biencourt. A number of rich and pious Catholic ladies of the Court, headed by Madame de Guercheville, interested themselves so far in the work as to buy up all the rights of Poutraincourt's friends and partners, including De Monts, as proprietors of Acadia. Henceforward Poutraincourt was to be under the dependence of the Jesuits. That was the unwelcome news his son sailed back to tell him. The two priests whom he was obliged to receive—Biard and Ennemond MassÉ—were the very first members of their famous order to engage in the work of converting the North-American Indians. You will see as our story progresses what a terrible and dangerous task this was, and how it demanded men of boundless zeal and courage to undertake it.
Under the circumstance, quarrels were to be expected; and quarrels enough came. The Jesuits at Court, finding Poutraincourt insubordinate, seized the trading vessels destined for Port Royal on one pretext or another, and brought about so many imprisonments and lawsuits, that at last Poutraincourt was ruined. No longer could he send out supplies of provisions, and his people at Port Royal had to subsist through a whole winter upon acorns, beech-nuts, and wild roots. When Madame de Guercheville and her Jesuit friends had thus crippled poor Poutraincourt, she withdrew the priests to other localities named in her charter, over which she really supposed she had control. As for the sturdy old sagamore, Membertou or Chief Henri, he soon breathed his last. On his deathbed he prayed to be buried with his forefathers, but of course the priests overcame his scruples, and his wrinkled body was laid in the little cemetery at Port Royal.
You may be interested to know what were the French Jesuit rights in North-America. The charter the young king, or rather the Queen Dowager, gave to Madame de Guercheville actually included nearly all the territory from the St. Lawrence River to Florida. Was there no one at hand to remind the crafty Marie that the continent she thus complacently handed over was not hers or her son's to bestow; that the English had a far better right than the French to its possession; that in that very year an English colony had been settled in Virginia, chartered by King James the First of England? Curious to relate, the land which the English king granted was as wide in extent, in truth it was almost the very same region as that claimed by the French. So here we have the cause and beginning of a quarrel which occasioned seas of bloodshed, and was to last, very nearly without interruption, for just a century and a half, between the French and the English colonists in North-America.
In the spring of 1613 the Jesuits despatched a new expedition under a courtier named La Saussaye, who, having landed at Port Royal to take on board the two priests there, sailed on and founded a new colony at Mount Desert, now in the American State of Maine. They had just commenced to erect buildings and put up the walls of a fort, when, greatly to their surprise, a strange war-ship appeared in the little harbour. It drew nearer, and they saw, with misgivings, the blood-red cross of St. George floating from the mast-head. The captain of the war-ship turned out to be Samuel Argall, a young and daring English mariner, who had joined his fortunes to those of Virginia. While he was cruising with sixty men off the coast of Maine on the lookout for codfish, some friendly Indians boarded the ship and told him that French intruders were hard by, building a fort. By no means a kind, indulgent young man was Argall, and his eyes kindled angrily.
"Oho!" he exclaimed, with an oath, "how dare these rascals venture into King James, my master's territory!" Whereupon, stimulated by hopes of plunder, he unmuzzled his fourteen cannon and assaulted and sacked the yet defenceless French settlement, killing several, including one of the priests, and making prisoners of the rest. This done, he destroyed every trace of the colony. Fifteen Frenchmen, including La Saussaye, he turned adrift in an open boat, while the others he took back with him to Virginia. Those whom Argall abandoned to their fate would surely have perished had it not been for friendly Indians, who gave them food and helped them on their way north. There they eventually met a trading vessel and were carried back to France. As to the prisoners, on landing at Jamestown they were treated as pirates by the English settlers there. Although afterwards released, the Virginian governor, Sir Thomas Dale, was so incensed at hearing from one of them about Port Royal, that he bade Argall return, with three armed ships, and sweep every Frenchman out of Acadia. Argall carried out his instructions only too well; he set fire to the fort and settlement of Port Royal, and in a few hours the entire place, the gallant Poutraincourt's hope and pride, was a mass of smoking ruins. Luckily for themselves, most of the French happened to be away in the forest at the time, and so saved their lives. Some took permanent refuge with the Indians, and amongst these was young Biencourt. Others found their way to the colony which, as we shall now narrate, Champlain had by this time formed far away at Quebec. But it was all over with Port Royal, at least for the present. With a heavy heart Poutraincourt sailed away to France, and soon afterwards in battle laid down his life for his sovereign.
So ends the first chapter in the story of that part of Canada then called Acadia. We will return to it again, for the adventurous young Biencourt is still there roaming in the woods with a handful of faithful followers, ready to found Port Royal anew. In the meantime what was happening to Champlain, who a few years before had sailed a thousand miles up the mighty St. Lawrence to found a colony? It is high time that we should now turn to his adventures.
CHAPTER III
OF THE DOINGS OF GALLANT CHAMPLAIN
When the Sieur de Monts abandoned Acadia, thinking, as indeed it seemed, an evil spell had been cast upon it, he turned his attention to Quebec and the river St. Lawrence. Here, far inland, was a fair region which promised wealth and glory, and over this region he appointed Champlain his lieutenant. Of the two ships which De Monts fitted out one was for the fur trade, of which King Henry, ere his heart was pierced by the dagger of Ravaillac, gave him a monopoly for one year; the other was to carry colonists to found a new French settlement. You have seen how one after another the French colonies had, from this cause or that, come to destruction; but with such a wise and strong head as Samuel de Champlain, one now was expected to bear better and more lasting fruit. Truly, whatever their faults, the founders of New France were very determined men, arising fresh after each disaster, resolved to people with their countrymen the great Western wilderness. When Champlain's ships, once safely through the Straits of Belle Isle, reached Tadoussac, Champlain left there his associate PontgravÉ to barter for furs with the Indians. He himself continued his voyage up the river until he came to the spot where Jacques Cartier had passed the winter of 1535, and with his men consumed a whole spruce-tree in order to drive away the scurvy.
It was at Quebec (a word meaning in the Indian language a strait) that on the third day of July 1607 Champlain gave orders to disembark. In the shadow of the towering rock of Cape Diamond, the first thing to be done was to clear a site and erect cabins for shelter. As his men toiled on unceasingly the natives gathered round in wonder and admiration. They were unaccustomed to much manual work themselves, their squaws doing most of the labour. They saw in a few short weeks the bastions of a fort and cannon set up. Scarcely had the workmen completed their task and got all snug and tidy for the winter than a plot was formed amongst some of Champlain's followers to kill him. The leader of the plot was a Norman locksmith, Jean Duval, a brave and violent fellow who had served with Champlain in Acadia, and was impatient under any kind of authority. According to the plan the conspirators drew up, their leader was to be shot, the stores pillaged, and then they were all to fly to Spain with the booty. Lucky it was for the great and good pioneer that one of the plotters, filled with remorse, went to Champlain a few days before the mutiny was to be carried out and confessed all. Champlain with great promptitude seized Duval and hanged him to the nearest tree, but the rest he only sent back to France, where the good King, at his request, pardoned them. Meanwhile PontgravÉ had collected and sailed away with his cargo of furs. Spring came; the snows melted and were replaced by green meadows and blossoming trees; everywhere the birds sang. Champlain, without waiting for PontgravÉ's return, set off up the river and soon met again friendly Indian chiefs of the Algonquin and Huron tribes, who told him terrible tales of their sufferings at the hands of their enemies the Iroquois or the Five Nations. In their despair these chiefs sought out the Man-with-the-Iron-Breast, as they called Champlain, on account of the steel breast-plate he wore, and asked his help against the blood-thirsty Iroquois. These men of the Five Nations, Mohawks, Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, and Oneidas, lived in the forests south of Lake Ontario, and were perhaps at once the most intelligent and the most cruel of all the Indians on the continent. It was the Iroquois who had destroyed the old Huron towns of Stadacona and Hochelaga which Cartier had seen and described, and as they bore the Hurons and Algonquins an implacable enmity, it was natural that they would extend this enmity to the pale-faces who had now come to dwell in the Huron country. They might, it is true, have been propitiated; but Champlain did not stop to consider any questions of policy: he favoured at once the idea of alliance with the surrounding red-men, an alliance which was to cost him and his new colony a bloody and fearful price. Champlain, then, made three warlike expeditions into the country of the Iroquois during the next six years. In the first he paddled in canoes up the Richelieu River and came to a beautiful lake, to which he gave his own name ("Lake Champlain"). Meeting a party of Iroquois of the Mohawk nation or tribe, he fell upon them suddenly. The Mohawks fancied at first that they had only to do with Algonquins, and felt confident of victory, until the Frenchmen's muskets rang out; then not fast enough could they flee in panic from the magic bullets, leaving many slain, including their bravest chiefs. Champlain had only 60 Frenchmen and Indians, while the Mohawks numbered 200; but his victory was complete; not one of his force was killed, and the town of the enemy was wiped from the face of the earth. Notwithstanding Champlain's protests, the Algonquins insisted on torturing one of their Iroquois captives to death by every device of savage cruelty. Mercy was not in their code; they neither gave it, nor, when captured, expected it.
During the next three years Champlain was kept very busy in explorations, in attacking the Iroquois, and in protecting his colony. During this time he returned to France, and was favourably received at Fontainebleau by King Henry, who listened with interest to Champlain's tale of his adventures in "New France." But in spite of royal favour, Champlain had so many rivals and enemies that, like Poutraincourt in Acadia, he found it impossible to get the charter renewed, and so his friend and patron, De Monts, was obliged to try and get along without it. Equipping two more ships, he sent Champlain back with them to Canada.
The great ambition of Champlain's soul was to find a passage through the continent to China. At last it seemed to him that the friendliness of the Hurons and Algonquins would furnish him with the means of attaining this desire. He had just made arrangements with the chiefs, when the news came to him of King Henry's assassination, and he felt it was necessary for him to return without delay again to France. De Monts, his patron, still enjoyed the title of Lieutenant-General of New France, but his resources and influence had been sadly crippled by the King's death, and the cost of keeping up Quebec, Tadoussac, and Acadia was very great. He had no longer the monopoly, that is to say, the sole right of buying and selling Canadian furs—it was a right thrown open to other traders; and when Champlain on his next voyage back from France once more sailed up the St. Lawrence, he found many strange fur-traders trafficking with the savages.
The leader had now more to do and think about than ever; he wished, moreover, to prepare a fitting home for a fair and youthful partner who was ever in his thoughts. During his absence in Paris he had espoused a charming Huguenot girl named Helen BouillÉ, daughter of the murdered King's private secretary. Her name survives to-day in "Helen's Island" in the river opposite Montreal. So many traders did Champlain find in the vicinity of this island, that he built a fort there and resolved to turn the site of Hochelaga into a trading station. Two uneventful years passed by, and then, in the very year Argall was destroying hapless Port Royal (1613), Champlain's imagination was kindled by the astonishing tale of a certain Nicholas Vignau. This adventurer had passed a winter amongst the red-men of the upper Ottawa River. Vignau told his chief that, in company with some Algonquins, he had once arrived at a remote sea-shore, where his eyes had beheld the fragments of a wrecked English ship. Champlain's heart bounded with joy; he thought his hopes were now about to be realised. Taking Vignau, two white followers, and an Indian guide, the explorer passed the dangerous rapids of the Ottawa and made the acquaintance, one after another, of its lakes, cataracts, and islands. He pressed on, passed the Rideau (Curtain) Falls, so named because of the resemblance of this sheet of water to a great white curtain. He and his awe-struck companions stared at the raging, foaming cauldron of the ChaudiÈre, close to where the city of Ottawa, capital of the Canadian Dominion, now stands, while the Indians cast into the waters gifts of tobacco and other things to propitiate the angry god of the waters. At last the party reached Allumette Island. Here dwelt a friendly Algonquin chief named Tessouat, who received the Frenchmen hospitably and invited them to a banquet. Tessouat knew Vignau; he knew also how he had passed his time amongst the men of his tribe. So when Champlain related at the feast what Vignau had told him of his journey to the sea-shore, Tessouat bluntly told his guest that Vignau, though a pale-face, was a liar, and that he had never been on such a journey. For a while the shock of this discovery overwhelmed Champlain with rage and sorrow. Tessouat was so indignant at the way the French leader had been deceived, that he wanted Vignau to be put to death, but Champlain was of too noble and forgiving a nature for that, and contented himself with rebuking the offender. At the same time, although Vignau confessed his falsehood, we are able to see to-day a certain foundation for his story which was obscured from Canada's founder. We happen to know now what Champlain centuries ago did not dream of: that only three hundred miles separate Allumette Island from the southern end of the great inland sea, Hudson's Bay. This body of water two or three brief seasons before had been discovered by an Englishman, who, like Champlain, had tried to find a short route to China and the East Indies.
In 1610 Henry Hudson, in the pay of the Dutch, sailed up the river which now bears his name, and paved the way for the Dutch colony, afterwards called the New Netherlands. A year later, in the service of England, he sailed northwards in the Half Moon, passed through the narrow Hudson's Straits, and so on into the ice-bound inland sea. There his terrified crew mutinied, turning their brave commander adrift in an open boat, together with his son and two of his faithful companions. Thus perished Henry Hudson, who was never heard of again. As for the craven mutineers, when they stole back guiltily to England, they were seized and made to pay the penalty of their crime. Three ships were sent out to search for Hudson, but, alas, it was then too late.
Of this inland sea Vignau may have heard stories from the Indians. It may be that those who told him had really seen the wreck of poor Henry Hudson's boat on the shores, but this we shall never really know until the great Day of Judgment comes, when the sea gives up its dead and all secrets of the deep are known.
In the discovery of Lake Ontario, two years later, Champlain found some compensation for his disappointment. He was the first European to visit the "freshwater sea," as he called it. He penned a description of all he had seen, and carried it to France, where it was eagerly read. One of Champlain's mottoes was that "the salvation of a single soul was worth more than the conquest of an Empire." Up to now Quebec had been wholly without priests, but when Champlain returned to the colony he brought out four priests of the Order of the Recollets, pious men who had taken vows of poverty and self-denial. These set about converting the savages to Christianity. One of them, Joseph Le Caron, went forward to the distant Huron country, which had not yet been visited by any European. Champlain himself accompanied the priest from Quebec. On reaching the rapids just above Montreal, the Governor held a conference with the Hurons, who had come from their homes in the West to meet him and induce him to fulfil his pledge to attack the Iroquois. This expedition was one of the most fateful episodes in Champlain's life. He knew nothing about Iroquois history or character. If he had had any suspicion of what his present action was to cost his countrymen in Canada, he would rather have died than provoke the enmity of so terrible a foe. Champlain chose this time to take a most round-about route, measuring full 300 leagues, he and his men often carrying on their backs the canoes and baggage, living on coarse food, and suffering many hardships. Even the priest was obliged to take his share of the hardest work, paddling his oar until the sweat mantled his brow, staggering through the forest with a load such as a mule might carry, and with it all obliged, with the whole party, to hasten at full speed for fear of falling behind into the hands of Iroquois. In those days when there were no roads and hardly even any long paths, travellers made their way by following the rivers and lakes in canoes. When they came to the end of one waterway and wished to reach the beginning of another, they followed what were called the portages or carrying-places, paths in the woods, sometimes only a few yards long and sometimes as long as nine or ten miles.
For many weeks did Champlain sojourn in the Huron country, and then, in early autumn, he departed from their chief town, Carhagonha, on Lake Simcoe, with several hundred red warriors, to inflict chastisement on the painted warriors of the Five Nations.
Crossing Lake Simcoe, Champlain and his followers travelled slowly and with much hardship through the country north of Lake Ontario, until by this very roundabout route the whole party came in a month's time to the fort of the Onondagas, which they intended to attack. As they drew near, the French and Indians fell in with outlying bands of this tribe, capturing many prisoners. Champlain strove unceasingly to induce his Huron allies to show mercy to the captives, but the Indian warrior always deemed mercy a pitiful sign of weakness. He wanted not only to cut off the hands and feet of the male prisoners, gouge out their eyes and burn them alive, but to torture the women and children as well. Only was it when Champlain threatened to withdraw his French soldiers altogether that the Huron chiefs consented to confine their barbarities to the men alone. When the allies got closer to the Onondaga fort they found it was much more strongly defended than they had supposed. It consisted of four rows of strong stakes, and a thick wall made of heavy branches of trees. On the top of this wall were gutters of wood to conduct water to any part which the enemy should set on fire. The water was drawn from a small pond inside the fortification, where all the Onondagas were assembled in little houses, having a large store of bows and arrows, stones and hatchets. Provisions, too, were plentiful, for the Indian harvest was just over. Champlain saw at once that to take such a fort was not an easy task, and advised his Indian allies to be prudent. But the young Hurons were foolhardy and rushed at the four-fold palisade with ear-splitting war-whoops, flourishing their tomahawks. The consequence was as Champlain foresaw: they were shot down or killed by a shower of stones by the enemy. After a time, when they had lost heavily, the Hurons were ready to listen to reason. A plan was devised. In the night-time Champlain had a high wooden platform built; upon it he placed several of his musketeers so that they could fire into the fort, while 300 Hurons were stationed close by to set fire to the palisade. These measures might have succeeded, but the wind unluckily was in the wrong direction and blew the flames of the Huron torches away from the fort. Champlain himself, while trying to make the unruly Hurons obey his orders, was twice wounded, and many of his followers were killed. Then it was that the foolish Huron chiefs became disheartened. They lost faith in the "Man -with -the -Iron -Breast" and decided to give up the attempt and retreat homewards before the winter set in. In vain Champlain besought them; they were obdurate. As it was, when they got to the place, eighty miles away, where their canoes had been left, high winds and snowstorms had begun, and their wounded, including Champlain, suffered much. Solemnly had they promised the French leader that after the attack on the Iroquois they would carry him down the St. Lawrence to Hochelaga, but now they became traitors to their word and refused him even two guides for such a journey. There was nothing else to do: Champlain was obliged to go back with them and spend the whole of the succeeding winter in their lodges. On the way they made many halts to allow the Hurons time to procure stores of fish and game, which were very plentiful in the region north of Lake Ontario. Not until two days before Christmas was the journey ended.
Champlain was not idle that winter, for when his wounds had healed he moved amongst the tribes, making himself acquainted with the country and the language. The woods were filled with June flowers ere he returned to Quebec, where he had been mourned as one dead. You can imagine how rejoiced were the band of martial pioneers there to see their leader once more alive and well. They cheered and sang songs and waved flags in his honour, and even discharged the great cannon, whose echoes startled the Indians prowling afar on the green banks of the St. Lawrence.
Verily the part which Samuel de Champlain and his little band of Frenchmen had played in giving armed assistance to the Hurons and Algonquins was to have terrible results. It threw the Iroquois into friendship with the Dutch and other enemies of the French, who supplied them with firearms. It caused them to bear a hate to Champlain and all his countrymen almost as great as the hate they bore to the dusky Hurons.
All this time Champlain, great as was his ambition, can only be regarded as the agent or manager of a company of men in France whose first wish was to make money out of the fur trade. These men in their hearts had very little sympathy for Champlain's schemes of colonisation and conversion of the savages, and, becoming dissatisfied with the profits Champlain was making for them, they tried repeatedly to procure his recall. In order to baffle the intrigues against him and explain to the King himself the importance of Canada to the kingdom of France, Champlain sailed away yet again for home, leaving sixty men, the entire French population of Canada, behind him in Quebec. By his zeal and eloquence he was able to obtain some fresh supplies for his colony, and also some more soldiers and workers. Amongst these was an apothecary named Louis HÉbert, who is often spoken of as the first emigrant to Canada, because he took with him his wife and two children, intending to settle as a farmer on the land. Direct descendants of HÉbert are alive in Canada to this day. Two years later Champlain managed to bring a body of eighty colonists out to New France, and the next year (1620) his own wife, Helen de Champlain, accompanied him for the first time to the colony. This time he had triumphed over those who wished to depose him, and was now confirmed in his title of Viceroy of New France, and all seemed in the general rejoicings on his return to promise well for his enterprise. Not only the French in Quebec, but the Indians were delighted at the beauty and manners of the Governor's wife, then only twenty-two years of age. They tell of her that she wore always a small mirror suspended from her neck, according to the custom of the ladies in those days. When the red-men who drew near her looked in the little mirror they saw each, to his astonishment, his own face reflected there, and went about telling one another that the beautiful wife of the white chief cherished an image of each in her heart.
Once in Quebec, Champlain lost no time in laying the foundation of a Government House, since known as the ChÂteau of St. Louis, reared on the heights of the rock. This building came to be the residence of every succeeding Governor of Canada for two hundred years, until one night it was wholly destroyed by fire and never rebuilt. In the year it was begun, too, the Recollet priests began to build their convent, and other large buildings arose.
