BINDING LIST FEB l 1927
MEI^ENDEZ
FRANCE AND ENGLAND
NORTH AMERICA.
A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.
FRANCIS PARKMAN,
41 rm>R OF "HISTORY OF THE CONSPIRACY OF EOXTIAC," "PRAIBIE AND
ROCKY SlOUXTittN LIFE." ETC.
PART FIRST
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
1874.
F
/
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by
FRANCIS PARKMAN, IB the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
tt-esswork by John Wilson and Son.
TO THE MEMORY OF
THEODORE PARKMAN, ROBERT GOULD SHAW. AND HENRY WARE HALL,
SLAIN IN BATTLE, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY THEIR KINSMAN,
THE AUTHOR
DEPARTMENTAL
PIONEERS OF FRANCE
NEW WORLD.
FRANCIS PARKMAN,
AUTHOR OF "HISTORY OF THE CONSPIRACY OF FOXTIAC," " PRAIRIE AND ROCKY MOUNTAIN LIFE," ETC.
ELKVKNTH KIUTI0.4.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY 1874.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by
FBANCIS PARKMAN, lu the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
INTRODUCTION.
THE springs of American civilization, unlike those of the older world, lie revealed in the clear light of History. In appearance, they are feeble ; in reality, copious and full of force. Acting1 at the sources of life, instruments otherwise weak hecome mighty for good and evil, and men, lost elsewhere in the crowd, stand forth as agents of Destiny. In their toils, their sufferings, their conflicts, momentous questions were at stake, and issues vital to the future world, — the prev- alence of races, the triumph of principles, health or disease, a blessing or a curse. On the obscure strife where men died by tens or by scores hung questions of as deep import for posterity as on those mighty con- tests of national adolescence where carnage is reckoned by thousands. It is not the writer's purpose, however, to enter upon subjects which have already been thor- oughly investigated and developed, but to restrict him- self to those where new facts may be exhibited, or facts already known may be placed in a more clear and just light.
The subject to which the earlier narratives of the proposed series will be devoted is that of " France iu
viJi INTRODUCTION.
the New World," — the attempt of Feudalism, Mon- archy, and Rome to master a continent where, at this hour, half a million of hayonets are vindicating the ascendency of a regulated freedom ; — Feudalism still strong in life, though enveloped and overborne by new - born Centralization ; Monarchy in the flush of triumphant power ; Rome, nerved by disaster, spring- ing with renewed vitality from ashes and corruption, and ranging the earth to reconquer abroad what she had lost at home. These banded powers, pushing into the -wilderness their indomitable soldiers and devoted priests, unveiled the secrets of the barbarous continent, pierced the forests, traced and mapped out the streams, planted their emblems, built their forts, and claimed all as their own. New France was all head. Under King, Noble, and Jesuit, the lank, lean body would not thrive. Even Commerce wore the sword, decked itself with badges of nobility, aspired to forest seigniories and hordes of savage retainers.
Along the borders of the sea, an adverse power was strengthening and widening with slow, but steadfast growth, full of blood and muscle, — a body without a head. Each had its strength, each its weakness, each its own modes of vigorous life : but the one was fruit- ful, the other barren ; the one instinct with hope, the other darkening with shadows of despair.
By name, local position, and character, one of these communities of freemen stands forth as the most con- spicuous representative of this antagonism ; — Liberty and Absolutism, New England and New France. The
INTRODUCTION. Jx
one was the offspring of a triumphant government ; the other, of an oppressed and fugitive people : the one, an unflinching champion of the Roman Catholic reac- tion ; the other, a vanguard of the Reform. Each fol- lowed its natural laws of growth, and each came to its natural result. Vitalized by the principles of its foun- dation, the Puritan commonwealth grew apace. New England was preeminently the land of material prog- ress. Here the prize was within every man's reach ; patient industry need never doubt its reward ; nay, in defiance of the four Gospels, assiduity in pursuit of gain was promoted to the rank of a duty, and thrift and godliness were linked in equivocal wedlock. Polit- ically, she was free-; socially, she suffered from that subtile and searching oppression which the dominant opinion of a free community may exercise over the members who compose it. As a whole, she grew upon the gaze of the world, a signal example of expansive energy ; but she has not been fruitful in those salient and striking forms of character which often give a dramatic life to the annals of nations far less pros- perous.
We turn to New France, and all is reversed. Here was a bold attempt to crush under the exactions of a grasping hierarchy, to stifle under the curbs and trap- pings of a feudal monarchy, a people compassed by influences of the wildest freedom,— whose schools were the forest and the sea, whose trade was an armed barter with savages, and whose daily life a lesson of lawless independence. But this fierce spirit had its vent. Th«
x INTRODUCTION.
story of New France is, from the first, a story of war . of war — for so her founders believed — with the adver- sary of mankind himself; war with savage tribes and potent forest-commonwealths ; war with the encroaching1 powers of Heresy and of England. Her brave, unthink- ing people were stamped with the soldier's virtues and the soldier's faults ; and in their leaders were displayed, on a grand and novel stage, the energies,' aspirations, and passions which belong to hopes vast and vague, ill-restricted powers, and stations of command.
The growth of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a busy multitude, each in his nar- row circle toiling for himself, to gather competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achieve- ment of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a conti- nent. It was a vain attempt. Long and valiantly her chiefs upheld their cause, leading to battle a vassal pop- ulation, warlike as themselves. Borne down by num- bers from without, wasted by corruption from within, New France fell at last ; and out of her fall grew revo- lutions whose influence, to this hour, is felt through every nation of the civilized world.
The French dominion is a memory of the past; and, when we evoke its departed shades, they rise upon us from their graves in strange romantic guise. Again their ghostly camp-fires seem to burn, and the fitful light is cast around on lord and vassal and black - robed priest, mingled with wild forms of savage warriors, knit in close fellowship on the same stern errand. A boundless vision grows upon us : an untamed conti-
INTRODUCTION. xj
nent ; vast wastes of forest verdure ; mountains silent in primeval sleep ; river, lake, and glimmering pool ; wilderness oceans mingling with the sky. Such was the domain which France conquered for Civilization. Plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its forests, priestly vestments in its dens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism. Men steeped in antique learning, pale with the dose breath of the cloister, here spent the noon and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild, parental sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes of death. Men of courtly nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, here, with their dauntless hardihood, put to shame (he boldest sons of toil.
This memorable, but half- forgotten chapter in the book of human life can be rightly read only by lights numerous and widely scattered. The earlier period of New France was very prolific in a class of publications, which are often of much historic value, but of which many are exceedingly rare. The writer, however, has at length gained access to them all. Of the unpub- lished records of the colonies, the archives of France are of course the grand deposit ; but many documents of important bearing on the subject are to be found scat- tered in public and private libraries, chiefly in France and Canada. The task of collection has proved abun- dantly irksome and laborious. It has, however, been greatly lightened by the action of the governments of New York, Massachusetts, and Canada, in collecting from Europe copies of documents having more or lesa relation to their own history. It has been greatly light-
xii INTRODUCTION.
ened, too, by a most kind cooperation, for which the writer owes obligations too many for recognition at present, but of which he trusts to make fitting acknowl- edgment hereafter. Yet he cannot forbear to mention the name of Mr. John Gilmary Shea, of New York, to whose labors this department of American history has been so deeply indebted, and that of the Hon. Henry Black, of Quebec. Nor can he refrain from expressing his obligation to the skilful and friendly criticism of Mr. Charles Folsom.
In this, and still more must it be the case in suc- ceeding volumes, the amount of reading applied to their composition is far greater than the citations represent, much of it being of a collateral and illustrative nature. This was essential to a plan whose aim it was, while scrupulously and rigorously adhering to the truth of facts, to animate them with the life of the past, and, so far as might be, clothe the skeleton with flesh. If at times it may seem that range has been allowed to fancy, it is so in appearance only ; since the minutest details of narrative or description rest on authentic documents or on personal observation.
Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The nar rator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote ; in the character, habits, and
INTRODUCTION. xjjj
manners of those who took part in them. He must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action lie describes.
With respect to that special research, which, if in- adequate, is still in the most emphatic sense indispen- sable, it has been the writer's aim to exhaust the exist- ing material of every subject treated. While it would be folly to claim success in such an attempt, he has reason to hope, that, so far at least as relates to the present volume, nothing of much importance has es- caped him. With respect to the general preparation just alluded to, he has long been too fond of his theme to neglect any means within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true.
To those who have aided him with information and documents, the extreme slowness in the progress of the work will naturally have caused surprise. This slow- ness was unavoidable. During the past eighteen years, the state of his health has exacted throughout an ex- treme caution in regard to mental application, reduc- ing it at best within narrow and precarious limits, and often precluding it. Indeed, for two periods, each of several years, any attempt at bookish occupation would have been merely suicidal. A condition of sight aris- ing from kindred sources has also retarded the work, since it has never permitted reading or writing contin- uously for much more than five minutes, and often has not permitted them at "all. A previous work, The Conspiracy of Pontiac, was written in similar cir- cumstances.
b
X1V INTRODUCTION.
The writer means, if possible, to carry the present design to its completion. Such a completion, however, will by no means be essential as regards the individ- ual volumes of the series, since each will form a sepa- rate and independent work. The present volume, it will be seen, contains two distinct and completed narra- tives. Some progress has been made in others.
BOSTOX, January 1, 1865.
CONTENTS.
HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA.
PAOB
PREFATORY NOTE 1
CHAPTER I. 1512-1561.
EARLY SPANISH ADVENTURE.
Spanish Voyagers. — Romance and Avarice. — Ponce de Leon. — The Fountain of Youth and the River Jordan. — Discovery of Florida. — Garay. — Ayllon. — Paniphilo de Narvaez. — His Fate. — Hernando de Soto. — His Enterprise. — His Adventures. — His Death. — Succeeding Voyagers. — Spanish Claim to Florida. — English and French Claim. — Spanish Jealousy of France 6
CHAPTER II.
1550-1558.
VILtEGAONON.
Spain in the Sixteenth Century. — France. — The Huguenots. — The Court. — Caspar de Coligny . — Priests and Monks. — Nicholas Durand de Villegagnon. — His Exploits. — His Character. — His Scheme of a Protestant Colony. — Huguenots at Rio Janeiro.— Despotism of Villegagnon. — Villegagnon and the Ministers. — Polemics. — The Ministers expelled. — Their Sufferings. — Ruin of tha Colony 16
CHAPTER III. 1562, 1563.
JEAN RIBAUT.
A Second Huguenot Colony. — Coligny, his Position. — The Hugue- not Party, its Motley Character. — The Puritans of Massachu- setts. — Ribaut sails for Florida. — The River of May. — Hopes. —
XVJ CONTENTS.
PAGE
Illusions. — The Sea Islands. — Port Royal. — Charlesfort. — Albert and his Colony. — Frolic. — Adventure. — Improvidence. — Famine. — Mutiny. — Barre' takes Command. — A Brigantine built.
— Florida abandoned. — Tempest. — Desperation. — Cannibalism. 28
CHAPTER IV. 1564.
LAUDONNIERE.
The New Colony. — Rene de Laudonniere. — The Peace of Amboise.
— Satouriona. — The Promised Land. — Miraculous Longevity. — Fort Caroline. — Native Tribes. — Ottigny explores the St. John's.
— River Scenery. — The Thimagoa. — Conflicting Alliances. — Indian War. — Diplomacy of Laudonniere. — Vasseur's Expedition.
— Battle and Victory 42
CHAPTER V.
1564, 1565.
CONSPIRACY.
Discontent. — Plot of Roquette. — Piratical Excursion. — Sedition.— Illness uf Laudonniere. — The Commandant put in Irons. — Plan of the Mutineers. — Buccaneering. — Disaster and Repentance. — The Ringleaders hanged. — Order restored 69
CHAPTER VI.
1564, 1565.
FAMINE. — WAR. — SUCCOR.
La Roche Ferriere. — Pierre Gamble. — The King of Calos. — Ro- mantic Tales. — Ottigny's Expedition. — Starvation. — Efforts to escape from Florida. — Indians unfriendly. — Seizure of Outina. — Attempts to extort Ransom. — Ambuscade. — Battle. — Desperation of the French. — Sir John Hawkins relieves them. — Ribaut brings Reinforcements. — Advent of the Spaniards 68
CHAPTER VII.
1565.
MENENDEZ.
Spain. — Pedro Menendez de Avilc's. — His Boyhood. — His Early Career. — His Petition to the King. — Commissioned to conquer
CONTENTS. xv||
PAGE
Florida. — His Powers. — His Designs. — A New Crusaic. — Sailing of the Spanish Fleet. — A Storm. — Porto Hico. — Energy of Menendez. — He reaches Florida. — Attacks Ribaut's Ships. — Founds St. Augustine. — Alarm of the French. — Bold Decision of Ribaut. — Defenceless Condition of Fort Caroline. — Hibaut thwarted. — Tempest. — Menendez marches on the Frencli Fort. — His Desperate Position. — The Fort taken. — The Massacre. — The Fugitives 85
CHAPTER VIII.
1565
MASSACRE OP THE HERETICS.
Menendez returns to St. Augustine. — Tidings of the French. — Ribnut shipwrecked. — The March of Menendez. — He discovers the French. — Interviews. — Hopes of Mercy. — Surrender of the French. — Massacre. — Return to St. Augustine. — Tidings of Ribaut's Party. — His Interview with Menendez. — Deceived and betrayed. — Murdered. — Another Massacre. — French Accounts.
— Schemes of the Spaniards. — Survivors of the Carnage. — In- diflerence of the Frencli Court 119
CHAPTER IX. 1567-1574.
DOMINIQUE DK GOUUGUE8.
His Past Life.— His Hatred of Spaniards.— Resolves on Vengeance.
— His Band of Adventurers. — His Plan divulged. — His Speech.— Enthusiasm of his Followers. — Condition of the Spaniards. — Arrival of Gourgues. — Interviews with Indians. — The Span- iards attacked. — The First Fort carried. — Another Victory.
— The Final Triumph. — The Prisoners hanged. — The Forts destroyed. — !5equel of Gourgues's Career. — Menendez. — His Death 14°
i*
xviii CONTENTS.
CHAMPLALN AND HIS ASSOCIATES.
• PACK
PREFATORY NOTE 166
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
1488-1543.
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE IN NORTH AMERICA.
Traditions of French Discovery. — Cousin. — Normans, Bretons, Basques. — Legends and Superstitions. — Francis I. — Verrazzano.
— His Voyage to North America. — Jacques Cartier. — His First Voyage. — His Second Voyage. — Anchors at Quebec. — Indian Masquerade. — Visits Hochelaga. — His Reception. — Mont Royal.
— Winter at Quebec. — Scurvy. — Wonderful Cures. — Kidnap- ping. — Return to France. — Roberval. — Spanish Jealousy. — Cartier's Third Voyage. — Cap Rouge. — Roberval sails for New France. — His Meeting with Cartier. — Marguerite and the Isle of Demons. — Roberval at Cap Rouge. — His Severity. — Ruin of the Colony. — His Death 169
CHAPTER II.
1542-1604.
LA ROCHE. — CHAMPLAIN. — DE MONTS.
French Fishermen and Fur-Traders. — La Roche. — His Voyage. — The Convicts of Sable Island. — Pontgrave* and Chauvin. — Tadoussac. — Henry the Fourth. — Tranquillity restored in France. — Samuel de Champlain. — He visits the West Indies and Mexico. — His Character. — De Chastes and Champlain. — Champlain and Pontgrave explore the St. Lawrence. — Death of De Chastes. — De Monts. — His Acadian Schemes. — His Patent. 208
CHAPTER III.
1604, 1605.
ACADIA OCCUPIED.
Catholic and Calvinist. — The Lost Priest. — Port Royal. — The Colony of St. Croix. — Winter Miseries. — Explorations of Champlain. — lie visits the Coast of Massachusetts. — De Monts at Port Royal 223
CONTENTS. xlx
CHAPTER IV.
1605-1G07.
LESCARBOT AND C1IA MI'L.VI.V.
FAUX
De Monts at Paris. — Marc Lesearbot. — Rochelle. — A New Em- barkation.— The Ship aground. — The Outward Voyage. — Arri- val at Port Royal. — Disappointment. — Voyage of Cliamplain. — Skirmish with Indians. — Masquerade of Lescarbot. — Winter Life at Port Royal. — L'Ordre de Bon-Temps. — Excursions. — Spring Employments. — Hopes blighted. — Port Royal abandoned.
— Membertou. — Return to France 234
CHAPTER V.
1610, 1611.
THE JESUITS AND TIIKIR PATRONESS.
Schemes of Poutrincourt. — The Jesuits and the King. — The Jesuits disappointed. — Sudden Conversions. — Indian Proselytes.
— Assassination of the King. — Biencourt at Court. — Madame de Guercheville. — She resists the King's Suit. — Becomes a Devotee.
— Her Associates at Court. — She aids the Jesuits. — Biard and Masse. — They sail for America 251
CHAPTER VI.
1611, 1612.
JESUITS IN ACADIA.
The Jesuits arrive. — Collision of Powers Temporal and (Spiritual.
— Excursion of Biencourt. — Father Masse. — His experience as a Missionary. — Death of Membertou. — Father Biard's Indian Studies. — Dissension. — Misery at Port Royal. — Grant to Madame de Guercheville. — Gilbert du Thet. — Quarrels. — Anathemas. — Truce 264
CHAPTER VII. 1613.
8ADS8AYE. — AROALL.
Forlorn Condition of Poutrincourt. — Voyage of Saussaye. — Mount Desert. — -St. Savior. — The Jesuit Colony. — Captain Samuel Argall. — lie attacks the French. — Death of Du Thet. — Knav- ery of Arg*".. — St. Savior destroyed. — The Prisoners 278
XX CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII. 1613-1015.
RUIN OF FRENCH ACADIA.
FAGK
The Jesuits at Jamestown. — Wrath of Sir Thomas Dale. — Second Expedition of Argall. — Port Royal demolished. — Equivocal Posture of the Jesuits — Jeopardy of Father Biard. — Biencourt and Argall. — Adventures of Biard and Quentin. — Sequel of Argall's History. — Death of Poutrincourt. — The Freneli will not abandon Acadia 284
CHAPTER IX.
1608, 1609.
CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC.
A New Enterprise. — The St. Lawrence. — Conflict with Basques.
— Tadoussac. — The Saguenay. — Quehec founded. — Conspiracy.
— The Montagnais. — Winter at Quebec. — Spring. — Projects of Exploration 296
CHAPTER X.
1600,
LAKE CHAM PLAIN.
Champlain joins a War-Part}-. — Preparation. — War-Dance. — Departure. — The River Riuhelieu. — The Rapids of Chambly.
— The Spirits consulted. — Discovery of Lake Champlain. — Battle with the Iroquois. — Fate of Prisoners. — Panic of the Viet jrs 310
CHAPTER XI. 1610-1612.
WAR. TRADE. — DISCOVERY.
Champlain at Fontainebleau. — Champlain on the St. Lawrence. — Alarm. — Battle. — Victory. — War-Parties. — Rival Traders. — Icebergs. — Adventurers. — Champlain at Montreal. — Return to France. — Narrow Escape of Champlain. — The Comte de Sea- sons. — The Prince of Conde. — Designs of Champlain 326
CONTENTS. XX|
CHAPTER XII. 1612, 1613.
THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAW.
PAOB
Illusions. — A Path to the North Sea. — Cfiamplain on the Ottawa.
— Forest Travellers. — The Cliaudiere. — Isle des Allumettes. — Ottawa Towns. — Tessouat. — Indian Cemetery. — Feast. — The Impostor exposed. — Return of Champlain. — False Alarm.— Arrival at Montreal 839
CHAPTER XIII. 1615.
DISCOVERY OF LAKE HURON.
Religious Zeal of Champlain. — Recollet Friars. — St. Francis. — The Franciscans. — The Friars in New France. — Dolbeau. — Le Caron. — Policy of Champlain. — Missions. — Trade. — Explo- ration.— War. — Le Caron on the Ottawa. — Cliamplain's Ex- pedition. — He reaches Lake Nipissing. — Embarks on Lake Huron. — The Huron Villages. — Meeting with Le Caron. — Mass in the Wilderness 867
CHAPTER XIV. 1615,1616.
THE GREAT WAR-PARTY.
Muster of Warriors. — Departure. — The River Trent. — Deer-Huns.
— Lake Ontario. — The Iroquois Town. — Attack. — Repulse. — Champlain wounded. — Retreat. — Adventures of Etienne Brule".
— Winter Hunt. — Champlain lost in the Forest. — Returns to the Huron Villages. — Visits the Tobacco Nation and tbe Che- ceux Releces — Becomes Umpire of Indian Quarrels. — Returns
to Quebec 870
CHAPTER XV. 1616-1627.
HOSTILE SECTS. — RIVAL INTERESTS.
Quebec. — Condition of the Colonists. — Dissensions. — Montmorcn- cy. — Arrival of Madame de Champlain. — Her History and Character. — Indian Hostility — The Monopoly of William and Emery de Caen. — The Due de Vuntadour. — The Jesuits. —
xxji CONTENTS.
PACK
Their Arrival at Quebec. — Catholics and Heretics. — Com- promises. — The Rival Colonies. — Despotism in New France and in New England. — Richelieu. — The Company of the Hundred Associates 887
CHAPTER XVI.
1628, 1629.
THE ENGLISH AT QUEBEC.
Revolt of Rochelle. — War with England, -r- David Kirk. — The English on the St. Lawrence. — Alarms at Quebec. — Bold Atti- tude of Champlain. — Naval Battle. — The French Squadron destroyed. — Famine at Quebec. — Return of the English. — Quebec surrendered. — Another Naval Battle. — Michel. — His Quarrel with Brebeuf. — His Death. — Exploit of Daniel. — Champlain at London 401
CHAPTER XVII.
1632-1635.
DEATH OF CHAMPLAIN.
New France restored to the French Crown. — Motives for reclaiming it. — Caen takes Possession of Quebec. — Return of Jesuits.— Arrival of Champlain. — Daily Xife at Quebec. — Policy and Religion. — Death of Champlain. — His Character. — Future of No«r France 412
HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA;
SKETCH OF HUGUENOT COLONIZATION IN BRAZIL.
HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA.
THE story of New France opens with a tragedy. The political and religious enmities which were soon to bathe Europe in blood broke out with an intense and concentred fury in the distant wilds of Florida. It was under equivocal auspices that Coligny and his par- tisans essayed to build up a Calvinist France in Amer- ica, and the attempt was met by all the forces of national rivalry, personal interest, and religious hate.
This striking- passage of our early history is remark- able for the fulness and precision of the authorities that illustrate it. The incidents of the Huguenot occupa- tion of Florida are recorded by eight eye - witnesses. Their evidence is marked by an unusual accord in re- spect to essential facts, as well as by a minuteness of statement which suggests vivid pictures of the events described. The following are the principal authorities consulted for the main body of the narrative.
Ribauld, The Whole and True Discoverie of Terra Florida. This is Captain Jean Ribaut's account of his voyage to Florida in 1562. It was "prynted at London," " newly set forthe in Englishe " in 1563, and reprinted by Hakluyt in 1582 in his black-letter tract 1
2 HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA.
entitled Divers Voyages. It is not known to exist in the original French.
L'Histoire Notable de la Floride, mise en lumiere par M. Basanier, (Paris, 1586). The most valuable portion of this work consists of the letters of Rene de Laudonniere, the French commandant in Florida in 1564, '65. They are interesting, and, with necessary allowance for the position and prejudices of the writer, trustworthy.
Challeux, Discours de VHistoire de la Floride^ (Dieppe, 1566). Challeux was a carpenter, who went to Florida in 1565. He was above sixty years of age, a zealous Huguenot, and a philosopher in his way. His story is affecting from its simplicity. Various edi- tions of it appeared under various titles.
Le Moyne, Brevis Narratio eorum quce in Florida Americw Provincid Gallis acciderunt. Le Moyne was Laudonniere's artist. His narrative forms the Second Part of the Grands Voyages of De Bry, (Frankfort, 1591). It is illustrated by numerous drawings made by the writer from memory, and accom- panied with descriptive letter-press.
Coppie d'une Lettre venant de la Floride, (Paris, 1565). This is a letter from one of the adventurers under Laudonniere. It is reprinted in the Recueil de Pieces sur la Floride of Ternaux-Compans.
line Requcte au Roy, faite en forme de Complainte, (1566). This is a petition for redress to Charles the Ninth from the relatives of the French massacred in Florida by the Spaniards. It recounts many incidents of tii lit tragedy.
HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. 3
La, Reprinse de la Floride par le Cappitaine Gourgue. This is a manuscript in the Bibliotheque Imperiale, printed in the Recueil of Ternaux-Compans. It con- tains a detailed account of the remarkable expedition of Dominique de Gourgues against the Spaniards in Florida in 1567, '68.
Charlevoix, in his Histoire de la Nouvelle France, speaks of another narrative of this expedition, in manu- script, preserved in the Gourgues family. A copy of it, made in 1831 by the Vicomte de Gourgues, has been placed at the writer's disposal.
Various works upon the Huguenots in Florida, in French and Latin, were published towards the end of the sixteenth century, but all are founded on some one or more of those just named. The Spanish authorities are the following : —
Barcia, (Cardenas y Cauo,) Ensaijo Cronologico para la Historia General de la Florida^ (Madrid, 1723). This annalist had access to original documents, of great interest. Some of them are used as material for his narrative, others are copied entire. Of these, the most remarkable is that of Soils de las Meras, Memorial de todas las Jornadas de la Conquista de la Florida.
Francisco Lopez de Mendoza, De Theureux resul- tat et du bon voyage que Dieu notre Seigneur a lien voulu accordcr a la flotte qui par tit de la ville de Cadiz pour se rendre a la cote de la Floride. This is a Span- ish manuscript, translated into French and printed in the Recueil de Pieces sur la Floride of Teruaux-Cam- pans. Mendoza was chaplain of the expedition com-
4, HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA.
manded by Menendez de Aviles, and, like Soils, ho was an eye-witness of the events which he relates.
Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Siete Cartas escritas al Ret/, Anos de 1565 y 1566, MSS. These are the despatches of the Adelantado Menendez to Philip the Second. They were procured for the writer, together with other documents, from the archives of Seville, and their contents are now for the first time made public. They consist of seventy - two closely written foolscap pages, and are of the highest interest and value as regards the present subject, confirming and amplifying the statements of Soils and Mendoza, and giving new and curious, information with respect to the designs of Spain upon the continent of North America.
It is unnecessary to specify here the authorities for the introductory and subordinate portions of the narra- tive.
The writer is indebted to Mr. Buckingham Smith, for procuring copies of documents from the archives of Spain ; to Mr. Bancroft, the historian of the United States, for the use of the Vicomte de Gourgues's copy of the journal describing the expedition of his ancestor against the Spaniards ; and to Mr. Charles Russell Lowell of the Boston Athenaeum, and Mr. John Lang- don Sibley, Librarian of Harvard College, for obliging aid in consulting books and papers.
The portrait at the beginning of this volume is a fac-si-uile from an old Spanish engraving, of undoubted authenticity. This, also, was obtained through the kind- ness of Mr. Buckingham Smith.
HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. CHAPTER I.
1512 — 1561. EARLY SPANISH ADVENTURE.
SPANISH VOYAGKKS. — ROMANCE AND AVARICE. — PONCE DK LEON. — IHB FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH AND TUB RIVER JORDAN. — FLORIDA DISCOVERED. — PAMPHILO DE NARVAEZ. — HERNANDO DE SOTO — His CAREER. — His DEATH. — SUCCEEDING VOYAGERS. — SPANISH CLAIM TO FLORIDA. — SPANISH JEALOUSY OF FRANCE.
TOWARDS the close of the fifteenth century, Spain achieved her final triumph over the infidels of Granada, and made her name glorious through all generations by the discovery of America. The religious zeal and ro- mantic daring' which a long- course of Moorish wars had called forth, were now exalted to redoubled fervor. Every ship from the New World came freighted with marvels which put the fictions of chivalry to shame ; and to the Spaniard of that day America was a region of wonder and mystery, of vague and magnificent prom- / ise. Thither adventurers hastened, thirsting for glory and for gold, and often mingling the enthusiasm of the crusader and the valor of the knight-errant with the bigotry of inquisitors and the rapacity of pirates. They roamed over land and sea ; they climbed unknown i*
g EARLY SPANISH ADVENTURE. [1512.
mountains, surveyed unknown oceans, pierced the sultry intricacies of tropical forests ; while from year to year and from day to day new wonders were unfolded, new islands and archipelagoes, new regions of gold and pearl, and barbaric empires of more than Oriental wealth. The extravagance of hope and the fever of adventure knew no bounds. Nor is it surprising that amid such waking marvels the imagination should run wild in romantic dreams ; that between the possible and the impossible the line of distinction should be but faintly drawn, and that men should be found ready to stake life and honor in pursuit of the most insane fantasies.
Such a man was Juan Ponce de Leon, a veteran cav- alier, whose restless spirit age could not tame. Still greedy of honors and of riches, he embarked at Porto Rico with three brigantines, bent on schemes of discov- ery. But that which gave, the chief stimulus to bis enterprise was a story, current among the Indians of Cuba and Hispaniola, that on the island of Bimini, one of the Lucayos, there was a fountain of such virtue, that, bathing in its waters, old men resumed their youth.1
i Herrera, Hist. General, d. I. 1. IX. c. XII. ; De Laet, Norns Orbt's, 1. T. c. XVI. ; Garcilaso, Hist., dela Florida, p. 1. 1. I. c. III. Gornara, Hist. Gen. des Indes Occident ales, 1. II. c. X. Compare Peter Martyr, DK Ili-hus Oceanicis, d. VII. c. VII., who says that the fountain was in Florida.
The stor}7 hap an explanation sufficiently characteristic, having been suggested, it is said, by the beauty of the native women, which none could resist, and which kindled the fires of youth in the veins of age.
The terms of Ponce de Leon's bargain with the King are set forth in the MS. Capitulation con Juan Ponce sobre Biminy. He was to have exclusive right to the island, settle it at his own cost, and be called Adelantado of Bimini ; but the King was to build and hold forts there, send agents to divide the Indians among the settlers, and receive Srst a tenth, afterward a fifth of the gold.
1528.] PONCE. — PAMPHILO DE NARVAEZ. 7
It was said, moreover, that on a neighboring shore might be found a river gifted with the same beneficent property, and believed by some to be no other than the Jordan.1 Ponce de Leon found the island of Bimini, but not the fountain. Farther westward, in the latitude of thirty degrees and eight minutes, he approached an unknown land which he named Florida, and steering1
' C*
southward, explored its coast as far as the extreme point of the peninsula, when, after some farther explo- rations, he retraced his course to Porto Rico.
Ponce de Leon had not regained his youth, but his active spirit was unsubdued.
Nine years later he attempted to plant a colony in Florida ; but the Indians attacked him fiercely ; he was mortally wounded, and died soon afterwards in Cuba.2
The voyages of Garay and Vasquez de Aylion threw new light on the discoveries of Ponce, and the general outline of the coasts of Florida became known to the Spaniards.3 Meanwhile, Cortes had conquered Mexico, and the fame of that iniquitous but magnificent exploit rang through all Spain. Many an impatient cavalier burned to achieve a kindred fortune. To the excited fancy of the Spaniards the unknown land of Flor- ida seemed the seat of surpassing wealth, and Pamplnlo de Narvaez essayed to possess himself of its fancied
1 Fontanedo in Tcrnatix-Compans, Rcc.iieil siir la Floride, 18, 19, 42. Compare Horrera as above cited. In allusion to this belief, the name Jordan was given eight years afterwards by Aylion to a river of South Carolina.
2 Hakluyt, Voyayes, V. 333; Herrera, d. III. 1. I. c. XIV. ; BarcU, Kiif.ii//o Croiiolot/ico, 5.
8 Peter Martyr in Hakluyt, V. 333, 503; De Laet, 1. IV. c. II.
3 EARLY SPANISH ADVENTURE. [1628.
treasures. Landing on its shores, and proclaiming de- struction to the Indians unless they acknowledged the sovereignty of the Pope and the Emperor,1 he advanced into the forests with three hundred men. Nothing could exceed their sufferings. Nowhere could they find the gold they came to seek. The village of Appalache, where they hoped to gain a rich booty, offered nothing but a few mean wigwams. The horses gave out, and the famished soldiers fed upon their flesh. The men sickened, and the Indians unceasingly harassed their march. At length, after two hundred and eighty leagues2 of wandering, they found themselves' on the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico, and desperately put to sea in such crazy boats as their skill and means could construct. Cold, disease, famine, thirst, and the fury of the waves, melted them away. Narvaez him- self perished, and of his wretched followers no more than four escaped, reaching by land, after years of vicis- situde, the Christian settlements of New Spain.3
The interior of the vast country then comprehended under the name of Florida still remained unexplored.
1 Sommation aux Habitants de la Floride, in Ternaux-Compans, 1.
2 Their own exaggerated reckoning. The journey was from Tampa Bay to the Appalachicola, by a circuitous route.
8 Narrative of Alvar Nunez Cabepa de Vaca, second in command to Narvaez, translated by Buckingham Smith. Cabe^a de Vaca was one of the four who escaped, and, after living for years among the tribes of Mississippi, crossed the River Mississippi near Memphis, journeyed west- ward by the waters of the Arkansas and Red River to New Mexico and Chihuahua, thence to Cinaloa on the Gulf of California, and thence to Mexico. The narrative is one of the most remarkable of the early rela- tions. See also Ramusio, III. 310, and Purchas, IV. 1499, where a por- tion of Cabeca de Vaca is given. Also, Garcilaso, c. III. ; Go.nara, 1. II. c. XI. ; De Laet, 1. IV. c. III. ; Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, 19.
1639 J HERNANDO DE SOTO. Q
The Spanish voyager, as his caravel ploughed the ad- jacent seas, might give full scope to his imagination, and dream that beyond the long, low margin of for- est which bounded his horizon lay hid a rich harvest for some future conqueror ; perhaps a second Mexico with its royal palace and sacred pyramids, or another Cuzco with its temple of the Sun, encircled with a frieze of gold. Haunted by such visions, the ocean chivalry of Spain could not long stand idle.
Hernando de Soto was the companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. He had come to America a needy adventurer, with no other fortune than his sword and target. But his exploits had given him fame and fortune, and he appeared at court with the retinue of a nobleman.1 Still his active energies could not endure repose, and his avarice and ambition goaded him to fresh enterprises. He asked and obtained permission to con- quer Florida. While this design was in agitation, Ca- bec;a de Vaca, one of those who had survived the expe- dition of Narvaez, appeared in Spain, and for purposes of his own spread abroad the mischievous falsehood, that Florida was the richest country yet discovered.2 De Soto's plans were embraced with enthusiasm. Nobles and gentlemen contended for the privilege of joining his standard ; and, setting sail with an ample armament, he landed at the Bay of Espiritu Santo, now Tampa Bay, in Florida, with six hundred and twenty chosen men,8
1 Hilntion nf the. Portuguese Ufntleman of Eleat, c. I. See Devxbrimcnto da Florida, c. I. See, also, Hakluyt, V. 483. - Relation of I/if Genii f man of Elms, e. 1 1. 1 Rdation of Eitdma, in Ternaux-Compans, 51. The Gentleman of
JO EARLY SPANISH ADVENTURE. [1541.
a band as gallant and well appointed, as eager in pur- pose and audacious in hope, as ever trod the shores of the New World. The clangor of trumpets, the neighing of horses, the fluttering of pennons, the glittering of helmet and lance, startled the ancient forest with un- wonted greeting. Amid this pomp of chivalry, religion was not forgotten. The sacred vessels and vestments with bread and wine for the Eucharist were carefully provided ; and De Soto himself declared that the enter- prise was undertaken for God alone, and seemed to be the object of His especial care.1 These devout maraud- ers could not neglect the spiritual welfare of the Indians whom they had come to plunder ; and besides fetters to bind, and bloodhounds to hunt them, they brought priests and monks for the saving of their souls.
The adventurers began their march. Their story has been often told. For mont-h after month and year after year, the procession of priests and cavaliers, cross-bow- men, arquebusiers, and Indian captives laden with the baggage, still wandered on through wild and houndless wastes, lured hither and thither by the ignis- fatims of their hopes. They traversed great portions of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, everywhere inflicting and enduring misery, but never approaching their phantom El Dorado. At length, in the third year of their journey- ing, they reached the banks of the Mississippi, a hun- dred and thirty-two years before its second discovery by
Elvas says in round numbers six hundred. Garcilaso de la Vega, who is unworthy of credit, makes the number much greater.
1 Letter from De Soto to the Municipality of Santiago, dated at the Harbor of Espiritu Santo, 9 July, 1539. See Ternaux-Compans, 43.
1541.] DEATH OF DE SOTO.
11
Marquette. One of tlieir number describes the great river as almost half a league wide, deep, rapid, and constantly rolling down trees and drift-wood on its tur- bid current.1
The Spaniards crossed over at a point above the mouth of the Arkansas. They advanced westward, but found no treasures, — nothing indeed but hardships, and an Indian enemy, furious, writes one of their officers, "as mad dogs."2 They heard of a country towards the north where maize could not be cultivated because the vast herds of wild cattle devoured it.3 They penetrated so far that they entered the range of the roving prairie - tribes ; for, one day, as they pushed their way with difficulty across great plains covered with tall, rank grass, they met a band of savages who dwelt in lodges of skins sewed together, subsisting on game alone, and wandering perpetually from place to place.4 Finding neither gold nor the .South Sea, for both of which ihey had hoped, they returned to the banks of the Mississippi.
De Soto, says one of those who accompanied him, was a " stern man, and of few words." Even in the midst of reverses, his will had been law to his followers, and he had sustained himself through the depths of dis- appointment with the energy of a stubborn pride, lint his hour was come. He fell into deep dejection, followed
1 Portuguese. Relation, c. XXII.
2 Bieclma, 95.
8 Portuguese Relation, c. XXIV. A still earlier mention of the bison occurs in the journal of Cabeca de V;ica. Tlievet, in his Siu-i>\l>trilA, 1558, gives a picture intended to represent a bison-bull. Coronado saw thii animal in 1540, but was not, as some assert, its first discoverer.
* Biedma 91
Jg EARLY SPANISH ADVENTURE. i!648.
by an attack of fever, and soon after died miserably. To preserve his body from the Indians, his followers sank it at midnight in the river, and the sullen waters of the Mississippi buried his ambition and his hopes.1
The adventurers were now, with few exceptions, dis- gusted with the enterprise, and longed only to escape from the scene of their miseries. After a vain attempt to reach Mexico by land, they again turned hack to the Mississippi, and labored, with all the resources which their desperate necessity could suggest, to construct ves- sels in which they might make their way to some Chris- tian settlement. Their condition was most forlorn. Few of their horses remained alive ; their baggage had been destroyed at the burning of the Indian town of Mavila, and many of the soldiers were without armor and with- out weapons. In place of the gallant array which, more than three years before, had left the harbor of Espiritu Santo, a company of sickly and starving men were laboring among the swampy forests of the Mississippi, some clad in skins, and some in mats woven from a kind of wild vine.2
Seven brigantines were finished and launched ; and, trusting their lives on board these frail vessels, they de- scended the Mississippi, running the gantlet between hostile tribes who fiercely attacked them. Reaching ihe Gulf, though not without the loss of eleven of their number, they made sail for the Spanish settlement ou the River Panuco, where they arrived safely, and where
1 Porttiyupse Relation, c. XXX.
2 Ibid. c. XX. See Hakluyt, V. 515.
1568.J GUIDO DE LAS BAZARES. J«J
the inhabitants met them with a cordial welcome. Three hundred and eleven men thus escaped with life, leaving behind them the bones of their comrades strewn broad- cast through the wilderness.1
De Soto's fate proved an insufficient warning, for those were still found who begged a fresh commission for the conquest of Florida ; but the Emperor would not hear them. A more pacific enterprise was under- taken by Cancello, a Dominican monk, who with sev- eral brother-ecclesiastics undertook to convert the natives to the true faith, but was murdered in the attempt.2 Nine years later a plan was formed for the colonization of Florida, and Guido de las Bazares sailed to explore the coasts, and find a spot suitable for the establish- ment.3 After his return, a squadron, commanded by
1 1 have followed the accounts of Biedma and the Portuguese of Elvas rejecting the romantic narrative of Garcilaso, in which fiction is hopelessly mingled with truth.
2 Relation of BeMa, Ternaux-Compans, 107 ; Documeiitos IndJitos, Touic XXVI. 340. Comp. Garcilaso, 1. I. c. III.
8 The spirit of this and other Spanish enterprises may be gathered from the following passage in an address to the King signed by Dr. Pedro de Santander, and dated 15 July, 1557.
" It is lawful that your Majesty, like a good shepherd, appointed by the hand of the Eternal Father, should tend and lead out your sheep, since the Holy Spirit has shown spreading pastures whereon are feeding lost sheep which have been snatched away by the dragon, the Demon. These pastures are the New World wherein is comprised Florida, now in posses- sion of the Demon, and here he makes himself adon-d and revered. This is the Land of Promise, possessed by idolaters, the Amorite, Amal- ekite, Moabite, Canaanite. This is the land promised by the Eternal Father to the Faithful, since we are commanded by God in the holy Scrip- tures to take it from them, being idolaters, and, by reason of their idolatry and sin, to put them all to the knife, leaving no living tiling save maidens and children, their cities robbed and sacked, their walls and houses lev- elled to the earth."
The writer then goes into detail, proposing to occupy Florida at varioiu 2
l^ EARLY SPANISH ADVENTURE. [1541.
Angel de Villafane, and freighted with supplies and men, put to sea from San Juan d'Ulloa; but the elements were adverse, and the result was a total failure.1 Not a Spaniard had yet gained foothold in Florida.
That name, as the Spaniards of that day understood it, comprehended the whole country extending from the Atlantic on the east to the longitude of New Mexico on the west, and from the Gulf of Mexico and the River of Palms indefinitely northward towards the polar sea.2 This vast territory was claimed by Spain in right of the discoveries of Columbus, the grant of the Pope, and the various expeditions mentioned above. England claimed it in right of the discoveries of Cabot ; while France could advance no better title -than mi«ht be derived
O
from the voyage of Verazzano.
With restless jealousy Spain watched the domain which she could not occupy, and on France, especially, she kept an eye of deep distrust. When, in 154-1, Car- tier and Roberval essayed to plant a colony in the part of ancient Spanish Florida now called Canada, she sent spies and fitted out caravels to watch that abortive en- points with from one thousand to fifteen hundred colonists, found a city to be called Philippina, also another at Tuscaloosa, to be called Caesarea, another at Tallahassee, and another at Tampa Bay, where he thinks many slaves could be had. Carta dd Doctor Pedro de Sanlander, MS.
1 The papers relating to these abortive expeditions are preserved by Ternaux-Compans.
2 Garcilaso, 1. I. c. II.; Ilerrera in Purchas, III. 808; De Laet, 1. IV. c, XIII. Barcia, Knsdi/o Cronoloijico, An MDCXI., speaks of Quebec as a part of Florida. In a map of the time of Henry the Second of France, all North America is named Terra Florida.
1541.] SPANISH JEALOUSY. 1£
terprise.1 Her fears proved just. Canada, indeed, was long to remain a solitude ; but, despite the papal bounty gifting Spain with exclusive ownership of a hemisphere, France and Heresy at length took root in the sultry forests of modern Florida.
1 See various papers on this subject in the Coleecion de Fiirw* Dot* mentos of Buckingham Smith.
CHAPTER II.
1550—1558. VILLEGAGNON.
SPAIN AND FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURT. — CASPAR DE COLIGNY. — VILLEGAGNON. — His EARLY EXPLOITS. — His SCHEME OP A PROTESTANT COLONY. — HUGUENOTS AT Rio JANEIRO. — POLEMICS. — TYRANNY OF VIL-
LEGAGNON. — THE MINISTERS EXPELLED. — THE COLONY RUINED.
IN the middle of the sixteenth century, Spain was the incubus of Europe. Gloomy and portentous, she chilled the world with her baneful shadow. Her old feudal liberties were gone, absorbed in the despotism of Ma- drid. A tyranny of monks and inquisitors, with their swarms of spies and informers, their racks, their dun- geons, and their fagots, crushed all freedom of thought or speech ; and, while the Dominican held his reign of terror and force, the deeper Jesuit guided the mind from infancy into those narrow depths of bigotry from which it was never to escape. Political despotism, re- ligious despotism, commercial despotism ; — the hands of the government were on every branch of industry. Perverse regulations, uncertain and ruinous taxes, monopolies, encouragements, prohibitions, restrictions, cramped the national energy. Mistress of the Indies, Spain swarmed with beggars. Yet, verging to decay, she had an omindus and appalling strength. Her con- dition was that of an athletic man penetrated with
1560.] SPAIN AND FRANCE. jiy
disease, which had not yet unstrung the thews and sinews formed in his days of vigor. Philip the Sec- ond could command the service of warriors and states- men developed in the years that were past. The gathered energies of ruined feudalism were wielded by a single hand. The mysterious King, in his den in the Escurial, dreary and silent, and bent like a scribe over his papers, was the type and the champion of arbitrary power. More than the Pope himself, he was the head of Catholicity. In doctrine and in deed, the inexorable bigotry of Madrid was ever in advance of Rome.
Not so with France. She was full of life, — a dis- cordant and struggling vitality. Her monks and priests, unlike those of Spain, were rarely either fanatics or bigots ; yet not the less did they ply the rack and the fagot, and howl for heretic blood. Their all was at stake : their vast power, their bloated wealth, wrapped up in the ancient faith. Men were burned, women buried alive. All was in vain. To the utmost bounds of France, the leaven of the Reform was working. The Huguenots, fugitives from torture and death, found an asylum at Geneva, their city of refuge, gathering around Calvin, their great high-priest. Thence intrepid col- porteurs, their lives in their hands, bore the Bible and the psalm-book to city, hamlet, and castle, to feed the using flame. The scattered churches, pressed by a common danger, began to ^organize. An ecclesiastical republic spread its ramifications through France, and grew underground to a vigorous life, — pacific at the
2*
1 8 VILLEGAGNON. [1550.
outset, for the great body of its members were the quiet bourgeoisie, by habit, as by faith, averse to violence. Yet a potent fraction of the warlike noblesse was also of the new faith ; and above them all, preeminent in character as in station, stood Caspar de Coligny, Ad- miral of France.
The old palace of the Louvre, reared by the " Roi Chevalier " on the site of those dreary feudal towers which of old had guarded the banks of the Seine, held within its sculptured masonry the worthless brood of Valois. Corruption and intrigue ran riot at the court. Factious nobles, bishops, and cardinals, with no God but pleasure and ambition, contended around the throne or the sick-bed of the futile king. Catherine de Medi- cis, with her stately form, her mean spirit, her bad heart, and fathomless depths of duplicity, strove by every sub- tle art to hold the balance of power among them. Guise, bold, pitiless, insatiable, and his brother the Cardinal of Lorraine, the incarnation of falsehood, reoted their ambition on the Catholic party. Their army was a legion of priests, and the black swarms of countless monasteries, who by the distribution of alms held in pay the rabble of cities and starving peasants on the lands of impoverished nobles. Montmorency, Conde, Navarre, leaned towards the Reform, — doubtful and inconstant chiefs, whose faith weighed light against their interests. Yet, amid vacillation, selfishness, weakness, treachery, one great man was like a tpwer of trust, and this was Gaspar de Coligny.
Firm in his convictions, steeled by perils and
1641.] HIS EARLY EXPLOITS. JQ
ance, calm, sagacious, resolute, grave even to seventy, a valiant and redoubted soldier, Coligny looked abroad on the gathering storm and read its danger in advance. He saw a strange depravity of manners ; bribery and violence overriding justice ; discontented nobles, and peasants ground down with taxes. In the midst of this rottenness, the Calvinist churches, patient and stern, were fast gathering to themselves the better life of the nation. Among and around them tossed the surges of clerical hate. Luxurious priests, libertine monks, saw their disorders rebuked by the grave virtues of the Protestant zealots. Their broad lands, their rich en- dowments, their vessels of silver and of gold, their dominion over souls — in itself a revenue, — all these were imperilled by the growing heresy. Nor was the Reform less exacting, less intolerant, or, when its hour came, less aggressive than the ancient faith. The storm was thickening. It must burst soon.
When the Emperor Charles the Fifth beleaguered Algiers, his camps were deluged by a blinding tempest, and at its height the infidels made a furious sally. A hundred Knights of Malta, on foot, wearing over their armor surcoats of crimson blazoned with the white cross, bore the brunt of the assault. Conspicuous among them was Nicholas. Durand de Villegagnon. A Moor- ish cavalier, rushing upon him, pierced his arm with a lance, and wheeled to repeat the blow ; but the knight leaped on the infidel, stabbed him with his dagger, and flinging him from his horse, mounted in his place. Again, a Moslem host landed in Malta and beset the
20 VILLEGAGNON: [1554.
Cite Notable. The garrison was weak, disheartened, and without a leader. Villegagnon with six followers, all friends of his own, passed under cover of night through the infidel leaguer, climbed the walls by ropes lowered from above, took command, repaired the shat tered towers, aiding with his own hands in the work, and animated the garrison to a resistance so stubborn., that the besiegers lost heart and betook themselves to their galleys. No less was he an able and accomplished mariner, prominent among that chivalry of the sea who held the perilous verge of Christendom against the Mussulman. He claimed other laurels than those of the sword. He was a scholar, a linguist, a contro^ versialist, potent with the tongue and with the pen ; commanding in presence, eloquent and persuasive in discourse. Yet this Crichton of France had proved himself an associate nowise desirable. His sleepless intellect was matched with a spirit as restless, vain, unstable, and ambitious, as 'it was enterprising and bold. Addicted to dissent, and enamored of polemics, he entered those forbidden fields of inquiry and con- troversy to which the Reform invited him. Undaunted by his monastic vows, he battled for heresy with tongue and pen, and in the ear of Protestants professed him self a Protestant. As a Commander of his Order, he quarrelled with the Grand Master, a domineering Span- iard ; and, as Vice-Admiral of Brittany, he wars deep in a feud with the Governor of Brest.1 Disgusted at
1 Villegagnon himself has left an account in Latin of the expedition against Algiers under the title, Caroli V. Imperatoris Expeditio in African
ISM.] HIS PKOJECTED COLONY. g*
home, his fancy crossed the seas. He would fain build for France and himself an empire amid the tropical splendors of Brazil. Few could match him in the gift of persuasion ; and the intrepid seaman whose skill and valor had run the gantlet of the English fleet, and borne Mary Stuart of Scotland in safety to her espou- sals with the Dauphin,1 might well be intrusted with a charge of moment so far inferior. Henry the Second was still on the throne. The lance of Montgomery had not yet rid France of that infliction. To win a share in the rich domain of the New World, of which Portuguese and Spanish arrogance claimed the monopoly, — such was the end held by Villegagnon before the eyes of the King. Of the Huguenots, he said not a word. For Col- igny he had another language. He spoke of an asylum for persecuted religion, a Geneva in the wilderness, far from priests and monks and Francis of Guise. The Admiral gave him a ready ear; nay, it is doubtful if he himself had not first conceived the plan. Yet, to the King, an active burner of Huguenots, he, too, urged it as an enterprise, not for the Faith, but for France. In
Paris, 1542. Also, an account of the war at Malta, De Bello Mditensi. Paris, 1553.
He is the subject of a long and erudite treatise in Bayle, T)ictionnair« Historique. Notices of him are also to be found in Gue'rin, N(ivi</>itrun Fi-ancnis, 162 ; Ib. Marina Ilhistres, 231 ; Lescarbot, Hist.de IciXouo. France, (1612,) 146-217 ; La Popelinicre, I^s Troia Mondes, III. 2.
There are extant against him a number of Calvinist satire.8. in prose and verse, — L'Ktrille de Nicolas Ditrand, — La Sujffisance de Villeyai</iumt — L'Espousette des Armoiries de Villegaiyian, etc.
1 This was in 1548. The English were on the watch, but Villegngnon, by a union of daring and skill, escaped them and landed the future Queen of Scots, then six years old, in Brittany, whence being carrie 1 to l'ari«. she was affianced to the future Francis the Second
gg VILLEGAGNON. [1565.
secret, Geneva was made privy to it, and Calvin him- self embraced it with zeal.
Two vessels were made ready, in the name of the King. The body of the emigration was Huguenot, min- gled with young nobles, restless, idle, and poor, with reckless artisans, and piratical sailors from the Norman and Breton seaports. They put to sea from Havre on the twelfth of July, 1555, and early in November saw the shores of Brazil. Entering the harbor of Rio Janeiro, then called Ganabara, Villegagnon landed men and stores on an island, built huts, and threw up earthworks. In anticipation of future triumphs, the whole continent, by a strange perversion of language, was called Antarctic France, while the fort received the name of Coligny.
Villegagnon signalized his new-born Protestantism by an intolerable solicitude for the manners and morals of his followers. The whip and the pillory requited the least offence. The wild and discordant crew, starved and flogged for a season into submission, conspired at length to rid themselves of him ; but while they debated " whether to poison him, blow him up, or murder him and his officers in their sleep, three Scotch soldiers, prob- ably Calvinists, revealed the plot, and the vigorous hand of the commandant crushed it in the bud.
But how was the colony to subsist ? Their island was too small for culture, while the main land was infested with hostile tribes, and threatened by the Portuguese, who regarded the French occupancy as a violation of their domain.
1567.] HUGUENOTS AT RIO JANEIRO. gg
Meanwhile, in France, Huguenot influence, aided by ardent letters sent home by Villegagnon in the returning ships, was urging on the work. Nor were the Catho- lic chiefs averse to an enterprise which, by colonizing heresy, might tend to relieve France of its presence. Another embarkation was prepared, in the name of Henry the Second, under Bois-Lecomte, a nephew of Villegagnon. Most of the emigrants were Huguenots. Geneva sent a large deputation, and among them sev- eral ministers, full of zeal for their land of promise and their new church in the wilderness. There were five young women, also, with a matron to watch over them. Soldiers, emigrants, and sailors, two hundred and ninety in all, were embarked in three vessels ; and, to the sound of cannon, drums, fifes, and trumpets, they unfurled their sails at Honfleur. They were no sooner on the high seas than the piratical character of the Norman sailors, in no way exceptional at that day, be- gan to declare itself. They hailed every vessel weaker than themselves, pretended to be short of provisions, and demanded leave to buy them ; then, boarding the stranger, plundered her from stem to stern. After a passage of four months, on the ninth of March, lo.57» they entered the port of Ganabara, and saw the hVur- de-lis floating above the walls of Fort Coligny. Amid salutes of cannon, the boats, crowded with sea-worn emigrants, moved towards the landing. It was an edifying scene when Villegagnon, in the picturesque attire which marked the warlike noblesse of the period, came dosvn to the shore to greet the sombre ministers
Q4> V1LLEGAGNON. 1557.
of Calvin. With hands uplifted and eyes raised to heaven, he bade them welcome to the new asylum of the Faithful, then launched into a long1 harangue full of zeal and unction.1 His discourse finished, he led the way to the dining-hall. If the redundancy of spiritual aliment had surpassed their expectations, the ministers were little prepared for the meagre provision which awaited their temporal cravings ; for, with appetites whetted by the sea, they found themselves seated at a board, whereof, as one of them complains, the choicest dish was a dried fish, and the only beverage, rain-water. They found their consolation in the inward graces of the commandant, whom they likened to the Apostle Paul.
For a time all was ardor and hope. Men of birth and station, and the ministers themselves, labored with pick and shovel to finish the fort. Every day, exhorta- tions, sermons, prayers, followed in close succession, and
1 De Le'ry, fflstoria Navigations in Brasiliam, (1586,) 43. De Lory was one of the ministers. His account is long and very curious. His work was published in French, in 1578 and 1611. The Latin version has ap- peared under several forms, and is to be found in the Second Part of De Bry, decorated with a profusion of engravings, including portraits of a great variety of devils, with which, it seems, Brazil was overrun, con- spicuous among whom is one with the body of a bear and the head of a man. This ungainly fiend is also depicted in the edition of 1586. The conception, a novelty in demonology, was clearly derived from ancient representations of that singular product of Brazil, the sloth. In the curious work of Andre Thevet, Les Singularity de la France Antarctiijne, autrenifiit nominee Amdrique, published in 1558, appears the portraiture of this animal, the body being that " d'un petit ours," and the face that of an intelligent man. Thevet, however, though a firm believer in devils of all kinds, suspects nothing demoniacal in his sloth, which he held for dome time in captivity, and describes as "une beste assez estrange."
1657.] POLEMICS. ^5
Villegagnou was always present, kneeling on a velvet cushion, brought after him by a page. Soon, however, he fell into sharp controversy with the ministers upon points of faith. Among the emigrants was a student of the Sorbonne, one Cointac, between whom and the ministers arose a fierce and unintermitted war of words. Is it lawful to mix water with the wine of the Eucha- rist? May the sacramental bread be made of meal of Indian corn 1 These and similar points of dispute filled the fort with wranglings, begetting cliques, fictions, and feuds without number. Villegagnon took part with the student, and between them they devised a new doc- trine, abhorrent alike to Geneva and to Rome. The advent of this nondescript heresy was the signal of re- doubled strife.1 The dogmatic stiffness of the Geneva
™
ministers chafed Villegagnon to fury. He felt himself, too, in a false position. On one side, he depended on the Protestant, Coligny ; on the other, he feared the Court. There were Catholics in the colony who might report him as ah open heretic. On this point his doubts were set at rest; for a ship from France brought him a letter from the Cardinal of Lorraine, couched, it is said, in terms which restored him forthwith to the bosom of the Church. He affirmed that he had been deceived in Calvin, and pronounced him a "frightful heretic." He became despotic beyond measure, and would bear no opposition. The ministers, reduced
i The history of these theological squabbles is given in detail in the Hiatoirr. ties Clioses Memorable* udutnues en la Terre du Dre'sil. Geneve, 1561 The author was an eye-witness. l)e Le'ry also enlarges upon them. 3
gg VILLEGAGNON. [1567.
nearly to starvation, found themselves under a tyranny worse than tha't from which they had fled. At length he drove them from the fort and forced them to hivouac on the main land, at the risk of being butchered by Indians, until a vessel loading with Brazil wood in the harbor should be ready to carry them back to France. The ministers gorte, he caused three of the more zeal- ous Calvinists to be seized, dragged to the edge of a rock, and thrown into the sea.1 A fourth, equally ob- noxious, but who, being a tailor, could ill be spared, was permitted to live on condition of recantation. Then, mustering the colonists, he warned them to shun the heresies of Luther and Calvin ; threatened that all who openly professed them should share the fate of their three comrades ; and, his harangue over, feasted the whole assembly, in token, says the narrator, of joy and triumph.2
Meanwhile, in their crazy vessel, the banished minis- ters drifted slowly on their way. Storms fell upon them, their provision failed, their water-casks were empty, and, tossing in the wilderness of waves, or rock- ing on the long swells of subsiding gales, they sank wellnigh to despair. In their famine they chewed the Brazil wood with which the vessel was laden, devoured every scrap of leather, singed and ate the horn of lan- terns, hunted rats through the hold and sold them to each other at enormous prices. At length, stretched
1 Histoire des Chases Mtmorables, 44.
2 ll>. 46. Compare Nicholas Barre, Lettres sur la Navigation du Chevalier de Vitteyaignon. Paris, 1558.
1658.] THE COLONY RUINED. 37
on the deck, sick, listless, attenuated, scarcely able to move a limb, they descried across the waste of sea the faint, cloud-like line that marked the coast of Brit- tany. Their perils were not past; for, if we may be- lieve one of them, Jean de Lery, they bore a sealed
V. •* J
illegagnon to the magistrates of the first
French port at which they might arrive. It denounced them as heretics, worthy to be burned. Happily the magistrates leaned to the Reform, and the malice of the commandant failed of its victims.
Villegagnon himself soon sailed for France, leaving the wretched colony to its fate. His voyage ended, he entered the lists against Calvin, and engaged him in a hot controversial war, in which, according to some of his contemporaries, the knight often worsted the theologian at his own weapons. Before the year 1558 was closed, Ganabara fell a prey to the Portuguese. They set upon it in force, battered down the fort, and slew the feeble garrison, or drove them to a miserable refuge among the Indians. Spain and Portugal made good their claim to the vast domain, the mighty vegetation, the undeveloped riches of "Antarctic France."
CHAPTER IIL
1562, 1563. JEAN RIBAUT.
l'<iK HUGUENOT PARTY, ITS MOTLEY CHARACTER. — RIBAUT SAILS ron FLORIDA. — THE RIVER OF MAY. — HOPES. — ILLUSIONS. — PORT ROYAL. — ClIARLESFORT. — FROLIC. — IMPROVIDENCE. — FAMINE. — MUTINY. — FLORIDA ABANDONED. — DESPERATION. — CANNIBALISM.
IN the year 1562 a cloud of black and deadly por- tent was thickening over France. Surely and swiftly she glided towards the abyss of the religious wars. None could pierce the future, perhaps none dared to contemplate it : the wild rage of fanaticism and hate, friend grappling with friend, brother with brother, fa- ther with son ; altars profaned, hearthstones made des- olace ; the robes of Justice herself bedrenched with murder. In the gloom without lay Spain, imminent and terrible. As on the hill by the field of Dreux, her veteran bands of pikemen, dark masses of organized ferocity, stood biding their time while the battle surged below, then swept downward to the slaughter, — so did Spain watch and wait to trample and crush the hope of humanity.
In these days of fear, a second Huguenot colony sailed for the New World. The calm, stern man who represented and led the Protestantism of France felt to his inmost heart the peril of the time. He would fait
1662.] THE HUGUENOT PARTY. go
build up a city of refuge for the persecuted sect. Yet Gaspar de Coligny, too high in power and rank to be openly assailed, was forced to act with caution. He must act, too, in the name of the Crown, and in virtue of his office of Admiral of France. A nobleman and a soldier, — for the Admiral of France was no seaman, — he shared the ideas and habits of his class ; nor is there reason to believe him to have been in advance of his time in a knowledge of the principles of successful colonization. His scheme promised a military colony, not a free commonwealth. The Huguenot party was already a political, as well as a religious party. At its foundation lay the religious element, represented by Geneva, the martyrs, and the devoted fugitives who sang the psalms of Marot among rocks and caverns. Joined to these were numbers on whom the faith sat lightly, whose hope was in commotion and change. Of the latter, in great part, was the Huguenot no- llesse, from Conde, who aspired to the crown,
" Ce petit horn me tant joli, Qui toujours chante, toujours rit,"
to the younger son of the impoverished seigneur whose patrimony was his sword. More than this, the rest- less, the factious, the discontented, began to link their fortunes to a party whose triumph would involve confis- cation of the wealth of the only rich class in France. An element of the great revolution was already min- gling in the strife of religions.
America was still a land of wonder. The ancient spell still hung unbroken over the wild, vast world of 3*
30 JEAN KIBAUT. [1562.
mystery beyond the sea, a land of romance, of ad- venture, of gold.
Fifty-eight years later the Puritans landed on the sands of Massachusetts Bay. The illusion was gone, — the ignis-fatuus of adventure, the dream of wealth. The rugged wilderness offered only a stern and hard- won independence. In their own hearts, not in the promptings of a great leader or the patronage of an equivocal government, their enterprise found its birth and its achievement. They were of the boldest, the most earnest of their sect. There were such among the French disciples of Calvin ; but no Mayflower ever sailed from a port of France. Coligny's colonists were of a different stamp, and widely different was their fate.
An excellent seaman and stanch Protestant, Jean Ribaut of Dieppe, commanded the expedition. Under him, besides sailors, were a band of veteran soldiers, and a few young nobles. Embarked in two of those antiquated craft whose high poops and tub-like propor- tions are preserved in the old engravings of De Bry, they sailed from Havre on the eighteenth of February,. 1562. They crossed the Atlantic, and on the thirtieth of April, in the latitude of twenty-nine and a half de- grees, saw the long, low line where the wilderness of waves met the wilderness of woods. It was the coast of Florida. Soon they descried a jutting point, which they called French Cape, perhaps one of the headlands of Matanzas Inlet. They turned their prows northward, skirting the fringes of that waste of verdure which rolled in shadowy undulation far to the unknown West.
1662.] THE RIVER OF MAY". 31
On the next morning, the first of May, they found themselves off' the mouth of a great river. Riding at anchor on a sunny sea, they lowered their hoats, crossed the bar that obstructed the entrance, and floated on a basin of deep and sheltered water, alive with leaping fish. Indians were running along the beach and out upon the sand-bars, beckoning them to land. They pushed their boats ashore and disembarked, — sailors, soldiers, and eager young nobles. Corselet and morion, arquebus'e and halberd, flashed in the sun that flickered through innumerable leaves, as, kneeling on the ground, they gave thanks to God who had guided their voyage to an issue full of promise. The Indians, seated gravely under the neighboring trees, looked on in silent respect, thinking that they worshipped the sun. They were in full paint, in honor of the occasion, and in a most friendly mood. With their squaws and children, they presently drew near, and, strewing the earth with laurel- boughs, sat down among the Frenchmen. The latter were much pleased with them, and Ribaut gave the chief, whom he calls the king, a robe of blue cloth, worked in yellow with the regal fleur-de-lis.
But Ribaut and his followers, just escaped from the dull prison of their ships, were intent on admiring the wild scenes around them. Never had they known a fairer May-Day. The quaint old narrative is exuberant with delight. The tranquil air, the warm sun, woods fresh with young verdure, meadows bright with flowers ; the palm, the cypress, the pine, the magnolia ; the graz- ing deer ; herons, curlews, bitterns, woodcock, and un
g£ JEAN RIBAUT. [1562.
known water-fowl that waded in the ripple of the beach ; cedars bearded from crown to root with long, gray moss ; huge oaks smothering in the serpent folds of enormous grape-vines : such were the objects that greeted them in their roamings, till their new-discovered land seemed " the fairest, fruitfullest, and pleasantest of al the world."
They found a tree covered with caterpillars, and here- upon the ancient black-letter says, — "Also there be Silke wormes in meruielous number, a great deale fairer and better then be our silk wormes. To bee short, it is a thing vnspeakable to consider the thinges that bee seene there, and shalbe founde more and more in this incornperable lande."
Above all, it was plain to their excited fancy, that the country was rich in gold and silver, turquoises and pearls. One of the latter, ~" as great as an Acorne at ye least," hung from the neck of an Indian who stood near their boats as they reem barked. They gathered^ too, from the signs of their savage visitors, that the wonderful land of Cibola, with its seven cities and its untold riches, was distant but twenty days' journey by water. In truth, it was on the Gila, two thousand miles off', and its wealth a fable.
They named the river the River of May, — it is
1 The True and Last Disroverie of Florida, made by Captain John Ribaidt, in the i/eere 1562, dedicated to a great Nobleman in Fmunce, and translated into Entjlmhe by one Thomas Hacklt. This is Ribaut's journal, which seems not to exist in the original. The translation is contained in the rare black-letter tract of Hakluyt called Divers Voyages, London, 1582, a copy of which is in the library of Harvard College. It has been reprinted by the Hakluyt Society. The journal first appeared in 1563, under the title of The Whole and True Discocerie of Terra Florida, (Englished The Flarishing Land.) This edition is of extreme rarity.
1562.] PORT ROYAL. 33
now the St. John's, — and on its southern shore, near its mouth, they planted a stone pillar engraved with the arms of France. Then, once more embarked, they held their course northward, happy in that benign decree which locks from mortal eyes the secrets of the future.
Next they anchored near Fernandina, and to a neigh- boring river, probably the St. Mary's, gave the name of the Seine. Here, as morning broke on the fresh, moist meadows hung with mists, and on broad reaches of in- land waters which seemed like lakes, they were tempted to land again, and soon " espied an innumerable number of footesteps of great Hartes and Hindes of a wonderful! greatnesse, the steppes being all fresh and new, and it seemeth that the people doe nourish them like tame Cat- tell." By two or three weeks of exploration they seem to have gained a clear idea of this rich semi-aquatic region. Ribaut describes it as "a countrie full of hauens riuers and Hands of such fruitfulnes, as cannot with tongue be expressed." Slowly moving northward, they named each river, or inlet supposed to be a river, after the streams of France, — the Loire, the Charente, the Garonne, the Gironde. At length, they reached a scene made glorious in after-years. Opening betwixt flat and sandy shores, they saw a commodious haven, and named it Port Royal.
On the twenty-seventh of May they crossed the bar, where the war-ships of Dupont crossed three hundred years later.1 They passed Hilton Head, where in
1 The following is the record of this early visit to Port Royal, taken from Ribaut's report to Coligny : — "And when wee had sounded the entrie of the Chanell (thanked be
34. JEAN RIBAUT. 11562.
an after-generation Rebel batteries belched their vain thunder, and, dreaming- nothing of what the roll- ing centuries should bring forth, held their course along the peaceful bosom of Broad River. On the left they saw a stream which they named Libourne, probably Skull Creek ; on the right, a wide river, probably the Beaufort. When they landed, all was solitude. The frightened Indians had fled, but they lured them back with knives, beads, and looking- glasses, and enticed two of them on board their ships. Here, by feeding, clothing, and caressing them, they tried to wean them from their fears ; but the captive warriors moaned and lamented day and night, till Ribaut, with the prudence and humanity which seem always to have characterized him, gave over his purpose of carrying them to France, and set them ashore again. Ranging the woods, they found them full of game, wild turkeys and partridges, bears and lynxes. Two deer, of unusual size, leaped up from the underbrush. Cross-bow and arquebuse were brought to the level ; but the Huguenot captain, " moved with the singular fair- ness and bigness of them," forbade his men to shoot.
God), wee entered safely therein with our shippes, against the opinion of many, finding the same one of the fayrest and greatest Hauens of the worlde. Howe be it, it must he remembred, least men approaching nearo it within seven leagues of the lande, bee abashed and afraide on the East side, drawing towarde the Southeast, the grounde to be flatte, for neuerthe- lesse at a full sea, there is euery where foure fadome water keeping the right Chanel."
Ribaut thinks that the Broad River of Port Royal is the Jordan of the Spanish navigator Vasquez de Ayllon, whd was here in 1520, and gave the name of St. Helena to a neighboring cape (Garcilaso, Florida dtl Inra) The adjacent district, now called St. Helena, is the Chicora of the oW
1662.] CHARLESFORT. 35
Preliminary exploration, not immediate settlement, had been the object of the voyage ; bat all was still rose- color in the eyes of the voyagers, and many of their number would fain linger in the New Canaan. Ribaut was more than willing to humor them. He mustered his company on deck, and made them a stirring ha- rangue. He appealed to their courage and their pa- triotism, told them how, from a mean origin, men rise by enterprise and daring to fame and fortune, and demanded who among them would stay behind and hold Port Royal for the King. The greater part came forward, and " with such a good will and joly corage," writes the commander, " as we had much to do to stay their importunitie." Thirty were chosen, and Albert de Pierria was named to command them.
A fort was forthwith begun, on a small stream called the Chenonceau, probably Archer's Creek, about six miles from the site of Beaufort. They named it Charles- fort, in honor of the unhappy son of Catherine de Medi- cis, Charles the Ninth, the future hero of St. Bartholo- mew. Ammunition and stores were sent on shore, and, on the eleventh of June, with his diminished company, Ribaut, again embarking, spread his sails for France.
From the beach at Hilton Head, Albert and his com- panions might watch the receding ships, growing less and less on the vast expanse of blue, dwindling to faint specks, then vanishing on the pale verge of the waters. They were alone in those fearful solitudes. From the North Pole to Mexico there was no Christian deni/en but they.
36 JEAN RIBAUT. [1661
But how were they to subsist \ Their thought was not of subsistence, but of gold. Of the thirty, the greater number were soldiers and sailors, with a few gentlemen, that is to say, men of the sword, born within the pale of nobility, who at home could neither labor nor trade without derogation from their rank. For a time they busied themselves with finishing their fort, and, this done, set forth in quest of adventures.
The Indians had lost fear of them. Ribaut had enjoined upon them to use all kindness and gentleness in their dealing with the men of the woods ; and they more than obeyed him. They were soon hand and glove with chiefs, warriors, and squaws ; and as with Indians the adage, that familiarity breeds contempt, holds with peculiar force, they quickly divested themselves of the prestige which had attached at the outset to their sup- posed character of children of the Sun. Good-will, however, remained, and this the colonists abused to the utmost.
Roaming by river, swamp, and forest, they visited in turn the villages of five petty chiefs, whom they called kings, feasting everywhere on hominy, beans, and game, and loaded with gifts. One of these chiefs, named Audusta, invited them to the grand religious festival of his tribe. Thither, accordingly, they went. The vil- lage was alive with preparation, and troops of women were busied in sweeping the great circular area, where the ceremonies were to take place. But as the noisy and impertinent guests showed a disposition to undue merriment, the chief shut them all in his wigwam, lest
1562.^ EXCURSIONS. — FROLICS. 37
their Gentile eyes should profane the mysteries. Here, immured in darkness, they listened to the howls, yelp- ings, and lugubrious songs that resounded from with- out. One of them, however, by some artifice, con- trived to escape, hid behind a bush, and saw the whole solemnity : the procession of the medicine-men and the bedaubed and befeathered warriors ; the drumming, the dancing, the stamping; the wild lamentation of the women, as they gashed the arms of the young girls with sharp mussel-shells and flung the blood into the air with dismal outcries. A scene of ravenous feast- ing followed, in which the French, released from dur- ance, were summoned to share.
Their carousal over, they returned to Charlesfort, where they were soon pinched with hunger. The In- dians, never niggardly of food, brought them supplies as long as their own lasted ; but the harvest was not yet ripe, and their means did not match their good-will. They told the French of two other kings, Ouade and Couexis, who dwelt towards the South, and were rich beyond belief in maize, beans, and squashes. Em- barking without delay, the mendicant colonists steered for the wigwams of these potentates, not by the open sea, but by a perplexing inland navigation, including, as it seems, Calibogue Sound and neighboring waters. Arrived at the friendly villages, on or near the Savan- nah, they were feasted to repletion, and their boat was laden with vegetables and corn. They returned re- joicing ; but their joy was short. Their storehouse at Charlesfort, taking fire in the night, burned to the
gg JEAN RIBAUT. [1662.
ground, and with it their newly acquired stock. Once more they set forth for the realms of King Ouade, and once more returned laden with supplies. Nay, the gen- erous savage assured them, that, so long as his corn- fields yielded their harvests, his friends should not want. How long this friendship would have lasted may well be matter of doubt. With the perception that the de- pendants on their bounty were no demigods, but a crew of idle and helpless beggars, respect would soon have changed to contempt and contempt to ill-will. But it was not to Indian war-clubs that the embryo colony was to owe its ruin. Within itself it carried its own de- struction. The ill-assorted band of landsmen and sail- ors, surrounded by that influence of the wilderness which wakens the dormant savage in the breasts of men, scon fell into quarrels. Albert, a rude soldier, with a thousand leagues of ocean betwixt him and re- sponsibility, grew harsh, domineering, and violent be- yond endurance. None could question or oppose him without peril of death. He hanged a drummer who had fallen under his displeasure, and banished La Chere, a soldier, to a solitary island, three leagues from the fort, where he left him to starve. For a time his com- rades chafed in smothered fury. The crisis came at length. A few of the fiercer spirits leagued together, assailed their tyrant, and murdered him. The deed done, and the famished soldier delivered, they called to the command one Nicholas Barre, a man of merit. Barre took the command, and thenceforth there was peace.
1563.] A VESSEL BUILT. £Q
Peace, such as it was, with famine, homesickness, disgust. The rough ramparts and rude buildings of Charlesfort, hatefully familiar to their weary eyes, the sweltering forest, the glassy river, the eternal silence of the lifeless wilds around them, oppressed the senses and the spirits. Did they feel themselves the pioneers of religious freedom, the advance-guard of civilization ? Not at all. They dreamed of ease, of home, of pleas- ures across the sea, — of the evening cup on the bench before the cabaret, of dances with kind damsels of Dieppe. But how to escape ^ A continent was their solitary prison, and the pitiless Atlantic closed the egress. Not one of them knew how to build a ship ; but Ribaut had left them a forge, with tools and iron, and strong desire supplied the place of skill. Trees were hewn down and the work begun. Had they put forth, to maintain themselves at Port Royal, the energy and resource which they exerted to escape from it, they might have laid the corner-stone of a solid colony.
All, gentle and simple, labored with equal zeal. They calked the seams with the long moss which hung in profusion from the neighboring trees ; the pines sup- plied them with pitch; the Indians made for them a kind of cordage-; and for . sails they sewed together their shirts and bedding. At length a brigantine worthy of Robinson Crusoe floated on the waters of the Chenon- ceau. They laid in what provision they might, gave all that remained of their goods to the delighted In- dians, embarked, descended the river, and put to sea. A fair wind filled their patchwork sails and bore them
40 JEAN RIBAUT. [1568.
from the hated coast. Day after day they held their course, till at length the favoring- breeze died away and a breathless calm fell on the face of the waters. Florida was far behind ; France farther yet before. Floating idly on the glassy waste, the craft lay motionless. Their supplies gave out. Twelve kernels of maize a day were each man's portion ; then the maize failed, and they ate their shoes and leather jerkins. The water- barrels were drained, and they tried to slake their thirst with brine. Several died, and the rest, giddy with ex- haustion and crazed with thirst, were forced to ceaseless labor, baling out the water that gushed through every seam. Head-winds set in, increasing to a gale, and the wretched brigantine, her sails close-reefed, tossed among the savage billows at the mercy of the storm. A heavy sea rolled down upon her, and threw her on her side. The surges broke over her, and, clinging with desperate gripe to spars and cordage, the drenched voyagers gave up all for lost. At length she righted. The gale subsided, the wind changed, and the crazy, water-logged vessel again bore slowly towards France. Gnawed with deadly famine, they counted the leagues of barren ocean that still stretched before. With hag- gard, wolfish eyes they gazed on each other, till a whis- per passed from man to man, that one, by his death, might ransom all the rest. The choice was made. It fell on La Chere, the same wretched man whom Albert had doomed to starvation on a lonely island, and whose mind was burdened with the fresh memories of his an- guish and despair. They killed him, and with ravenous
1563.] CANNIBALISM. 4,1
avidity portioned out his flesh. The hideous repast sus- tained them till the French coast rose in sight, when, it is said, in a delirium of joy, they could no longer steer their vessel, but let her drift at the will of the tide. A small English hark bore down upon them, took them all on board, and, after landing the feeblest, carried the rest prisoners to Queen Elizabeth.1
Thus closed another of those scenes of woe whose lurid clouds were thickly piled around the stormy dawn of American history.
It was but the opening act of a wild and tragic drama. A tempest of miseries awaited those who es- sayed to plant the banners of France and of Calvin in the Southern forests; and the bloody scenes of the religious war were acted in epitome on the shores of Florida.
1 For all the latter part of the chapter, the authority is the first of the three long letters of Rene <le Laudonnicre, companion of Kibaut and his successor in command. They are contained in the Histoire Notuble de la Floride, compiled by Basanier, Paris, 1586, and are also to be found, quaintly " d >ne into English," in the third volume of Hakluy t's great col- lection. In the main, they are entitled to much confidence 4*
CHAPTER IV.
i
1564. LAUDONNIERE.
THE NEW COLONY. — SATOURTONA. — THE PROMISED LAND. — MIRACULOUS LONGEVITY. — FORT CAROLINE. — NATIVE TRIBES. — OTTIGNY EX- PLORES THE ST. JOHN'S. — THE THIMAGOA. — CONFLICTING ALLIANCES. — INDIAN WAR. — DIPLOMACY OF LAUDONNIERE. — VASSEUR'S EXPE- DITION.
ON the twenty-fifth of June, 1564, a French squad- ron anchored a second time off' the mouth of the River of May. There were three vessels, the smallest of sixty tons, the largest of one hundred and twenty, all crowded with men. Rene de Laudonniere held command. He was of a noble race of Poitou, attached to the House of Chatillon, of wjiich Coligny was the head ; pious, we are told, and an excellent marine officer. An en- graving1, purporting to be his likeness, shows us a slen- der figure, leaning against the mast, booted to the thigh, with slouched hat and plume, slashed doublet, and short cloak. His thin oval face, with curled mous- tache and close-trimmed beard, wears a somewhat pen- sive look, as if already shadowed by the destiny that awaited him.1
The intervening year since Ribaut's voyage had been a dark and deadly year for France. From the peaceful
1 See Guerin, Navigateurs Francois, 180. The authenticity of the por- trait is doubtful.
1564.J THE NEW COLONY. 40
solitude of the River of May, that voyager returned to a land reeking with slaughter. But the carnival of bigotry and hate had found a pause. The Peace of Amboise had been signed. The fierce monk choked down his venom ; the soldier sheathed his sword, the assassin his dagger ; rival chiefs grasped hands, and masked their rancor under hollow smiles. The king and the queen-mother, helpless amid the storm of fac- tions which threatened their destruction, smiled now on Conde, now on Guise, — gave ear to the Cardinal of Lorraine, or listened in secret to the emissaries of The- odore Beza. Coligny was again strong at Court. He used his opportunity, and solicited with success the means of renewing his enterprise of colonization. With pains and zeal, men were mustered for the work. In name, at least, they were all Huguenots ; yet again, as before, the staple of the projected colony was unsound : soldiers, paid out of the royal treasury, hired artisans and tradesmen, with a swarm of volunteers from the young Huguenot noblesse, whose restless swords had rusted in their scabbards since the peace. The foun- dation-stone was forgotten. There were no tillers of the soil. Such, indeed, were rare among the Hugue- nots ; for the dull peasants who guided the plough clung with blind tenacity to the ancient faith. Adven- turous gentlemen, reckless soldiers, discontented trades- men, all keen for novelty and heated with dreams of wealth, — these were they who would build for their country and their religion an empire beyond the sea.1
1 The principal authorities for this part of the narrative are Laudon-
44 LAUDONNlfcRE. "1564.
With a few officers and twelve soldiers, Laudonniere landed where Ribaut had landed before him ; and as their boat neared the shore, they saw an Indian chief who ran to meet them, whooping and clamoring welcome from afar. It was Satouriona, the savage potentate who ruled some thirty villages around the lower St. John's and northward along the coast. With him came two stalwart sons, and behind trooped a host of tribes- men arrayed in smoke-tanned deerskins stained with devices in gaudy colors. They crowded around the voyagers with beaming visages and yelps of gratula- tion. The royal Satouriona could not contain the exu- berance of his joy, since in the person of the French commander he recognized the brother of the Sun, de- scended from the skies to aid him against his great rival, Outina.
Hard by stood the column of stone, engraved with the fleur-de-lis, planted here on the former voyage. The Indians had crowne'd the mystic emblem with ever- greens, and placed offerings of maize on the ground before it ; for with an affectionate and reverent wonder they had ever remembered the steel-clad strangers
niere and his artist, Le Moyne. Laudonniere's letters were published in 1686, under the title L'Histoire Notable de la Floride, mise en lumiere par M. Basanier. See also Hakluyt's Voyages, III. (1812). Le Moyne was em- ployed to make maps and drawings of the country. His maps are cu- riously inexact. His drawings are spirited, and, with many allowances, give useful hints concerning the habits of the natives. They are en- graved in the Grands Voyaues of De Bry, Part II. (Frankfort, 1591). To each is appended a " declaratio " or explanatory remarks. The same work contains the artist's personal narrative, the Brevis Narratio. In the Recueil de Pieces sur la Floride of Ternaux-Compans is a letter from one of the adventurers.
THE PROMISED LAND. 45
whom, two summers before, Jean Ribaut had led to their shores.
Five miles up the St. John's, or River of May, there stands, on the southern bank, a hill some forty feet high, boldly thrusting itself into the broad and lazy waters. It is now called St. John's Bluff.1 Thither the Frenchmen repaired, pushed through the dense forest, and climbed the steep acclivity. Thence they surveyed their Canaan. Beneath them moved the unruffled river, gliding around the reed-grown shores of marshy islands, the haunt of alligators, and along the bordering expanse of wide, wet meadows, studded with island - like clumps of pine and palmetto, and hounded by the sunny verge of distant forests. Far on their right, seen by glimpses between the shaggy cedar - boughs, the glistening sea lay stretched along the horizon. Before, in hazy distance, the softened green of the woodlands was veined with mazes of countless interlacing streams that drain the watery region behind St. Mary's and Fernandina. To the left, the St. John's flowed gleaming betwixt verdant shores, beyond whose portals lay the El Dorado of their dreams. " Briefly," writes Laudonniere, " the place is so pleasant, that those which are melancholicke would be inforced to change their humour."2
A fresh surprise awaited them. The allotted span of mortal life was quadrupled in that benign climate. Laudonniere's lieutenant, Ottigny, ranging the neigh-
i For the locality, see U. S. Coast Survey, 1856, Map 27. * Translation in Hakluyt, III. 389 ; Basanier, fol. 41.
46 LAUDONNIERE. [1564.
boring forest with a party of soldiers, met a troop of Indians who invited him to their dwellings. Mounted on the back of a stout savage, who plunged with him through the deep marshes, and guided him by devious pathways through the tangled thickets, he arrived at length, and beheld a wondrous spectacle. In the lodge sat a venerable chief, who assured him that he was the father of five successive generations, and that he had lived two hundred and fifty years. Opposite sat a still more ancient veteran, the father of the first, shrunken to a mere anatomy, and " seeming to be rather a dead car- keis than a living body." " Also," pursues the history, u his age was so great that the good man had lost his sight, and could not speak one onely word but with ex- ceeding great paine."1 Despite his dismal condition, the visitor was told that he might expect to live, in the course of Nature, thirty or forty years more. As the two patriarchs sat face to face, half hidden with their streaming white hair, Ottigny and his credulous soldiers looked from one to the other, lost in speechless admira- tion.
Man and Nature alike seemed to mark the borders of the River of May as the site of the new colony; for here, around the Indian towns, the harvests of maize, beans, and pumpkins promised abundant food, while the river opened a ready way to the mines of gold and silver and the stores of barbaric wealth which glit- tered before the dreaming vision of the colonists. Yet,
1 Laudonnifcre in Hakluyt, III. 388; Basanier, fol. 40; Coppie <f ttne Let- tre venant de la Floride, in Ternaux-Compans, Floride, 233.
1564.] FORT CAROLINE. 4,7
the better to content himself and his men, Laudonniere weighed anchor, and sailed for a time along the neigh- boring coasts. Returning, confirmed in his first im- pression, he set forth with a party of officers and sol- diers to explore the borders of the chosen stream. The day was hot. The sun beat fiercely on the woollen caps and heavy doublets of the men, till at length they gained the shade of one of those deep forests of pine where the dead, hot air is thick with resinous odors, and the earth, carpeted with fallen leaves, gives no sound beneath the foot. Yet, in the stillness, deer leaped up on all sides as they moved ajong. Then they emerged into sunlight. A broad meadow was before them, a running brook, and a lofty wall of encircling forests. The men called it the Vale of Laudonniere. The after- noon was spent, and the sun was near its setting, when they reached the bank of the river. They strewed the ground with boughs and leaves, and, stretched on that sylvan couch, slept the sleep of travel-worn and weary men.
At daybreak they were roused by sound of trumpet. Men and officers joined their voices in a psalm, then betook themselves to their task. It was the building of a fort, and this was the chosen spot, a tract of dry ground on the brink of the river, immediately above St. John's Bluff. On the right was the bluff; on the left, a marsh ; in front, the river ; behind, the forest.
Boats came up the stream with laborers, tents, pro- vision, cannon, and tools. The engineers marked out the work in the form of a triangle ; and, from the no-
48 LAUDONNifcRE. [1564.
ble volunteer to the meanest artisan, all lent a hand to complete it. On the river side the defences were a pal- isade of timber. On the two other sides were a ditch, and a rampart of fascines, earth, and sods. At each angle was a bastion, in one of which was the magazine. Within was a spacious parade, and around it various buildings for lodging and storage. A large house with covered galleries was built on the side towards the river for Laudonniere and hjs officers. In honor of Charles the Ninth the fort was named Fort Caroline.
Meanwhile Satouriona, " lord of all that country," as the narratives style him, was seized with misgivings on learning these mighty preparations. The work was scarcely begun, and all was din and confusion around the incipient fort, when the startled Frenchmen saw the neighboring height of St. John's swarming with naked warriors. Laudonniere set his men in array, and, for a season, ,pick and spade were dropped for arquebuse and pike. The savage chief descended to the camp. The artist Le Moyne, who saw him, drew his likeness from memory, — a tall, athletic fig- ure, tattooed in token of his rank, plumed, bedecked with strings of beads, and girdled with tinkling pieces of metal which hung from the belt, his only gar- ment.1 He came in regal state, a crowd of warriors around him, and, in advance, a troup of young Indians irmed with spears. Twenty musicians followed, blow- ng hideous discord through pipes of reeds. Arrived, le seated himself on the ground " like a monkey," as
i Le Moyne, Tabula VIII. XI.
NATIVE TRIBES. ^g
Le Moym; has it in the grave Latin of his Brevis Narratio. A council followed, in which broken words were aided by signs and pantomime. A treaty of alli- ance was made, and Laudonniere had the folly to prom- ise the chief that he would lend him aid against his enemies. Satouriona, well pleased, ordered his Indians to aid the French in their work. They obeyed with alacrity, and in two days the buildings of the fort were all thatched, after the native fashion, with leaves of the palmetto.
A word touching these savages. In the peninsula of Florida were several distinct Indian confederacies, with three of which the French were brought into con- tact. The first was that of Satouriona. The next was the potent confederacy of the people called the Thiina- goa, under their chief Outina, whose forty villages were scattered among the lakes and forests around the upper waters of this remarkable river. The third was that of " King Potanou,'' whose domain lay among the pine- barrens, cypress-swamps, and fertile hummocks, west- ward and northwestward of the St. John's. The three communities were at deadly enmity. Their social state was more advanced than that of the wandering hunter- tribes of the North. They were an agricultural people. Around all their villages were fields of maize, beans, and pumpkins. The harvest, due chiefly to the labor of the women, was gathered into a public granary, and on it they lived during three fourths of the year, dis- persing in winter to hunt among the forests.
Their villages were clusters of huts, thatched with
50 LATJDONNlfcRE. |1564.
palmetto. In the midst was the dwelling of the chief, much larger than the rest, and sometimes raised on an artificial mound. They were enclosed with palisades, and, strange to say, some of them were approached by wide avenues, artificially graded, and several hundred yards in length. Traces of them may still be seen, as may also the mounds in which the Floridians, like the Hurons and various other tribes, collected at stated intervals the bones of their dead.
The most prominent feature of their religion was sun-worship, and, like other wild American tribes, they abounded in " medicine-men," who combined the func- tions of physician and necromancer.
Social distinctions were sharply defined among them. Their chiefs, whose office was hereditary, sometimes exercised a power almost absolute. Each village had its chief, subordinate to the grand chief of the nation. In the language of 'the French narratives, they were all kings or lords, vassals of the great monarch Sa- touriona, Outina, or Potanou. All these tribes are now extinct, and it is difficult to ascertain with precision their tribal affinities. There can be no doubt that they were the authors of the aboriginal remains at present found in various parts of Florida.
Their fort nearly finished, and their league made with Satouriona, the gold-hunting Huguenots were eager to spy out the secrets of the interior. To this end the lieutenant, Ottigny, went up the river in a sail-boat. With him were a few soldiers and two Indians, the latter going forth, says Laudonniere, as if bound to a
1564.] OTTIGNY'S VOYAGE. *,
wedding, keen for a fight with the hated Thirnagoa, and exulting in the havoc to be wrought among them by the magic weapons of their white allies. They were doomed to grievous disappointment.
The Sieur d'Ottigny -spread his sail, and calmly glided up the dark waters of the St. John's, a scene fraught with strange interest to the naturalist and the lover of Nature. Here, two centuries later, the Bar- trams, father and son, guided their skill' and kindled their nightly bivouac-fire ; and here, too, roamed Audu- bon, with his sketch-book and his gun. Each alike has left the record of his wanderings, fresh as the woods and waters that inspired it.1 Slight was then the change since Ottigny, first of white men, steered his bark over the still breast of the virgin river. Before him, like a lake, the redundant waters spread far and wide ; and along the low shores, on jutting points, or the margin of deep and sheltered coves, towered wild, majestic forms of vegetable beauty. Here rose the magnolia, high above surrounding woods ; but the flowers had fallen, that a few weeks earlier studded the verdant dome with silver. From the edge of the bordering swamp the cypress reared its vast but- tressed'column and leafy canopy. From the rugged arms of oak and pine streamed the gray drapery
1 John Bartram visited Florida after the cession of 1703, with his son, William. His Description of Eaat Florida (Loud. 17GG) is the record of his journey. William Bartram was here again fifteen years later. His Travels through Xorth and South Carolina, Georyia, East and West Florida, etc. (Phil. 1791-4,) is the work of a close and enthusiastic student of Na- ture. Audubon's sketches of Floridian scenes, witli other similar papers, are interspersed through the first edition of his Ornithology, but omitted in the later editions
52 LAUDONNIEEE. [1564.
of the long Spanish moss, swayed mournfully by the faintest breeze. Here were the tropical plumage of the palm, the dark green masses of the live-oak, the glis- tening verdure of wild orange-groves ; and from out the shadowy thickets hung the wreaths of the jessamine and the scarlet trumpets of the bignonia.
Nor less did the fruitful river teem with varied forms of animal life. From caverns of leafy shade came the gleam and flicker of many-colored plumage. The cormorant, the pelican, the heron, floated on the water, or stalked along its pebbly brink. Among the sedges, the alligator, foul from his native mud, outstretched his hideous length, or, sluggish and sullen, drifted past the boat, his grim head level with the surface, and each scale, each folding of his horny hide, distinctly visible, as, with the slow movement of distended paws, he bal- anced himself in the water. When, at sunset, they drew up their boat on the strand, and built their camp- fire under the arches of the woods, the shores resounded with the roaring of these colossal lizards ; all night the forest rang with the whooping of the owls ; and in the morning the sultry mists that wrapped the river were vocal, far and near, with the clamor of wild turkeys.
Among such scenes, for twenty leagues, the adventu- rous sail moved on. Far to the right, beyond the silent waste of pines, lay the realm of the mighty Potanou. The Thimagoa towns were still above them on the river, when they saw three canoes of this people at no great distance in front. Forthwith the two Indians in the boat were fevered with excitement. With glittering
1564.] THE THIMAGOA. £<j
eyes they snatched pike and sword, and prepared for fight ; but the sage Ottigny, bearing slowly down on the strangers, gave them time to paddle ashore and escape to the woods. Then, landing, he approached tlie canoes, placed in them a few trinkets, and withdrew to a distance. The fugitives took heart, and, step by step, returned. An intercourse was opened, with as- surances of friendship on the part of the French, a procedure viewed by Satouriona's Indians with un- speakable disgust.
The ice thus broken, Ottigny returned to Fort Car- oline ; and, a fortnight later, an officer named Vasseur sailed up the river to pursue the adventure : for the French, thinking that the nation of the Thimagoa lay betwixt them and the gold-mines, would by no means quarrel with them, and Laudonniere repented already of his rash pledge to Satouriona.
As Vasseur moved on, two Indians hailed him from the shore, inviting him to their dwellings. He accepted their guidance, and presently saw before him the corn- fields and palisades of an Indian town. Led through the wondering crowd to the lodge of Mollua, the chief, Vasseur and his followers were seated in the place of honor, and plentifully regaled with fish and bread. The repast over, Mollua began his discourse. He told them that he was one of the forty vassal chiefs of the great Outina, lord of all the Thimagoa, whose warriors wore armor of gold and silver plate. He told them, too, of Potanou, his enemy, a mighty and redoubted prince ; and of the two kings of the distant Appalachian Mouu-
54, LAUDONNlfcRE. [1564.
tains, rich beyond utterance in gems and gold. While thus, with earnest pantomime and broken words, the chief discoursed with his guests, Vasseur, intent and eager, strove to follow his meaning ; and, no sooner did he hear of these Appalachian treasures, than he prom- ised to join Outina in war against the two potentates of the mountains. The sagacious Mollua, well pleased, promised that each of Outina's vassal chiefs should re- quite their French allies with a heap of gold and silver two feet high. Thus, while Laudonniere stood pledged to Satouriona, Vasseur made alliance with his mortal enemy.
Returning, he was met, near the fort, by one of Sa- touriona's chiefs, who questioned him touching his deal- ings with the Thimagoa. Vasseur replied that he had set upon and routed them with incredible slaughter. But as the chief, seenaing as yet unsatisfied, continued his inquiries, the sergeant, Francois de la Caille, dre\v his sword, and, like Falstaflf before him, reenacted his deeds of valor, pursuing and thrusting at the imagi- nary Thimagoa, as they fled before his fury. The chief, at length convinced, led the party to his lodge, and en- tertained them with a certain savory decoction with which the Indians were wont to regale those whom they delighted to honor.1
Elated at the promise of a French alliance, Satouriona had summoned his vassal chiefs to war. From the St. Mary's and the Santilla and the distant Altamaha, from every quarter of his woodland realm, they had mustered
1 Laudonniere in Hakluyt, III. 394
1564.] INDIAN, WAR. 55
at his call. Along the margin of the St. John's, the for- est was alive with their bivouacs. Here were ten chiefs and some five hundred men. And now, when all was ready, Satouriona reminded Laudonniere of his promise, and claimed its fulfilment ; but the latter gave evasive answers and a virtual refusal. Stifling his rage, the chief prepared to go without him.
Near the bank of the river, a fire was kindled, and two large vessels of water were placed beside it. Here Satouriona took his stand. His chiefs crouched on the grass around him, and the savage visages of his five hundred warriors filled the outer circle, their long hair garnished with feathers, or covered with the heads and skins of wolves, panthers, bears, or eagles. Satouriona, looking towards the country of his enemy, distorted his features into a wild expression of rage and hate ; then muttered to himself; then howled an invocation to his god, the Sun ; then besprinkled the assembly with wa- ter from one of the vessels, and, turning the other upon the fire, suddenly quenched it. " So," he cried, " may the blood of our enemies be poured out, and their lives extinguished ! " and the concourse gave forth an explo- sion of responsive yells, till the shores resounded with the wolfish din.1
The rites over, they set forth, and in a few days re- turned exulting, with thirteen prisoners and a number of scalps. The latter were hung on a pole before the royal lodge, and when night came, it brought with it a pandemonium of dancing and whooping, drumming and feasting.
i Le Moyne makes the scene the subject of one of his pictures.
56 LAUDQXXlfcRE. iv;i
A notable scheme entered the brain of Laudonniere. Resolved, cost \vhat it might, to make a friend of Ou- tina. he conceived it to be a stroke of policy to send back to him two of the prisoners. In the morning he sent a soldier to Satouriona to demand them. The astonished chief gave a flat refusal, adding that lie owed the French
o ~
no favors, for they had shamefully broken faith with him. On this, Laudonniere. at the head of twenty soldiers, proceeded to the Indian town, placed a guard at the opening of the great lodge, entered with his ar- quebusiers, and seated himself without ceremony in the highest place. Here, to show his displeasure, he re- mained in silence for half an hour. At length he spoke, renewing his demand. For some moments Satouriona made no reply ; then lie coldlv observed that die sight of so many armed men had frightened the prisoners away. Laudonniere grew peremptory, when the chief's sou, Athore, went out, and presently returned with the two Indians, whom the French led back to Fort Caroline.1
Satouriona dissembled, professed good-will, and sent presents to the fort ; but die outrage rankled in his savage breast, and he never forgave it.
Captain Vassear, with the Swiss ensign, Arlac, a sergeant, and ten soldiers, embarked to bear the ill-got- ten gift to Outina. Arrived, thev were showered with thanks by that grateful potentate, who, hastening to avail himself of his new alliance, invited them to join in a raid against his neighbor, Potanou. To this end, Arlac and five soldiers remained, while Vasseur with die rest descended to Fort Caroline.
1 Laadmmifere in Haklavt, ITJ. $96.
U64.J VASSEUB'S EXPEDITION. 57
The warriors were mustered, the dances were danced, and the songs were sung. Then the wild cohort took up their march. The wilderness through which they passed holds its distinctive features to this day, — the shady desert of the pine-barrens, where many a wan- derer has miserably died, with haggard eye seeking in vain for clue or guidance in the pitiless, inexorable monotony. Yet the waste has its oases, the li hum- mocks," where the live-oaks are hung with lonff fes-
o o
toons of grape-vines, — where the air is sweet with woodland odors, and vocal with the song of birds. Then the deep cypress-swamp, where dark trunks rise like the columns of some vast sepulchre ; above, the impervious canopy of leaves ; beneath, a black and root- entangled slough. Perpetual moisture trickles down the clammy bark, while trunk and limb, distorted with strange shapes of vegetable disease, wear in the gloom a semblance grotesque and startling. Lifeless forms lean propped in wild disorder against the living, and from every rugged stem and lank, outstretched limb hangs the dark drapery of the Spanish moss. The swamp is veiled in mourning ; no breath, no voice ; a deathly stillness, till the plunge of the alligator, lash- ing the waters of the black lagoon, resounds with hol- low echo through the tomb-like solitude.
D
Next came the broad sunlight and the wide savanna. Wading breast-deep in grass, they view the wavy sea of verdure ; headland and cape and far-reaching prom- ontory ; distant coasts, hazy and dim ; havens and shadowed coves ; islands of the magnolia and the palm;
58 LAUDONNlfcRE. [15C4.
high, impending shores of the mulberry and elm, ash, hickory, and maple. Here the rich gordonia, never out of bloom, sends down its thirsty roots to drink at the stealing brook. Here the halesia hangs out its silvery bells, the purple clusters of the wistaria droop from the supporting bough, and the coral blossoriis of the erythrina glow in the shade beneath. From tufted masses of sword-like leaves shoot up the tall spires of the yucca, heavy with pendent flowers of pal- lid hue, like the moon, and from the grass gleams the blue eye of the starry ixia.1
Through forest, savanna, and swamp, the valiant Frenchmen held their way. At first. Outina's Indi- ans kept always in advance ; but, when they reached the hostile district, the modest warriors fell to the rear, resigning the post of honor to their French allies.
An open country lay before them ; a rude cultiva- tion ; the tall palisades of an Indian town. Their ap- proach was seen, and the warriors of Potanou, no- wise daunted, swarmed forth to meet them. But the sight of the bearded strangers, the flash and report of the fire - arms, the fall of their foremost chief, shot through the brain by Arlac, filled them with conster- nation, and they fled headlong within their defences. The men of Thimagoa ran screeching in pursuit. All entered the town together, pell-mell. Then followed slaughter, pillage, flame. The work was done, and the band returned triumphant.
1 Species of all the above are frequent in the district alluded to, but perhaps the license of narrative is exceeded in supposing them all in bloom at once. The Floridian ixia is, as above indicated, blue, unlike others of the genus.
CHAPTER V.
1564, 1565. CONSPIRACY.
DISCONTENT. — Pixrr OF ROQUETTE. — PIRATICAL EXCURSION. — SEDITIOH. — ILLNESS OF LAUDONNIEHB. — OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. — BUCCANEERS. — ORDER RESTORED.
IN the little world of Fort Caroline, a miniature France, cliques and parties, conspiracy and sedition, were fast stirring into life. Hopes had been dashed ; wild expectations had come to nought. The adventur- ers had found, not conquest and gold, but a dull exile in a petty fort by a hot and sickly river, with hard la- bor, bad fare, prospective famine, and nothing to break the weary sameness but some passing canoe or floating alligator. Gathered in knots, they nursed each other's wrath, and inveighed against the commandant. Why are we put on half -rations, when he told us that provision should be made for a full year ? Where are the reinforcements and supplies that he said should follow us from France 1 Why is he always closeted with Ottigny, Arlac, and this and that favorite, when we, men of blood as good as theirs, cannot gain his ear for a moment ? And why has he sent La Roche Fer- riere to make his fortune among the Indians, while we are kept here, digging at the works?1
1 Compare Le Moyne, Brevls Nturatio, 9
60 CONSPIRACY. 11564.
Of La Roche Ferriere and his adventures, more hereafter. The young nohles, of whom there were many, were volunteers, who had paid their own ex- penses, in expectation of a golden harvest, and they chafed in impatience and disgust. The religious ele- ment in the colony — unlike the former Huguenot emi- gration to Brazil — was evidently subordinate. The adventurers thought more of their fortunes than of their faith; yet there were not a few earnest enough in the doctrine of Geneva to complain loudly and bitterly that no ministers had been sent with them. The bur- den of all grievances was thrown upon Laudonniere, whose greatest errors seem to have arisen from weak- ness and a lack of judgment, — fatal defects in his position.
The growing discontent was brought to a partial head by one Roquette, who gave out that high up the river he had discovered by magic a mine of gold and silver, which would give each of them a share of ten thousand crowns, besides fifteen hundred thousand for the king. But for Laudonniere, he said, their fortunes would all be made. He found an ally in a gentleman named Genre, one of Laudonniere's confidants, who, still pro- fessing fast adherence to his interests, is charged by him with plotting against his life. Many of the sol- diers were in the conspiracy. They made a flag of an old shirt, which they carried with them to the ram- part when they went to their work, at the same time wearing their arms, and watching an opportunity to kill the commandant. About this time, overheating
1664-1 jeiRATICAL EXCURSION. -j
himself, he fell ill, and was confined to his quarters. On this, Genre made advances to the apothecary, ui <*- ing him to put arsenic into his medicines; hut the apothecary shrugged his shoulders. They next devised a scheme to blow him up by hiding a keg of gunpow- der under his bed ; but here, too, they failed. Hints of Genre's machinations reaching the ears of Laudon- niere, the culprit fled to the woods, whence he wrote re pentant letters, with full confession, to his commander.
Two of the ships meanwhile returned to France, — the third, the Breton, remaining at anchor opposite the fort. The malecontents took the opportunity to send home charges against Laudonniere of peculation, favor- itism, and tyranny.1
Early in September, Captain Bourdet, apparently a private adventurer, had arrived from France with a small vessel. When he returned, about the tenth of November, Laudonniere persuaded him to carry home seven or eight of the malecontent soldiers. Bourdet left some of his sailors in their place. The exchange proved most disastrous. These pirates joined with others whom they had won over, stole Laudonniere's two pinnaces, and set forth on a plundering excursion to the West Indies. They took a small Spanish vessel off the coast of Cuba, but were soon compelled by famine to put into Havana and give themselves up. Here, to make their peace with the authorities, they told all they knew of the position and purposes of their
JBarcia, Ensayo Cronologico, 63; Laudonnifcre in Hakluyt, III. 400- Basanier, 61
6
62 CONSPIRACY. [1564.
countrymen at Fort Caroline, and thus was forged the thunderbolt soon to be hurled against the wretched little colony;
On a Sunday morning, Frangois de la Caille1 came to Laudonniere's quarters, and, in the name of the whole company, requested him to come to the parade-ground. He complied, and, issuing forth, his inseparable Ottigny at his side, he saw some thirty of his officers, soldiers, and gentlemen-volunteers waiting before the building with fixed and sombre countenances. La Caille, advanc- ing, begged leave to read, in behalf of the rest, a paper which he held in his hand. It opened with protestations of duty and obedience ; next came complaints of hard work, starvation, and broken promises, and a request that the petitioners should be allowed to embark in the vessel lying in the rivtfr, and cruise along the Spanish main in order to procure provisions by purchase " or otherwise." In short, the flower of the company wished to turn buccaneers.
Laudonniere refused, but assured them, that, as soon as the defences of the fort should be completed, a search should be begun in earnest for the Appalachian gold- mine, and that meanwhile two small vessels then build- ing on the river should be sent along the coast to barter for provisions with the Indians. With this answer they were forced to content themselves ; but the fermentation continued, and the plot thickened. Their spokesman,
1 La Caille, as before mentioned, was Laudonniere's sergeant. The feudal rank of sergeant,, it will be remembered, was widely different from the modern grade so named, and was held by men of noble birth.
1564.J MUTINY. ££
La Caille, however, seeing whither the affair tended, broke with them, and, except Ottigny, Vasseur, and the brave Swiss, Arlac, was the only officer who held to his duty.
A severe illness again seized Laudonniere and con- fined him to his bed. Improving their advantage, the malecontents gained over nearly all the best soldiers in the fort. The ringleader was one Fourneaux, a man of good birth, but whom Le Moyne calls an avaricious hypocrite. He drew up a paper to which sixty-six names were signed. La Caille boldly opposed the conspirators, and they resolved to kill him. His room-mate, Le Moyne, who had also refused to sign, received a hint from a friend that he had better change his quarters ; upon which he warned La Caille, who escaped to the woods. It was late in the night. Fourneaux, with twenty men armed to the teeth, knocked fiercely at the commandant's door. Forcing an entrance, they woumled a gentleman who opposed them, and crowded around the sick man's bed. Fourneaux, armed with steel cap and cuirass, held his arquebuse to Laudonniere's breast, and demanded leave to go on a cruise among the Span- ish islands. The latter kept his presence of mind, and remonstrated with some firmness ; on which, with oaths and menaces, they dragged him from his bed, put him in fetters, carried him out to the gate of the fort, placed him in a boat, and rowed him to the ship anchored iu the river.
Two other gangs at the same time visited Ottigny and Arlac. whom they disarmed, and ordered to keep
64, CONSPIRACY. [1564.
their rooms till the night following, on pain of death. Smaller parties were busied, meanwhile, in disarming all the loyal soldiers. The fort was completely in the hands of the conspirators. Fourneaux drew up a com- mission for his meditated West-India cruise, which he required Laudonniere to sign. The sick commandant, imprisoned in the ship, with one attendant, at first re- fused ; hut, receiving a message from the mutineers, that, if he did not comply, they would come on board and cut his throat, he at length yielded.
The buccaneers now bestirred themselves to finish the two small vessels on which the carpenters had been for some time at work. In a fortnight they were ready for sea, armed and provided with the king's cannon, muni- tions, and stores. Trenchant, an excellent pilot, was forced to join the party. Their favorite object was the plunder of a certain church, on one of the Spanish islands, which they proposed to assail during the mid- night mass of Christmas, whereby a triple end would be achieved : first, a rich booty ; secondly, the punish- ment of idolatry ; thirdly, vengeance on the arch-enemies of their party and their faith. They set sail on the eighth of December, taunting those who remained, call- ing them greenhorns, and threatening condign punish- ment, if, on their triumphant return, they should be refused free entrance to the fort.
They were no sooner gone than the unfortunate Lau- donniere was gladdened in his solitude by the approach of his fast friends, Ottigny and Arlac, who conveyed him to the fort, and reinstated him. The entire com-
1565.] BUCCANEERS. 55
mand was reorganized, and new officers appointed. The colony was wofully depleted ; but the bad blood had been drawn off, and thenceforth all internal danger was at an end. In finishing1 the fort, in building two new ves- sels to replace those of which they had been robbed, and in various intercourse with the tribes far and near, the weeks passed until the twenty-fifth of March, when an Indian came in with the tidings that a vessel was hovering: off the coast. Laudonniere sent to reconnoitre.
c?
The stranger lay anchored at the mouth of the river. She was a Spanish brigantine, manned by the return- ing mutineers, starving, downcast, and anxious to make terms. Yet, as their posture seemed not wholly pacific, Laudonniere sent down La Caille with thirty soldiers, concealed at the bottom of his little vessel. Seeing only two or three on deck, the pirates allowed her to come along-side ; when, to their amazement, they were boarded and taken before they could snatch their arms. Discomfited, woe-begone, and drunk, they were landed under a guard. Their story was soon told. Fortune had flattered them at the outset. On the coast of Cuba, they took a brigantine laden with wine and stores. Em- barking in her, they next fell in with a caravel, which also they captured. Landing at a village in Jamaica, they plundered and caroused for a week, and had hardly rtvmharked when they fell in with a small vessel having nu board the governor of the island. She made des-
B _
perate fight, but was taken at last, and with her a rich booty. They thought to put the governor to ransom ; but the astute official deceived them, and, on pretence
6*
66 CONSPIRACY. [1565.
of negotiating for the sum demanded, together with certain apes and parrots, for which his captors had also hargained, contrived to send instructions to his wife. Hence it happened that at daybreak three armed ves- sels fell upon them, retook the prize, and captured or killed all the pirates but twenty-six, who, cutting the moorings of their brigantine, fled out to sea. Among these was the ringleader, Fourneaux, and, happily, the pilot, Trenchant. The latter, eager to return to Fort Caroline, whence he had been forcibly taken, succeeded during the night in bringing the vessel to the coast of Florida. Great were the wrath and consternation of the pirates, when they saw their dilemma ; for, having no provision, they must either starve or seek succor at the fort. ,They chose the latter, and bore away for the St. John's. A few casks of Spanish wine yet remained, and nobles and soldiers, frater- nized by the common peril of a halter, joined in a last carouse. As the wine mounted to their heads, in the mirth of drink and desperation, they enacted their own trial. One personated the judge, another the com- mandant ; witnesses were called, with arguments and speeches on either side.
" Say what you like," said one of them, after hearing the counsel for the defence ; " but if Laudonniere does not hang us all, I will never call him an honest man."
They had some hope of getting provisions from the Indians at the mouth of the river, and then putting to sea again ; but this was frustrated by La Caille's sud- den attack. A court-martial was called near Fort Car,o-
1565.J ORDER RESTORED. QJ
line, and all were found guilty. Fourneaux and three others were sentenced to be hanged.
" Comrades," said one of the condemned, appealing to the soldiers, " will you stand by and see us butch- ered 1 "
" These," retorted Laudonniere, " are no comrades of mutineers and rebels."
At the request of his followers, however, he com- muted the sentence to shooting.
A file of men, a rattling volley, and the debt of justice was paid. The bodies were hanged on gibbets at the river's mouth, and order reigned at Fort Caro- line.1
1 The above is from Le Moyne and Laudonniere, who agree in essential points, but differ in a few details. The artist criticises the commandant freely. Compare Hawkins in Hakluyt, III. 614.
CHAPTER VI.
1564, 1565. FAMINE. WAR. SUCCOR.
LA ROCHK FERRIERE. — PIERRE GAMBIE. — THE KING OF CALOS. — OT- TIGNY'S EXPEDITION. — STARVATION. — EFFORTS TO ESCAPE FKOM FLOR- IDA.— INDIANS UNFRIENDLY.- — SEIZURE OF OUTINA. — ATTEMPTS TO EX- TORT RANSOM. — AMBUSCADE. — BATTLE. — DESPERATION OF THE FRENCH. — SIR JOHN HAWKINS RELIEVES THEM. — RIBAUT BRINGS REINFORCE- MENTS. — ADVENT OF THE SPANIARDS.
WHILE the mutiny was brewing, one La Roche Fer- riere had been sent out as an agent or emissary among the more distant tribes. Sagacious, bold, and restless, he pushed his way from town to town, and pretended to have reached the mysterious mountains of Appalache. He sent to the fort mantles woven with feathers, quiv- ers covered with choice furs, arrows tipped with gold, wedges of a green stone like beryl or emerald, and other trophies of his wanderings. A gentleman named Grotaut took up the quest, and penetrated to the domin- ions of Hostaqua, who could muster three or four thou- sand warriors, and who promised with the aid of a hundred arquebusiers to conquer all the kings of the adjacent mountains, and subject them and their gold- mines to the rule of the French. A humbler adven- turer was Pierre Gambie, a robust and daring youth, who had been brought up in the household of Coligny, and was now a soldier under Laudonniere. The latter
1664.] THE KING OF CALOS. gg
gave him leave to trade with the Indians, a privilege which he used so well that he grew rich with his traffic, became prime favorite with the chief of the island of Edelano, married his daughter, and, in his absence, reigned in his stead. But, as his sway verged towards despotism, his subjects took offence, and beat out his brains with a hatchet.
During the winter, Indians from the neighborhood of Cape Canaveral brought to the fort two Spaniards, wrecked fifteen years before on the southwestern ex- tremity of the peninsula. They were clothed like the Indians, — in other words, were not clothed at all, — and their uncut hair streamed wildly down their backs. They brought strange tales of those among whom they had dwelt. They told of the King of Calos, on whose domains they had been wrecked, a chief mighty in stature and in power. In one of his villages was a pit, six feet deep and as wide as a hogshead, filled with treasure gathered from Spanish wrecks on adjacent reefs and keys. The monarch was a priest too, and a magician, with power over the elements. Each year he withdrew from the public gaze to hold converse in secret with supernal or infernal powers ; and each year he sacrificed to his gods one of the Spaniards whom the fortune of the sea had cast upon his shores. The name of the tribe is preserved in that of the River Caloosa. In close league with him was the mighty Oathcaqua, dwelling near Cape Canaveral, who gave his daughter, a maiden of wondrous beauty, in marriage to his great ally. But, as the bride, with her bridesmaids, was
70 FAMINE. — WAR - SUCCOR. [1565.
journeying towards Calos, escorted by a chosen band, they were assailed by a wild and warlike race, inhabi- tants of an island called Sarrope, in the midst of a great lake, who put the warriors to flight, bore the maidens captive to their watery fastness, espoused them all, and we are assured, " loved them above all measure." l
Outina, taught by Arlac the efficacy of the French fire-arms, begged for ten arquebusiers to aid him on a new raid among the villages of Potanou, again alluring his greedy allies by the assurance, that, thus reinforced, he would conquer for them a free access to the phan- tom gold - mines of Appalache. Ottigny set forth on this fool's-errand with thrice the force demanded. Three hundred Thimagoa and thirty Frenchmen took up their march through the pine - barrens. Outina's conjurer was of the number, and had wellnigh ruined the enter- prise. Kneeling on Ottigny 's shield, that he might not touch the earth, with hideous grimaces, bowlings, and contortions, he wrought himself into a prophetic frenzy, and proclaimed to the astounded warriors that to ad- vance farther would be destruction. Outina was for instant retreat, but Ottigny's sarcasms shamed him into a show of courage. Again they moved forward, and soon encountered Potanou with all his host.2 The
1 Laudonniere in Hakluyt, III. 406. Brinton, Floridian Peninsula, thinks there is truth in the story, and that Lake Ware, in Marion County, is the Lake of Sarrope. I give these romantic tales as I find them.
2 Le Moyne drew a picture of the fight. In the foreground Ottigny is engaged in single combat with a gigantic savage, who, with club up- heaved, aims a deadly stroke at the plumed helmet of his foe; but the latter, with target raised to guard his head, darts under the arms of the naked Goliath, and tranfixes him with his sword. De Brv, Part II.
1565.] STARVATION. y|
arquebuse did its work ; panic, slaughter, and a plen- tiful harvest of scalps. But no persuasion could in- duce Outina to follow up his victory. He went home to dance around his trophies, and the French returned disgusted to Fort Caroline.
And now, in ample measure, the French began to reap the harvest of their folly. Conquest, gold, mili- tary occupation, — such had been their aims. Not a rood of ground had been stirred with the spade. Their stores were consumed ; the expected supplies had not come. The Indians, too, were hostile. Satouriona hated them as allies of his enemies ; and his tribesmen, robbed and maltreated by the lawless soldiers, exulted in their miseries. Yet in these, their dark and subtle neighbors, was their only hope.
May-day came, the third anniversary of the day when Ribaut and his companions, full of delighted an- ticipations, had explored the flowery borders of the St. John's. The contrast was dire ; for, within the precinct of Fort Caroline, a homesick, squalid band, dejected and worn, dragged their shrunken limbs about the sun- scorched area, or lay stretched in listless wretchedness under the shade of the barracks. Some were digging roots in the forest, or gathering a kind of sorrel upon the meadows. One collected refuse fish-bones, and pounded them into meal. Yet, giddy with weakness, their skin clinging to their bones, they dragged them- selves in turn to the top of St. John's Bluff, straining their eyes across the sea to descry the anxiously ex- pected sail.
yg FAMINE. — WAR. — SUCCOR. [1565.
Had Coligny left them to perish 1 or had some new tempest of calamity, let loose upon France, drowned the memory of their exile 1 In vain the watchman on the hill surveyed the solitude of waters. A deep de- jection fell upon them, a dejection that would have sunk to despair, could their eyes have pierced the future.
The Indians had left the neighborhood, but, from time to time, brought in meagre supplies of fish, which they sold to the famished soldiers at exorbitant prices. Lest they should pay the penalty of their extortion, they would not enter the fort, but lay in their canoes in the river, beyond gunshot, waiting for their customers to come out to them. " Oftentimes," says Laudonniere, '" our poor soldiers were constrained to give away the very shirts from their backs to get one fish. If at any time they shewed unto the savages the excessive price which they tooke, these villaines would answere them roughly and churlishly : If thou make so great account of thy marchandise, eat it, and we will eat our fish : then fell they out a laughing and mocked us with open throat."
The spring wore away, and no relief appeared. One thought now engrossed the colonists, the thought of return to France. Vasseur's ship, the Breton, still remained in the river, and they had also the Spanish brigantine brought by the mutineers. But these ves- sels were insufficient, and they prepared to build a ne\v one. The energy of reviving hope lent new life to their exhausted frames. Some gathered pitch in the pine forests ; some made charcoal ; some cut and sawed
1666.J SEIZURE OF OUTINA 73
timber. The maize began to ripen, and this brought some relief; but the Indians, exasperated and greedy, sold it with reluctance, and murdered two half-famished Frenchmen who gathered a handful in the fields.
The colonists applied to Outina, who owed them two victories. The result was a churlish message and a niggardly supply of corn, coupled with an invitation to aid him against an insurgent chief, the plunder of whose villages would yield an ample supply. The offer was accepted. Ottigny and Vasseur set forth, but were grossly deceived, led against a different enemy, and sent back empty-handed and half-starved.
A crowd of soldiers, pale with famine and with rage, beset Laudonniere, and fiercely demanded to be led against Outina to take him prisoner and extort from his fears the supplies which could not be looked for from his gratitude. The commandant was forced to comply. Those who could bear the weight of their armor put it on, embarked, to the number of fifty, in two barges, and sailed up the river under the commandant himself. Having reached Outina's landing, they marched inland, entered his village, surrounded his mud-plastered palace, seized him amid the yells and bowlings of his subjects, and led him prisoner to their boats. Here, anchored in mid - stream, they demanded a supply of corn and beans as the price of his ransom.
The alarm spread. Excited warriors, bedaubed with red, came thronging from all his villages. The forest along the shore was full of them ; and troops of women gathered at the water's edge with moans, outcries, and
7
f4 FAMINE. - WAR — SUCCOR. [1565.
gestures of despair. Yet no ransom was offered, since, reasoning from their own instincts, they never doubted, that, after the price was paid, the captive would be put to death.
Laudonniere waited two days, and then descended the river. In a rude chamber of Fort Caroline, the sentinel stood his guard, pike in hand, while before him crouched the captive chief, mute, impassive, and brood- ing on his woes. His old enemy, Satouriona, keen as a hound on the scent of prey, tried, by great offers, to bribe Laudonniere to give the prisoner into his hands. Outina,' however, was kindly treated, and assured of immediate freedom on payment of the ransom.
Meanwhile his captivity was entailing grievous afflic- tion on his tribesmen ; for, despairing of his return, they mustered for the election of a new chief. Party-strife ran high. Some were for a boy, his son, and some for an ambitious kinsman who coveted the vacant throne. Outina chafed in his prison on learning these dissen- sions ; and, eager to convince his over - hasty subjects that their king still lived, he was so profuse of prom- ises, that he was again embarked and carried up the river.
At no great distance below Lake George, a small affluent of the St. John's gave access by water to a point within eighteen miles of Outina's principal town. The two barges, crowded with soldiers, and bearing also the royal captive, rowed up this little stream. In- dians awaited them at the landing, with gifts of bread, beans, and fish, and piteous prayers for their chief, upon
1665-1 PERIL OF THE FRENCH. 75
whose liberation they promised an ample supply of corn. As they were deaf to all other terms, Laudonniere yielded, released the chief, and received in his place t\vo hostages, who were fast bound in the boats. Ot- tigny and Arlac, with a strong detachment of arque- bnsiers, set forth to receive the promised supplies, for which, from the first, full payment in merchandise had been offered. On their arrival at the village, they filed into the great central lodge, within whose dusky pre- cincts were gathered the magnates of the tribe. Coun- cil-chamber, forum, banquet-hall, dancing-hall, palace, all in one, the royal dwelling could hold half the popu- lation in its capacious confines. Here the French made their abode. Their armor buckled, their arquebuse- matches lighted, they stood, or sat, or reclined on the earthen floor, with anxious eyes watching the strange, dim scene, half lighted by the daylight that streamed down through the hole at the apex of the roof. Tall, dark forms stalked to and fro, with quivers, at their backs, and bows and arrows in their hands, while groups, crouched in the shadow beyond, eyed the hated guests with inscrutable visages, and malignant, sidelong eyes. Corn came in slowly, but warriors mustered fast. The village without was full of them. The French officers grew anxious, and urged the chiefs to greater alacrity in collecting the promised ransom. The answer boded no good. " Our women are afraid, when they see the matches of your guns burning. Put them out, and they will bring the corn faster."
Outina was nowhere to be seen. At length they
76 FAMINE. — WAR. — SUCCOR. [1565
learned that he was in one of the small huts adjacent. Several of the officers went to him, complaining- of the slow payment of his ransom. The kindness of his captors at Fort Caroline seemed to have won his heart. He replied, that such was the rage of his subjects that he could no longer control them, — that the French were in danger, — and that he had seen arrows stuck in the ground by the side of the path, in token that war was declared. Their peril was thickening- hourly, and Ottigny resolved to regain the boats while there was yet time.
On the twenty-seventh of July, at nine in the morn- ing, he set his men in order. Each shouldering a sack of corn, they marched through the rows of squalid huts that surrounded the great lodge, and out betwixt the overlapping extremities of the palisade that encircled the town. Before them stretched a wide avenue, three or four hundred paces long, flanked by a natural growth of trees, — one of those curious monuments of native industry to which an allusion has been already made.1 Here Ottigny halted and formed his line of march. Arlac with eight matchlock-men was sent in advance, and flanking parties were thrown into the woods on either side. Ottigny "told his soldiers, that, if the Indians meant to attack them, they were probably in ambush at the other end of the avenue. He was right. As Arlac's party reached the spot, the whole pack gave tongue at once. The war - whoop rose, and a tempest of stone - headed arrows clattered against the
1 See ante, p. 50.
1566.] AMBUSCADE. — BATTLE. 77
breastplates of the French, or, scorching like fire, tore through their unprotected limbs. They stood firm, and sent back their shot so steadily that several of the as- sailants were laid dead, and the rest, two or three hun- dred in number, gave way as Ottigny came up with Jiis men.
They moved on for a quarter of a mile through a country, as it seems, comparatively open ; when again the war - cry pealed in front, and three hundred sav- ages bounded to the assault. Their whoops were echoed from the rear. It was the party whom Arlac had just repulsed, who, leaping and showering their arrows, were rushing on. with a ferocity restrained only by their lack of courage. There was no panic among the French. The men threw down their bugs of corn,
o *
and took to their weapons. They blew their matches, and, under two excellent officers, stood well to their work. The Indians, on their part, showed a good dis- cipline after their fashion, and were perfectly under the control of their chiefs. With cries that imitated the yell of owls, the scream of cougars, and the howl of wolves,1 they ran up in successive bands, let fly. their arrows, and instantly fell back, giving place to others. At the sight of the levelled arquebuse, they dropped flat on the earth. Whenever the French charged upon them, sword in hand, they fled thrqugh the woods like foxes : and, whenever the march was resumed, the ar-
1 Indian war - cries are to a great degree imitations of the cries of beasts and birds of prey, above all, of those of the great horned owl, than which the forest has no sound more startling and discordant.
yg FAMINE. - WAR. — SUCCOR. [1565
rows were showering again upon the flanks and rear of the retiring band. As they fell, the soldiers coolly picked them up and broke them. Thus, beset with swarming savages, the handful of Frenchmen pushed their march till nightfall, fighting as they went.
The Indians gradually drew off, and the forest was silent again. Two of the French had been killed and twenty-two wounded, several so severely that they were supported to the boats with the utmost difficulty. Of the corn, two bags only had been brought off.
Famine and desperation now reigned at Fort Caro- line. The Indians had killed two of the carpenters ; hence long delay in the finishing of the new ship. They would not wait, but resolved to put to sea in the Breton and the brigantine. The problem was to find food for the voyage ; for now, in their extremity, they roasted and ate snakes, a delicacy in which the neighborhood abounded.
On the third of August, Laudonniere, perturbed and oppressed, was walking on the hill, when, looking sea- ward, he saw a sight that sent a thrill through his ex- hausted frame. A great ship was standing towards the river's mouth. Then another came in sight, and an- other, and another. He despatched a messenger with the tidings to the fort below. The languid forms of his sick and despairing men rose and danced for joy, and voices, shrill with weakness, joined in wild laughter and acclamation.
A doubt soon mingled with their joy. Who were the strangers "? Were they the friends so long hoped
1566.] SIR JOHN HAWKINS. JQ
for in vain \ or were they Spaniards, their dreaded enemie$ \ They were neither. The foremost ship was a stately one, of seven hundred tons, a mighty burden at that day. She was named the Jesus; and with her were three smaller vessels, the Solomon, the Tiger, and the Swallow. Their commander was " a right worship- ful and valiant knight," — for so the record styles him, — a pious man and a prudent, to judge him by the orders he gave his crew, when, ten months before, he sailed out of Plymouth : — " Serve God daily, love one another, preserve your victuals, beware of fire, and keepe good companie." Nor were the crew unworthy of the graces of their chief; for the devout chronicler of the voyage ascribes their deliverance from the perils of the sea to " the Almightie God, who never suff'ereth his Elect to perish."
Who, then, were they, this chosen band, serenely conscious of a special Providential care ? Apostles of the cross, bearing the word of peace to benighted heathendom "? They were the pioneers of that detested traffic destined to inoculate with its infection nations yet unborn, the parent of discord and death, filling half a continent with the tramp of armies and the clash of fratricidal swords. Their chief was Sir John Hawkins, father of the English slave-trade.
He had been to the coast of Guinea, where he bought and kidnapped a cargo of slaves. These he had sold to the jealous Spaniards of Hispaniola^ forcing them, with sword, matchlock, and culverin, to grant him free trade, and then to sign testimonials that lie had borne
80 FAMINE. — WAR. — SUCCOR. [1565.
himself as became a peaceful merchant. Prospering greatly by this summary commerce, but distressed by the want of water, he had put into the River of May to obtain a supply.
Among the rugged heroes of the British marine, Sir John stood in the front rank, and along with Drake, his relative, is extolled as " a man borne for the honour
of the English name Neither did the West of
England yeeld such an Indian Neptunian paire as were these two Ocean peeres, Hawkins and Drake." So writes the old chronicler, Purchas, and all England was of his thinking. A hardy seaman, a bold fighter, over- bearing towards equals, but kind, in his bluff way, to those beneath him, rude in speech, somewhat crafty withal, and avaricious, he buffeted his way to riches and fame, and died at last full of years and honor. As for the abject humanity stowed between the reeking decks of the ship Jesus, they were merely in his eyes so many black cattle tethered for the market.1
1 For Hawkins, see the three narratives in Hakluyt, III. 694 ; Pur- chas, IV. 1177; Stow, Citron. 807; Biog. Britan. Art. Hawkins; Ander- son, History of Commerce, I. 400.
He was not knighted until after the voyage of 1564-5 ; hence there is an anachronism in the text. As he was held " to have opened a new trade," lie was entitled to bear as his crest a " Moor " or negro, bound with a cord. In Fairbairn's Crests of Great Britain and Ireland, where it is figured, it is described, not as a negro, but as a " naked man." In Burke's Landed Gentry, it is said that Sir John obtained it in honor of a great vic- tory over the Moors ! His only African victories were in kidnapping raids on negro villages. In Letters on Certain Passages in the Life of Sir Mm Hawkins, the coat is enguaved in detail. The " demi-Moor " has the thick lips, the flat nose, and the wool of the unequivocal negro.
Sir John became Treasurer of the Royal Navy and Rear- Admiral, and founded a marint hospital at Chatham.
1566. j GENEROSITY OF HAWKINS. gj
Hawkins came up the river in a pinnace, and landed at Fort Caroline, " accompanied," says Laudonniere, " with gentlemen honorably apparelled, yet unarmed." Between the Huguenots and the English there was a double tie of sympathy. Both hated priests, and both hated Spaniards. Wakening from their apathetic mis- ery, the starveling garrison hailed him as a deliverer. Vet Hawkins secretly rejoiced when he learned their purpose to abandon Florida ; for, though, not to tempt his cupidity, they hid from him the secret of their Ap- palachian gold-mine, he coveted for his royal mistress the possession of this rich domain. He shook his head, however, when he saw the vessels in which they pro- posed to embark, and offered them all a free passage to France in his own ships. This, from obvious motives of honor and prudence, Laudonniere declined, upon which Hawkins offered to lend or sell to him one of his smaller vessels.
Laudonniere hesitated, and hereupon arose a great clamor. A mob of soldiers and artisans beset his chamber, threatening loudly to desert him, and take passage with Hawkins, unless the offer of the latter were accepted. The commandant accordingly resolved to buy the vessel. The generous slaver, whose reputed avarice nowise appears in the transaction, desired him to set his own price ; and, in place of money, took the cannon of the fort, with other articles now useless to their late owners. He sent them, too, a gift of wine and biscuit, and supplied them with provisions for the voyage, receiving in payment Laudonniere 's note, —
g£ FAMINE. — WAR. — SUCCOR. [1666.
" for which," adds the latter, " I am until this present indebted to him." With a friendly leave - taking he returned to his ships and stood out to sea, leaving golden opinions among the grateful inmates of Fort Caroline.
Before the English top-sails had sunk beneath the horizon, the colonists bestirred themselves to depart. In a few days their preparations were, made. They waited only for a fair wind. It was long in coming, and meanwhile their troubled fortunes assumed a new phase.
On the twenty-eighth of August, the two captains, Vasseur and Verdier, came in with tidings of an ap- proaching squadron. Again the fort was wild with ex- citement. Friends or foes, French or Spaniards, succor or deatli ; — betwixt these were their hopes and fears divided. With the following morning, they saw seven barges rowing up the river, bristling with weapons and crowded with men in armor. The sentries on the bluff challenged, and received no answer. One of them fired at the advancing boats. Still there was no response. Laudonniere was almost defenceless. He had given his heavier cannon to Hawkins, and only two field-pieces were left. They were levelled at the foremost bo;its, and the word to fire was about to be given, when a voice from among the strangers called out that they were French, commanded by Jean Ribaut.
At the eleventh hour, the long-looked-for succors were come. Ribaut had been commissioned to sail with seven ships for Florida. A disorderly concourse
1565.] REMOVAL OF LAUDONNIERE. ftg
of disbanded soldiers, mixed with artisans and their families, and young nobles weary of a two-years' peace, were mustered at the port of Dieppe, and embarked, to the number of three hundred men, bearing with them all things thought necessary to a prosperous colony.
No longer in dread of the Spaniards, the colonists saluted the new-comers with the cannon by which a moment before they had hoped to blow them out of the water. Laudonniere issued from his stronghold to welcome them, and regaled them with what cheer he could. Ribaut was present, conspicuous by his long beard, an astonishment to the Indians; and here, too, were officers, old friends of Laudonniere. Why, then, had they approached in the attitude of enemies "? The mystery was soon explained ; for they expressed to the commandant their pleasure at finding that the charges made against him had proved false. He beggetl to know more; on which Ribaut, taking him aside, told him that the returning ships had brought home letters filled with accusations of arrogance, tyranny, cruelty, and a pur- pose of establishing an independent command : accusa- tions which he now saw to be unfounded, but which had been the occasion of his unusual and startling precau- tion. He gave him, too, a letter from the Admiral Coligny. In brief but courteous terms, it required him to resign his command, and requested his return to France to clear his name from the imputations cast upon it.1 Ribaut warmly urged him to remain ; but Laudonniere declined his friendly proposals.
1 See the letter in Basanier, 102.
34. FAMINE. — WAR. — SUCCOR. [1565.
Worn in body and mind, mortified and wounded, he soon fell ill again. A peasant-woman attended him, who was brought over, he says, to nurse the sick and take charge of the poultry, and of whom Le Moyne also speaks as a servant, but who had been made the occasion of additional charges against him, most offen- sive to the austere Admiral.
Stores were landed, tents were pitched, women and children were sent on shore, feathered Indians mingled in the throng, and the borders of the River of May swarmed with busy life. "But, lo, how oftentimes misfortune doth search and pursue us, even then when we thinke to be at rest ! " exclaims the unhappy Lau- donniere. Amidst the light and cheer of renovated hope, a cloud of blackest omen was gathering in the east.
At half-past eleven on the night of Tuesday, the fourth of September, the crew of Ribaut's flag-ship, anchored on the still sea outside the bar, saw a huge hulk, grim with the throats of cannon, drifting towards them through the gloom ; and from its stern rolled on the sluggish air the portentous banner of Spain.
CHAPTER VII.
1565. MENENDEZ.
SPAIN. — PEDRO MENENDEZ DE AVILES. — His BOYHOOD. — His EARLY CA- P.EER. — His PETITION TO THE KING. — COMMISSIONED TO CONQUER FLOR- IDA. — His POWERS. — His DESIGNS. — A NEW CRUSADE. — SAILING OF TUB SPANISH FLEET. — A STORM. — PORTO Rico. — ENEKG Y OF MK.NENDEZ. — HE REACHES FLORIDA — ATTACKS RIBAUT'S SHIPS. — FOUNDS ST. AUGUS- TINE.—ALARM OF THE FRENCH. — BOLD DECISION OF RIHAUT. — DE- FENCELESS CONDITION OF FORT CAROLINE. — RIBAUT THWARTED. — TEM- PEST. — MENENDEZ MARCHES ON THE FRENCH FORT. — His DKSPKRATE POSITION. — THE FORT TAKEN. — THE MASSACRE. — THE FUGITIVES.
THE monk, the inquisitor, the Jesuit, these were the lords of Spain, — sovereigns of her sovereign, for they had formed the dark and narrow mind of that tyranni- cal recluse. They had formed the minds of her people, quenched in blood every spark of rising heresy, and given over a noble nation to a bigotry blind and inex- orable as the doom of fate. Linked with pride, am- bition, avarice, every passion of a rich, strong nature, potent for good and ill, it made the Spaniard of that day a scourge as dire as ever fell on man.
Day was breaking on the world. Light, hope, free- dom, pierced with vitalizing ray the clouds and the mi- asma that hung so thick over the prostrate Middle Age, once noble and mighty, now a foul image of decay and death. Kindled with new life, the nations gave birth to a progeny of heroes, and the stormy glories of the six- 8
86 MENENDEZ. [1565.
teenth century rose on awakened Europe. But Spain was the citadel of darkness, — a monastic cell, an in- quisitorial dungeon, where no ray could pierce. She was the hulvvark of the Church, against whose adaman- tine wall the waves of innovation beat in vain.1 In every country of Europe the party of freedom and re- form was the national party, the party of reaction and absolutism was the Spanish party, leaning on Spain, looking to her for help. Above all, it was so in France; and, while within her bounds there was a semblance of peace, the national and religious rage burst forth on a wilder theatre. Thither it is for us to follow it, where, on the shores of Florida, the Spaniard and the French- man, the bigot and the Huguenot, met in the grapple of death.
In a corridor of his palace, Philip the Second was met by a man who had long stood waiting his approach, and who with proud reverence placed a petition in the hand of the pale and sombre King. The petitioner was Pedro Menendez de Aviles, one of the ablest and most distinguished officers of the Spanish marine. He was born of an ancient Asturian family. His boyhood had been wayward, ungovernable, and fierce. He ran off at eight years of age, and when, after a search of six months, he was found and brought back, he ran off
1 " Better a ruined kingdom, true to itself and its king, than one left unharmed to the profit of the devil and the heretics." — Correspondance de PhtiipiK If., cited by Prcscott, Philip II., Bk. III. c. II. note 36.
" A prince can do nothing more shameful or more hurtful to himself, than to permit his people to live according to their conscience." — The Duke of Alca, in Davila, 1. III. p. 341.
1565.] HIS EARLY CAREER. §7
again. This time he was more successful, escaping on hoard a fleet bound against the Barbary corsairs, when his precocious appetite for blood and blows had reason- able contentment. A few years later, he found means to build a small vessel, in which he cruised against the corsairs and the French, and, though still hardly more than a boy, displayed a singular address and daring. The wonders of the New World now seized his imagi-
o
nation. He made a voyage thither, and the ships un- der his charge came back freighted with wealth. The war with France was then at its height. As captain- general of the fleet, he was sent with troops to Flan- ders; and to their prompt arrival was due, it is said, the victory of St. Quentin. Two years later, he com- manded the luckless armada which bore back Philip to his native shore. On the way, the King narrowly escaped drowning in a storm off' the port of Laredo. This mischance, or his own violence and insubordina- tion, wrought to the prejudice of Menendez. He com- plained that his services were ill repaid. Phijip lent him a favoring ear, and despatched him to the Indies as general of the fleet and army. Here he found means to amass vast riches; and, in 1561, on his return to Spain, charges were brought against him of a nature which his too friendly biographer does not explain. The Council of the Indies arrested him. He was imprisoned and sentenced to a heavy fine, but, gaining his release, hastened to court to throw himself on the royal clem- ency.1
1 Barcia, (Cardenas y Cano,) Ensayo Cronoloyico, 67-44.
88 MENENDEZ. [1565.
His petition was most graciously received. Philip restored his command, but remitted only half his fine, a strong presumption of his guilt.
Menendez kissed the royal hand; he had still a peti- tion in reserve. His son had been wrecked near the Bermudas, and he would fain go thither to find tidings of his fate. The pious King bade him trust in God, and promised that he should be despatched without delay to the Bermudas and to Florida with a commission to njake an exact survey of those perilous seas for the profit of future voyagers ; but Menendez was ill con- tent with such an errand. He knew, he said, nothing of greater moment to His Majesty than the conquest and settlement of Florida. The climate was healthful, the soil fertile ; and, worldly advantages aside, it was peopled by a race sunk in the thickest shades of infi- delity. " Such grief," he pursued, " seizes me, when I behold this multitude of wretched Indians, that I should choose the conquest and settling of Florida above all commands, offices, and dignities which your Majesty might bestow." * Those who think this to be hypoc- risy do not know the Spaniard of the sixteenth century.
The King was edified by his zeal. An enterprise of such spiritual and temporal promise was not to be slighted, and Menendez was empowered to conquer and convert Florida at his own cost. The conquest was to be effected within three years. Menendez was to take with him five hundred men, and supply them with five hundred slaves, besides horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs.
1 Barcia, (Cardenas y Cano,) Ensayo Crondogico, 65.
1666.] HIS COMMISSION. gg
Villages were to be built, with torts to defend them ; and sixteen ecclesiastics, of whom four should be Jesu- its, were to form the nucleus of a Floridian church. The King, on his part, granted Menendez free trade with Hispaniola, Porto Rico, Cuba, and Spain, the of- fice of Adelantado of Florida for life with the right of
o
naming his successor, and large emoluments to be drawn from the expected conquest.1
The compact struck, Menendez hastened to his native Asturias to raise money among his relatives. Scarcely was he gone, when tidings reached Madrid that Florida was already occupied by a colony of French Protes- tants, and that a reinforcement, under Ribaut, was on the point of sailing thither. A French historian of high authority declares, that these advices came from the Catholic party at the French court, in whom every instinct of patriotism was lost in their hatred of Coligny and the Huguenots. Of this there can be little doubt, though information also came about this time from the buccaneer Frenchmen captured in the AVest Indies.
Foreigners had invaded the territory of Spain. The trespassers, too, were heretics, foes of God and liege- men of the Devil. Their doom was fixed. But how would France endure an assault, in time of peace, on subjects who had gone forth on an enterprise sanc- tioned by the crown, and undertaken in its name and under its commission ?
The above is from Barcia, as the original compact has not been founu. For the patent conferring the title of Adelantado, see Coleccion d* l'<via* Documentos, I. 13.
8*
90 MENENDEZ. [156S.
The throne of France, where the corruption of the nation seemed gathered to a head, was trembling be- tween the two parties of the Catholics and the Hugue- nots, whose chiefs aimed at royalty. Flattering both, caressing both, playing one against the other, and be- traying both, Catherine de Medicis, by a thousand crafty arts and expedients of the moment, sought to retain the crown on the head of her weak and vicious son. Of late her crooked policy had led her towards the Catholic party, in other words, the party of Spain ; and already she had given ear to the savage Duke of Alva. urging her to. the course which, seven years later, led to the carnage of St. Bartholomew. In short, the Spanish policy was in the ascendant, and no thought of the national interest or honor could restrain that basest of courts from consigning by hundreds to the national enemy those whom it was itself meditating to immolate by thousands.1
Menendez was summoned back in haste to the Span- i>h court. There was counsel, deep and ominous, in the palace of Madrid. His force must be strength- ened. Three hundred and ninety-four men were added at the royal charge, and a corresponding number of transport and supply ships. It was a holy war, a crusade, and as such was preached by priest and monk along the western coasts of Spain. All the Biscayan ports flamed with zeal, and adventurers crowded to enroll themselves ;
1 The French Jesuit, Charlevoix, says: — "On avoit donne k cette expedition tout 1'air d'une guerre sainte, entreprise contre les Heretiques de concert avec le Roy de France." Nor does Charlevoix seem to doubt this complicity of Charles the Ninth iu an attacji on his own subjects.
«865.J THE NEW CRUSADE. QJ
since to plunder heretics is good for the soul as well as the purse, and broil and massacre have double attrac- tion, when promoted into a means of salvation : a fer- vor, deep and hot, but not of celestial kindling-; nor yet that buoyant and inspiring- zeal, which, when the Mid- dle Age was in its youth and prime, glowed in the soul of Tancred, Godfrey, and St. Louis, and which, when its day was long since past, could still find its home in the great heart of Columbus. A darker spirit urged the new crusade, — born, not of hope, but of fear, slav- ish in its, nature, the creature and the tool of despotism. For the typical Spaniard of the sixteenth century was not in strictness a fanatic ; he was bigotry incarnate.
Heresy was a plague-spot,, an ulcer to be eradicated with fire and the knife, and this foul abomination was infecting the shores which the Vicegerent of Christ had given to the King of Spain, and which the Most Catho- lic King had given to the Adelantado. Thus would countless heathen tribes be doomed to an eternity of flame, and the Prince of Darkness hold his ancient sway unbroken. And, for the Adelantudo himself, should the vast outlays, the vast debts, of his bold Floridian venture be all in vain ? Should his fortunes be wrecked past redemption through these tools of Satan ? As a Catholic, as a Spaniard, as an adven- turer, his course was clear.
But what was the scope of this enterprise, and what were the limits of the Adelantado's authority V He was invested with power almost absolute, not merely over the peninsula which now retains the name of Florida,
Q2 MENENDEZ. [1565.
but over all North America, from Labrador to Mexico, — for this was the Florida of the old Spanish geog- raphers, and the Florida designated in the commission of Menendez. It was a continent which he was to con- quer and occupy out of his own purse. The impover- ished King contracted with his daring and ambitious subject to win and hold for him the territory of the future United States and British Provinces. His plan, as subsequently exposed at length in his unpublished letters to Philip the Second, was, first, to plant a gar- rison at Port Royal, and next to fortify strongly on Chesapeake Bay, called by him St. Mary's. He be- lieved that this bay was an arm of the sea, running northward and eastward, and communicating with the Gulf of St. Lawrence, thus making New England, with adjacent districts, an island. His proposed fort on the Chesapeake, securing access, by this imaginary pas- sage, to the seas of Newfoundland, would enable the Spaniards to command the fisheries, on which both the French and the English had long encroached, to the great prejudice of Spanish rights. Doubtless, too, these inland waters gave access to the South Sea, and their occupation was necessary to prevent the French from penetrating thither; for that ambitious -people, since the time of Carrier, had never abandoned their schemes of seizing this portion of the dominions of the King of Spain. Five hundred soldiers and one hundred sailors must, he urges, take possession, without delay, of Port Royal and the Chesapeake.1
1 Cartas escritas al Rey par el General Pero Menendez de Avil&, MSS
lb66.J HIS ARMAMENT. Q<J
Preparation for his enterprise was pushed with a fu- rious energy. His whole force amounted to two thou- sand six hundred and forty-six persons, in thirty-four vessels, one of which, the San Pelayo, hearing Menen- dez himself, was of nine hundred and ninety -six tons' hurden, and is described as one of the finest ships afloat.1 There were twelve Franciscans and eight Jesuits, he-
, O
sides other ecclesiastics ; and many knights of Galicia, Biscay, and the Asturias took part in the expedition. With a slight exception, the whole was at the Adelanta- do's charge. Within the first fourteen months, accord- ing to his admirer, Barcia, the adventure cost him a million ducats.2
Before the close of the year, Sancho de Arciniega
These are the official despatches of Menendez, of which the originals are preserved in the archives of Seville. They are very voluminous and minute in detail. Copies of them were obtained by the aid of Bucking- ham Smith, Esq., to whom the writer is also indebted for various other documents from the same source, throwing new light on the events described. Menendez calls Port Royal, St. Elena, a name afterwards applied to the sound which still retains it. Compare Historical Maya- zine, IV. 320.
1 This was not so remarkable as it may appear. Charnock, History of Marine Architerture, gives the tonnage of the ships of the Invincible Ar- mada. The flag - ship of the Andalusian squadron was of fifteen hun- dred and fifty tons. Several were above twelve hundred.
a Barcia, 69. The following passage in one of the unpublished letters of Menendez seems to indicate that the above is exaggerated : — " Your Majesty may be assured by me, that, had I a million, more or less, I would employ and spend the whole in this undertaking, it Doing so great- ly to [the glory of] God our Lord, and the increase of our Holy Catholic Faith, and the service and authority of your Majesty ; and thus I have offered to our Lord whatever He shall give me in this world, [and what- ever] I shall possess, gain, or acquire, shall be devoted to the planting of the gospel in this land, and the enlightenment of the natives thereof, and this I do promise to your Majesty." This letter is dated 11 September, 1565.
94. MENENDEZ. [156ft.
was commissioned to join Menendez with an additional force of fifteen hundred men.1'
Red-hot with a determined purpose, the Adelantado would hrook no delay. To him, says the chronicler, every day seemed a year. He was eager to anticipate Ribaut, of whose designs and whose force he seems to have been informed to the minutest particular, but whom he hoped to thwart and ruin by gaining Fort Caroline before him. With eleven ships, therefore, he sailed from Cadiz on the twenty-ninth of June, 1565, leaving the smaller vessels of his fleet to follow with what speed they might. He touched first at the Canaries, and- on the eighth of July left them, steering for Dominica. A minute account of the voyage has come down to us, written by Mendoza, chaplain of the expedition, a some- what dull and illiterate person, who busily jots down the incidents of each passing day, and is constantly betraying, with a certain awkward simplicity, ho\v the cares of this world and of the next jostle each other in his thoughts.
On Friday, the twentieth of July, a storm fell upon them with appalling fury. The pilots lost their wits, the sailors gave themselves up to their terrors. Through- out the night, they beset Mendoza for confession and absolution, a boon not easily granted, for the seas swept the crowded decks with cataracts of foam, and the shriekings of the gale in the rigging overpowered the exhortations of the half -drowned priest. Cannon,
1 Anc de 1565. Nombmmiento de Capitan-Genrrnl de In Armada desthiada para yrala. Provincia de la Florida al socorro del General Pero Menendez de Aviles, hecho por Su Magestad al Capitan Sancho de Arciniega. MS.
1665.1 REACHES PORTO RICO. g$
cables, spars, water-casks, were thrown overboard and the chests of the sailors would have followed, had not the latter, in spite of their fright, raised such a howl of remonstrance that the order was revoked. At length day dawned. Plunging, reeling, half submerged, quiv- ering under the shock of the seas, whose mountain ridges rolled down upon her before the gale, the ship lay in deadly peril from Friday till Monday noon. Then the storm abated ; the sun broke forth ; and affain she held her course.1
O
They reached Dominica on Sunday, the fifth of August. The chaplain tells us how lie went on shore to refresh himself, — how, while his Italian servant washed his linen at a brook, he strolled along the beach and picked up shells, — and how he was scared, first, by a prodigious turtle, and next by a vision of the cannibal natives, which caused his prompt retreat to the boats.
On the tenth, they anchored in the harbor of Porto Rico, where they found two ships of their squadron, from which they had parted in the storm. One of them was the San Pelayo, with Menendez on board. Mendoza informs us, that in the evening the officers came on board the ship to which he was attached, when he, the chaplain, regaled them with sweetmeats, and that Menendez invited him not only to supper that night, but to dinner the next day, " for the which I thanked him, as reason was," says the gratified churchman.
1 Mendoza in Ternaux-Compans, Floride, 168 ; Letter of Menendez to the King, 13 August, 1565, MS.
0g MENENDEZ. 11665.
Here thirty men deserted, and three priests also ran off, of which Mendoza hitterly complains, as increasing his own work. The motives of the clerical truants may perhaps be inferred from a worldly temptation to which the chaplain himself was subjected. " I was offered the service of a chapel where I should have got a peso for every mass I said, the whole year round ; but I did not accept it, for fear that what I hear said of the other three would be said of me. Besides, it is not a place where one can hope for any great advance- ment, and I wished to try whether, in refusing a bene- fice for the love of the Lord, He will not repay me with some other stroke of fortune before the end of the voy- age ; for it is my aim to serve God and His blessed Mother." l
The original design had been to rendezvous at Ha- vana, but, with the Adelantado, the advantages of despatch outweighed every other consideration. He resolved to push directly for Florida. Five of his scattered ships had by this time rejoined company, com- prising, exclusive of officers, a force of about five hun- dred soldiers, two hundred sailors, and one hundred colonists.2 Bearing northward, he advanced by an un- known and dangerous course along the coast of Hayti and through the intricate passes of the Bahamas. On the night of the twenty-sixth, the San Pelayo struck three times on the shoals ; " but," says the chaplain, " inasmuch as our enterprise was undertaken for the
1 Mendoza in Ternaux-Compans, Floride, 177, — a close translation.
2 Letter of Menendez to the King, 11 September, 1565, MS.
iOfio.J HIS ENERGY. — A MIRACLE. Qfi
sake of Christ and His blessed Mother, two heavy seas struck her abaft, and set her afloat again."
At length the ships lay becalmed in the Bahama Channel, slumbering on the glassy sea, torpid with the heats of a West-Indian August. Menendez called a council of the commanders. There was doubt and in- decision. Perhaps Ribaut had already reached the French fort, and then to attack the united force would be an act of desperation. Far better to await their lagging comrades. But the Adelantado was of an- other mind; and, even had his enemy arrived, he was resolved that he should have no time to fortify him- self.
" It is God's will," he said, " that our victory should be due, not to our numbers, but to His all-powerful aid. Therefore has He stricken us with tempests and scattered our ships." l And he gave his voice for in- stant advance.
There was much dispute; even the chaplain remon- strated ; but nothing could bend the iron will of Me- nendez. Nor was a sign of celestial approval wanting. At nine in the evening, a great meteor burst forth in mid-heaven, and, blazing like the sun, rolled westward towards the coast of Florida.2 The fainting spirits of the crusaders were revived. Diligent preparation was begun. Prayers and masses were said ; and, that the temporal arm might not fail, the men were daily practised on deck in shooting at marks, in order, says
i Barcia, 70.
3 Memloza, 192 : " Le Seigneur nous Jit voir tin miracle dan* le del," etc. 9
98 MENENDEZ. [1566.
the chronicle, that the recruits might learn not to be afraid of their guns.
The dead calm continued. " We were all very tired," says the chaplain, " and I above all, with praying to God for a fair wind. To-day, at about two in the afternoon, He took pity on us, and sent us a breeze."3 Before night they saw land, — the faint line of forest, traced along the watery horizon, that marked the coast of Florida. But where, in all this vast monotony, was the lurking-place of the French ? Menendez anchored, and sent fifty men ashore, who presently found a band of Indians in the woods, and gained from them the needed information. He stood northward, till, on the afternoon of Tuesday, the fourth of September, he descried four ships anchored near the mouth of ,a river. It was the River St. John's, and the ships were four of Ribaut's squadron. The prey was in sight. The Spaniards prepared for battle, and bore down upon the Lutherans ; for, with them, all Protestants alike were branded with the name of the arch-heretic. Slowly, before the faint breeze, the ships glided on their way ; but while, excited and impatient, the fierce crews watched the decreasing space, and when they were still three leagues from their prize, the air ceased to stir, the sails flapped against the mast, a black cloud with thun- der rose above the coast, and the warm rain of the South descended on the breathless sea. It was dark before the wind moved again and the ships resumed their course. At half -past eleven they reached the
1 Mendoza, 193.
1666.] ATTACKS THE FRENCH. gg
French. The San Pelayo slowly moved to windward of Ribaut's flag-ship, the Trinity, and anchored very near her. The other ships took similar stations. While these preparations were making, a work of two hours, the men labored in silence, and the French, thronging their gangways, looked on in equal silence. " Never, since I came into the world," writes the chaplain, " did I know such a stillness."
It was broken, at length, by a trumpet from the deck of the San Pelayo. A French trumpet answered. Then Menendez, " with much courtesy," says his Span- ish eulogist, inquired, " Gentlemen, whence does this fleet come ? "
" From France," was the reply.
" What are you doing here 1 " pursued the Adelan- tado.
" Bringing soldiers and supplies for a fort which the King of France has in this country, and for many others which he soon will have."
" Are you Catholics or Lutherans ] "
Many voices cried out together, " Lutherans, of the new religion ; " then, in their turn, they demanded who Menendez was, and whence he came. He answered, —
" I am Pedro Menendez, General of the fleet of the King of Spain, Don Philip the Second, who have come to this country to hang and behead all Lutherans whom I shall find by land or sea, according to instructions from my King, so precise that I have power to pardon none; and these commands I shall fulfil, as you will see. At daybreak I shall board your ships, and if I
100 MENENDEZ (1566
find there any Catholic, he shall be well treated ; but every heretic shall die." *
. The French with one voice raised a cry of wrath and defiance.
" If you' are a brave man, don't wait till day. Come on now, and see what you will get ! "
And they assailed the Adelantado with a shower of scoffs and insults.
Menendez broke into a rage, and gave the order to board. The men slipped the cables, and the sullen black hulk of the San Pelayo drifted down upon the Trinity. The French by no means made good their defiance. Indeed, » they were incapable of resistance, Ribaut with his soldiers being ashore at Fort Caroline. They cut their cables, left their anchors, made sail, and fled. The Spaniards fired, the French replied. The other Spanish ships had imitated the movement of the San Pelayo ; " but," writes the chaplain, Mendoza, " these devils run mad are such adroit sailors, and ma-
1 " Pedro Menendez os lo pregunta, General de esta Armada del Rei de Espana Don Felipe Segundo, qui viene a esta Tierra a ahorcar, y degollar todos los Luteranos, que hallare en ella, y en el Mar, segun la Instruction, que trae de mi Rei, que es tan precisa, que me priva dc la facultad de perdonarlos, y la cumplire en todo, como lo vereis luego que amanezca, que entrare en vuestros Navios, y si hallare algun Catolico, le hare buen tratamiento ; pero el que fuere Herege, morira." — Burcia, 75. The following is the version, literally given,'of Menendez himself: — "I answered them : ' Pedro Menendez, who was going by your Majes- ty's command to this coast and country in order to burn and destroy the Lutheran French who should be found there, and that in the morning I would board their ships to find out whether they belonged to that people, because, in case they did, I could not do otherwise than execute upon them that justice which your Majesty had ordained.' " — Letter of Menen- dez to the Kina, 11 September, 1565, MS.
1566.J FOUNDS ST. AUGUSTINE.
nceuvred so well, that we did not catch one of them." * Pursuers and pursued ran out to sea, firing useless vol- leys at each other.
In the morning Menendez gave over the chase, turned, and, with the San Pelayo alone, ran hack for the St. John's. But here a welcome was prepared for him. He saw bauds of armed men drawn up on the beach, and the smaller vessels of Rihaut's squadron, which had crossed the bar several days before, anchored behind it to oppose his landing. He would not ven- ture an attack, but, steering southward, sailed along the coast till he came to an inlet which he named San Agustin.
Here he found three of his ships, already debarking their troops, guns, and stores. Two officers, Patino and Vicente, had taken possession of the dwelling of the Indian chief Seloy, a huge barn -like structure, strongly framed of entire trunks of trees, and thatched
1 " Mais, comme ces diables enrages sont tres-habiles sur mer," etc. — Mendoza, 200.
The above account is that of Barcia, the admirer and advocate of Me- nendez. A few points have been added from Mi-ndoza, as indicated by the citations. One statement of Barcia is omitted, because there can be little doubt that it is false. He says, that, when the Spanish fleet approached, the French opened a heavy fire on them. Neither the fanatical Mendoza, who was present, nor the French writers, Laudonniere, Le Moyne, and Challeux, mention this circumstance, which, besides, can scarcely be reconciled with the subsequent conduct of either party. Mendozu differs from Barcia also in respect to the time of the. attack, which he places " deux heures apres le coucher du soleil." In other points his story tallies as nearly as could be expected with that of Barcia. The same may be said of Challeux and Laudonniere. The latter saj-s, that the Spaniards, before attacking, asked after the French officers by name, whence he in- fers that they had received very minute information from Fr 9«
102 MENENDEZ. [1565.
with palmetto-leaves.1 Around it they wore throwing up intrenchments of fascines and sand. Gangs of negroes, with pick, shovel, and spade, were toiling at the work. Such was the birth of St. Augustine, the oldest town of the United States, and such the intro- duction of slave-lahor upon their soil.
On the eighth, Menendez took formal possession of his domain. Cannon were fired, trumpets sounded, and banners displayed, as, at the head of his officers and nobles, he landed in state. Mendoza, crucifix in hand, came to meet him, chanting, " Te Deum laudamus" while the Adelaixtado and all his company, kneeling, kissed the crucifix, and the assembled Indians gazed in silent wonder.2
Meanwhile the tenants of Fort Caroline were not idle. Two or three soldiers, strolling along the beach in the afternoon, had first seen the Spanish ships and hastily summoned Ribaut. He came down to the mouth of the river, followed by an anxious and excited crowd ; but, as they strained their eyes through the darkness, they could see nothing but the flashes of the distant guns. At length, the returning light showed, far out at sea, the Adelantado in hot chase of their flying comrades. Pursuers and pursued were soon out of sight. The drums beat to arms. After many hours of suspense, the San Pelayo reappeared, hovering about the mouth of the river, then bearing away towards the
1 Compare Hawkins, Second Voyage. He visited this or some similar structure, and his journalist minutely describes it. 8 Mendoza. 204.
1565-] DECISION OF RIBAUT. JQ3
south. More anxious hours ensued, when three other sail came in sight, and they recognized three of their own returning ships. Communication was opened, a boat's crew landed, and they learned from Cosette, one of the French captains, that, confiding in the speed of his ship, he had followed the Spaniards to St. Augus- tine, reconnoitred their position, and seen them land their negroes and intrench themselves.1
In his chamber at Fort Caroline, Laudonniere lay sick in bed, when Ribaut entered, and with him La Grange, Sainte Marie, Ottigny, Yonville, and other officers. At the bedside of the displaced commandant, they held their council of war. Three plans were pro- posed: first, to remain where they were and fortify; next, to push overland for St. Augustine, and attack the invaders in their intrenchments ; and, finally, to embark, and assail them by sea. The first plan would leave their ships a prey to the Spaniards ; and so too, in all likelihood, would the second, besides the uncer- tainties of an overland march through an unknown
~
wilderness. By sea, the distance was short and the route explored. By a sudden blow they could capture or destroy the Spanish ships, and master the troops on shore before reinforcements could arrive, and before they had time to complete their defences.2
1 Laudonniere in Basanier, 105. Le Moyne differs in a few trifling de- tails.
2 Ribaut showed Laudonniere a letter from Colipny, appended to winch were these words, — " Capitaine Jean Ribaut: En fermant ccste lettre i'liy eu certain aduis, comme dom Petro Mflandes se part d'Fspnpie, pour aller a la coste de la Nouvelle Frace : Vous regarderez de n'endurer qu'il
IQ4, MENENDEZ. f!565.
Such were the views of Ribaut, with which, not unnaturally, Laudonniere finds fault, and Le Moyne echoes the censures of his chief. And yet the plan seems as well conceived as it was hold, lacking noth- ing1 hut success. The Spaniards, stricken with ter- ror, owed their safety to the elements, or, as they affirm, to the special interposition of the Holy Virgin. Let us he just to Menendez. He was a leader fit to stand with Cortes and Pizarro ; but he was matched with a man as cool, skilful, prompt, and daring as him- self. The traces that have come down to us indicate, in Ribaut, one far above the common stamp : " a dis- tinguished man, of many high qualities," as even the fault-finding Le Moyne calls him ; devout after the best spirit of the Reform ; and with a human heart under his steel breastplate.
La Grange and other officers took part with Laudon- niere and opposed the plan of an attack by sea; but Ribaut's conviction was unshaken, and the order was given. All his own soldiers fit for duty embarked in haste, and with them went La Caille, Arlac, and, as it seems, Ottigny, with the best of Laudonniere's men. Even Le Moyne, though wounded in the fight with Outina's warriors, went on board to bear his part in the fray, and would have sailed with the rest, had not Ottigny, seeing his disabled condition, ordered him hack to the fort.
n'entrepreine sur nous, non plus qu il veut que nous n'entreprenions sur eux." Ribaut interpreted this into a command to attack the Spaniards. Laudonniere, 106.
1565.] FORT CAROLINE DEFENCELESS.
On the tenth, the ships, crowded with troops, set sail. Ribaut was gone, and with him the bone and sinew of the colony. The miserable remnant watched his receding sails with dreary foreboding, a foreboding which seemed but too just, when, on the next day, a storm, more violent than the Indians had ever known,1 howled through the forest and lashed the ocean into fury. Most forlorn was the plight of these exiles, left, it might he, the prey of a band of ferocious bigots more terrible than the fiercest hordes of the wilderness. And. when night closed on the stormy river and the gloomy waste of pines, what dreams of terror may not have haunted the helpless women who crouched under the hovels of Fort Caroline !
The fort was in a ruinous state, with the palisade on the water side broken down, and three breaches in the rampart. In the driving rain, urged by the sick Lau- donniere, the men, bedrenched and disheartened, labored as they might to strengthen their defences. Their mus- ter - roll shows but a beggarly array. " Now," says Laudonniere, "let them which have bene bold to say that I had men ynough left me, so that I had meaues to defend my selfe, give eare a little now vnto mee, and if they have eyes in their heads, let them see what men I had." Of Ribaut's followers left at the fort, only nine or ten had weapons, while only two or three knew how to use them. Four of them were boys, who kept Ribaut's dogs, and another was his cook. Besides
~ *
these, he had left a brewer, an old cross-bow-maker,
1 Laudonnifcre, 107.
106 MENENDEZ. [1566.
two shoemakers, a player on the spinet, four valets, a carpenter of threescore, — Challeux, no doubt, who has left us the story of his woes, — with a crowd of women, children, and eighty-six camp-followers.1 To these were added the remnant of Laudonniere's men, of whom seventeen could bear arms, the rest being sick or disabled by wounds received in the fight with Outina.
Laudonniere divided his force, such as it was, into two watches, over which he placed two officers, Saint Cler and La Vigne, gave them lanterns for going the rounds, and an hour-glass for setting the time ; while he himself, giddy with weakness and fever, was every night at the guard-room.
It was the night of the nineteenth of September ; floods of rain drenched the sentries on the rampart, and, as day dawned on the dripping barracks and deluged parade, the storm increased in violence. What enemy could venture forth on such a night"? La Vigne, who had the watch, took pity on the sentries and on himself, dismissed them, and went to his quar- ters. He little knew what human energies, urged by ambition, avarice, bigotry, and desperation, will dare and do.
To return to the Spaniards at St. Augustine. On the morning of the eleventh, the crew of one of their smaller vessels, lying outside the bar, saw through the twilight of early dawn two of Ribaut's ships close upon
1 The muster-roll is from Laudonniere. Hakluyt's translation is incor- rect.
1565.] HIS DESPERATE RESOLUTION.
them. Not a breath of air was stirring. There was no escape, and the Spaniards fell on their knees in sup- plication to Our Lady of Utrera, explaining to her that the heretics were upon them, and begging her to send them a little wind. " Forthwith," says Mendoza, " one would have said that Our Lady herself came down upon the vessel." A wind sprang up, ami the Span- iards found refuge behind the bar. The returning day showed to their astonished eyes all the ships of Ribaut, their decks black with men, hovering off' the entrance of the port ; but Heaven had them in its charge, and again they experienced its protecting care. The breeze sent by Our Lady of Utrera rose to a gale, then to a furious tempest; and the grateful Adelantado saw through rack and mist the ships of his enemy tossed wildly among the raging waters as they struggled to gain an offing. With exultation in his heart the skil- ful seaman read their danger, and saw them in his mind's eye dashed to utter wreck among the sand-bars and breakers of the lee-shore.
A bold thought seized him. He would march over- land with five hundred men, and attack Fort Caroline while its defenders were absent. First he ordered a mass ; then he called a council. Doubtless it was in that great Indian lodge of Seloy, where he had made his head-quarters; and here, in this dim and smoky abode, nobles, officers, and priests gathered at his sum-
1 Mendoza, 208. Menendez, too, imputes the escape to divine interpo- sition. " Our Lord permitted by a miracle that we should be saved." Letter of Menendez to the King, 15 October, 1565, MS.
108 MENENDEZ. 11565.
mons. There were fears and doubts and murmuring^,
™ *
but Menendez was desperate ; not with the mad despera- tion that strikes wildly and at random, but the still white heat that melts and burns and seethes with a steady, unquenchable fierceness. " Comrades," he said, " the time has come to show our courage and our zeal. This is God's war, and we must not flinch. It is a war with Lutherans, and we must wage it with blood and fire."
But his hearers would not respond. They had not a million of ducats at stake, and were nowise ready for a cast so desperate. A clamor of remonstrance rose from the circle. Many voices, that of Mendoza among the rest, urged waiting till their main forces should arrive. The excitement spread to the men without, and the swarthy, black - bearded crowd broke into tumults mounting almost to mutiny, while an officer was heard to say that he would not go on such a hare- brained errand to be butchered like a beast. But noth- ing could move the Adelantado. His appeals or his threats did their work at last ; the confusion was quelled, and preparation was made for the march.
On the morning of the seventeenth, five hundred ar- quebusiers and pikemen were drawn up before the camp. To each was given a sack of bread and a flask of wine. Two Indians and a renegade Frenchman, called Fran- cjois Jean, were to guide them, and twenty Biscayan axe-men moved to the front to clear the way. Through floods of driving rain, a hoarse voice shouted the word of command, and the sullen march began.
* "A sangre y fuego." — Bartia, 78, where the speech is given at length.
1565.] MARCHES ON FORT CAROLINE. JQQ
With dismal misgiving, Mendoza watched the last files as they vanished in the tempestuous forest. Two days of suspense ensued, when a messenger came back with a letter from the Adelantado, announcing that he had nearly reached the French fort, find that on the morrow, September the twentieth, at sunrise, he hoped to assault it. " May the Divine Majesty deign to pro- tect us, for He knows that we have need of it," writes the scared chaplain ; " the Adelantado's great zeal and courage make us hope he will succeed, hut, for the good of His Majesty's service, he ought to be a little less ardent in .pursuing his schemes."
Meanwhile the five hundred had pushed their march through forest and quagmire, through swollen streams and inundated 'savannas, toiling knee-deep through mud, rushes, and the rank, tangled grass, — hacking their way through thickets of the yucca, or Spanish bayonet, with its clumps of dagger -like leaves, or defiling in gloomy procession through the drenched forest, to the moan and roar of the storm-racked pines. As they bent before the tempest, the water trickling from the rusty head-piece crept clammy and cold betwixt the ar- mor and the skin ; and when they made their wretched bivouac, their bed was the spongy soil, and the exhaust- less clouds their tent.
The night of Wednesday, the nineteenth, found their vanguard in a deep forest of pines, less than a mile from Fort Caroline, and near the low hills which extended in its rear, and formed a continuation of St. John's Bluff. All around was one great morass. In pitchy 10
MENENDEZ. [1565.
darkness, knee-deep in weeds and water, half starved, worn with toil and lack of sleep, drenched to the skin, their provision spoiled, their ammunition wet, and their spirit chilled out of them, they stood in shivering groups, cursing the enterprise and the au- thor of it. Menendez heard an ensign say aloud to his comrades, —
" This Asturian corito, who knows no more of war
on shore than an ass, has betrayed us all. By ,
if my advice had been followed, he would have had his deserts the day he set out on this cursed journey ! "
The Adelantado pretended not to hear.
Two hours before dawn he called his officers about him. All night, he said, he had been praying to God and the Virgin.
" Sefiores, what shall we resolve on 1 Our ammu- nition and provisions are gone. Our case is desper- ate."5 And he urged a bold rush on the fort.
But men and officers alike were disheartened and disgusted. They listened coldly and sullenly; many were for returning at every risk ; none were in the mood for fight. Menendez put forth all his eloquence, till at length the dashed spirits of his followers were so far revived that they consented to follow him.
All fell on their knees in the marsh ; then, rising, they formed their ranks and began to advance, guided
1 " Cqmo nos trae vendidos este Asturiano Corito, que no sabe de , Guerra de Tierra, mas que un Jumento ! " etc. — Barcia, 79. Corito is a nickname given to the inhabitants of Biscay and the Asturias.
a " yecj aoraj Senores, que detenninacion tomaremos, hallandonos can- sados, perdidos, sin Municiones ni Comida, ni esperaiifa de remediar- nos ? " — Barcia, 79.
1565.] THE FRENCH FORT TAKEN.
by the renegade Frenchman, whose hands, to make sure of him, were tied behind his back. Groping and stumbling in the dark among trees, roots, and under- brush, buffeted by wind and rain, and lashed in the face by the recoiling boughs which they could not see, they soon lost their way, fell into confusion, and came to a stand, in a mood more savagely desponding than before. But soon a glimmer of returning day came to their aid, and showed them the dusky sky, and the dark columns of the surrounding pines. Menendez ordered the men forward on pain of death. They obeyed, and presently, emerging from the forest, could dimly dis- cern the ridge of a low hill, behind which, the French- man told them, was the fort. Menendez, with a few officers and men, cautiously mounted to the top. Be- neath lay Fort Caroline, three bowshots distant; but the rain, the imperfect light, and a cluster of interven- ing houses prevented his seeing clearly, and he sent two officers to reconnoitre. As they descended, they met a solitary Frenchman. They knocked him down with a sheathed sword, wounded him, took him pris- oner, kept him for a time, then stabbed him as they returned towards the top of the hill. Here, clutching their weapons, all the gang stood, in fierce expectancy. " Santiago ! " cried Menendez. " At them ! God
o
is with us ! Victory ! "
And, shouting their hoarse war-cries, the Spaniards rushed down the slope like starved wolves.
Not a sentry was on the rampart. La Vigne, the
* Barcia, 80.
MENENDEZ. [1565.
officer of the guard, had just gone to his quarters ; but a trumpeter, who chanced to remain, saw, through sheets of rain, the swarm of assailants sweeping down the hill. He blew the alarm, and at the summons a few half-naked soldiers ran wildly out of the barracks. It was too late. Through the breaches, and over the ramparts, the Spaniards came pouring in.
" Santiago ! Santiago ! "
Sick men leaped from their beds. Women and chil- dren, blind with fright, darted shrieking from the houses. A fierce, gaunt visage, the thrust of a pike, or blow of a rusty halberd, — such was the greeting that met all alike. Laudonniere snatched his sword and target, and ran towards the principal breach, calling to his soldiers. A rush of Spaniards met him ; his men were cut down around him ; and he, with a soldier named Bartholomew, was forced back into the court- yard of his house. Here stood a tent, and as the pursuers stumbled among the cords, he escaped be- hind Ottigny's house, sprang through the breach in the western rampart, and fled for the woods.1
Le Moyne had been one of the guard. Scarcely had he thrown himself into a hammock which was slung in his room, when a savage shout, and a wild uproar of shrieks, outcries, and the clash of weapons, brought him to his feet. He rushed by two Spaniards in the door-way, ran behind the guard-house, leaped through an embrasure into the ditch, and escaped to the forest.2
1 Laudonniere, 110; Le Moyne, 24. 2 Le Moyne, 25
13G6.J THE MASSACRE.
113
Challeux, the carpenter, was going betimes to his work, a chisel in his hand. He was old, but pike and partisan brandished at his back gave wings to his flight. In the ecstasy of his terror, he leaped upward, clutched the top of the palisade, and threw himself over with the agility of a boy. He ran up the hill, no one pursuing, and, as he neared the edge of the for- est, turned and looked hack. From the high ground where he stood he could see the butchery, the fury of the conquerors, the agonizing gestures of the victims. He turned again in horror, and plunged into the woods.1 As he tore his way through the ' briers and thickets, he met several fugitives, escaped like himself. Others presently came up, haggard and wild, like men broke loose from the jaws of death. They gathered together and consulted. One of them, in great repute for his knowledge of the Bible, was for returning and sur- rendering to the Spaniards. " They are men," he said ; " perhaps, when their fury is over, they will spare our lives ; and, even if they kill us, it will only be a few moments' pain. Better so, than to starve here in the woods, or be torn to pieces by wild beasts."
The greater part of the naked and despairing com- pany assented, but Challeux was of a different mind. The old Huguenot quoted Scripture, and called the names of prophets and apostles to witness, that, in the direst extremity, God would not abandon those who rested their faith in Him. Six of the fugitives, how- ever, still held to their desperate purpose. Issuing
1 Challeux in Ternaux-Compans, 272. 3 Ibid. 276.
10 »
MENENDEZ. [15G3
from the woods, they descended towards the fort, and, as with beating hearts their comrades watched the re- sult, a troop of Spaniards rushed forth, hewed them down with swords and halberds, and dragged their bodies to the brink of the river, where the victims of the massacre were already flung in heaps.
Le Moyne, with a soldier named Grandchemin, whom he had met in his flight, toiled all day through the woods, in the hope of reaching the small vessels anchored behind the bar. Night found them in a morass. - No vessel could be seen, and the soldier, in despair, broke into angry upbraidings against his com- panion, — saying that he would go back and give him- self up. Le Moyne at first opposed him, then yielded. But when they drew near the fort, and heard the uproar of savage revelry that rose from within, the artist's heart failed him. He embraced his companion, and the soldier advanced alone. A party of Spaniards came out to meet him. He kneeled, and begged for his life. He was answered by a death-blow ; and the horrified Le Moyne, from his hiding - place in the thicket, saw his limbs hacked apart, stuck on pikes, and borne off' in triumph.1
Meanwhile, Menendez, mustering his followers, had offered thanks to God for their victory ; and this pious butcher wept with emotion as he recounted the favors which Heaven had showered upon their enterprise. His admiring historian gives it in proof of his human- ity, that, after the rage of the assault was spent, he
i Le Moyne, 26.
1565.] FEROCITY OF THE SPANIARDS.
ordered that women, infants, and boys under fifteen should thenceforth be spared. Of these, by his own account, there were about fifty. Writing in October to the King-, he says, that they cause him great anx- iety, since he fears the anger of God, should he now put them to death, while, on the other hand, he is in dread lest the venom of their heresy should infect his men.
A hundred and forty-two persons were slain in and around the fort, and their bodies lay heaped together on the bank of the river. Nearly opposite was an- chored a small vessel, called the Pearl, commanded by Jacques Ribaut, son of the Admiral. The ferocious soldiery, maddened with victory and drunk with blood, crowded to the water's edge, shouting insults to those on board, mangling the corpses, tearing out their eyes, and throwing them towards the vessel from the points of their daggers.1 Thus did the Most Catholic Philip champion the cause of Heaven in the New World.
It was currently believed in France, and, though no eye-witness attests it, there is reason to think it true, that among- those murdered at Fort Caroline there were
D
some who died a death of peculiar ignominy. Menen- dez, it is affirmed, hanged his prisoners on trees, and
1 " ... car, arrachans lea yeux des morts, lea fichoyent au bout des dagues, et puis auec cris, heurlemens & toute gaudisserie, lea ietto- yent contre nos Francois vers I'eau." — Ckalleiur, (1566,) 34.
" Us arracherent les yeulx qu'ils avoient meurtris, et k-8 aiant fiche* a la poincte de leurs dagues faisoient cntre eiilx a qui plus loing les jette- roit." — Provost, Rffiriiise de la Floride. This is a contemporary MS. in the Bibliotheque Imperiale, inserted by Ternaux-Conipanu in hu lieamL It will be often cited hereafter.
1 1 Q MENENDEZ. [1565.
placed over them the inscription, " I do this, not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans." *
The Spaniards gained a great booty ; armor, cloth- ing, and provisions. " Nevertheless," says the devout Mendoza, after closing his inventory of the plunder, " the greatest profit of this victory is the triumph which our Lord has granted us, whereby His holy Gospel will be introduced into this country, a thing so needful for saving so many souls from perdition." Again, he writes in his journal, — " We owe to God and His Mother," more than to human strength, this victory over the adversaries of the holy Catholic religion."2
To whatever influence, celestial or other, the exploit may best be ascribed, the victors were not yet quite content with their success. Two small French vessels, besides that of Jacques Ribaut, still lay within range of the fort. When the storm had a little abated, the cannon were turned on them. One of them was sunk, but Ribaut, with the others, escaped down the river, at the mouth of which several light craft, including that bought from the English, had been anchored since the arrival of his father's squadron.
1 Prevost in Ternaux-Compans, 357 ; Lescarbot, (1612,) I. 127; Charle- voix, Nouvdle France, (1744,) I. 81 ; and nearly all the French secondary writers. Barcia denies the story. How deep the indignation it kindled in France will appear hereafter.
2 " Mais le plus grand avantage de cette victoire c'est certainement le triomphe que Notre-Seigneur nous a accorde', et qui fera que son Saint- fiviingile sera introduit dans cette eontree, chose si ne'cessaire pour em- pecher tant d'&mes d'etre perdues." — Mendoza, 222.
" On est redevable a Dieu et sa Mere de la victoire que Ton a rem- portee centre les adversaires de la sainte religion Catholique, plutot qu'is la force des hommes." — Ibid. 219.
15(53] THE FUGITIVES.
While this was passing1, the wretched fugitives were flying- from the scene of massacre through a tempest, of whose persistent violence all the narratives speak with wonder. Exhausted, starved, half clothed, — for most of them had escaped in their shirts, — they pushed their toilsome way amid the ceaseless wrath of the elements. A few sought refuge in Indian villages; but these, it is said, were afterwards killed hy the Spaniards. The greater number attempted to reach the vessels at the mouth of the river. Among the lat- ter was Le Moyne, who, despite his former failure, was toiling through the mazes of tangled forests, when he met a Belgian soldier with the woman described as
O
Laudonniere's maid-servant, the latter wounded in the breast; and, urging their flight towards the vessels, they fell in with other fugitives, and among them with Laudonniere himself. As they struggled through the salt-marsh, the rank sedge cut their naked limbs, and the tide rose to their waists. Presently they descried others, toiling like themselves through the matted vegetation, and recognized Challeux and his compan- ions, also in quest of the vessels. The old man still, as he tells us, held fast to his chisel, which had done good service in cutting poles to aid the party to cross the deep creeks that channelled the morass. The united band, twenty-six in all, were cheered at length by the sight of a moving1 sail. It was the vessel of Captain Mallard, who, informed of the massacre, was standing along-shore in the hope of picking up some .of the fugitives. He saw their signals, and sent boats
MENENDEZ. [1565
to their rescue ; but such was their exhaustion, that, had not the sailors, wading- to their armpits among the rushes, borne them out on their shoulders, few could have escaped. Laudonniere was so feeble that nothing but the support of a soldier, who held him upright in his arms, had saved him from drowning in the marsh.
On gaining the friendly decks, the fugitives coun- selled together. One and all, they sickened for the sight of France.
After waiting a few days, and saving a few more stragglers from the marsh, they prepared to sail. Young Ribaut, though ignorant of his father's fate, assented with something more than willingness ; in- deed, his behavior throughout had been stamped with weakness and poltroonery. On the twenty-fifth of Sep- tember they put to sea in two vessels ; and, after a voyage whose privations were fatal to many of them, they arrived, one party at Rochelle, the other at Swan- sea, in Wales.
CHAPTER VIII.
1565. MASSACRE OF THE HERETICS.
MENENDEZ RETURNS TO ST. AUGUSTINE. — TIDINGS OF THE FRENCH.
RlBAUT SHIPWRECKED. — TllE MARCH OF MEXENDEZ. — HE DISCOVER*
THE FRENCH. — INTERVIEWS. — HOPES OF MERCY. — SURRENDER OK THK FRENCH. — MASSACRE. — RETURN TO ST. AUGUSTINE. — TIDINGS OF RIBAUT'S PARTY. — His INTERVIEW WITH MENENDEZ. — DKCEIVKD AND BETRAYED. — MURDERED. — ANOTHER MASSACRE. — FRENCH ACCOUNTS. — SCHEMES OF THE SPANIARDS. — SURVIVORS OF THE CARNAGE. — IN- DIFFERENCE OF THE FRENCH COURT.
IN suspense and fear, hourly looking seaward for the dreaded fleet of Jean Ribaut, the chaplain Mendoza and his brother -priests held watch and ward at St. Augustine in the Adelantado's absence. Besides the
<?
celestial guardians whom they ceased not to invoke, they had as protectors Bartholomew Menendez, the brother of the Adelantado, and about a hundred sol- diers. Day and night, they toiled to throw up earth- works and strengthen their position.
A week elapsed, when they saw a man running to- wards their fort, shouting as he ran.
Mendoza went out to meet him.
" Victory ! Victory ! " gasped the breathless mes- senger. " The French fort is ours ! " And he flung his arms about the chaplain's neck.1
" To-day," writes the priest in his journal, " Mon-
1 Mendoza, 217.
120 MASSACRE OF THE HERETICS. [1565.
day, the twenty-fourth, came our good general himself, with fifty soldiers, very tired, like all those who were with him. As soon as they told me he was coming, I ran to my lodging, took a new cassock, the best I had, put on my surplice, and went out to meet him with a crucifix in my hand ; whereupon he, like a gentleman and a good Christian, kneeled down with all his fol- lowers, and gave the Lord a thousand thanks for the great favors he had received from Him."
In solemn procession, with four priests in front chant- ing the ~Te Deum^ the victors entered St. Augustine in triumph.
On the twenty-eighth, when the weary Adelantado was taking his siesta under the sylvan roof of Seloy, a troop of Indians came in with news that quickly roused him from his slumbers. They had seen a French ves- sel wrecked on the coast towards the south. Those who escaped from her were some four leagues off, on the banks of a river or arm of the sea, which they could not cross.1
Menendez instantly sent forty or fifty men in boats to reconnoitre. Next, he called the chaplain, — for he would fain have him at his elbow to countenance the deeds he meditated, — and, with him, twelve soldiers, and two Indian guides, embarked in another boat. They rowed along the channel between Anastasia Island and the main shore ; then they landed, struck across the island on foot, traversed plains and marshes, reached
1 Mendoza, 227 ; Solis in Barcia, 85; Letter of Meneadez to the King, 18 October, 1565, MS.
1665.] WRECK OF THE FRENCH.
the sea towards night, and searched along-shore till tea o'clock to find their comrades who had gone before. At length, with mutual joy, the two parties met, and bivouacked together on the sands. Not far distant they could see lights. These were the camp-fires of the shipwrecked French.
And now, to relate the fortunes of these unhappy men. To do so with precision is impossible ; for hence- forward the French narratives are no longer the narra- tives of eye-witnesses.
It has been seen how, when on the point of assail- ing the Spaniards of St. Augustine, Jean Ribaut was thwarted by a gale which they hailed as a divine in- terposition. The gale rose to a tempest of strange fury. Within a few days, all the French ships were cast on shore, the greater number near Cape Canaveral. According to a letter of Menendez, many of those on board were lost, but others affirm that all escaped but a captain, La Grange, an officer of high merit, who was washed from a floating mast.1 One of the ships was wrecked at a point farther northward than the rest, and it was her company whose camp-fires were seen by the Spaniards at their bivouac among the sands of Anastasia Island. They were endeavor- ing to reach Fort Caroline, of whose fate they knew nothing, while Ribaut with the remainder was farther
& '
southward, struggling through the wilderness towards the same goal. What befell the latter will nppear hereafter. Of the fate of the former party there i»
i Clmlleux, (1566,) 46. 11
MASSACRE OF THE HERETICS.
no French record. What we know of it is due to three Spanish eye-witnesses, Mendoza, Doctor Soils de las Meras, and Menendez himself. Soils was a priest, and brother-in-law to Menendez. Like Mendoza, he minutely describes what he saw, and, like him, was a red-hot zealot, lavishing applause on the darkest deeds of his chief. But the principal witness is Menendez himself, in his long despatches sent from Florida to the King, and now first brought to light from the archives of Seville, — a cool record of unsurpassed atrocities, inscribed on the back with the royal in- dorsement, " Say to him that he has done well."
When the Adelantado saw the French fires in the distance, he lay close in his bivouac, and sent two sol- diers to reconnoitre. At t\vo o'clock in the morning they came back and reported that it was impossible to get at the enemy, since they were on the farther side of an arm of the sea (probably Matanzas Inlet). Menen- dez, however, gave orders to march, and before day- break reached the hither bank, where he hid his men in a bushy hollow. Thence, as it grew light, they could discern the enemy, many of whom were searching along the sands and shallows for shell-fish, for they were famishing. A thought struck Menendez, an in- spiration, says Mendoza, of the Holy Spirit.1 He put on the clothes of a sailor, entered a boat which had been brought to the spot, and rowed towards the ship- wrecked men, the better to learn their condition. A
1 " Notre general, eclaire par 1'Esprit Saint, nous dit : J'ai 1'intention de quitter ces habits, d'en mettre un de marin," etc. — Mendoza, 230.
1565.J INTERVIEWS.
Frenchman swam out to meet him. Menendez de- manded what men they were.
" Followers of Ribaut, Viceroy of the King of France," answered the swimmer.
" Are you Catholics or Lutherans 1 "
" All Lutherans."
A brief dialogue ensued, during which the Adelan- tado declared his name and character. The French- man swam back to his companions, but soon returned, and asked safe conduct for his captain and four other gentlemen who wished to hold conference with the Spanish general. Menendez gave his word for their safety, and, returning to the shore, sent his boat to bring them over. On their landing, he met them very courteously. His followers were kept at a dis- tance, so disposed behind hills and clumps of bushes as to give an exaggerated idea of their force, — a pre- caution the more needful as they were only about sixty in number, while the French, says Soils, were above two hundred. Menendez, however, declares that they did not exceed a' hundred and forty. The French officer told him the story of their shipwreck, and begged him to lend them a boat to aid them in crossing the rivers which lay between them and a fort of their King, whither they were making their way.
Then came again the ominous question, —
" Are you Catholics or Lutherans ^ "
" We are Lutherans."
"Gentlemen," pursued Menendez, "your fort is taken, and all in it are put to the sword." And, in
MASSACRE OF THE HERETICS.
proof of his declaration, he caused articles plundered from Fort Caroline to be shown to the unhappy peti- tioners. He then left them, and went to breakfast witli his officers, first ordering food to be placed before them. Having breakfasted, he returned to them.
" Are you convinced now," he asked, " that what I have told you is true 1 "
The French captain assented, and implored him to lend them ships in which to return home. Menendez answered, that he would do so willingly, if they were Catholics, and if he had ships to spare, but he had none. The supplicants then expressed the hope, that, at least, they and their followers would be allowed to remain with the Spaniards till ships could be sent to their relief, since there was peace between the two nations, whose kings were friends and brothers.
" All Catholics," retorted the Spaniard, " I will be friend ; but as you are of the New Sect, I hold you as enemies, and wage deadly war against you ; and this I will do with all cruelty \crueldad~\ in this country, where I command as Viceroy and Captain-General for my King. I am here to plant the Holy Gospel, that the Indians may be enlightened and come to the knowledge of the holy Catholic faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Roman Church teaches it. If you will give up your arms and banners, and place yourselves at my mercy, you may do so, and I will act towards you as God shall give me grace. Do as you will, for other than this you can have neither truce nor friendship with me." 1 " . . . . mas, que por ser ellos de la Xueva Secta, los tenia por Enemi-
1565.J INTERVIEWS WITH THE FRENCH.
125
Such were the Adelantado's words, as reported by a bystander, his admiring brother-in-law ; and that they contain an implied assurance of mercy has been held, not only by Protestants, but by Catholics and Span- iards.1 The report of Menendez himself is more brief, and sufficiently equivocal: —
tk I answered, that they could give up their arms and place themselves under my mercy, — that I should do with them what our Lord should order; and from that I did not depart, nor would I, unless God our Lord should otherwise inspire."2
One of the Frenchmen recrossed to consult with his companions. In two hours he returned, and offered fifty thousand ducats to secure their lives ; but Menen- dez, says his brother-in-law, would give no pledges. On the other hand, expressions in his own despatches point
gos, c tenia con ellos Guerra, a sangre, c fuego ; e quo csta la liaria con toda crueldad a los que hallasc en nquella Mar, b Tierra, donde era Virrei, e Capitan General por su Rei ; e que iba a plantar el Santo Erangclio en aquella Tiorra, para que fuesen alumbrados los Indios, c viniescn al cono- cimiento de la Santa Fe Catolica de Jfsu Christo N. S. como lo dice, & oanta la Iglesia Romana ; e que si ellos quieren entregarle las Vanderas, fc las Armas, c ponerse en su Misericordia, lo pueduu hacer, pnni quu el haga de ellos lo que Dios le diere dc gracia, 6 que hagan lo que quisieren, que otras Treguas, ni Amistades no avian de hacer con el." — Solis, 80.
1 Salazar, Crisis del Ensnyo, 23 ; Padre Felipe Briet, Anules.
2 " Respondfles, que las armas me podia rendir y ponerse dcbaxo de mi gracia para que Yo hiciese dellos aquello que Nuestro Sefior me orde- nase, y de aqui no me saco, ni sacara si Dios Nuestro Senor no espiriira en mi otra cosa. Y ansi se fiie" con esta respuesta, y sc vinieron y me entregaron las armas, y hiceles amarrar las tnanos atrns y pasarlos & cucliillo
" Parecidme que castigar los desta mancra se servia Dios Nuestro SerSor, v V. Mag1', para que adelante nos dexen mas libres esta mala seta par» plantar el evangelio en estas partes." — Carta de Pedro MentnJt: a su J/o> qestad, Fuerte de 6"" Agustin, 15 Octubre, 15C5, MS. 11 «
1£(J MASSACRE OF THE HERETICS. [156&
to the inference that a virtual pledge was given, at least to certain individuals.
The starving French saw no resource but to yield themselves to his mercy. The boat was again sent across the river. It returned, laden with banners, ar- quebuses, swords, targets, and helmets. The Adelan- tado ordered twenty soldiers to bring over the prison- ers, ten at a time. He then took the French officers aside behind a ridge of sand, two gunshots from the bank. Here, with courtesy on his lips and murder at his heart, he said, —
" Gentlemen, I have but few men, and you are so many, that, if you were free, it would be easy for you to take your satisfaction on us for the people we killed when we took your fort. Therefore it is necessary that you should go to my camp, four leagues from this place, with your hands tied." 1
Accordingly, as each party landed, they were led out of sight behind the sand-hill, and their hands tied be- hind their backs with the match-cords of the arquebuses, — though not before each had been supplied with food. The whole day passed before all were brought together, bound and helpless, under the eye of the inexorable Adelantado. But now Mendoza interposed. " I was a priest," he says, " and had the bowels of a man." He asked, that, if there were Christians, that is to say
1 " Senores, yo tengo poca Gente, fc no miii conocida, fc Vosotros sois muchos, e andanclo sueltps, facil cosa os seria satisfaceros de Nosotros, por la Gente, que os degollamos, quando ganamos el Fuerte ; fc ansi es menester, que con las manos atras, amarradas, marcheis de a<jui a qua- tro Leguas, donde yo tengo mi Real." — Solisy 87.
156G.] BUTCHERY.
Catholics, among the prisoners, they should be set apart. Twelve Breton sailors professed themselves to be such ; and these, together with four carpenters and calkers, " of whom," writes Menendez, " I was in great need," were put on board the boat and sent to St. Au- gustine. The rest were ordered to march thither by land.
The Adelantado walked in advance till he came to a lonely spot, not far distant, deep among the bush-cov- ered hills. Here he stopped, and with his cane drew a line in the sand. The sun was set when the captive Huguenots, with their escort, reached the fatal goal thus marked out. And now let the curtain drop ; for here, in the name of Heaven, the hounds of hell were turned loose, and the savage soldiery, like wolves in a sheep- fold, rioted in slaughter. Of all that wretched com-
' O
pany, not one was left alive.
" I had their hands tied behind their backs," writes the chief criminal, " and themselves put to the sword. It appeared to me, that, by thus chastising them, God our Lord and your Majesty were served; whereby in future this evil sect will leave us more free to plant the gospel in these parts."1
Again Menendez returned triumphant to St. Augus- tine, and behind him marched his band of butchers, steeped in blood to the elbows, but still unsated. Great as had been his success, he still had cause for anxiety. There was ill news of his fleet. Some of the ships were lost, others scattered, or lagging tardily on their
i For the original, see ante, note 2, p. 125.
123 MASSACEE OF THE HERETICS. [1505.
way. Of his whole force, but a fraction had reached Florida, and of this a large part was still at Fort Car- oline. Ribaut could not be far off; and, whatever might be the condition of his shipwrecked company, their numbers would make them formidable, unless taken at advantage. Urged by fear and fortified by fanaticism, Menendez had well begun his work of slaughter ; but rest for him there was none ; a darker deed was behind.
On the next day, Indians came with the tidings, that at the spot where the first party of the shipwrecked French had been found was now another party still larger. This murder- loving race looked with great respect on Menendez for his wholesale butchery of the night before, — an exploit rarely equalled in their own annals of massacre. On his part, he doubted not that Ribaut was at hand. Marching with a hundred and fifty men, he reached the inlet at midnight, and again, like a savage, ambushed himself on the bank. Day broke, and he could plainly see the French on the farther side. They had made a raft, which lay in the water, ready for crossing. Menendez and his men showed themselves, when, forthwith, the French displayed their banners, sounded drums and trumpets, and set their sick and starving ranks in array of battle. But the Adelantado, regardless of this warlike show, ordered his men to seat themselves at breakfast, while he with three officers walked unconcernedly along the shore. His coolness had its effect. The French blew a trumpet of parley, and showed a white flag. The
1565.] RIBAUT AND MENENDEZ. jjn
Spaniards replied. A Frenchman came out upon the raft, and, shouting 'across the water, asked that a Span- ish envoy should be sent over.
" You have a raft," was the reply ; " come your- selves."
An Indian canoe lay under the bank on the Spanish side. A French sailor swam to it, paddled back un- molested, and presently returned, bringing- with him La Caille, Ribaut's sergeant-major. He told Menen- dez that the French were three hundred and fifty in all, and were on their way to Fort Caroline ; and, like the officers of the former party, he begged for boats to aid them in crossing the river.
" My brother," said Menendez, " go and tell your general, that, if he wishes to speak with me, he may come with four or six companions, and that I pledge my word he shall go back safe."
La Caille returned ; and Ribaut, with eight gentle- men, soon came over in the canoe. Menendez met them courteously, caused wine and preserved fruits to be placed before them, — he had come well provisioned on his errand of blood, — and next led Ribaut to the reeking Golgotha, where, in heaps upon the sand, lay the corpses of his slaughtered followers. Ribaut was prepared for the spectacle ; La Caille had already seen it; but he would not believe that Fort Caroline was taken till a part of the plunder was shown him. Then, mastering his despair, he turned to the conqueror.
" What has befallen us," he said, " may one day i Soli, 88.
130 MASSACRE OF THE HERETICS. 11565.
befall you." And, urging that the kings of France and Spain were brothers and close friends, he begged, in the name of that friendship, that the Spaniard would aid him in conveying his followers home. Menendez gave him the same equivocal answer that he had given the former party, and Ribaut returned to consult with his officers. After three hours of absence, he came back in the canoe, and told the Adelantado that some of his people were ready to surrender at discretion, but that many refused.
" They can do as they please," was the reply.
In behalf of those who surrendered Ribaut offered a ransom of a hundred thousand ducats.
" It would much grieve me," said Menendez, " not to accept it ; for I have great need of it."
Ribaut was much encouraged. Menendez could scarcely forego such a prize, and he thought, says the Spanish narrator, that the lives of his followers would now be safe. He asked to be allowed the night for deliberation, and at sunset recrossed the river. In the morning he reappeared among the Spaniards, and re- ported that two hundred of his men had retreated from • the spot, but that the remaining one hundred and fifty would surrender.1 At the same time he gave into the hands of Menendez the royal standard and other flags, with his sword, dagger, helmet, buckler, and the official seal given him by Coligny. Menendez directed an officer to enter the boat and bring over the French by tens. He next led Ribaut among the bushes behind
1 Solis, 89. Menendez speaks only of seventy.
1665.] ANOTHER BUTCHERY.
131
the neighboring sand-hill, and ordered his hands to be bound fast. Then the scales fell from the prisoner's eyes. Face to face his fate rose up before him. He saw his followers and himself entrapped, — the dupe of words artfully framed to lure them to their ruin. The day wore on; and, as band after band of prison- ers was brought over, they were led behind the sand- hill out of sight from the farther shore, and bound like their general. At length the transit was finished. With bloodshot eyes and weapons bared, the fierce Spaniards closed around their victims.
" Are you Catholics or Lutherans \ and is there any one among you who will go to confession I "
Ribaut answered, —
" I and all here are of the Reformed Faith."
And he recited the Psalm, " Domine, memento mei"1
" We are of earth," he continued, " and to earth we must return ; twenty years more or less can matter little ; " 2 and, turning to the Adelantado, he bade him do his will.
The stony-hearted bigot gave the signal ; and those who will may paint to themselves the horrors of the scene.
A few, however, were spared. " I saved," writes Menendez, " the lives of two young gentlemen of about eighteen years of age, as well as of three others,
1 " L'auteur a voulu dire apparemment, Memento Domine David. D'ail- leurs Ribaut la re'cita sans doute en Fran^ais, a la maniere des Protet- tans." — Hist. Gen. des Voyages, XIV. 446.
a "Dijo; que de Tierra eran, y que en Tierra se aviande bohrer ; ft Teintc Afios mas, 6 inenos, todo eran una Cuenta." — Solia. 89.
MASSACEE OF THE HERETICS. 11566
the fifer, the drummer, and the trumpeter ; and I caused Juan Ribao [Ribaut] with all the rest to be put to the sword, judging this to be expedient for the ser- vice of God our Lord, and of your Majesty. And I consider it great good fortune that he [Juan Ribao] should be dead, for the King of France could effect more with him and five hundred ducats than with other men and five thousand, and he would do more in one year than another in ten, for he was the most experienced sailor and naval commander known, and of great skill in this navigation of the Indies and the coast of Florida. He was, besides, greatly liked in England, in which kingdom his reputation was such, that he was appointed Captain-General of all the .Eng- lish fleet against the French Catholics in the war be- tween England and France some years ago."1
Such is the sum of the Spanish accounts, — the self-damning testimony of the author and abettors of the crime. A picture of lurid and awful coloring ; and yet there is reason to believe that the truth was darker
1 " Salve" la vida a dos mozos Caballeros de hasta 18 anos, y a otros tres, que eran Pifano, Atambor y Trompeta, y a Juan Rivao con todos los demas hice pasar a cuchillo, entendiendo que ansi convenia al servieio de Dios Nuestro Senor, y de V. Mag. y tengo por muy principal suerte que este sea muerto, porque mas hiciera el Key de Francia con el con 500 ducados, que con otros con 5000, y mas hiciera el en un ano que otro en diez, porque era el mas pratico marinero y cosario que se sabia, y muy diestro en esta Navegacion de Indias y costa de Florida, y tan amigo en Inglaterra que tenia en aquel Reyno tanta reputacion que fue' nombrado por Capitan General de toda el Armada Inglesa contra los Catolicos de Francia estos anos pasados habiendo guerra entre Inglaterra y Francia." — Curia de Pedro Menendez a su Magestad, Fuerte de Sn Agustin, 15 de Octu- bre, 1665, MS.
1K5-1 FRENCH ACCOUNTS.
still. Among those who were spared was one Chris- tophe le Breton, who was carried to Spain, escaped to France, and told his story to Challeux. Among those struck down in the butchery was a sailor of Dieppe, stunned and left for dead under a heap of corpses. In the night he revived, contrived to draw his knife, cut the cords that bound his hands, and made his way to an Indian village. The Indians, though not with- out reluctance, abandoned him to the Spaniards. The latter sold him as a slave ; but, on his way in fetters to Portugal, the ship was taken by the Huguenots, the sailor set free, and his story published in the nar- rative of Le Moyne. When the massacre was known in France, the friends and relatives of the victims sent to the King, Charles the Ninth, a vehement petition for redress; and their memorial recounts many inci- dents of the tragedy. From these three sources is to be drawn the French version of the story. The fol- lowing is its substance : —
Famished and desperate, the followers of Ribaut were toiling northward to seek refuge at Fort Caroline, when they found the Spaniards in their path. Some were filled with dismay ; others, in their misery, almost hailed them as deliverers. La Caille, the sergeant- major, crossed the river. Menendez met him with a face of friendship, and protested that he would spare the lives of the shipwrecked men, sealing the promise with an oath, a kiss, and many signs of the cross. He even gave it in writing, under seal. Still, there were tnany among the French who would not place them-
12
MASSACRE OF THE HERETICS. [1565
selves in his power. The most credulous crossed the river in a boat. As each successive party landed, their hands were bound fast at their backs; and thus, except a few who were set apart, they were all driven towards the fort, like cattle to the shambles, with curses and scurrilous abuse. Then, at sound of drums and trum- pets, the Spaniards fell upon them, striking1 them down with swords, pikes, and halberds.1 Ribaut vainly called on the Adelantado to remember his oath. By his order, a soldier plunged a dagger into the French commander's heart ; and Ottigny, who stood near, met a similar fate. Ribaut's beard was cut off, and portions of it sent in a letter to Philip the Second. His head was hewn into four parts, one of which was displayed on the point of a lance at each corner of Fort St. Au- gustine. Great fires were kindled, and the bodies of the murdered burned to ashes.2
1 Here the French accounts differ. Le Moyne says that only a drum- mer and a fifer were spared ; Clialleux, that carpenters, artillerymen, and others who might be of use, were also saved, — thirty in all. Le Moyne speaks of the massacre as taking place, not at St. Augustine, but at Fort Caroline, a blunder into which, under the circumstances, he might very naturally fall.
" . . . . ainsi comme on feroit vn trouppeau de bestes lequel on chnsse- roit a la boucherie, lors a son de phiffres, labouring et trompes, la hardiesse de ces furieux Espagnols se besbedessur [sic] ces poures Francois les- quels estoyent liez et garottez : la c'estoit a qur donneroit le plus beau cousp de picque, de halleb'arde et d'espe'e," etc. — Clialleux, from Christo- phe le Breton.
a Une. Requete au Roy, faite en forme de Complainte par les Femmes veil/ties, petils En fanit orphtlins, et autres lews Amis, Parents, et A/lt'ez de i-eux qni out €(e" cruellement envalris par les Espagtiols e.n la France Antharctique dite la Floride. This is the petition to Charles the Ninth. There ar.e Latin translations in De Bry and Chauveton. Christophe le Breton told Clial- leux the same story of the outrages on Ribaut's body. The Requete au Boil affirms that the total number of French killed by the Spaniards iu
1565.] RETURN TO ST. AUGUSTINE. 135
Such is the sum of the French accounts. The charge
C*
of breach of faith contained in them was believed by Catholics as well as Protestants, and it was as a defence against this charge that the narrative of the Adelanta- do's brother-in-law was published. That Ribaut, a man whose good sense and courage were both reputed high, should have submitted himself and his men to Menen- clez without positive assurance of safety, is scarcely credible ; nor is it lack of charity to believe that a miscreant so savage in heart and so perverted in con- science would act on the maxim, current among the bigots of the day, that faith ought not to be kept with heretics.
It was nirrht when the Adelantado again entered St.
~
Augustine. There were some who blamed his cruelty ;
C5 *
but many applauded. "Even if the French had been Catholics," — such was their language, — ': he would have done right, for, with the little provision we have, they would all have starved ; besides, there were so many of them that they would have cut our throats."
And now Menendez again addressed himself to the despatch, already begun, in which he recounts to the King his labors and his triumphs, a deliberate and busi- ness-like document, mingling narratives of butchery with recommendations for promotions, commissary de- tails, and petitions for supplies; enlarging, too, on the
Florida in 1565 was more than nine hundred. This ia no doubt an exag- geration. .
Provost^ a contemporary, Lescarbot, and others, affirm tl body was flayed, and the skin sent to Spain as a trophy. This U denied by Barda.
MASSACRE OF THE HERETICS. [1565.
vast schemes of encroachment which his successful generalship had brought to nought. The French, he says, had planned a military and naval depot at Los Martires, whence they would make a descent upon Ha- vana, and another at the Bay of Ponce de Leon, whence they could threaten Vera Cruz. They had long been encroaching on Spanish rights at Newfound- land, from which a great arm of the sea — the St. Lawrence — would give them access to the Moluccas and -other parts of the East Indies.1 He adds, in a later despatch, that by this passage they may reach the mines of Zacatecas and St. Martin, as well as every part of the South Sea. And, as already mentioned, he urges immediate occupation of Chesapeake Bay, which, by its supposed water-communication with the St. La\vrence, would enable Spain to vindicate her rights, control the fisheries of Newfoundland, and thwart her rival in vast designs of commercial and ter- ritorial aggrandizement. Thus did France and Spain dispute the possession of North America long before England became a party to the strife.
Some twenty days after Menendez returned to St. Augustine, the Indians, enamored of carnage, and exulting to see their invaders mowed down, came to tell him that on the coast southward, near Cape Cana- veral, a great number of Frenchmen were .intrenching themselves. They were those of Ribaut's party who
1 These geographical blunders are no matter of surprise. It was more than a century before the hope of reaching the East Indies by way of the St. Lawrence was wholly abandoned.
1505.1 SURVIVORS OF THE CARNAGE.
had refused to surrender. Having retreated to the spot where their ships had been cast ashore, they were en- deavoring to build a vessel from the fragments of the wrecks.
In all haste Menendez despatched messengers to Fort Caroline, — named by him San Mateo, — order- ing a reinforcement of a hundred and fifty men. In a few days they came. He added some of his own soldiers, and, with a united force of two hundred and fifty, set forth, as he tells us, on the second of Novem- ber, pushing southward along the shore with such merciless energy that some of his men dropped dead with wading night and day through the loose sands. When, from behind their frail defences, the French saw the Spanish pikes and partisans "littering into view, they fled in a panic and took refuge among the hills. Menendez sent a trumpet to summon them, pledging his honor for their safety. The commander and sev- eral others told the messenger that they would sooner be eaten by the savages than trust themselves to Span- iards ; and, escaping, they fled to the Indian towns. The rest surrendered ; and Menendez kept his word. The comparative number of his own men made his prisoners no longer dangerous. They were led back to St. Augustine, where, as the Spanish writer affirms, they were well treated. Those of good birth sat at the Adelantado's table, eating the bread of a homicide crimsoned with the slaughter of their comrades. The priests essayed their pious efforts, and, under the gloomy menace of the Inquisition, some of the here-
12*
138 MASSACRE OF THE HERETICS. [1565.
tics renounced their errors. The fate of the captives may be gathered from the indorsement, in the hand- writing of the King, on one of the despatches of Me- nendez.
" Say to him," writes Philip the Second, " that, as to those he has killed, he has done well, and as to those he has saved, they shall be sent to the gal- leys." 1
Thus did Spain make good her claim to North America, and crush the upas of heresy in its germ. Within her bounds, the tidings were hailed with accla- mation, while in France a cry of horror and execra- tion rose from the Huguenots, and found an echo even among the Catholics. But the weak and ferocious son of Catherine de Medicis gave no response. The victims were Huguenots, disturbers of the realm, fol- lowers of Coligny, the man above all others a thorn in his side. True, the enterprise was a national enter- prise, undertaken at the national charge, with the royal commission, and under the royal standard. True, it had been assailed in time of peace by a power profess- ing the closest amity. Yet Huguenot influence had prompted and Huguenot hands executed it. That in- fluence had now ebbed low ; Coligny's power had waned ; and the Spanish party was in the ascendant.
1 There is an indorsement to this effect on the despatch of Menendez of 12 December, 15(55. A marginal note by the copyist states that it is in the well-known handwriting of Philip the Second. Compare the King's letter to Menendez, in Barcin, 116. This letter seems to have been writ- ten by a secretary in pursuance of a direction contained in the indprse- ment, — " Esto sera lien escribir luego a Pero Menendez," — and highly commends hfra for the "justice he has done upon the Lutheran corsairs."
1565.] INDIFFERENCE OF THE FRENCH COURT.
Charles the Ninth, long vacillating-, was fast subsiding into the deathly embrace of Spain, for whom, at last, on the bloody eve of St. Bartholomew, he was to be- come the assassin of his own best subjects.
In vain the relatives of the slain petitioned him for redress ; and had the honor of the nation rested in the keeping of its King, the blood of hundreds of mur- dered Frenchmen would have cried from the ground iu vain. But it was not to be so. Injured humanity found an avenger, and outraged France a champion. Her chivalrous annals may be searched in vain for a deed of more romantic daring than the vengeance of Dominique de Gourgues.
CHAPTER IX.
1567 — 1574. DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES.
Hrs PAST LIFE. — His HATRED OP SPANIARDS. — RESOLVES ON VEH- OEANCE. — His BAND OF ADVENTURERS. — His PLAN DIVULGED. — Hig SPEECH. — ENTHUSIASM OF HIS FOLLOWERS. — CONDITION OF THB SPANIARDS. — ARRIVAL OF GOURGUES. — INTERVIEWS WITH INDIANS. — THE SPANIARDS ATTACKED. — THE FIRST FORT CARRIED. — ANOTHER VICTORY. — THE FINAL TRIUMPH. — PRISONERS HANGED. — THE FORTS DESTROYED. — SEQUEL OK GOUKGUES'S CAREER. — MENENDEZ. — Hl8 DEATH.
THERE was a gentleman of Mont-de-Marsan, Domi- nique de Gourgues, a soldier of ancient birth and high renown. That he was a Huguenot is not certain. The Spanish annalist calls him a " terrible heretic ; " 1 but the French Jesuit, Charlevoix, anxious that the faithful should share the glory of his exploits, affirms, that, like his ancestors before him, he was a good Catholic.2 If so, his faith sat lightly upon him ; and, Catholic or her- etic, he hated the Spaniards with a mortal hate. Fight- ing in the Italian wars, — for from boyhood, he was wedded to the sword, — he had been taken prisoner by them near Siena, where he had signalized himself by a fiery and determined bravery. With brutal insult, they chained him to the oar as a galley-slave.3 After he had
1 Barcia, 133.
* Charlevoix, Nouv. France, I. 95. Compare Guerin, Navigateurs Fran fais, 200. 8 Lescarbot, Nouv. France, I. 141 ; Barcia, 133.
1667.] RESOLVES ON VENGEANCE.
long endured this ignominy, the -Turks had captured the vessel and carried her to Constantinople. It was but a change of tyrants ; but, soon after, while she was on a cruise, Gourgues still at the oar, a galley of the Maltese knights hove in sight, bore down on her, recap- tured her, and set the prisoner free. For several years after, his restless spirit- found employment in voyages to Africa, Brazil, and regions yet more remote. His naval repute rose high, but his grudge against the Spaniards still rankled within him ; and when, returned from his rovings, he learned the tidings from Florida, his hot Gascon blood boiled with fury.
The honor of France had been foully stained, and there was none to wipe away the shame. The faction- ridden Kinff was dumb. The nobles who surrounded
o
him were in the Spanish interest.1 Then, since they proved recreant, he, Dominique de Gourgues, a simple gentleman, would take upon him to avenge the wrong, and restore the dimmed lustre of the French name.* He sold his inheritance, borrowed money from his brother, who held a high post in Guienne,8and equipped three small vessels, navigable by sail or oar. On
1 It was at this time that the Due de Montpensicr was heard to say, that, if his heart was opened, the name of Philip would be found written in it. Ranke, Civil Wars, I. 337.
2 "El, enccndido en el Celo de la Honrade su Patria, aviadeterminado gastar su Hacienda en aquella Kmpresa, de quo no esperaba mas fruto, que vengarse, para eternicar su Fama." — Uarcia, 134. This is the state- ment of an enemy. A contemporary MS. preserved in the Gourgues family makes a similar statement.
»".... era Presidente de la Generalidad de Guiena," — Bareia, IS Compare Mezeray, Hist. r.f France, 701. There ia repeated mention of him in the Memoirs of Montluc.
DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES. [1567.
board he placed a hundred arquebusiers and eighty sail- ors, prepared to fight on land, if need were.1 The noted Blaise de Montluc, tfren lieutenant for the King in Guienne, gave him a commission to make war on the negroes of Benin, that is, to kidnap them as slaves, an adventure then held honorable.2
His true design was locked within his own breast. He mustered his followers, feasted them, — not a few were of rank equal to his own, — and, on the twenty- second of August, 1567, sailed from the mouth of the Charente. Off' Cape Finisterre, so violent a storm buffeted his ships that his men clamored to return ; but Gourgues's spirit prevailed. He bore away for Africa, and, landing at the Rio del Oro, refreshed and cheered them as he best might. Thence he sailed to Cape Blanco, where the jealous ^Portuguese, who had a fort in the neighborhood, set upon him three negro chiefs. Gourgues beat them off', and remained master of the harbor ; whence, however, lie soon voyaged onward- to Cape Verd, and, steering westward, made for the West Indies. Here, advancing from island to island, he came
1 De Gourgues MS. Barcia says two hundred ; Basanier and Lescar- bot, a hundred and fifty.
2 De Gourgues MS. This is a copy, made in 1831, by the Vicomte de Gourgnes, from the original preserved in the Gourgues fatnilj', and writ- ten either by Dominique de Gourgues himself or by some person to whom he was intimately known. It is, witli but trifling variations, identical with the two narratives entitled La Reprlnse de la Floride, preserved in the Bibliotheque Imperiale. One of these bears the name of Robert Prevost, but whether as author or copyist is not clear. M. Gaillard, who carefully compared them, lias written a notice of their contents, with remarks. The Prevost narrative lias been printed entire by Ternaux- Compans in his "collection. I am indebted to Mr. Bancroft for the use of the Vicomte de Gourgues's copy, and Gaillard's notice.
1568.1 HIS SPEECH.
to Hispaniola, where, between the fury of a 'hurricane at sea and the jealousy of the Spaniards on shore, he was in no small jeopardy, — " the Spaniards," exclaims the indignant journalist, " who think that this New World was made for nobody but them, and that no other man living has a right to move or breathe here '. " Gourgues landed, however, obtained the water of which he was in need, and steered for Cape San Antonio, in Cuba. There he gathered his followers about him, and addressed them with his fiery Gascon eloquence. For the first time, he told them his true purpose. He in- veighed against Spanish cruelty. He painted, with angry rhetoric, the butcheries of Fort Caroline and St. Augustine.
" What disgrace," he cried, " if such an insult should
o ' '
pass unpunished! What glory to us, if we avenge it! To this I have devoted my fortune. I relied on you. I thought you jealous enough of your country's glory to sacrifice life itself in a cause like this. Was I de- ceived] I will show you the way; I -will be always at your head ; I will bear the brunt of the danger. Wil you refuse to follow me 1 "
At first his startled hearers listened in silence ; but soon the passions of that adventurous age rose respon- sive to his words. The sparks fell among gunpowder. The combustible French nature burst into flame. The
1 The De Gourgues MS., with Prdvost and Gaillard, give the speech in substance. Charlevoix professes to give a part in the words of the speaker, — "J'ai compt<? sur vous, je vous ai cru assez jnloux de la gloire de votre Patrie, pour lui sacriflu-r jusqu'k votre vie en une occasion de cetto importance ; me suis-je trompe' ? " etc.
144 DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES. [1568.
enthusiasm of the soldiers rose to such a pitch, that Gourgues had much ado to make them wait till the moon was full before tempting- the perils of the Bahama Channel. His time came at length. The moon rode high above the lonely sea, and, silvered in its light, the ships of the avenger held their course.
But how, meanwhile, had it fared with the Spaniards in Florida1? The good-will of the Indians had vanished. The French had been obtrusive and vexatious guests ; but tjieir worst trespasses had been mercy and tender- ness, to the daily outrage of the new-comers. Friend- ship had changed to aversion, aversion to hatred, hatred to open war. The forest-paths were beset ; stragglers were cut off; and woe to the Spaniard who should venture after nightfall beyond call of the outposts.1
Menendez, however, had strengthened himself in his new conquest. St. Augustine was well fortified ; Fort Caroline, now Fort San Mateo, was repaired ; and two redoubts were thrown up to guard the mouth of the River of May. Thence, on an afternoon in early spring, the Spaniards saw three sail steering northward. They suspected no enemy, and their batteries boomed a salute. Gourgues's ships replied, then stood out to sea, and were lost in the shades of evening.
They kept their course all night, and, as day broke, anchored at the mouth of a river, the St. Mary's or the Santilla, by their 'reckoning fifteen leagues north of the River of May. Here, as it grew light, Gourgues saw the borders of the sea thronged with savages, armed
1 Barcia, 100-130.
1BC8.1 MEETING WITH INDIANS.
and plumed fur war. They, too, had mistaken the strangers for Spaniards, and mustered to meet their tyrants at the landing. But in the French ships there was a trumpeter who had been long in Florida, and knew the Indians well. He went towards them in a boat, with many gestures of friendship; and no sooner was he recognized, than the naked crowd, with yelps of delight, danced for joy along the sands. Why had he ever left them ? they asked ; and why had he not returned before 1 The intercourse thus auspiciously begun was actively kept up. Gourgues told the prin- cipal chief — who was no other than Satouriona, of old the ally of the French — that he had come to visit them, make friendship with them, and bring them pres- ents. At this last announcement, so grateful to Indian ears, the dancing was renewed with double zeal. The next morning was named for a grand council. Satou- riona sent runners to summon all Indians within call ; while Gourgues, for safety, brought his vessels within the mouth of the river.
Morning came, and the woods were thronged with congregated warriors. Gourgues and his soldiers landed with martial pomp. In token of mutual con- fidence, the French laid aside their arquebuses, the Indians their bows and arrows. Satouriona came to meet the strangers, and seated their commander at his
O
side, on a wooden stool, draped and cushioned with the gray Spanish moss. Two old Indians cleared the spot of brambles, weeds, and grass ; and, their task finished, the tribesmen took their places, ring within
13
14,6 DOMINIQUE DE GOUttGUES [13G8
ring, standing, sitting, and crouching on the ground, a dusky concourse, plumed in festal array, waiting with grave visages and eyes intent. Gourgues was ahout to speak, when the chief, who, says the narrator, had not learned French manners, rose and anticipated him. He broke into a vehement harangue ; and the cruelty of the Spaniards was the hurden of his words.
Since the French fort was taken, he said, the Indians had not had one happy day. The Spaniards drove them from their cabins, stole their corn, ravished their wives and daughters, and killed their children ; and all this they had endured because they loved the French. There was a French boy who had escaped from the massacre at the fort. They had found him in the woods ; and, though the Spaniards, who wished to kill him, demanded that they should give him up, they had kept him for his friends.
" Look ! " pursued the chief, " here he is ! " — and he brought forward a youth of sixteen, named Pierre Debre, who became at once of the greatest service to the French, his knowledge of the Indian language mak- ing him an excellent interpreter.1
Delighted as he was at this outburst against the Spaniards, Gourgues by no means saw fit to display the full extent of his satisfaction. He thanked the Indians for their good-will, exhorted them to continue in it, and pronounced an ill-merited eulogy on the greatness and goodness of his King. As for the Spaniards, he said, their day of reckoning was at hand ; and, if the Indians
1 De Gourgues MS. ; Gaillard MS.; Basanicr, 116 ; Barcia, 134
1568.1 EAGERNESS OF THE INDIANS. 14.7
had been abused for their love of the French, the French would be their avengers. Here Satonriona forgot his dignity, and leaped up for joy.
" What!" he cried, "will you fight the Spaniards?"1
" I came here," replied Gourgues, " only to recon- noitre the country and make friends- with you, then to go back and bring more soldiers ; but, when I hear what you are suffering from them, I wish to fall upon them this very day, and rescue you from their tyranny." And, all around the ring, a clamor of applauding voices greeted his words.
" But you will do your part," pursued the French- man ; " you will not leave us all the honor."
" We will go," replied Satouriona, " and die with you, if need be."
" Then, if we fight, we ought to fight at once. How soon can you have your warriors ready to inarch ^
The chief asked three days for preparation. Gour- gues cautioned him to secrecy, lest the Spaniards should take alarm.
" Never fear," was the answer ; u we hate them more than you do."!
1 " . . . . si les rois et Icurs sujects avoiont estd mnltraictez en lmin« des Francois que aussi seroient-ils vengez par les Francois • mesmes. Comment ? clist Satirona (Satouriona], tressaillant d'aise, vouldrii-z-vous bien faire la gucm- aux F.spaijrnols " — De (,'onrynes .I/^'.
2 The above is a condensation from the original narrative, of the style of which the following may serve as an example :— " Le capjiiuine Gourgue qui avoit trouvc' ce qu'il chcrcheoit, les louij et n-mercic g dement, et pour battre le fer pendant qu'il estoit chault leur '.list : Volte- mais si nous voullons leur faire la guerre, il fauldroit que .-e fust incon-
DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES. [1568.
Then came a distribution of gifts, — knives, hatch- ets, mirrors, bells, and beads, — while the warrior-rab- ble crowded to receive them, with eager faces, and tawny outstretched arms. The distribution over, Gour- gues asked the chiefs if there was any other matter in which he could serve them. On this, pointing to his shirt, they expressed a peculiar admiration for that gar- ment, and begged each to have one, to be worn at feasts and councils during life, and in their graves after death. Gourgues complied ; and his grateful confederates were soon stalking about him, fluttering in the spoils of his. wardrobe.
To learn the strength and position of the Spaniards, Gourgues now sent out three scouts ; and with them went Olotoraca, Satouriona's nephew, a young brave of great renown.
The chief, eager to prove his good faith, gave as hostages his only son and his favorite wife. They were sent on board the ships, while the savage con- course dispersed to their encampments, with leaping, stamping, dancing, and whoops of jubilation.
The day appointed came, and with it the savage army, hideous in war-paint and plumed for battle. Their ceremonies began. The woods rang back their songs and yells, as with frantic gesticulations they
tinant. Dans combien de temps pourriez-vous bien avoir assemble* voz gens prets a marcher? Dans trois jours dist Satirona [Satouriona], nous et nos subjects pourrons nous rendre icy, pour partir avec vous. Et ce pendant, (dist le cappitaine Gourgue) vous donnerez bon ordre quo !• tout soit tenu secrect : affin que les Espaignols n'en puissent sentir le vent, Ne vous soulciez, dirent les rois, nous leur voullons plus de mal que vous," etc. etc.
PREPARES FOR THE ATTACK.
brandished their war-clubs and vaurtted their deeds of prowess. Then they drank the black drink, endowed with mystic virtues against hardship and danger; and Gourgues himself pretended to swallow the nauseous decoction.1
These ceremonies consumed the day. It was even- ing before the allies tiled off into their forests, and took the path for the Spanish forts. The French, on their part, were to repair by sea to the rendezvous. Gourgues mustered and addressed his men. It was needless : their ardor was at fever-height. They broke in upon his words, and demanded to be led at once against the enemy. Francois Bourdelais, with twenty sailors, was left with the ships. Gourgues affection- ately bade him farewell.
" If I am slain in this most just enterprise," he said, " I leave all in your charge, and pray you to carry back my soldiers to France."
There were many embracings among the excited Frenchmen, — many sympathetic tears from those who were to stay behind, — many messages left with them for wives, children, friends, and mistresses ; and then
1 The " black drink " was, till a recent period, in use among the Creeks. It Is a strong decoction of the plant popularly called eassina, or uupon- tea. Major Swan, deputy-agent for the Creeks in 1791, thus describes their belief in its properties : — " that it purifies them from all sin, and leaves them in a state of perfect innocence ; that it inspires them with an invincible prowess in war ; and that it is the only solid cement of friend- ship, benevolence, and hospitality." Swan's account of their mode of drinking and ejecting it corresponds perfectly witli Le Moyne's picture in De Bry. See the Government publication, History, Condition, and Pmspects of Indian Ttilms, V. 266. 13*
15(3 DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES. [1568.
this valiant band pushed their boats from shore.1 It was a hare-brained venture, for, as young Debre had assured them, the Spaniards on the River of May were four hundred in number, secure behind their ramparts.2 Hour after hour the sailors pulled at the oar. They glided slowly by the sombre shores in the shimmering moonlight, to the sound of the murmuring surf and the moaning pine-trees. In the gray of the morning, they came to the mouth of a river, probably the Nas- sau ; and here a northeast wind set in with a violence that almost wrecked their boats. Their Indian allies were waiting on the bank, but for a while the gale de- layed their crossing. The bolder French would lose no time, rowed through the tossing waves, and, landing safely, left their boats, and pushed into the forest. Gourgues took the lead, in breastplate and back-piece. At his side marched the young chief Olotoraca, a French pike in his hand ; and the files of arquebuse- men and armed sailors followed close behind. They plunged through swamps, hewed their way through brambly thickets and the matted intricacies of the for- ests, and, at five in the afternoon, wellnigh spent with fatigue and hunger, came to a river or inlet of the sea,8
1 " Cecy attendrist fort le cueur de tous, et mesmeraent des mariniers qui demeuroient pour la garde des navires, lesquels ne peurent contenir leurs larmes, ct fut ceste departie plaine de compassion d'ou'ir tanl d'adieux d'une part et d'aultre, et tant de charges et recommendations de la part de ceulx qui s'en alloient a leurs parents et amis, et a leurs femmes et alliez au cas qu'ils ne retournassent." — Pr€t:ost, 337.
2 De Gourgues MS ; Basanier, 117 ; Charlevoix, I. 99.
8 Talbot Inlet? Compare Sparks, American Biography, 2d Ser. VH 128.
1538.] HIS CRITICAL POSITION.
not far from the first Spanish fort. Here they found three hundred Indians waiting for them.
Tired as he was, Gourgues would not rest. He would fain attack at daybreak, and with ten arquebus- iers and his Indian guide he set forth to reconnoitre. Night closed upon him. It was a vain task to struggle on, in pitchy darkness, among trunks of trees, fallen logs, tangled vines, and swollen streams. Gourgues returned, anxious and gloomy. An Indian chief ap- proached him, read through the darkness his perturbed look, and offered to lead him by a better path along the margin of the sea. Gourgues joyfully assented, and ordered all his men to march. The Indians, better skilled in woodcraft, chose the shorter course through the forest.
The French forgot their weariness, and pressed on with speed. At dawn they and their allies met on the bank of a stream, beyond which, and very near, was the fort. But the tide was in. They essayed to cross in vain. Greatly vexed, — for he had hoped to take -lie enemy asleep, — Gourgues withdrew his soldiers into the forest, where they were no sooner ensconced than a drenching rain fell, and they had much ado to keep their gun-matches burning. The light grew fast. Gourgues plainly saw the fort, whose defences seemed slight and unfinished. He even saw the Span- iards at work within. A feverish interval elapsed. At length the tide was out, — so far, at least, that the stream was fordable. A little higher up, a clump of trees lay between it and the fort. Behind this friendly
DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES. [1568
screen the passage was begun. Each man tied his powder-flask to his steel cap, held his arquebuse above his head with one hand, and grasped his sword with the other. The channel was a bed of oysters. The sharp shells cut their feet as they waded through. But the farther bank was gained. They emerged from the water, drenched, lacerated, bleeding, but with unabated mettle. Under cover of the trees Gourgues set them in array. They stood with kindling eyes, and hearts throbbing, but not with fear. Gourgues pointed to the Spanish fort, seen by glimpses through the trees. " Look ! " he said, " there are the robbers who have stolen this land from our King ; there are the mur- derers who have butchered our countrymen ! " With voices eager, fierce, but half suppressed, they demanded to be led on.
Gourgues gave the word. Cazenove, his lieutenant, with thirty men, pushed for the fort-gate ; he himself, with the main body, for the glacis. It was near noon ; the Spaniards had just finished their meal, and, says the narrative, " were still picking their teeth," when a startled cry rang in their ears, —
" To arms ! to arms ! The French are coming ! the French are coming!"
It was the voice ol a cannoneer who had that mo- ment mounted the rampart and seen the assailants
1 " . . . . et, leur monstrant le fort qu'ils pouvoient entreveoir & travers les arbres, voila (dist il) les volleurs qui ont voile ceste terre a nostre Roy, voila les meurtriers qui ont massacre nos frai^ois." — De Gourgnes MS. ; Gaillard MS. Compare Charlevoix, I. 100.
1668.] THE FORTS CARRIED.
advancing in unbroken ranks, with heads lowered and weapons at the charge. He fired his cannon among them. He even had time to load and fire again, when the light-limbed Olotoraca bounded forward, ran up the glacis, leaped the unfinished ditch, and drove his pike through the Spaniard from breast to back. Gourgues was now on the glacis, when he heard Cazenove shout- ing from the gate that the Spaniards were escaping on that side. He turned and led his men thither at a run. In a moment, the fugitives, sixty in all, were enclosed between his party and that of his lieutenant. The In- dians, too, came leaping to the spot. Not a Spaniard escaped. All were cut down but a few, reserved by Gourgues for a more inglorious end.1
Meanwhile the Spaniards in the other fort, on the opposite shore, cannonaded the victors without ceasing. The latter turned four captured guns against them. One of Gourgues's boats, a very large one, had been brought along-shore. He entered it, with eighty sol- diers, and pushed for the farther bank. With loud yells, the Indians leaped into the water. From shore to shore, the St. John's was alive with them. Each held his bow and arrows aloft in one hand, while he swam with the other. A panic seized the garrison as they saw the savage multitude. They broke out of the fort and fled into the forest. But the French had already landed ; and, throwing themselves in the path
1 Bareia's Spanish account agrees with the De Gourgues MS., except in a statement of the former that the Indians had formed an ambuscade into which the Spaniards fell.
DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES. [1568.
of the fugitives,-they greeted them with a storm of lead. The terrified wretches recoiled ; but flight was vain. The Indian whoop rang behind them ; war-clubs and arrows finished the work. Gourgues's utmost efforts saved but fifteen, — saved them, not out of rnercy, but from a refinement of vengeance.1
The next day was Quasimodo Sunday, or the Sun- day after Easter. Gourgues and his men remained quiet, making ladders for the assault on Fort San Mateo. Meanwhile the whole forest vas in arms, and, far and near, the Indians were wild v\ !th excitement. They beset the Spanish fort till not a soldier could venture out. The garrison, aware of their danger, though ignorant of its extent, devised an expedient to gain information ; and one of them, painted and feathered like an Indian, ventured within Gourgues's outposts/ He himself chanced to be at hand, and by his side walked his constant attendant, Olotoraca. The keen- eyed young savage pierced the cheat at a glance. The spy was seized, and, being examined, declared that there were two hundred and sixty Spaniards in San Mateo, and that they believed the French to be two thousand, and were so frightened that they did not know what they were doing. ,
Gourgues, well pleased, pushed on to attack them. On Monday evening he sent forward the Indians to ambush themselves on both sides of the fort. In the
1 It must be admitted that there is a savor of romance in the French narrative. The admissions of the Spanish annalist prove, however, that it has a broad basis of truth.
1568.] THE FINAL TRIUMPH. 155
morning he followed with his Frenchmen ; and, as the glittering ranks came into view, defiling between die forest and the river, the Spaniards opened on them with culverins from a projecting bastion. The French took cover in the forest with which the hills below and behind the fort were densely overgrown. Here, en- sconced in the edge of the woods, where, himself unseen, he could survey the whole extent of the defences, Gour- gues presently descried a strong party of Spaniards issuing from their works, crossing the ditch, and ad- vancing to reconnoitre. On this, returning to his men, he sent Cazenove, with a detachment, to station him- self at a point well hidden by trees on the flank of the Spaniards. The latter, with strange infatuation, con- tinued their advance. Gourgues and his followers pushed on through the thickets to meet them. As the Spaniards reached the edge of the clearing, a deadly fire blazed in their faces, and, before the smoke cleared, the French were among them, sword in hand. The survivors would have fled ; but Cazenove's detachment fell upon their rear, and all were killed or taken.
When their comrades in the fort beheld their fate, a panic seized them. Conscious of their own deeds, perpetrated on this very spot, they could hope no mercy. Their terror multiplied immeasurably the numbers of their enemy. They deserted the fort in a body, and fled into the woods most remote from the French. But here a deadlier foe awaited them ; for a host of Indians leaped up from ambush. Then rose those hideous war- cries which have curdled the boldest blood and blanched
156 DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES. 11568.
the manliest cheek. Then the forest - warriors, with savage ecstasy, wreaked their long arrears of vengeance. Tfie French, too, hastened to the spot, and lent their swords to the slaughter. A few prisoners were saved alive ; the rest were slain ; and thus did the Spaniards make bloody atonement for the butchery of Fort Caro- line.1
But Gourgues's vengeance was not yet appeased. Hard by the fort, the trees were pointed out to him on which Menendez had hanged his captives, and placed over them the inscription, — "Not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans."
Gourgues ordered the Spanish prisoners to be led thither.
" Did you think," he sternly said, as the pallid wretches stood ranged before him, " that so vile a treachery, so detestable a cruelty, against a King so potent and a nation so generous, would go unpunished ? I, one of the humblest gentlemen among my King's subjects, have charged myself with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most Catholic Kings had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and extreme cruelty would still have been unpardonable. Now that they are friends and close allies, there is no name vile enough to brand your deeds, no punishment sharp enough to requite them. But though you cannot suffer
1 This is the French account. The Spaniard, Barcia, with greater probability, says that some of the Spaniards escaped to the hills. With this exception, the French and Spanish accounts agree. Barcia ascribes the defeat of his countrymen to an exaggerated idea of the enemy's force. The governor, Gonzalo de Villaroel, was, he says, among those who es- caped
1568.] THE FORTS DESTROYED.
as you deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can honorably inflict, that your example may teach others to observe the peace and alliance which you have so perfidiously violated." l
They were hanged where the French had hung before them ; and over them was nailed the inscription, burned with a hot iron on a tablet of pine, — " Not as to Spaniards, but as to Traitors, Robbers, and Mur- derers." 2
Gourgues's mission was fulfilled. To occupy the country had never been his intention ; nor was it possi- ble, for the Spaniards were still in force at St. Augus- tine. His was a whirlwind visitation, — to ravage, ruin, and vanish. He harangued the Indians, and exhorted them to demolish the fort. They fell to the work with keen alacrity, and in less than a day not one stone was left on another.8
Gourgues returned to the forts at the mouth of the
1 ". . . . Mais encores que vous nc puissicz cnduror la peine que vous avez mc'ritc'e, il est besoin que vous emluriez celle qne 1'enncmy vous peult dormer honnestement : affin que par vostre cxemplc les nutres np- preignent a, garder la paix ct alliance que si meschammtnt et malheu- reusement vous avez violee. Cola dit, ils sont branchez aux mosmes arbres ou ils avoicnt penduz les Francois." — De Gourgues MS.
2 " Je ne faicts cecy cominc a Espaignolz, n'y comme a Marannes ; mais comme a traistres, volleurs, et meurtricrg." — De Gounjues MS.
Maranne, or Marane, was a word of reproach applied to Spaniards. It seems originally to have meant a Moor. Michelet calls Ferdinand of Spain, "ce vienx Marane avnre." The Spanish Pope, Alexander the Sixth was always nicknamed IK Marane. by his enemy and successor, Rovere.
On returning to the forts at the mouth of the river, Gourgues hanged all the prisoners he had left there. One of them, snys the narrative, con- fessed that he had aided in hanging the French.
8 " Ilz feirent telle diligence qu'en moings d'ung jour ilz nc laissferent picrro sur pierre." — De Gonrgucs MS. 14
158 DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES. 11568.
river, destroyed them also, and took up his march for his ships. It was a triumphal procession. The Indian? thronged around the victors with gifts of fish and game ; and an old woman declared that she was now ready to die, since she had seen the French once more. The ships were ready for sea. Gourgues bade his disconsolate allies farewell, and nothing would content
3 C>
them hut a promise to return soon. Before emharking, ho addressed his own men : —
" My friends, let us give thanks to God for the suc- cess He has granted us. It is He who saved us from tempests ; it is He who inclined the hearts of the In- dians towards us ; it is He who blinded the understand- ing of the Spaniards. They were four to one in forts well armed and provisioned. Our right was our only strength ; and yet \ve have conquered. Not to our own swords, but to God only, we owe our victory. Then let us thank Him, my friends; let us never forget His favors ; and let us pray that He may continue them, saving us from dangers, and guiding us safely home. Let us pray, too, that He may so dispose the hearts of men that our perils and toils may find favor in the eyes of our King and of all France, since all we have done was done for the King's service and for the honor of our country."
Thus Spaniards and Frenchmen alike laid their reek- ing swords on God's altar.
Gourgues sailed on the third of May, and, gazing
1 De Gourgues MS. The speech is a little condensed in the trans- lation.
1568.1 ARRIVAL IN FRANCE. -HIS DEATH.
back along their foaming wake, tlie adventurers looked their last on the scene of their exploits. Their success had cost its price. A few of their number had fallen, and hardships still awaited the survivors. Gourgues, however, reached Rochelle on the day of Pentecost, and the Huguenot citizens greeted him with all honor. At court it fared worse with him. The King, still obse- quious to Spain, looked on him coldly and askance. The Spanish minister demanded his head. It was hinted to him that he was not safe, and he withdrew to Rouen, where he found asylum among his friends. His fortune was gone ; debts contracted for his expedition weighed heavily on him ; and for years he lived in obscurity, almost in misery. At length his prospects brightened. Elizabeth of England learned his merits and his misfortunes, and invited him to enter her ser- vice. The King, who, says the Jesuit historian, had always at heart been delighted with his achievement,1 openly restored him to favor ; while, some years later, Don Antonio tendered him command of his fleet, to defend his right to the crown of Portugal against Philip the Second. Gourgues, happy once more to cross swords with the Spaniards, gladly embraced this offer ; but, on his way to join the Portuguese prince, he died at Tours of a sudden illness.2 The French mourned the loss of the man who had wiped a blot from the national scutcheon, and respected his memory
1 Cliarlevoix, Nouvellf France, I. 105.
8 Basanier, 123; Lescnrbot. 141: Barcia, 137; Gaillard, Kbtica dt» Manuscritx de la Bibliotheque du RoL MS.
150 DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES. [1568.
as that of one of the best captains of his time. And, in truth, if a zealous patriotism, a fiery valor, and skil- ful leadership are worthy of honor, then is such a trib- ute due to Dominique de Gourgues, despite the shadow- ing vices which even the spirit of that wild age can only palliate, the personal hate that aided the impulse of his patriotism, and the implacable cruelty that sullied his courage.
Romantic as his exploit was, it lacked the fulness of poetic justice, since the chief offender escaped him. While Gourgues was sailing towards Florida, Menen- dez was in Spain, high in favor at court, where he told to approving ears how he had butchered the heretics. Borgia, the sainted General of the Jesuits, was his fast friend ; and two years later, when he returned to Amer- ica, the Pope, Paul the Fifth, regarding him as an instrument for the conversion of the Indians, wrote him a letter with his benediction.1 He reestablished his power in Florida, rebuilt Fort San Mateo, and taught the Indians that in death or flight was the only refuge from Spanish tyranny. They murdered his mission- aries and spurned their doctrine. " The Devil is the best thing in the world," they cried ; " we adore him ; he makes men brave." Even the Jesuits despaired, and abandoned Florida in disgust.
Menendez was summoned home, where fresh honors awaited him from the crown, though, according to the somewhat doubtful assertion of the heretical Grotius, his deeds had left a stain upon his name among the
1 " Carta de San Pio . V. a Pedro Menendez," Barcia, 139.
1574.] DEATH OF MENENDEZ.
people.1 He was given command of the armada of three hundred sail and twenty thousand men, which, in 1574, was gathered at Santander against England and Flanders. But now, at the height of his fortunes, his career was abruptly closed. He died suddenly, at the age of fifty-five. What caused his death 1 Grotius affirms that he killed himself; but, in his eagerness to point the moral of his story, he seems to have over- stepped the bounds of historic truth. The Spanish bigot was rarely a suicide ; for the rites of Christian burial and repose in consecrated ground were denied to the remains of the self-murderer. There is positive evidence, too, in a codicil to the will of Menendez, dated at Santander on the fifteenth of September, 1574«, that he was on that day seriously ill, though, as the instrument declares, " of sound mind." There is rea- son, then, to believe that this pious cut-throat died a natural death, crowned with honors, and soothed by the consolations of his religion.2
It was he who crushed French Protestantism in America. To plant religious freedom on this Western soil was not the mission of France. It was for her to rear in Northern forests the banner of Absolutism and
1 Grotius, Annales, 63.
2 For a copy of portions of the will, and other interesting papers con- cerning Menendez, I am indebted to Buckingham Smith, Esq., whose patient and zealous research in the archives of Spain has thrown new light on Spanish North American history.
There is a brief notice of Menendez in De la Mota's History of the Order of Santiago, (1599,) and also another of later date written to accompany his engraved portrait. Neither of them conveys any hint of suicide.
Menendez was a Commander of the Order of Santiago. 14*
162 DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES. [1568.
of Rome ; while, among the rocks of Massachusetts, England and Calvin fronted her in dogged opposition. Long before the ice-crusted pines of Plymouth had listened to the rugged psalmody of the Puritan, the solitudes of Western New York and the shadowy wilderness of Lake Huron were trodden by the iron heel of the soldier and the sandalled foot of the Fran- ciscan friar. France was the true pioneer of the Great West. They who bore the fleur-de-lis were always in the van, patient, daring, indomitable. And foremost on this bright roll of forest -chivalry stands the half- forgotten name of Samuel de Champlain.
SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN
AND
HIS ASSOCIATES;
WITH A
VIEW OF EARLIER FRENCH ADVENTURE IN AMERICA,
AND THE
LEGENDS OF THE NORTHERN COASTS.
CHAMPLAIN AND HIS ASSOCIATES.
SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN has been fitly called the Father of New France. In him were embodied her religious zeal and romantic spirit of adventure. Be- fore the close of his career, purged of heresy, she took the posture which she held to the day of her death, — in one hand the crucifix, in the other the sword. His life, full of significance, is the true be- ginning of her eventful history.
In respect to Champlain, the most satisfactory authorities are his own writings. These consist of the unpublished journal of his voyage to the West Indies and Mexico, of which the original is pre- served at Dieppe; the account of his first voyage to the St. Lawrence, published at Paris in 1604< under the title Des Sauvages ; a narrative of subsequent ad- ventures and explorations, published at Paris in 1613, 1615, and 1617, under the title of Voyage de la Nou- velle France; a narrative of still later discoveries, published at Paris in 1620 and 1627; an(l, finally, a compendium of all his previous publications, with much additional matter, published in quarto at Paris
166 CHAMPLAIN AND HIS ASSOCIATES.
in 1632, and illustrated by a very curious and interest- ing map.
Next in value to the writings of Cham plain are those of his associate, Lescarbot. whose Histoire de la Nouvelle France is of great interest and authority as far as it relates the author's personal experience. The editions here consulted are those of 16 12 and 1618. The Muses de la Nouvelle France, and other minor works of Lescarbot, have also been examined.
The Etallissement de la Foy of Le Clerc is of great value in connection with the present subject, containing documents and extracts of documents not elsewhere to be found. It is of extreme rarity, having been suppressed by the French government soon after its appearance in 1691.
The Hisloire du Canada of Sagard, the curious Relation of the Jesuit Biard, and those of the Jesuits Charles Lalemant, Le Jeune, and Brebeuf, together with two narratives — one of them perhaps written by Champlain — in the eighteenth and nineteenth volumes of the Mercure Fran^ais^ may also be mentioned as among the leading authorities of the body of this work. Those of the introductory portion need not be speci- fied at present.
Of manuscripts used, the principal are die Bref Discours of Champlain, or the journal of his voyage to the West Indies and Mexico ; the Grand Insu- laire et Pilotage .d" Andre Thevet, an ancient and very curious document, in which the superstitions of Bre- ton and Norman fishermen are recounted by one who
CHAMPLAIN AND HIS ASSOCIATES.
firmly believed them ; and a variety of official papers, obtained for the writer, through the agency of Mr. B. P. Poore, from the archives of France.
The writer is indebted to G. B. Faribault, Esq., of Quebec, and to the late Jacques Viger, Esq., of Mon- treal, for the use of valuable papers and memoranda ; to the Rev. John Cordner, of Montreal, for various kind acts of cooperation ; to Jared Sparks, LL. D., for the use of a copy of Le Clerc's Etablissement de la Foy ; to Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, for assistance in examining rare books in the State Library of New York ; to John Carter Brown, Esq., and Colonel Thomas Aspinwall, for the use of books from their admirable collections ; while to the libraries of Har- vard College and of the Boston Athenaeum he owes a standing debt of gratitude.
For the basis of descriptive passages he is indebted to early tastes and habits which long since made him familiar with most of the localities of the narrative.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
1488 — 1543. EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE IN NORTH AMERICA.
TRADITIONS OF FRENCH DISCOVERY. — NORMANS, BRETONS, BASQUES. — LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS. — VERRAZZANO. — JACQUES CAKTIKR. — QUEBEC. — HOCHELAGA. — WINTER MISERIES. — ROBERVAL. — THE ISLK OP DEMONS. — THE COLONISTS OK CAP ROUGE.
WHEN America was first made known to Europe, the part assumed by France on the borders of that new world was peculiar and is little recognized. While the Spaniard roamed sea and land, burning for achieve- ment, red-hot with bigotry and avarice, and while Eng- land, with soberer steps and a less dazzling result, fol- lowed in the path of discovery and gold-hunting, it was from France that those barbarous shores first learned to serve the ends of peaceful commercial industry.
A French writer, however, advances a more am- bitious claim. In the year 1488, four years before the first voyage of Columbus, America, he maintains, was found by Frenchmen. Cousin, a navigator of Dieppe, being at sea off' the African coast, was forced westward, it is said, by winds and currents to within sight of an unknown shore, where he presently descried the mouth of a great river. On board his ship was one Pinzon, whose conduct became so mutinous, that,
15
170 EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1497.
on his return to Dieppe, Cousin made complaint to the magistracy, who thereupon dismissed the offender from the maritime service of the town. Pinzon went to Spain, hecame known to Columbus, told him the discovery, and joined him on his voyage of 1492.1
To leave this cloudland of tradition, and approach the confines of recorded history. The Normans, offspring of an ancestry of conquerors, — the Bretons, that stubborn, hardy, unchanging race, who, among Druid monu- ments, changeless as themselves, still cling with Celtic obstinacy to the thoughts and habits of the past, — the Basques, that primeval people, older than history, — all frequented from a very early date the cod-banks of Newfoundland. There is some reason to believe that this fishery existed before the voyage of Cabot in 14*97 i2 there is strong evidence that it began as early
1 Me'moires pour servir a THistoire de Dieppe ; Guerin, Navicjateurs Fran- fais, 47; Estancelin, Navigateurs Normands, 832. This last writer's re search to verify the tradition was vain. The bombardment of 1694 nearly destroyed the archives of Dieppe, and nothing could be learned from the Pinzons of Palos. Yet the story may not be quite void of founda- tion. In 1500, Cabral was blown within sight of Brazil in a similar man- ner. Herrera (Hist.fleneral, d. 1. 1. 1. c. III.) gives several parallel instances as having reached the ears of Columbus before his first voyage. Com- pare the introduction to Lok's translation of Peter Martyr, and Eden and Willes, History of 'Iraray/es, fol. 1 ; also a story in the Journal de I'Amerique, (Troyes, 1709,) and Gomara, Hist. Gen. des Indes OccideWates, 1. I. c. XIII. These last, however, are probably inventions.
In the Description des Costes de la Mer Oce'ane. a MS. of the seventeenth century, it is said that a French pilot of St. Jean de Lnz first discovered America: — "II fut le premier jete* en la coste de I'Amerique par une violente tempeste, laissa son papier journal, communiqua la route qu'il avoit faite k Coulon, chez qui il mourut." See Monteil, Traitg de J/a- ifriaux Manuscrits, I. 340. The story is scarcely worth the mention.
2 " Terra haec ob lucrosissimam piscationis utilitatem summalitterarum
1517.] NEWFOUNDLAND.
as the year 1504*;1 and it is well established that in 1517 fifty Castilian. French, and Portuguese vessels
memoria a Gallis adiri solita, & ante mille sexcentos annos frequentari solita est." — Pastel, cited by Lescarbot, I. 237, and by Hornot, 260.
" De toute rnemoire, & des plusieurs sieeles noz Diepois, Maloins, Rochelois, & autres mariniers du Havre de Grace, de Honfleur & autres lieux, font les voyages ordinaires en ces pais-la pour la pe'cherie des Morues." — Lescarbot, I. 236.
Compare the following extracts : —
" Les Basques etles Bretons sont depuis plusieurs siecles les seuls qul se soient employe's a la peche de balaines et des molues ; et il est fort re- marquable que S. Cabot, decouvrant la cote de Labrador, y trouva le nom de Bacallos, qui signifie des Molues en langue des Basques." — MS. in the Royal Library of Versailles.
" Quant an nom de Bacalox, il est de I'imposition de nos Basques, les- quels appellent une Morue, Bacaillos, & a leur imitation nos peuples de la Nouvelle France ont appris a nominer aussi la Morue Bacaillos, quoy- qu'en leur langage le nom propre de la morue soit Aptg€." — Lescarbot, I. 237.
De Laet also says incidentally, (p. 39.) that " Bacalaos " is Basque for a codfish.
" Sebastian Cabot himself named those lands Baccalaos, because that in the seas thereabout he found so great multitudes of certain bigge fishes, much like unto Tunies, (which the inhabitants call Baccalaos) that they sometimes stayed his shippes/' — Peter Martyr in Hakluyt, III. 30 ; Eden and Wtlles, 125.
If, in the original Basque, Baccalaos is the word for a codfish, and if Cabot found it in use among the inhabitants of Newfoundland, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Basques had been there before him.
This name, Buccalaos, is variously used by the old writers. Cabot gave it to the continent, as far as he coasted it. The earliest Spanish writers give it an application almost as comprehensive. On Wytfleit's map (1597) it is confined to Newfoundland and Labrador; on Ramusio's, (1556,) to the southern parts of Newfoundland; on Lescarbot's, (1612,) to the Island of Cape Breton; on De Laet's, (1640,) to a small island east of Newfoundland.
1 Discorso a'un gran capitano di mare f'rancese, Ramusio, III. 423. Rn musio does not know the name of the "gran cajiituno," but Estancelin proves him to have been Jean Parrnentier, of Dieppe. From internal evidence, his memoir was written in 1539, and he says that Newfound- land was visited by Bretons and Normans thirty-five years before. " Britones et Normani anno a Christo nato M.CCCCC.IIII has terra*
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1527.
were engaged in it at once; while in 1527, on the third of August, eleven sail of Norman, one of Bre- ton, and two of Portuguese fishermen, were to be found in the Bay of St. John.1
From this time forth, the Newfoundland fishery was never abandoned. French, English, Spanish, and Portu- guese made resort to the Banks, always jealous, often quarrelling, but still drawing up treasure from those exhaustless mines, and bearing home bountiful provis ion against the season of Lent.
On this dim verge of the known world, there were other perils than those of the waves. The rocks and shores of those sequestered seas had, so thought the voy- agers, other tenants than the walrus and the scream- ing sea-fowl, the bears who stole away their fish before their eyes,2 and the wild natives dressed in seal-skins. Griffins — so ran the story — infested the mountains of Labrador.3 Two islands, north of Newfoundland,
invenere." — Wytfleit, Descriptionis Ptolemaicce Augmentum, 185. The translation of Wytfleit (Douay, 1611) bears also the name of Antoine Magin. It is cited by Champlain as " Niflet & Antoine Magin." See also Ogilby, America, 128; Forster, Voyages, 431; Baumgartens, I. 516; Biard, Relation, 2; Bergeron, Tralle'de la Navigation, c. XIV.
1 Herrera, d. II. 1. V. c. III. ; Letter of John Rut, dated St. John's, 8 August, 1527, in Purchas, III. 809.
The name of Cape Breton, found on the oldest maps, is a memorial of these early French voyages. Carder, in 1534, found the capes and bays of Newfoundland already named by his countrymen who had preceded him.
Navarrete's position, that the fisheries date no farther back than 1540, ia wholly untenable.
2 " The Beares also be as bold, which will not spare at midday to take your fish before your face." — Letter of Anthonie Parkhurst, 1578, in Hak- luyt, III. 170.
« Wytfleit. 190 ; Gomara, 1. 1. c. H.
.530.J THE ISLE OF DEMONS.
were given over to the fiends from whom they derived their name, the Isles of Demons. An old map pic- tures their occupants at length, devils rampant, with wings, horns, and tail.1 The passing voyager heard the din of their infernal orgies, and woe to the sailor or the fisherman who ventured alone into the haunted woods.2 " True it is," writes the old cosmographer Thevet, " and I myself have heard it, not from one, but from a great number of the sailors and pilots with whom I have made many voyages, that, when they passed this way, they heard in the air, on the tops and about the masts, a great clamor of men's voices, con- fused and inarticulate, such as you may hear from the crowd at a fair or market - place ; whereupon they well knew that the Isle of Demons was not far off'." And he adds, that he himself, when among the Indians, had seen them so tormented by these infernal perse- cutors, that they would fall into his arms for relief, on which, repeating a passage of the Gospel of St. John, he had driven the imps of darkness to a speedy exodus. They are comely to look upon, he further tells us, yet, by reason of their malice, that island is
1 See Ramusio, III. Compare La Popeliniere, Les Trois Mondes, II. 26.
2 Le Grand Insuluire et Pilotage d'Andre" Thevet, Cosmographe du Roy, (1586,) MS. I am indebted to G. B. Faribault, Esq., of Quebec, for a copy of this curious paper. The islands are perhaps those of Belle Isle and Quirpon. More probably, however, that most held in dread, " pour autant que les Demons y font terrible tintamarre," is a small island near the northeast extremity of Newfoundland, variously called, by Thevet, Isle de Fiche, Isle de Roberval, and Isle des Demons. It is the same with the Isle Fichet of Sanson, and the Fishot Island of some modern naps. A curious legend connected with it will be given hereafter.
15*
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1506.
of late abandoned, and all who dwelt there have fled for refuge to the main.1
While French fishermen plied their trade along these gloomy coasts, the French government spent its ener- gies on a different field; The vitality of the kingdom was wasted in Italian wars. Milan and Naples offered a more tempting prize than the wilds of Baccalaos.2 Eager for glory and for plunder, a swarm of restless nobles followed their knight-errant king, the would-be paladin, who, misshapen in body and fantastic in mind, had yet the power to raise a storm which the lapse of generations could not quell. Under Charles the Eighth and his successor, war and intrigue ruled the day ; and in the whirl of Italian politics there was no leisure to think of a new world.
Yet private enterprise was not quite benumbed. In 1506, one Denis of Honfleur explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence;8 two years later, Aubert of Dieppe followed on his track;4 and in 1518, the Baron de Lery made an abortive attempt at settlement on Sable Island, where the cattle left by him remained and mul- tiplied.6
The crown passed at length to Francis of Angou-
1 Thevet, Cosmographie, (1576,) II. c. V. A very rare book. I am indebted to Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan for copies of the passages in it relat- ing to subjects within the scope of the present work. Thevet here con- tradicts himself in regard to the position of the haunted island, which he places at 60° North Latitude.
2 See ante, p. 170, note 2.
8 Parmentier in Ramusio, in. 423; Estancelin, 42-222.
* Ibid.
• Lescarbot, I. 22 ; De Laet, Novus Orbis, 39 ; Bergeron, c. XV.
1523.] VERRAZZANO.
leme. There were in his nature seeds of nobleness, — seeds destined to bear little fruit. Chivalry and honor were always on his lips ; but Francis the First, a for- sworn gentleman, a despotic king, vainglorious, selfish, sunk in debaucheries, was but the type of an era which retained the forms of the Middle Age without its soul, and added to a still prevailing barbarism the pestilen- tial vices which hung fog-like around the dawn of civilization. Yet he esteemed arts and letters, and, still more, coveted the eclat which they could give. The light which was beginning to pierce the feudal darkness gathered its rays around his throne. Italy was rewarding the robbers who preyed on her with the treasures of her knowledge and her culture ; and Italian genius, of whatever stamp, found ready patron- age at the hands of Francis. Among artists, philos- ophers, and men of letters, enrolled in his service, stands the humbler name of a Florentine navigator, John Verrazzano.
The wealth of the Indies was pouring into the cof- fers of Charles the Fifth, and the exploits of Cortes had given new lustre to his crown. Francis the First begrudged his hated rival the glories and profits of the New World. He would fain have his share of the prize ; and Verrazzano, with four ships, was despatched to seek out a passage westward to the rich kingdom of Cathay.1
1 // Capitano Giovanni da Verrazzano alia Serenissima Corona di Francia, Dlepa, 8 Luylio, 1524. This is the original of Vcrrazzano's letter to Francis the First, of which Raniusio gives an abridged copy. The copy
176 EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1524.
He was born of an ancient family, which could boast names eminent in Florentine history,1 and of which the last survivor died in 1S19«2 He had seen service by sea and land, and his account of his Amer- ican voyage approves him a man of thought and observation. Towards the end of the year 15.23, his four ships sailed from Dieppe ; but a storm fell upon him, and, with two of the vessels, he ran back in dis- tress to a port of Brittany. What became of the other two does not appear. Neither is it clear why, after a preliminary cruise against the Spaniards, he pursued his voyage with one vessel alone, a caravel called the Dolphin. With her he made for Madeira, and, on the seventeenth of January, 1.524, set sail from a barren islet in its neighborhood, and bore away for the unknown world. In forty-nine days they neared a low shore, not far from the site of Wilming- ton in North Carolina, " a newe land," exclaims the voyager, Cl> never before seen of any man, either aun- cient or moderne." 8 Yet fires were blazing along the coast; and the inhabitants, in human likeness, presently appeared, crowding to the water's edge, in wonder and admiration, pointing out a landing-place, and making
before me is a MS. transcript from that in the Magliabecchian, formerly in the Strozzi, library at Florence, the document alluded to by Tira- boschi, in his notice of Verrazzano. See also another letter, — Fernandt Curli a suo Padre a Firenze, — obtained at Florence by Mr. G. W. Greene. I am indebted for a copy of it to the Historical Society oi Rhode Island.
1 Elogi degli Illustri Toscani, cited by Tiraboschi, toui. VII. 882.
2 Greene in North American Review, No. 97, p. 298.
8 Hakluyt's translation from Ramusio, in Divers Voyages, (15821
I524.J VERRAZZANO.
profuse gestures of welcome. A sandy beach, thronged with astonished Indians ; tall forests behind, of pine, laurel, cypress, and fragrant shrubs, " which yeeld most sweete savours, farre from the shore," — this was the sight which greeted the eyes of the voyagers.
But what manner of men were the naked, swarthy, befeathered crew, running like deer along the border of the sea, or screeching welcome from the strand ? The French rowed towards the shore for a supply of wa- ter. The surf ran high ; they could not land ; but an adventurous young sailor leaped overboard, and swam towards the crowd with a gift of beads and trinkets. His heart failed him as he drew near ; he flung his gift among them, turned, and struck out for the boat. The surf dashed him back, flinging him with violence on the beach among the recipients of his bounty, who seized him by the arms and legs, and, while he called lustily for aid, answered him with hideous outcries de- signed to allay his terrors. Next they kindled a great fire, — doubtless to roast and devour him before the eyes of his comrades, gazing in horror from their boat. On the contrary, they carefully warmed him, and were try- ing to dry his clothes, when, recovering from his be- wilderment, he betrayed a strong desire to escape to his friends; whereupon, " with great love, clapping him fast about, with many embracings," they led him to the shore, and stood watching till he had reached the boat.
It only remained to requite this kindness, and an opportunity soon occurred ; for, coasting the shores of Virginia or Maryland, a party went on shore and
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1524
found an old woman, a young one, and several chil- dren, hiding with great terror in the grass. Having, by various blandishments, gained their confidence, they carried off' one of the children as a curiosity, and, since the mother was comely, would fain have taken her also, but desisted by reason of her continual screaming.
Verrazzano's next resting-place was the Bay of New York. Rowing up in his boat through the Narrows, under the steep heights of Staten Island, he saw the harbor within dotted with canoes of the feathered natives, coming from the shore to welcome him. But what most engaged the eyes of the white men was the fancied signs of mineral wealth in the neighboring hills.
Following the shores of Long Island, they came to Block Island, and thence to the harbor of Newport. Here they stayed fifteen days, most courteously re- ceived by the inhabitants. Among others, appeared txvo chiefs, gorgeously arrayed in painted deer-skins, — kings, as Verrazzano calls them, with attendant gentlemen ; while a party of squaws in a canoe, kept by their jealous lords at a safe distance from the cara- vel, figure in the narrative as the queen and her maids. The Indian wardrobe had been taxed to its utmost to do the strangers honor; — copper bracelets and wampum collars, lynx-skins, raccoon-skins, and faces bedaubed with gaudy colors.
Again they spread their sails, and on the fifth of May bade farewell to the primitive hospitalities of Newport, steered along the rugged coasts of New England, and surveyed, ill-pleased, the surf- beaten
1524.] VERRAZZANO. ]>rg
rocks, tlie pine-tree and the fir, the shadows and the gloom of mighty forests. Here, man and Nature alike were savage and repellent. Perhaps some plundering straggler from the fishing-banks, some man-stealer like the Portuguese Cortereal, or some kidnapper of chil- dren and ravisher of squaws like themselves, had warned the children of the woods to beware of the worshippers of Christ. Their only intercourse was in the way of trade. From the brink of the rocks which overhung the sea the Indians would let down a cord to the boat below, demand fish-hooks, knives, and steel, in barter for their furs, and, their bargain made, salute the voyagers with unseemly gestures of derision and scorn. The latter once ventured ashore ; but a war- whoop and a shower of arrows sent them back in haste to their boats.
Verrazzano coasted the seaboard of Maine, and sailed northward as far as Newfoundland, whence, provisions failing, he steered for France. He had not found a passage to Cathay, but he had explored the American coast from the thirty-fourth degree to the fiftieth, and at various points had penetrated several leagues into the country. On the eighth of July he wrote from Dieppe to the King the earliest description known to exist of the shores of the United States.
Great was the joy that hailed his arrival, and great the hopes of emolument and wealth from the new- found shores.1 The merchants of Lyons were in a flush of expectation. For himself, he was earnest to
1 Fernando Carli, MS.
180 EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. |1537.
return, plant a colony, and bring the heathen tribes within the pale of the Church. But the time was in- auspicious. The year of his voyage was to France a year of disasters, — defeat in Italy, the loss of Milan, the death of the heroic Bayard ; and, while Verraz- zano was writing his narrative at Dieppe, the traitor Bourbon was invading Provence. Preparation, too^ was soon on foot for the expedition which, a few months later, ended in the captivity of Francis on the field of Pavia. Without a king, without an army, without money, convulsed within, threatened from with- out, France, after that humiliation, was in no condition to renew her Transatlantic enterprise.
Henceforth the fortunes of Verrazzano are lost from view. Ramusio affirms, that, on another yoyage, he was killed and eaten by savages, in sight of his follow- ers ; * and there is some color for the conjecture that this voyage, if made at all, was made in the service of Henry the Eighth of England.2 Again, a Spanish writer affirms that he was hanged at Puerto del Pico as a pirate.8 On the other hand, from expressions of a contemporary Italian writer, there is reason to think that he was living at Rome in 1537-4
The fickle-minded King, always ardent at the outspt
1 Ramusio, III. 417 ; Wytfleit, 185. Compare Le Clerc, fctaUissemcnt de la Foy, I. 6.
2 Memoir of Cabot, 275.
8 Barcia, Ensuyo Cronologico, 8.
* Annibal Caro, I. 6, (Milano, 1807). The allusion in question is prob- ably to Verrazzano's brother. In the Propaganda at Rome is a map made in 1529 by this brother, and inscribed Hieronymus de Vcratzuno faciebat. On it are these words, " Verazzana, sive nova Gallia, quale iliscopri, 5 anni la, Giovanni da Verazzano, Fiorentino." This answers the recent doubts as to the reality of his voyage.
1634.1 JACQUES CAUTIER.
of an enterprise, and always flagging before its close, divided, moreover, between the smiles of his mistresses and the assaults of his enemies, might probably have dismissed the New World from his thoughts. But among the favorites of his youth was a high-spirited young noble, Philippe de Briou - Chabot, the partner of his joustings and tennis-playing, his gaming and gallantries.1 He still stood high in the royal favor, and, after the treacherous escape of Francis from cap- tivity, held the office of Admiral of France. When the kingdom had rallied in some measure from its calamities, he conceived the purpose of following up the path which Verrazzano had opened.
The ancient town of St. Malo, thrust out like a but- tress into the sea, strange and grim of aspect, breathing war from its wall and battlements of ragged stone, — a stronghold of privateers, the home of a race whose intractable and defiant independence neither time nor change has subdued, — has been for centuries a nurs- ery of hardy mariners. Among the earliest and most eminent on its list stands the name of Jacques Cartier. St. Malo still preserves his portrait, — bold, keen feat- ures, bespeaking a spirit not apt to quail before the wrath of man or of the elements. In him Chabot found a fit agent of his design, if, indeed, its sugges- tion is not due to the Breton navigator.2
Sailing from St. Malo on the twentieth of April, 153-i,
1 Brantome, II. 277 ; Biographic Universelte, Art. Chabot.
2 Cartier was at this time forty years of age, having been born In December, 1494.
16
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1534.
Cartier steered for Newfoundland, passed through the Straits of Belle Isle, crossed to the main, entered the Gulf of Chaleurs, planted a cross at Gaspe, and, never doubting that he \vas on the high road to Cathay, advanced up the St. Lawrence till he saw the shores of Anticosti. But autumnal storms were gathering. The voyagers took counsel together, turned their prows eastward, and bore away for France, carrying thither, as a sample of the natural products of the New World, two young Indians, lured into their clutches by an act of villanous treachery. The voyage was a mere
reconnaissance.1
The spirit of discovery was awakened. A passage to India could be found, and a new France built up beyond the Atlantic. Mingled with such views of in- terest and ambition was another motive scarcely less potent.2 The heresy of Luther was convulsing Ger- many, and the deeper heresy of Calvin infecting France. Devout Catholics, kindling with redoubled zeal, would fain requite the Church for her losses in the Old World by winning to her fold the infidels of the New. But, in pursuing an end at once so pious and so politic, Francis the First was setting at nought the supreme Pontiff' himself, since, by the preposterous bull of Alexander the Sixth, all America had been given to the Spaniards.
1 Lcscarbot, I. 232, (1612) ; Cartier, Dlscours du Voyage,' reprinted by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. Compare translations in Ilakluyt and Ramusio ; MS. Map of Cartier's route in Depdt des Cartes, Carton V.
' Lethe de Cartier au Roy tres Chretien.
1535. SECOND VOYAGE OF CARTIER.
Cartier was commissioned afresh. Three vessels, the largest not above a hundred and twenty tons, were placed at his disposal, and Claude de Ponthriand, Charles de la Pommeraye, and other gentlemen of birth enrolled themselves for the voyage. On the six- teenth of May^ 1535, officers and sailors assembled in the Cathedral of St. Malo, where, after confession and hearing mass, they received the parting blessing of the. bishop. Three days later they set sail. The dingy walls ' of the rude old seaport, and the white rocks that line the neighboring shores of Brittany, faded from their sight, and soon they were tossing in a furious tempest. But the scattered ships escaped the danger, and, reunit- ing at the Straits of Belle Isle, steered westward along the coast of Labrador, till they reached a small bay op- posite the Island of Anticosti. Cartier called it the Bay of St. Lawrence, a name afterwards extended to the entire gulf, and to the great river above.1
1 Cartier calls tiie St. Lawrence the " River of Hoclielaga,1' or " the great river of Canada." He confines the name of Canada to a district extending from the Isle des Ooudres in the St. Lawrence to a point at some distance above the site of Quebec. The country below, he adds, was called by the Indians Sayvenay, and that above, Hochrlaya, Los- carbot, a later writer, insists that the country on both sides of the St. Lawrence, from Hoclielaga to its mouth, bore the name of Camilla.
In tin- second map of Ortelius, published about the year 1572, New France, Nova Francia, is thus divided : — Canada, a district on the St. Lawrence above the River Saguenay ; Chilaijn, (Hoclielaga,) the angle between the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence ; .^ni/ni-n ii, a district below the river of that name ; A/b.«ra«a, south of the St. Lawrence anil east of the River Richelieu; Amcal, west ami south of Moseosa; NonutAeyat, Maino and New Brunswick; A/Ki/ar/tfn, Virginia, Pennsylvania, etc.; Term Corterea/is, Labrador; Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida.
In one of the earliest maps, New France comprises both North and South America. So also in the Speculum Orbls Terrarum of Corne-
JS4. EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1535,
To ascend this great river, to tempt the hazards of its intricate navigation, with no better pilots than the two young Indians kidnapped the year before, was a venture of no light risk. But skill or fortune pre- vailed ; and, on the first of September, the voyagers reached in safety the gorge of the gloomy Saguenay, with its towering cliffs and sullen depth of waters. Passing the Isle des Coudres, and the lofty promon- tory of Cape Tourmente, they came to anchor in a quiet channel between the northern shore and the mar- gin of a richly wooded island, where the trees were so thickly hung with grapes that Cartier named it the Island of Bacchus.1
Indians came swarming from the shores, paddled- their birch canoes about the ships, and clambered to the decks to gaze in bewilderment at the novel scene, and listen to the story of their travelled countrymen, mar- vellous in their ears as a visit to another planet.2 Car-
lius, 1593. The application of this name dates back to a period imme- diately after the voyage of Verrazzano, and the Dutch geographers are especially free in their use of it, out of spite to the Spaniards.
The derivation of the name of Canada has been a point of discussion. It is, without doubt, not Spanish, but Indian. In the vocabulary of the language of Hochelaga, appended to the journal of C'artier's second voy- age. Canada is set down as the word for a town or village. " Us a/tpel- lent une ville, Canada." It bears the same meaning in the Mohawk tongue. Both languages are dialects of the Iroquois. Lescarbot af- firms that Canada is simply an Indian proper name, of which it is vain to seek a meaning. Bellefbrest also calls it an Indian word, but trans- lates it " Terre," as does also Thevet.
1 Now the Island of Orleans.
2 Doubt has been thrown on this part of Cartier's narrative, on the ground that these two young Indians, who were captured at Gaspe, could not have been so intimately acquainted, as the journal represents, witlt the •avages at the site of Quebec. From a subsequent part of the journal,
i536.] CARTIER AT QUEBEC. 185
tier received them kindly, listened to the long harangue of the great chief Donnacona, regaled him with bread and wine ; and, when relieved at length of his guests, set forth in a boat to explore the river above.
As he drew near the opening of the channel, the Hochelaga again spread before him the broad expanse of its waters. A mighty promontory, rugged and bare, thrust its scarped front into the surging cur- rent. Here, clothed in the nmjesty of solitude, breath- ing the stern poetry of the wilderness, rose the cliffs now rich with heroic memories, where the fiery Count Frontenac cast defiance at his foes, where Wolfe, Montcalm, and Montgomery fell. As yet, all was a nameless barbarism, and a cluster of wigwams held the site of the rock-built city of Quebec.1 Its name was Stadacone, and it owned the sway of the royal Donnacona.
Carder set forth to visit this greasy potentate, as- cended the River St. Charles, by him called the St. Croix,2 landed, crossed the meadows, climbed the rocks,
however, it appears tliat they were natives of this place, — " et la est la ville et demcnrance tin Seigneur Donnaconu, et tie nos deux homines qu'nviuns pris le premier voyage." This is curiously confirmed by Tlievet, who personally knew Cartier, and who, in his Singttlarit4l <(e la .France A>ilai-cti</'ie, (p. 147,) says that the party ti> which the two Indians captured at Gaspe belonged, spoke a language different from that of the other Indians seen in those parts, and that they had come on a war-ex- pedition from the River Chelogua (Hochelaga). Compare Xeio Found Woihle, (London, 1508,) 1'24. This will also account for Lescarbot's re- mark, that the Indians of Gaspe had changed their language since Car- tier's time. The language of Stadacone, or Quebec, when Cartier visited it, was apparently a dialect of the Iroquois.
1 On ground now covered by the suburbs of St. Roque and St. John.
2 Churlevoix denies that the St. Croix and the St. Charles are the
10*
186 EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1555.
threaded the forest, and emerged upon a squalid hamlet of bark cabins. When, their curiosity satisfied, he and his party were rowing for the ships, a friendly interrup- tion met them at the mouth of the St. Charles. An old chief harangued them from the bank, men, boys, and children screeched welcome from the meadow, and a troop of hilarious squaws danced knee-deep in the wa- ter. The gift of a few strings of beads completed their delight and redoubled their agility ; and, from the dis- tance of a mile, their shrill songs of jubilation still reached tbe ears of the receding Frenchmen.
The hamlet of Stadacone, with its king, Donnacona, and its naked lords and princes, was not the metropolis of this forest State, since a town far greater — so the In- dians averred — stood by the brink of the river, many days' journey above. It was called Hochelaga, and the great river itself, with a wide reach of adjacent country, had borrowed its name. Thither, with his two young Indians as guides, Carder resolved to go ; but misgivings seized the guides, as the time drew near, while Donnacona and his tribesmen, jealous of the plan, set themselves to thwart it. The Breton captain turned a deaf ear to their dissuasions ; whereat, failing to touch his reason, they appealed to his fears.
same ; but he supports his denial by an argument which proves nothing but his own gross carelessness. Champlain, than whom no one wns bet- ter qualified to form an opinion, distinctly affirms the identity of the two rivers. See his Map of Quebec, and the accompanying key, in the edi- tion of 1613. Potherie is of the same opinion ; as also, amonjj modern writers, Faribault and Fisher. In truth, the description of localities in Cartier's journal cannot, when closely examined, admit a doubt on tho subject. See also Berthelot, Dissertation sur le Canon de Bronze.
1635.] CARTIER AT QUEBEC.
One morning, as the ships still lay at anchor, the French beheld three Indian devils descending in a canoe towards them, dressed in black and white dog-skins, with faces black as ink, and horns long as a man's arm. Thus arrayed, they drifted by, while the principal fiend, with fixed eyes -as of one piercing the secrets of futurity, uttered in a loud voice a long harangue. Then they paddled for the shore; and no sooner ditl they reach it, than each fell flat like a dead man in the bot- tom of the canoe. Aid, however, was at hand ; for Donnacona and his tribesmen, rushing pell-mell from the adjacent woods, raised the swooning masqueraders, and, with shrill clamors, bore them in their arms with- in the sheltering thickets. Here, for a full half-hour, the French could hear them haranguing in solemn conclave. Then the two young Indians issued forth, enacting a pantomime of amazement and terror, clasping their hands, and calling on Christ and the Virgin ; where- upon Cartier, shouting from the vessel, asked what was the matter. They replied, that the god Coudouagny had sent to warn the French against all attempts to ascend the great river, since, should they persist, snows, tempests, and drifting ice would requite their rashness with inevitable ruin. The French replied that Coudou- agny was a fool ; that he could not hurt those who be- lieved in Christ ; and that they might tell this to his three messengers. The assembled Indians, with little reverence for their deity, pretended great contentment at this assurance, and danced for joy along the beach.1
1 M. Berthelot, in his Dissertation sur le Canon de Bronze, discovers in
188 EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1535.
Cartier now made ready to depart. And first, he caused the two larger vessels to he towed for safe har-
<_>
borage within the mouth of the St. Charles. With the smallest, a galleon of forty tons, and two open boats, carrying in all fifty sailors, besides Pontbriand, La Pommeraye, and other gentlemen, he set forth for Hochelaga.
Slowly gliding on their way, by walls of verdure, brightened in the autumnal sun, they saw forests fes- tooned with grape - vines, and waters alive with wild- fowl ; they heard the song of the blackbird, the thrush, and, as they fondly thought, the nightingale. The galleon grounded ; they left her, and, advancing with the boats alone, on the second of October neared the goal of their hopes, the mysterious Hochelaga.
Where now are seen the quays and storehouses of Montreal, a thousand Indians thronged the shore, wild with delight, dancing, singing, crowding about the strangers, and showering into the boats their gifts of fish and maize ; and, as it grew dark, fires lighted up the night, while, far and near, the French could see the excited savages leaping and rejoicing by the blaze.
At dawn of day, marshalled and accoutred, they set forth for Hochelaga. An Indian path led them through the forest which covered the site of Montreal. The morning air was chill and sharp, the leaves were chang- ing hue, and beneath the oaks the ground was thickly
this Indian pantomime a typical representation of the supposed ship- wreck of Verrazzano in the St. Lawrence. This shipwreck, it is need- less to say, is a mere imagination of this ingenious writer.
1535.| HOCHELAGA.
strewn with acorns. They soon met an Indian chief with a party of tribesmen, or, as the old narrative has it, " one of the principal lords of the said city," at- tended with a numerous retinue.1 Greeting them after the concise courtesy of the forest, he led them to a fire kindled by the side of the path for their comfort and refreshment, seated them on the earth, and made them a long- harangue, receiving in requital of his eloquence two hatchets, two knives, and a crucifix, the last of which he was invited to kiss. This done, they re- sumed their march, and presently issued forth upon open fields, covered far and near with the ripened maize, its leaves rustling, its yellow grains gleaming between the parting husks. Before them, wrapped in forests painted by the early frosts, rose the ridgy back of the Mountain, of Montreal, and below, encompassed with its cornfields, lay the Indian town. Nothing was visible but its encircling palisades. They were of trunks of trees, set in a triple row. The outer and
inner ranges inclined till they met and crossed near the
j
summit, while the upright row between them, aided by transverse braces, gave to the whole an abundant strength. Within were galleries for the defenders, rude ladders to mount them, and magazines of stones to throw down on the heads of assailants. It was a mode of fortification practised by all the tribes speaking dialects of the Iroquois.2
1 " .... 1'un des principaulx seigneurs de la dicte ville, accompajgne de plusieurs personnes." — Curlier, 23, (1545).
2 That the Indians of Hochelagn belonged to tlie Huron-Iroquois family of tribes is evident from the affinities of their language, (compare
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. llf>35.
The voyagers entered the narrow portal. Within, thev saw some fifty of those large oblong dwellings so familiar in after-years to the eyes of the Jesuit apostles
Gallatin, Synopsis of Indian Tribes,) and from the construction of their houses and defensive works. The latter was identical with the construc- tion universal, or nearly so, among the Huron-Iroquois tribes, but not piao- tised by any of the very numerous tribes of Algonquin lineage. In Ramu- sio, III. 446, there is a plan of Hochelaga and its defences, which, though by no means without the glaring errors from which, at the time, such engravings were seldom free, adds much to the value of the descrip- tion. Whence the sketch was derived does not appear, as the original edition of Carder does not contain it. In 1860, a quantity of Indian remains were dug up at Montreal, immediately below Sherbrooke Street, between Mansfield and Metcalfe Streets. (See a paper by Dr. Dawson, in Canadian Naturalist and Geo/oyist, V. 430.) They may perhaps indicate the site of Hochelaga. A few, which have a distinctive character, belong not to the Algonquin, but to the Huron-Iroquois type. The stem less pipe of terra-cotta is the exact counterpart of those found in the great Huron deposits of the dead in Canada West and in Iroquois burial-places of Western New York. So also of the fragments of pottery and the in etruments of bone used in ornamenting it.
The assertion of certain Algonquins, who, in 1642, told the missiona- ries that their ancestors once lived at Montreal, is far from conclusive evidence. It may have referred to an occupancy subsequent to Car- tier's visit, or, which is more probable, the Indians, after their favor- ite practice, may have amused themselves with " hoaxing " their inter- locutors.
Cartier calls his vocabulary, " Le lanqage des pays et Royaulmes de Hoche- laga et Canada, aultrement appellee par nous la nouuelle /-Vance," (ed. 1545). For this and other reasons it is more than probable that the Indians of Quebec or Stadacone were also of the Huron-Iroquois race, since by Canada he means the country about Quebec. Seventy years later, the whole re- gion was occupied by Algonquins, and no trace remained of Hochelaga or Stadacone.
There was a tradition among the Agnids (Mohawks), one of the five tribes of the Iroquois, that their ancestors were once settled at Quebec ; see Lafitau, I. 101. Canada, as already mentioned, is a Mohawk word. The tradition recorded by Colden, in his History of the Five Nations (Iro- quois), that they were formerly settled near Montreal, is of interest here. The tradition declares, that they were driven thence by the Adirondacks (Algonquins).
1535.] HOCHELAGA.
in Iroquois and Huron forests. They were fifty yards or more in length, and twelve or fifteen wide, framed of sapling poles closely covered with sheets of bark, and each containing many fires and many families. In the midst of the town was an open area, or public square, a stone's - throw in width. Here Cartier and his followers stopped, while the surrounding houses of bark disgorged their inmates, — swarms of children, and young women and old, their infants in their arms. They crowded about the visitors, crying for delight, touching their beards, feeling their faces, and holding up the screeching infants to be touched in turn. Strange in hue, strange in attire, with rnoustached lip and bearded chin, with arquebuse .and glittering halberd, helmet, and cuirass, — were the marvellous strangers demigods or men 1 .
Due time allowed for this exuberance of feminine rapture, the warriors interposed, banished the women and children to a distance, and squatted on the ground around the French, row within row of swarthy forms and eager faces, " as if," says Cartier, " we were going to act a play."1 Then appeared a troop of women, each bringing a mat, with which they car- peted the bare earth for the behoof of their guests. The latter being seated, the -chief of the nation was borne before them on a deer -skin by a number of his tribesmen, a bedridden old savage, paralyzed and helpless, squalid as the rest in his attire, and distin
1 " .... cornme ay cussions voulu iouer vng mystere." — Cartier, 25, (1545).
192 EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1585.
guished only by a red fillet, inwrought with the dyed quills of the Canada porcupine, encircling his lank, black hair. They placed him on the ground at Car- tier's feet and made signs of welcome for him, while he pointed feebly to his powerless limbs, and implored the healing touch from the hand of the French chief. Cartier complied, and received in acknowledgment the red fillet of his grateful patient. And now from sur- rounding dwellings appeared a woful throng, the sick, the lame, the blind, the maimed, the decrepit, brought or led forth and placed on the earth before the perplexed commander, " as if," he says, " a God had come down to cure them." His skill in medicine being far behind the emergency, he pronounced over his petitioners a~ portion of the Gospel of St. John, of infallible efficacy on such occasions, made the sign of the cross, and ut- tered a prayer, not for their bodies only, but for their miserable souls. Next he read the passion of the Sav- iour, to which, though comprehending not a word, his audience listened with grave attention. Then came a distribution of presents. The squaws and children were recalled, and, with the warriors, placed in separate groups. Knives and hatchets were given to the men, beads to the women, and pewter rings and images of the Agnus Dei flung among the troop of children, whence ensued a vigorous scramble in the square of Hochelaga. Now the French trumpeters pressed their trumpets to their lips, and blew a blast that filled the air with war- like din and the hearts of the hearers with amazement and delight. Bidding their hosts farewell, the visitors
1535.] HOCHELAGA.
formed their ranks and defiled through the gate once more, despite the efforts of a crowd of women, who, with clamorous hospitality, beset them with gifts of fish, heans, corn, and other viands of strangely uninviting aspect, which the Frenchmen courteously declined.
A troop of Indians followed, and guided them to the top of the neighboring mountain. Cartier called it Mont Royal, Montreal ; and hence the name of the busy city which now holds the site of the vanished Hochelaga. Stadacone and Hochelaga, Quebec and Montreal, in the sixteenth century as in the nineteenth, were the centres of Canadian population.
From the summit, that noble prospect met his eye which at this day is the delight of tourists, but strangely changed, since, first of white men, the Breton voyager gazed upon it. Tower and dome and spire, congre- gated roofs, white sail and gliding steamer, animate its vast expanse with varied life. Cartier saw a different scene. East, west, and south, the mantling forest was over all, and the broad blue ribbon of the great river glistened amid a realm of verdure. Beyond, to the bounds of Mexico, stretched a leafy desert, and the vast hive of industry, the mighty battle-ground of later centuries, lay sunk in savage torpor, wrapped in illim- itable woods.
The French reembarked, bade farewell to Hochelaija, retraced their lonely course down the St. Lawrence, and reached Stadacone in safety. On the bank of the St. Charles, their companions had built in their absence a fort of palisades, and the ships, hauled up the little
17
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. psar,.
stream, lay moored before it.1 Here the self- exiled company were soon besieged by the rigors of the Cana- dian winter. The rocks, the shores, the pine-trees, the solid floor of the frozen river, all alike were blanketed in snow, beneath the keen cold rays of the dazzling sun. The drifts rose above the sides of their ships ; masts, .spars, cordage, were thick with glittering incrustations and sparkling rows of icicles ; a frosty armor, four inches thick, encased the bulwarks. Yet, in the bitter- est weather, the neighboring Indians, " hardy," says the journal, " as so many beasts," came daily to the fort, wading, half naked, waist-deep through the snow. At length, their friendship began to abate; their visits grew less frequent, and, during December, had wholly ceased, when an appalling calamity fell upon the French.
A malignant scurvy broke out among them. Man after man went down before the hideous disease, till twenty-five were dead, and only three or four were left in health. The sound were too few to attend the sick, and the wretched sufferers lay in helpless despair, dreaming of the sun and the vines of France. The ground, hard as flint, defied their feeble efforts, and, unable to bury their dead, they hid them in snow-drifts. Cartier appealed to the Saints ; but they turned a deaf ear. Then he nailed against a tree an image of the Virgin, and on a Sunday summoned forth his woe-
1 In 1608, Champlain found the remains of Carder's fort. See Cham- plain, (1613,) 184-191. Charlevoix is clearly wrong as to the locality. M. Faribault, who has collected the evidence, (see Voyages de Decourerte au Canada, 109-119,) thinks the fort was near the junction of the little Biver Lairet with the St. Charles.
1636.] WINTER MISERIES.- MARVELLOUS CURES. 195
begone followers, who, haggard, reeling, bloated with their maladies, moved in procession to the spot, and, kneeling in the snow, sang litanies and psalms of David. That day died Philippe Rougemont, of Am- boise, aged twenty-two years. The Holy Virgin deigned no other response.
There was fear that the Indians, learnino- their mis-
~
ery, might finish the work the scurvy had begun. None of them, therefore, was allowed to approach the fort ; and when, perchance, a party of savages lingered within hearing, Carder forced his invalid garrison to beat with sticks and stones against the walls, that their dangerous neighbors, deluded by the clatter, might think them vigorously engaged in hard labor. These objects of their fear proved, however, the instruments of their salvation. Cartier, walking one day near the river, met an Indian, who not long before had been prostrate like many of his fellows with the scurvy, but who now, to all appearance, was in high health and spirits. What agency had wrought this marvellous recovery t According to the Indian, it was a. certain evergreen, called by him amcda? of which a decoction of the leaves was sovereign against the disease. The experi- ment was tried. The sick men drank copiously of the healing draught, — so copiously indeed that in six days they drank a tree as large as a French oak. Thus vigorously assailed, the distemper relaxed its hold, and health and hope began to revisit the hapless company.
1 "Ameda," in, the edition of 1545; "annedda," in Lcscarbot, Ternaux- Compans, and Faribault. The wonderful tree seems to have been a •pruce.
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1536.
When this winter of misery had worn away, when spring appeared, and the ships were thawed from their icy fetters, Cartier prepared to return. He had made notable discoveries, but these were as nothing to the tales of wonder that had reached his ear, — of a land of gold and rubies, of a nation white like the French, of men who lived without food, and of others to whom Nature had granted but one leg. Should he stake his credit on these marvels ? Far better that they who had recounted them to him should, with their own lips, recount them also to the King. To this end, he resolved that Donnacona and his chiefs should go with him to court. He lured them therefore to the fort, and led them into an ambuscade of sailors, who, seizing the astonished guests, hurried them on board the ships. This treachery accomplished, the voyagers proceeded to plant the emblem of Christianity. The cross was raised, the fleur-de-lis hung upon it, and, spreading their sails, they steered for home. It was the sixteenth of July, 1536, when Cartier again cast anchor under the walls of St. Malo.1
A rigorous climate, a savage people, a fatal disease, a soil barren of gold, — these were the allurements of New France. Nor were the times auspicious for a renewal of the enterprise. Charles the Fifth, flushed
1 Of the original edition of the narrative of this voyage, that of 1545, only one copy is known, — that in the British Museum. It is styled Brief Reeit, $• succincte narration, de la nauigation faicte es ysles de Canada, Hochelage 8f SaguenaySf autres, auec particulieres incurs, langaige, $• ceremonies des habitans d'icelles ; fort delectable a veoir. As may be gathered from the title, the style and orthography are those of the days of Rabelais. It has been reprinted (1863) with valuable notes by M. d'Avezac.
'541.J ROBERVAL. ] m
with his African triumphs, challenged the Most Chris- tian King to single combat. The war flamed forth with renewed fury, and ten years elapsed before a hollow truce varnished the hate of the royal rivals with a thin pretence of courtesy. Peace returned; but Fran- cis, under the scourge of his favorite goddess, was sinking to his ignominious grave, and Chabot, patron of the former voyages, was in disgrace.1
Meanwhile, .the ominous adventure of New France had found a champion in the person of Jean Francois de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, a nobleman of Picardy. Though a man of high account in his own province, his past 'honors paled before the splendor of the titles said to have been now conferred on him, — Lord of Norembega, Viceroy and Lieutenant - General in Can- ada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Carpunt, Labrador,2 the Great Bay, and Baccalaos. To
1 Brantome, II. 283 ; Anquctil, V. 397 ; Sismondi, XVII. 62.
2 Labrador — Laboratoris Tirra — is so called from the circumstance that Cortereal in the year 1500 stole thence a cargo of Indians for slaves. Belle Isle and Carpunt, — the strait and islands between Labrador and Newfoundland. The Great Bay, — the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Norem- bega, or Norumbega. more properly called Arambec, (Hakluyt, III. 167,f was, in Kamusio's map, the country embraced within Nova Scotia, south- ern New Brunswick, and a part of Maine. De Laet confines it to a dis- trict about the mouth of the Penobscot. Wytfleit and other early writers say that it had a capital city, of the same name ; and in several old maps, this fabulous metropolis is laid down, with towers and churches, on the River Penobscot. The word is of Indian origin.
'Before me is the commission of Uoberval. "/,<ttres Patentcs accorde'esa Jditm FrancMjs de la R^ne Sr de Hobtrcal," copied from the French ar- chives. Here he is simply styled, " noire Lieutenant-General, Cliff Ducteur et Cd/'/iitdiiif (I- In d. fiiirefirinse." The patent is in Lescarbot (1(518). In (lie Archives <k- la Bihliotheque puhliqiie de Rouen, an edict is preserved luthorizing Koberval to raise " une arinc'e ik> volontaires uvec victuailles, ju-tillerie, etc. pour aller au pays de Canada." 17*
1QS EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. {i541.
this windy gift of ink and parchment was added a solid grant from the royal treasury with which five vessels were procured and equipped, and to Cartier was given the post of Captain - General. His commission sets forth the objects of the enterprise, — discovery, settle- ment, and the conversion of the Indians, who are de- scribed as " men without knowledge of God or use of reason," — a pious design held, doubtless, in full sincer- ity by the royal profligate, now, in his decline, a fervent champion of the Faith and a strenuous tormentor of heretics. The machinery of conversion was of a char- acter somewhat questionable, since Cartier was empow- ered to ransack the prisons for thieves, robbers, and other malefactors, to complete his crews and strengthen his colony.1 Of the expected profits of the voyage the adventurers were to have one third and the King an- other, while the remainder was to be reserved towards defraying expenses.
With respect to Donnacona and his tribesmen, basely kidnapped at Stadacone, excellent care had been taken of their souls. In due time they had been baptized, and soon reaped the benefit of the rite, since they all died within a year or two, to the great detriment, as it proved, of the expedition.2
1 See the Commission, Lescarbot, I. 411, (1C12) ; Hazard, T. 19.
2 M. Charles Cunat a M. L. Uocins, Malre de St. Malo, MS. This is a report of researches made by M. Cunat in 1844 in the archives of St. Malo.
Extrait Baptistaire des Sauvages amends en France par honneste homme Jacqutt Cartier, MS.
Thevet says that he knew Donnacona in France, and found him " a good Christian."
3541.] SPANISH JEALOUSY.
Meanwhile, from beyond the Pyrenees, the Most Catholic King, with alarmed and jealous eye, watched the preparations of his Most Christian enemy. Amer- ica, in his eyes, was one vast province of Spain, to he vigilantly guarded agamst the intruding foreigner. To what end were men mustered, and ships fitted out in the Breton seaports ^ Was it for colonization, and, if so, where 1 In Southern Florida, or on the frozen shores of Baccalaos, of which Breton cod-fishers claimed the discovery 1 Or would the French build forts on the Bahamas, whence they could waylay the gold ships in the Bahama Channel \ Or was the expedition destined against the Spanish settlements of the islands or the Main ? Reinforcements were despatched in haste ; a spy was sent to France, who, passing from port to port, Quimper, St. Malo, Brest, Morlaix, came back freighted with strangelv exaggerated tales of mighty preparation. The Council of the Indies was called. " The French are bound for Baccalaos," — such was the substance of their report ; — " your Majesty will do well to send two caravels to watch their movements, and a force to take possession of the said country. And since there is no other money to pay for it, the gold from Peru, now at Panama, might be used to that end." The Cardinal of Seville thought lightly of the danger, and prophe- sied that the French would reap nothing from their enterprise but disappointment and loss. The King of Portugal, sole acknowledged partner with Spain in the ownership of the New World, was invited by the Spanish ambassador to take part in an expedition
<200 EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1541.
against the encroaching1 French. " They can do no harm at Baccalaos," was the cold reply; "and so," adds the indignant ambassador, " the King would say if they should come and take him here at Lisbon ; such is the softness they show here on the one hand, while, on the other, they wish to give law to the whole world." l
/The five ships, occasions of this turmoil and alarm, had lain at St. Malo awaiting certain cannon and muni- tions from Normandy and Champagne. They waited in vain, and as the King's orders were stringent jigainst delay, it was resolved that Cartier should sail at once, leaving Roberval to follow with additional ships when the needful supplies arrived.
On the twenty-third of May, 154- 1,2 the Breton cap- tain again .spread his canvas for New France. The Atlantic was safely passed, the fog-banks of Newfound- land, the island rocks clouded with screaming1 sea-fowl,
' O .
the forests breathing piny odors from the shore. Again he passed in review the grand scenery of the St. Law- rence, and again cast anchor beneath the cliffs of Que- bec. Canoes came out from shore filled with feathered savages inquiring for their kidnapped chiefs. " Don- nacona," replied Cartier, "is dead;" but he added the politic falsehood that the others had married in France and lived in state, like great lords. The Indians pre- tended to be satisfied; but it was soon apparent that they looked askance on the perfidious strangers.
1 See the documents on tins subject in the Coleccian de Varios Docu- mentos of Buckingham Smith, I. 107-112. 8 Hakluyt's date, 1540, is incorrect
1541.] CAKT1ER AT CAP ROUGE.
Cartier pursued his course, sailed three leagues and a half up the St. Lawrence, and anchored again off the mouth of the River of Cap Rouge. It was late in August, and the leafy landscape sweltered in the sun. They landed, picked up quartz crystals on the shore and thought them diamonds, climhed the steep promon- tory, drank at the spring near the top, looked abroad on the wooded slopes beyond the little river, waded through the tall grass of the meadow, found a quarry of slate, and gathered scales of a yellow mineral which glistened like gold, then took to their boats, crossed to the south shore of the St. Lawrence, and, languid with the heat, rested in the shade of forests laced with an entanglement of grape-vines.
Now their task began, and while some cleared off the woods and sowed turnip-seed, others cut a zigzag road up the height, and others built two forts, one at the summit, one on the shore below. The forts finished, the Vicomte de Beaupre took command, while Cartier went with two boats to explore the rapids above Hoche- laga. When at length he returned, the autumn was far advanced; and with the gloom of a Canadian No- vember came distrust, foreboding, and homesickness. Roberval had not appeared ; the Indians kept jealously aloof; the motley colony was sullen as the dull, raw air around it. There was disgust and ire at Charlesbourg- Royal, for so the place was called.1
1 The original narrative of this voyage is fragmentary, and exists only in the translation of Hakluyt. Purchas, Belknap, Forstcr, Chalmers, and the other secondary writers, all draw from this source. The narrative
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1542.
Meanwhile, unexpected delays had detained the impa- tient Roberval ; nor was it until the sixteenth of April, 154$, that, with three ships and two hundred colonists, he set sail from Rochelle. When, on the eighth of June, he entered the harbor of St. John, he found seventeen fishing-vessels lying there at anchor. Soon after, he descried three other sail rounding the entrance of the haven, and, with wrath and amazement, recog- nized the ships of Jacques Carder. That voyager had broken up his colony and abandoned New France What motives had prompted a desertion little consonant with the resolute spirit of the man it is impossible to say, — whether sickness within, or Indian enemies with- out, disgust with an enterprise whose unripened fruits had proved so hard and bitter, or discontent at finding himself reduced to a post of subordination in a country which he had discovered and where he had commanded. The Viceroy ordered him to return; but Cartier escaped with his vessels under cover of night, and made sail for France, carrying with him as trophies a few quartz dia- monds from Cap Roirge, and grains of sham gold from the neighboring slate ledges. Thus pitifully closed the active career of this notable explorer. His discoveries had gained for him a patent of nobility. He owned the seigniorial mansion of Limoilou,1 a rude structure of stone still standing. Here, and in the neighboring
published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec is the Eng- lish version of Ilakluyt retranslated into French.
1 Archives de St. Malo, MSS. Extracts were made for the writer by Mr. Poore. See note at end of chapter.
1542.] MARGUERITE.
town of St. Malo, where also he had a house, he seems to have lived for many years.
Roberval, abandoned, once more set sail, steering northward to the Straits of Belle Isle and the dreaded Isle of Demons. And here an incident befell which the all-believing Thevet records in manifest good faith, and which, stripped of the adornments of superstition and a love of the marvellous, has without doubt a nucleus of truth. I give the tale as I find it.
The Viceroy's company was of a mixed complexion. There were nobles, officers, soldiers, sailors, adventur- ers, with women, too, and children. Of the women, some were of birth and station, and among them a damsel called Marguerite, a niece of Roberval himself. In the ship was a young gentleman who had embarked for love of her. His love was too well requited; and the stern Viceroy, scandalized and enraged at a passion which scorned concealment and set shame at defiance, cast anchor by the haunted island, landed his indiscreet relative, gave her four arquebuses for defence, and, with an old Norman nurse who had pandered to the lovers, left her to her fate. Her gallant threw himself into the surf, and by desperate effort gained the shore, with two more guns and a supply of ammunition. The ship weighed anchor, receded, vanished ; they were left alone. Yet not so, for the demon-lords of the island beset them day and night, raging around their hut with a confused and hungry clamoring, striving to force the frail barrier. The lovers had repented of their sin, though not abandoned it, and Heaven was on their side.
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1542.
The saints vouchsafed their aid, and the offended Vir- gin, relenting, held before them her protecting shield. In the form of beasts or other shapes abominably and unutterably hideous, the brood of hell, howling in baffled fury, tore at the branches of the sylvan dwell- ing; but a celestial hand was ever interposed, and there was a viewless barrier which they might not pass. Mar- guerite became pregnant. Here was a double prize, two souls in one, mother and child. The fiends grew frantic, but all in vain. She stood undaunted amid these horrors; but her lover, dismayed and heart-broken, sickened and died. Her child soon followed ; then the old Norman nurse found her unhallowed rest in that accursed soil, and Marguerite was left alone. Neither her reason nor her courage failed. When the demons assailed her, she shot at them with her gun, but they answered with hellish merriment, and thenceforth she placed her trust in Heaven alone. There were foes around her of the upper, no less than of the nether world. Of these, the bears were the most redoubtable, yet, being vulnerable to mortal weapons, she killed three of them, all, says the story, "as white as an egg."
It was two years and five months from her landing on the island, when, far out at sea, the crew of a small fishing- craft saw a column of smoke curling upward from, the haunted shore. Was it a device of the fiends to lure them to their ruin 1 They thought so, and kept aloof. But misgiving seized them. They warily drew near, and descried a female figure in wild attire waving signals from the strand. Thus at length was
1642.] ROBERVAL AT CAP ROUGE.
Marguerite rescued and restored to her native France, where, a few years later, the OQBinographer Thevet met her at Natron in Perigord, and heard the tale of won der from her own lips.1
Having left his offending niece to the devils and bears of the Isle of Demons, Roberval held his course up the St. Lawrence, and dropped anchor hefore the heights of Cap Rouge. His company landed ; there were bivouacs along the strand, a hubbub of pick and spade, axe, saw, and hammer ; and soon in the wilderness up- rose a goodly structure, half barrack, half castle, with two towers, two spacious halls, a kitchen, chambers, store-rooms, workshops, cellars, garrets, a well, an oven, and two water-mills. It stood on that bold acclivity where Cartier had before intrenched himself, the St. Lawrence in front, and, on the right, the River of Cap Rouge. Here all the colony housed under the same roof, like one of the experimental communities of recent days, — officers, soldiers, nobles, artisans, laborers, and convicts, with the women and children, in whom lay the future hope of New France.
1 The story is taken from the curious MS. of 1580. Compare the Cosmoijraphle of The vet, (1575,) II. c. VI. Thevet was the personal friend botli of Cartier and of Roberval, the latter of whom he calls " mon familier," and the former " mon ;/rand et singiilier ami/." He says that he lived five months with Cartier in his house at St. Malo. He was also a friend of Rabelais, who once, in Italy, rescued him from a serious embarrassment. See the Notice Biographi(/ue prefixed to the edition of Rabelais of Burgaud des Marets and Rathery.
In the Routier of Jean Alphonse, Roberval's pilot, where the prindpal points of the voyage are set down, repeated mention is made of " les Islet de la Demoiselle," immediately north of Newfoundland. The inference is obvious that the demoiselle was Marguerite. 18
EARLY FRENCH ADVENTURE. [1W2.
Experience and forecast had alike been wanting. There were storehouses, but no stores ; mills, but no grist; an ample oven, and a vvoful dearth of bread. It was only when two of the ships had sailed for France that they took account of their provision and discovered its lamentable shortcoming. Winter and famine fol- 'lowed. They bought fish from the Indians, dug roots, and boiled them in whale-oil. Disease broke out, and, before spring, killed one third of the colony. The rest would fain have quarrelled, mutinied, and otherwise aggravated their inevitable woes, but disorder was dan- gerous under the iron rule of the inexorable Roberval. Michel Gaillon was detected in a petty theft, and forth- with hanged. Jean de Nantes, for a more venial offence, was kept in irons. The quarrels of men, the scolding of women, were alike requited at the whip- ping-post, " by which means," quaintly says the narra- tive, " they lived in peace."
Thevet, while calling himself the intimate friend of the Viceroy, gives to his story a darker coloring. Forced to unceasing labor, and chafed by arbitrary rules, some of the soldiers fell under his displeasure, and six of them, formerly his favorites, were hanged in one day. Others were banished to an island, and there held in fetters; while for various light offences, several, both men and women, were shot. Even the Indians were moved to pity, and wept at the sight of their woes.1
And here, midway, our guide deserts us ; the an- cient narrative is broken, and the latter part is lost, leav- i Thevet MS. 1586.
1542.] DEATH OF ROBERVAL.
ing us to divine as we may the future of the ill-starred colony. That it did not long survive is certain. It is said that the King, in great need of * Roberval, sent Cartier to bring him home.1 It is said, too, that, in after-years, the Viceroy essayed to repossess himself of his Transatlantic domain, and lost his life in the at- tempt.2 Thevet, on the other hand, with ample means of learning the truth, affirms that Roberval was slani at night, near the Church of the Innocents, in the heart of Paris.3
With him closes the prelude of the French-Amer- ican drama. Tempestuous years were in store for France, and a reign of blood and fire. The Religious Wars begot the hapless colony of Florida, but for more than half a century left New France a desert. Order rose at length out of the sanguinary chaos ; the zeal of discovery and the spirit of commercial enter- prise once more awoke, while, closely following, more potent than they, moved the black-robed forces of the Roman Catholic reaction.
1 Lescarbot, (1612.) I. 416.
2 Le Clerc, Eiablissement de la Foy, L 14.
. — The Manor House of Cartier. This curious relic, which in 1865 was still entire, in the suburbs of St. Malo, was as rude in construc- tion as an ordinary farmhouse. It had only a kitchen and a hall below, and two rooms above. At the side was a small stable, and, opposite, a barn. These buildings, together with two heavy stone walls, enclosed a square court. Adjacent, was a garden and an orchard. The whole indicates a rough and simple way of life. See Rame', Notesur le Manoir de Jacques Cartier.
CHAPTER II.
1542—1604.
E '
LA ROCHE. fHAMPLAIN. DE MONTS.
FRENCH FISHERMEN AND FUR -TRADERS. — LA ROCHE. — THE CONVICTS OF SAHLE ISLAND. — TADOUSSAC. — SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN. — VISITS THE WEST INDIES AND MEXICO. — EXPLORES THE ST. LAWRENCE. — DE MONTS. — His ACADIAN SCHEMES.
i
YEARS rolled on. France, long tossed among the surges of civil commotion, plunged at last into a gulf of fratricidal war. Blazing hamlets, sacked cities, fields steaming with slaughter, profaned altars, rav- ished maidens, a carnival of steel and fire, marked the track of the tornado. There was little room for schemes of foreign enterprise. Yet, far aloof from siege and hattle, the fishermen of the Western ports still plied their craft on the Banks of Newfoundland. Hu- manity, morality, decency, might be forgotten, hut cod- fish must still be had for the use of the faithful on Lent and fast days. Still the wandering Esquimaux saw the Norman and Breton sails hovering around some lonely headland, or anchored in fleets in the harbor of St. John ; and still, through salt spray and driving mist, .the fisherman dragged up the .riches of the sea.
In 1578, there were a hundred and fifty French fish- ing-vessels at Newfoundland, besides two hundred of other nations, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Added
1586.] FRENCH FISHERMEN AND FUR-TRADERS. gQQ
to these were twenty or thirty Biscayan whalers.1 In 1607, there was an old French fisherman at Canseau who had voyaged to these seas for forty-two successive years.2
But if the wilderness of ocean had its treasures, so too, had the wilderness of woods. It needed but a fe\v knives, beads, and trinkets, and the Indians would throng to the shore burdened with the spoils of their winter hunting;. Fishermen threw up their old vocation
O I
for the more lucrative trade in bear-skins and beaver- skins. They built rude huts along the shores of Anti- costi, where, at that day, the bison, it is said, could be seen wallowing in the sands.8 They outraged the In- dians ; they quarrelled with each other ; and this in- fancy of the Canadian fur-trade showed rich promise of the disorders which marked its riper growth. Oth- ers, meanwhile, were ranging the gulf in search of walrus- tusks; and, the year after the battle of Ivry St. Malo sent out a fleet of small craft in quest of, this new prize.
In all the western seaports, merchants and adventur- ers turned their eyes towards America; not, like the
1 Ilnkluyt, III. 132. Comp. Pinkerton, Voyayes, XII. 174, and Theret MS. (1580).
2 Lesearbot, II. 605. Purchns's date is wrong.
8 Thevet MS. (1586). Tlievet says that he had himself seen them. Perhaps lie confounds them with the moose.
In 15t>5, and for some years previous, bison-skins were brought by the Indians down the Potomac, and thence carried along-shore in canoes to the French about the Gulf of St. Lawrence. During two years, six thou- sand skins were thus obtained. Letters of Pedro MenenJez to Philip IL MSS.
Ou tho fur-trade, see Hakluyt, III. 187, 193, 233, 292, etc. 18 »
LA ROCHE. — CHAMPLAIN. — DE MONTS. |1598.
Spaniards, seeking treasures of silver and gold, but the more modest gains of codfish and train-oil, beaver- skins and marine ivory. St. Malo was conspicuous above them all. The rugged Bretons loved the perils of the sea, and saw with a jealous eye every attempt to shackle their activity on this its favorite field. When two nephews of Carder, urging the great services of their uncle, gained a monopoly of the American fur» trade for twelve years, such a clamor arose within the walls of St. Malo that the obnoxious grant was promptly revoked.1
But soon a power was in the field against which all St. Malo might clamor in vain. A Catholic nobleman of Brittany, the Marquis de la Roche, bargained with the King to colonize New France. On his part, he was to receive* a monopoly of the_Jxade, and a profusion of worthless titles and empty privileges. He was declared Lieutenant-General of Canada, Hochelaga, Newfound- land, Labrador, and the countries adjacent, with_sover- power within his vast and ill-defined domain. He
could levy troops, declare war and peace, make laws, punish or pardon at will, build cities, forts, and castles, and grant out lands in fiefs, seigniories, counties, vis- counties, and baronies.2 Thus was effete and cumbrous feudalism to make a lodgment in the New World. It was a scheme of high-sounding promise, but, in per- formance, less than contemptible. La Roche ransacked
1 Lescarbot, I. 418. Compare Rame", Documents Ine'dits, 10. In Hak- luyt are two letters of Jacques Noel, one of Carder's nephews.
'>• Lettres Patentes pour le Sieur de la Roche ; Lescarbot, I. 422 ; Edits et Oi'donnances, (Quebec, 1804,) II. 4.
1598.] THE CONVICTS OF SABLE ISLAND.
the prisons, and, gathering thence a gang of thieves and desperadoes, embarked them in a small vessel, and set sail to plant Christianity and civilization in the West. Suns rose and set, and the wretched hark, deep freighted with brutality and vice, held on her course. She was so small, that the convicts, leaning over her side, could wash their hands in the water.1 At length, on the gray horizon they descried a long, gray line of ridgy saild. It was Sable Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia. A wreck lay stranded on the beach, and the surges broke ominously over the long, submerged arms of sand, stretched far out into the sea on the right hand and on the left.
Here La Roche landed the convicts, forty in number, while, with his more trusty followers, he sailed to ex- plore the neighboring coasts and choose a site for the capital of his new dominion. Thither, in due time, he proposed to remove the prisoners. But suddenly a tempest from the west assailed him. The frail vessel was at its mercy. She must run before the gale, which, howling on her track, drove her off the coast, and chased her back towards France.
Meanwhile the convicts watched in suspense for the returning sail. Days passed, weeks passed, and still they strained their eyes in vain across the waste of ocean. La Roche had left them to their fate. Rue- ful and desperate, they wandered among the sand-hills, through the stunted whortleberry - bushes, the rank sand -grass, and the tangled cranberry- vines which
* Lescarbot, I. 421.
LA ROCHE. — CHAMPLAIN. — DE MONTS. [1603.
filled the hollows. Not a tree was to be seen ; but they built huts of the fragments of the wreck. For food, they caught fish in the surrounding sea, and hunted the cattle which ran wild about the island, sprung, perhaps, from those left here eighty years before by the Baron de Lery.1 They killed seals, trapped black foxes, and clothed themselves in their skins. Their native instincts clung to them in their exile. As if not content with their inevitable miseries, they quarrelled and murdered each other. Season after season dragged on. Five years elapsed, and, of the forty, only twelve were left alive. Sand, sea, and sky, — there was little else around them ; though, to break the dead monotony, the walrus would sometimes rear his half human face and glistening sides on the reefs and sand-bars. At length, on the far verge of the watery desert, they descried a rising sail. She stood on towards the island ; a boat's crew landed on the beach, and the excited exiles were once more among their countrymen. When La Roche returned to France, the fate of his followers sat heavy on his mind. But the day of his prosperity was gone forever. A host of enemies rose against him and his privileges. The Duke de Mer- coeur, who still made head against the crown, and claimed sovereign power in Brittany, seized him and threw him into prison. In time, however, he gained a hearing of the King, and the Norman pilot Chedo- tel was despatched to bring the outcasts home. When
1 Lescarbot, I. 22. Compare De Laet, 1. II. c. IV. etc. Cliarlevoix and Champlain say that they escaped from the wreck of a Spanish ves- sel; Furchas, that they were left by the Portuguese.
1699.] PONTGRAVE AND CHAUVIN.
they arrived in France, Henry the Fourth summoned them into his presence. They stood before him, says an old writer, like river -gods of yore ; l for, from head to foot they were clothed in shaggy skins, and beards of prodigious length hung from their swarthy faces. They had accumulated, on their island, a quan- tity of valuable furs. Of these Chedotel had robbed them ; but the pilot was forced to disgorge his prey, and, with the aid of a bounty from the King, they were enabled to embark on their own account in the Cana- dian trade.2 To their leader, fortune was less kind. Broken by disaster and imprisonment, La Roche died miserably.
Tn the mean time, on the ruin of La Roche's enter- prise, a new one had been begun. Pontgrave, a mer- chant of St. Malo, leagued himself with Chauvin, a captain of the marine, who had influence at court. A patent was granted to them, with the condition that they should colonize the country. But their only thought was to enrich themselves.
At Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, under the shadow of savage and inaccessible rocks, feathered with pines, firs, and birch-trees, they built a cluster of wooden huts and storehouses. Here they left sixteen men to gather the expected harvest of furs. Before the winter was over, several of them were dead, and the rest scattered through the woods, living on the charity of the Indians.8
1 Charlevoix, I. 109 ; GueYin, Navigateun Franfais, 210.
2 Turchas, IV. 1807.
8 Champlain, ( 1632,) 34 ; Charlevoix, 1. 110 ; Estancelin, 96. Bergeron, Traitt de la Navigation, places the voyage of La Roche in 1578
tA ROCHE.— CHAMPLAIN.—DE MONTS. |1603.
But a new era had dawned on France. Wearied and exhausted with thirty years of conflict, she had sunk at last to a repose, uneasy and disturbed, yet the harbinger of recovery. The rugged soldier whom, for the weal of France and of mankind, Providence had cast to the troubled surface of affairs, was throned in the Louvre, composing the strife of factions and the quarrels of his mistresses. The bear-hunting prince of the Pyrenees wore the crown of France ; and to this day, as one gazes on the time-worn front of the Tuile- ries, above all other memories rises the small, strong figure, the brow wrinkled with cares of love and war, the bristling moustache, the grizzled beard, the bold, vig- orous, and withal somewhat odd features of the moun- taineer of Beam. To few has human liberty owed so deep a gratitude or so deep a grudge. Little did he care for creeds or systems. Impressible, quick in sympathy, his grim lip lighted often with a smile, and his war-worn cheek was no stranger to a tear. He forgave his enemies, and forgot his friends. Many loved him ; none but fools trusted him. Mingled of mortal good and ill, frailty and force, of all the kings who for two centuries and more sat on the throne of France Henry the Fourth alone was a man.
Art, industry, commerce, so long crushed and over- borne, were stirring into renewed life, and a crowd of adventurous men, nurtured in war and incapable of repose, must seek employment for their restless ener- gies in fields of peaceful enterprise.
Two small, quaint vessels, not larger than the fishing-
15SI8.] SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN
craft of Gloucester and Marblehead, — one was of twelve, the other of fifteen tons, — held their way across the treacherous Atlantic, passed the tempestuous head- lands of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence, and, with adventurous knight-errantry, glided deep into the heart of the Canadian wilderness. On board of one of them was the Breton merchant, Pontgrave, and with him a man of spirit widely different, a Catholic gentleman of Saintonge, Samuel de Champlain, born in 1567 at the small seaport of Brouage on the Bay of Biscay. He was a captain in the royal navy, but, during the war, he had fought for the King in Brittany, under the banners of D'Aumont de St. Luc and Brissac. His purse was small, his merit great ; and Henry the Fourth out of his own slender revenues had given him a pension to maintain him near his person. But rest was penance to him. The war in Brittany was over. 'The rebellious Duke de Mercosur was reduced to obe- dience, and the royal army disbanded. Champlain, his occupation gone, conceived a design consonant with his adventurous nature. He would visit the West Indies, and bring back to the King a report of those regions of mystery whence Spanish jealousy excluded foreigners, and where every intruding Frenchman was threatened with death. Here much knowledge was to be won, much peril to be met. The joint attraction was resistless.
The Spaniards, allies of the vanquished Leaguers, were about to evacuate Blavet, their last stronghold in Brittany. Thither Champlain repaired; and here he
LA ROCHE. — CHAMPLAIN. — DE MONTS. [1600.
found an uncle, who had charge of the French fleet destined to take on board the Spanish garrison. Cham- plain embarked with them, and, reaching Cadiz, suc- ceeded, with the aid of his relative, who had just ac- cepted the post of Pilot-General of the Spanish marine, in gaining command of one of the ships about to sail for the West Indies under Don Francisco Colombo.
At Dieppe there is a curious old manuscript, iu clear, decisive, and somewhat formal handwriting of the six- teenth century, garnished with sixty - one colored pic- tures, in a style of art which a child of ten might emu- late. Here one may see ports, harbors, islands, rivers, adorned with portraitures of birds, beasts, and fishes thereto pertaining. Here are Indian feasts and dances ; Indians flogged by priests for not attending mass ; In- dians burned alive for heresy, six in one fire ; Indians working the silver mines. Here, too, are descriptions of natural objects, each with its illustrative sketch,- some drawn from life, some from memory, — as, for
example, a chameleon with two legs, others from
hearsay, among which is the portrait of the griffin said to haunt certain districts of Mexico, a monster with the wings of a bat, the head of an eagle, and the tail of an alligator.
This is Champlain's journal, written and illustrated by his own hand, in that defiance of perspective and absolute independence of the canons of Art, which mark the earliest efforts of the pencil.
A true hero, after the chivalrous mediaeval type, his character was dashed largely with the spirit of romance.
1600.] CHAMPLAIN IN THE WEST INDIES.
Earnest, sagacious, penetrating, he yet leaned to the marvellous ; and the faith which was the life of his hard career was somewhat prone to overstep the bounds of reason and invade the alluring domain of fancy. Hence the erratic character of some of his exploits, and hence his simple faith in the Mexican griffin.
His West-Indian adventure occupied him two years and a half. He visited the principal ports of the islands, made plans and sketches of them all, after his fashion, and then, landing at Vera Cruz, journeyed inland to the city of Mexico. Returning, lie made his way to Pan- ama. Here, more than two centuries and a half a«o.
* C* *
his hold and active mind conceived the plan of a ship- canal across the isthmus, " by which," he says, "the voyage to the South Sea would be shortened by more than fifteen hundred leagues." ]
Returning, he repaired to court, but soon wearied of the antechambers of the Louvre. Here, however, his destiny awaited him, and the \\'ork of his life was
1 " .... Ton accourciroit par ainsy le chemin de plus de 1500 licues, ct depuis Panama jusques au destroit dc Magellan se seroit unc isle, et de Panama jusques aux Terres Neufves une autre isle," etc. — Cham- plain, Bref Discours, MS. A Biscayan pilot had before suggested the plan to the Spanish government ; but Philip the Second, probably in the interest of certain monopolies, forbade the subject to be again brought forward on pain of death.
Tl»e journal is entitled, " Bref Discours des Choses plus Hemarquables que Samuel Chainplain de Brouagearecognues aux Indes Occidentales." The original MS., in Champlain's handwriting, is, or was, in the hands of M. Feret of Dieppe, a collateral descendant of the writer's patron, the Commander de Chastes. It consists of a hundred and fifteen small quarto pages. I am indebted to M. Jacques Viger for the use of his copy.
•A translation of it was published in 1859, by the Hakluyt Society, with notes and a biographical notice by no means remarkable for accuracy.
gig LA ROCHE. - CHAML'LAIN. — DE MONTS. [1G03.
unfolded. Aymar de Chastes, Commander of the Or- der of St. John and Governor of Dieppe, a gray-haired veteran of the civil wars, would fain mark his closing1 days with some notable achievement for France and the Church. To no man was the King more deeply beholden. In his darkest hour, when the hosts of the League were gathering round him, when friends were falling off', and the Parisians, exulting in his certain ruin, were hiring the windows of the Rue St. Antoine to see him led to the Bastille, De Chastes, without condition or reserve, gave up to him the town and castle of Dieppe. Thus he was enabled to fight be- neath its walls the battle of Arques, the first in the series of successes which secured his triumph ; and he had be.en heard to say that to this friend in his adver- sity he owed his own salvation and that of France.
Though a foe of the League, the old soldier was a devout Catholic, and it seemed in his eyes a noble con- summation of his fife to plant the cross and the fleur- de-lis in the wilderness of New France. Chauvin was dead, after wasting the lives of a score or more of men in a second and a third attempt to establish the fur- trade at Tadoussac. De Chastes came to court to beg a patent of Henry the Fourth, " and," says his friend Champlain, " though his head was crowned with gray hairs as with years, he resolved to proceed to New France in person, and dedicate the rest of his days to the service of God and his King."
The patent, costing nothing, was readily granted ; and De Chastes, to meet the expenses of the enterprise, and
1603.] DE CHASTES AND CHAMPLAIN.
perhaps forestall the jealousies which his monopoly would awaken among the keen merchants of tire west- ern ports, formed a company with the more prominent of them. Pontgrave, who had some knowledge of the country, was chosen to make a preliminary explo- ration.
This was the time when Champlain, fresh from the West Indies, appeared at court. De Chastes knew him well. Young, ardent, yet ripe in experience, a skilful seaman and a practised soldier, he above all others was a man for the enterprise. He had many con- ferences with the veteran, under whom he had served in the royal fleet off the coast of Brittany. De Chastes urged him to accept a post in his new company ; and Champlain, nothing loath, consented, provided always that permission should be had from the King, " to whom," he says, " I was bound no less by birth than by the pension with which His Majesty honored me." To the King, therefore, De Chastes repaired. The needful consent was gained, and, armed with a letter to Pontgrave, Champlain set forth for Honfleur. Here he found his destined companion, and, embarking with him as we have seen, they spread their sails for the West.
Like specks on the broad bosom of the waters, the two pigmy vessels held their course up the lonely St. Lawrence. They passed abandoned Tadoussac, the channel of Orleans, and the gleaming sheet of Montmo- renci ; they passed the tenantless rock of Quebec, the wide Lake of St. Peter, and its crowded archipelago,
£00 LA ROCHE. — CHAMPLAIN. -DE MONTS. [1G03.
till now the mountain reared before them its rounded shoulder above the forest-plain of Montreal. All was solitude. Hochelaga had vanished; and of the savage population that Cartier had found here, sixty - eight years before, no trace remained. In its place were a few wandering Algonquins, of different tongue and lin- eage. In a skiff, with a few Indians, Cham plain es- sayed to pass the rapids of St. Louis. Oars, paddles, poles, alike proved vain against the foaming surges, and he was forced to return. On the deck of his ves- sel, the Indians made rude plans of the river above, with its chain of rapids, its lakes and cataracts ; and the baffled explorer turned his prow homeward, the objects of his mission accomplished, but his own adven- turous curiosity unsated. When the voyagers reached Havre de Grace, a grievous blow awaited them. The Commander de Chastes was dead.1
His mantle fell upon Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, Gentleman in Ordinary of the King's Chamber, and Governor of Pons. Undaunted by the fate of La Roche, this nobleman petitioned the king for leave to colonize La Cadie, or Acadie,2 a region defined as ex-
1 Champlain, Des Saucages, (1604). Champlain's Indian informants gave him very confused accounts. They indicated the Falls of Niagara as a mere " rapid." They are laid down, however, in Champlain's great map of 1632 with the following note: — " Sault d'eau au bout du Sault [Lac] Sainct Louis fort hault oil plusieurs sortes de poissons descendans s'estourdissent."
2 This name is not found in any earlier public document. It was after- wards restricted to the peninsula of Nova Scotia, but the dispute concern- ing the limits of Acadia was a proximate cause of the war of 1755.
The word is said to be derived from the Indian Aquoddiauke, or Ar/uod- die, meaning the fish called a pollock. The Bay of Passamaquoddy,
1604.] SCHEMES OF DE MONTS.
tending from the fortieth to the forty -sixth degree of north latitude, or from Philadelphia to beyond Mon- treal. The King's minister, Sully, as he himself tells us, opposed the plan, on the ground that the coloniza- tion of this northern wilderness would never repay the outlay ; but De Monts gained his point. He was made Lieutenant-General in Acadia with viceregal powers; and withered Feudalism, with her antique forms and tinselled follies, was again to seek a home among the rocks and pine-trees of Nova Scotia. The foundation of the enterprise was a monopoly of the fur -trade, and in its favor all past grants were unceremoniously annulled. St. Malo, Rouen, Dieppe, Rochelle, greeted the announcement with unavailing outcries. Patents granted and revoked, monopolies decreed and extin- guished, had involved the unhappy traders in ceaseless embarrassment. De Monts, however, preserved De Chastes's old company, and enlarged it, thus making ' the chief malecontents sharers in his exclusive rights, and converting them from enemies into partners.
A clause in his commission empowered him to im- press idlers and vagabonds as material for his colony, an ominous provision of which he largely availed him- self. His company was strangely incongruous. The best and the meanest of France were crowded together in his two ships. Here were thieves and ruffians dragged on board by force, and here were many volun- teers of condition and character, the Baron de Pou-
•' great pollock water," derives its name from the same origin. Totter in Historical Magazine, I. 84. 19 »
LA ROCHE. - CHAMPLAIN. — DE MONTS. [1604.
triucourt and the indefatigable Champlain. Here, too, were Catholic priests and Huguenot ministers ; for, though De Monts was a Calvinist, the Church, as usual, displayed her banner in the van of the enterprise, and he was forced to promise that he would cause the Indians to be instructed in the dogmas of Rome.1
1 Articles proposes au Roy par le Sieur de Monts, MS ; Commissions du Roy et de Monseigneur I' Admiral au Sieur de Monts ; Defenses du Roy Premieres et Secondes, a tons ses subjects, autres que le Sieur de Monts, etc., de trajfiquer, etc. ; Declaration du Roy ; Extraict des Registres de Parlement ; Remontratuv faict au Roy par le Sieur <V Monts, MS. ; etc., etc.
There is a portrait of ' »e Monts at Versailles.
CHAPTER III.
1604, 1605. ACADIA OCCUPIED.
CATHOLIC AND CALVINIST. — THE LOST PRIEST. — ST. CROIX. — WINTER MISERIES. — CHAMPLAIM on THE COAST OF NEW KXGLAMJ. — POBT ROYAL.
DE MONTS, with one of his vessels, sailed from Havre de Grace on the seventh of April, 1604<. Font- grave, with stores for the colony, was to follow in a few days.
Scarcely were they at sea, when ministers and priests fell first into discussions, then into quarrels, then to blows. " I have seen our cure and the minister," says Champlain, " fall to with their fists on questions of faith. I cannot say which had the more pluck, or which hit the harder ; hut I know that the minister sometimes complained to the Sieur de Monts that he had been beaten. This was their way of settling points of con- troversy. I leave you to judge if it was a pleasant thing to see." l
Sagard, the Franciscan friar, relates with horror, that, after their destination was reached, a priest and a minis- ter happening to die at the same time, the crew buried them both in one grave, to see if they would lie peace* ably together.2
1 Champlain, (1632.) 46. a Sagard, Histoire du Canada, 9.
ACADIA OCCUPIED. [1604.
De Monts, who had been to the St. Lawrence with Ctiauvin, and learned to dread its rigorous winters, steered for a more southern, and, as he flattered him- self, a milder region. The first land seen was Cape la Heve, on the southern coast of Nova Scotia. Four days later, they entered a small bay, where, to their surprise, they saw a vessel lying1 at anchor. Here was a piece of good luck. The stranger was a fur-trader, pursuing her traffic in defiance, or more probably in ignorance, of De Monts's monopoly. The latter, as em- powered by his patent, made prize of ship and cargo, consoling the commander, one Rossignol, by giving his name to the scene of his misfortune. It is now called Liverpool Harbor.
In an adjacent harbor, called by them Port Mouton, because a sheep here leaped overboard, they waited nearly a month for Pontgrave's store-ship. At length, to their great relief, sbe appeared, laden with the spoils of four Basque fur-traders, captured at Canseau. The supplies delivered, Pontgrave sailed for Tadoussac to trade with the Indians, while De Monts, followed by his prize, proceeded on bis voyage.
He doubled Cape Sable, and entered St. Mary's Bay, where he lay two weeks, sending boats' crews to explore the adjacent coasts. A party one day went on shore to stroll through the forest, and among them was Nicholas Aubry, a priest from Paris, who, tiring of the scholastic haunts of the Rue de la Sorbonne and the Rue d'Enfer, had persisted, despite the remonstrance of his friends, in joining the expedition. Thirsty after
?.*»04.| THE LOST PRIEST. — ANNAPOLIS.
a long walk, under the sun of June, through the tan- gled and rock-encumbered woods, he stopped to drink at a brook, laying his sword beside him on the grass. On rejoining his companions, he found that he had for- gotten it ; and turning back in search of it, more skilled in the devious windings of the Quartier Latin than in the intricacies of the Acadian forest, he soon lost his way. His comrades, alarmed, waited for a time, then ranged the woods, shouting his name to the echoing solitudes. Trumpets were sounded, and cannon tired from the ships, but the priest did not appear. All now looked askance on a' certain Huguenot, with whom Aubry had often quarrelled on questions of faith, and who' was now accused of having killed him. In vain he denied the charge. Aubry was given up for dead, and the ships sailed from St. Mary's Bay ; while the wretched priest roamed to and fro, famished and de- spairing, or, couched on the rocky soil, in the troubled sleep of exhaustion, dreamed, perhaps, as the wind swept moaning through the pines, that he heard once more the organ roll through the columned arches of Sainte Genevieve.
The voyagers proceeded to explore the Bay of Fundy, called by De Monts La Bay Franchise. Their first notable discovery was that of Annapolis Harbor. A small inlet invited them. They entered, when sud- denly the narrow strait dilated into a broad and tran- quil basin, compassed with sunny hills, wrapped in woodland verdure and alive with waterfalls. Poutrin- court was delighted with the scene. He would fain
ACADIA OCCUPIED. [1604
remove thither from France with his family ; and, to this end, he asked a grant of the place from De Monts, who by his patent had nearly half the continent in his gift. The grant was made, and Poutrincourt called his new domain Port Royal.
Thence they sailed round the head of the Bay of Fundy, coasted its northern shore, visited and named the River St. John, and anchored at last in Passama- quoddy Bay.
The untiring Champlain, exploring, surveying, sound- ing, had made charts of all the principal roads and har- bors ; l and now, pursuing his research, he entered a river which he calls La Riviere des Etechemins. Near its mouth he found an islet, fenced round with rocks and shoals, and called it St. Croix, a name now borne by the river itself. With singular infelicity this spot was chosen as the site of the new colony. It com- manded the river, and was well fitted for defence: these were its only merits ; yet cannon were landed on it, a battery was planted on a detached rock at one end, and a fort begun on a rising ground at the other.2
At St. Mary's Bay the voyagers had found, or thought they had found, traces of iron and silver; and Champdore, the pilot, was now sent back to pursue the search. As he and his men lay at anchor, fishing, not far from land, one of them heard a strange sound, like a weak human voice ; and, looking towards the shore, they saw a small black object in motion, apparently a
1 See Champlain, Voyages, (1613,) where the charts are published 8 Lescarbot, Hist, de la Nouvdle France, (1612,) II. 461
1604.J ST. CKOIX.
hat waved on the end of a stick. Rowing in haste to the spot, they found the priest Aubry. For sixteen days he had wandered in the woods, sustaining life on berries and wild fruits ; and when, haggard and ema- ciated, a shadow of his former self, Champdore carried him back to St. Croix, he was greeted as a man risen from the grave.
In 1783 the River St. Croix, by treaty, was made the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick. But which was the true St. Croix ? In 1798, the point was settled. De Monts's island was found ; and, painfully searching among the sand, the sedge, and the matted whortleberry - bushes, the commissioners could trace the foundations of buildings long crumbled into dust.1 For the wilderness had resumed its sway, and silence and solitude brooded once more over this ancient resting-place of civilization.
But while the commissioner bends over a moss- grown stone, it is for us to trace back the dim vista of
O '
the centuries to the life,, the zeal, the energy, of which this stone is the poor memorial. The rock-fenced islet was covered with cedars, and when the tide was out, the shoals around were dark with the swash of sea- weed, where, in their leisure moments, the Frenchmen, we are told, amused themselves with detaching the limpets from the stones, as a savory addition to their fare. But there was little leisure at St. Croix. Sol- diers, sailors, artisans, betook themselves to their task. Before the winter closed in, the northern end of the
1 Holmes, Annals, I. 122, note 1.
ACADIA OCCUPIED. [1604
island was covered with buildings, surrounding a square, where a solitary tree had been left standing. On the right was a spacious house, well built, and surmounted by one of those enormous roofs characteristic of the time. This was the lodging of De Monts. Behind it, and near the water, was a long, covered gallery, for labor or amusement in foul weather. Champlain and- the Sieur d'Orville, aided by the servants of the latter, built a house for themselves nearly opposite that of De Monts ; and the remainder of the square was occu- pied by storehouses, a magazine, workshops, lodgings for gentlemen and artisans, and a barrack for the Swiss soldiers, the whole enclosed with a palisade. Ad- jacent there was an attempt at a garden, under the auspices of Champlain ; but nothing would grow in the sandy soil. There was a cemetery, too, and a small rustic chapel on a projecting point of rock. Such was the " Habitation of St. Croix," as set forth by Cham- plain in quaint plans and drawings, in that musty little quarto of 1613, sold by Jean Berjon, at the sign of the Flying Horse, Rue St. Jean de Beauvais.
Their labors over, Poutrincourt set sail for France, proposing to return and take possession of his domain of Port Royal. Seventy - nine men remained at St. Croix. Here was De Monts, feudal lord of half a continent in virtue of two potent syllables, " Henri," scrawled on parchment by the rugged hand of the Bearnais. Here were gentlemen of birth and breeding. Champlain, D'Orville, Beaumont, Sourin, La Motte. Boulay, and Fougeray ; here was the pugnacious cure
1005.] SUFFERINGS OF THE FRENCH.
and his fellow - priests, with the Huguenot ministers, objects of their unceasing ire. The rest were laborers, artisans, and soldiers, all in the pay of the company, and many of them forced into its service.
Poutrincourt's receding sails vanished between the water and the sky. The exiles were left to their solitude. From the Spanish settlements northward to the pole, no domestic hearth, no lodgment of civilized men through all the borders of America, save one weak band of Frenchmen, clinging, as it were for life, to the fringe of the vast and savage continent. The gray and sullen autumn sank upon the waste, and the bleak wind howled down the St. Croix, and swept the forest bare. Then the whirling snow powdered the vast sweep of desolate woodland, and shrouded in white the gloomy green of pine-clad mountains. Ice in sheets, or broken masses, swept by their island with the ebbing and flowing tide, often debarring all access to the main, and cutting off their supplies of wood and water. A belt of cedars, indeed, hedged the island ; but De Monts had ordered them to be spared, tha.t the north wind might spend something of its force with whistling through their shaggy boughs. Cider and wine froze in the casks, and were served out by the pound. As they crowded round their half-fed fires, shivering in the icy currents that pierced their rude tenements, many sank into a desperate apathy.
Soon the scurvy broke out and raged with a fearful malignity. Of the seventy-nine, thirty-five died before spring, and many more were brought to the verge of 20
£30 ACADIA OCCUPIED. 11605.
death. In vain they sought that marvellous plant which had relieved the followers of Carder. Their little cemetery was peopled with nearly half their num- ber, and the rest, bloated and disfigured with the relent- less malady, thought more of escaping from their woes than of building up a Transatlantic empire. Yet among them there was one at least, who, amid languor and defection, held to his purpose with an indomitable tenacity ; and, where Champlain was present, there was no room for despair.
Spring came at last, and, with the breaking -up of the ice, the melting of the snow, and the clamors of the returning wild-fowl, the spirits and the health of the woe-begone company began to revive. But to misery succeeded anxiety and suspense. Where was the suc- cor from France \ Were they abandoned to their fate like the wretched' exiles of La Rochet In a happy hour, they saw an approaching sail. Pontgrave, with forty men, cast anchor before their island on the six- teenth of June ; and they hailed him as the condemned hails the messenger of his pardon.
Weary of St, Croix, De Monts would fain seek out a more auspicious site, whereon to rear the capital of his wilderness dominion. During the previous Sep- tember, Champlain had ranged the westward coast in a pinnace, visited and named the cliffs of Mount Desert, and entered the mouth of the River Penobscot, called by him the Pemetigoet, or Pentegoet, and previously known to fur - traders and fishermen as the Norem- bega, a name which it shared with all the adjacent
1605.] EXPLORATIONS OF CHAMPLAIN.
region.1 Now, embarking a second time in a bark of fifteen tons, with De Monts, several gentlemen, twenty sailors, and an Indian with his squaw, he set forth on the eighteenth of June on a second voyage of discov- ery. Along the strangely indented coasts of Maine, by reef and surf - washed island, black headland and deep - embosomed bay, — by Mount Desert and the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Saco, Portsmouth Har- bor, and the Isles of Shoals, — landing daily, holding conference with Indians, giving and receiving gifts, — the) held their course, like some adventurous party of pleasure, along those now familiar shores. Champlain, who, we are told, " delighted marvellously in these enterprises," busied himself, after his wont, with taking observations, sketching, making charts, and exploring with an insatiable avidity the wonders of the land and the sea. Of the latter, the horseshoe - crab awakened his especial curiosity, and he describes it at length, with an amusing accuracy. With equal truth he paints the Indians, whose round, mat-covered lodges they could see at times thickly strewn along the shores, and who, from bays, inlets, and sheltering islands, came out to meet them in canoes of bark or wood. They were an agricultural race. Patches of corn, beans, tobacco, squashes, and esculent roots lay near all their wigwams.
1 The earliest maps and narratives indicate a city, also called Norera- bega, on the banks of the Penobscot. The pilot, Jean Alphonse, of Xuin- tonge, says that this fabulous city is fifteen or twenty leagues from tho sea, and that its inhabitants are of small stature and dark complexion. As late as IfiU? the fable was repeated in the Histoire Universelle de* Indet Occideittales.
ACADIA OCCUPIED. [1605
Clearly, they were in greater number than when, fifteen years afterwards, the Puritans made their lodgment at Plymouth, since, happily for the latter, a pestilence had then more than decimated this fierce population of the woods.
Passing the Merrimac, the voyagers named it La Riviere du Gas (du Guast), in honor of De Monts. ^rom Cape Ann, which they called St. Louis, they crossed to Cape Cod, and named it Cap Blanc.1 Thence they proceeded to an inlet, apparently Nausett Harbor, which, perplexed by its shoals and sand-bars, they called Malabar.2 Here their prosperity deserted them. A party of sailors went behind the sand-banks to find fresh water at a spring, when an Indian snatched a kettle from one of them, and its owner, pursuing, fell, pierced with arrows by the robber's comrades. The French in the vessel opened fire. Champlain's arque- buse burst and wellnigh killed him, while the Indians, swift as deer, quickly gained the woods. Several of the tribe chanced to be on board the vessel, but Hung themselves with such alacrity into the water that only one was caught. He was bound hand and foot, but was soon after humanely set at .liberty.
Provision failing, they steered once more for St. Croix, and on the third of August reached that ill- starred island. De Monts had found no spot to his
1 In the Cosmoyraphie of Thevet, (1575,) Cape Cod is called the Prom- ontory of Angouleme.
2 The cape since called Malabar is laid down on Champlain's map as Cap Baturier. Cape Cod had been visited and named by Gosnold in 1602.
1605.] PORT ROYAL.
liking. He bethought him of that inland harbor of Port Royal — now Annapolis Basin — which he had granted to Poutrincourt, and thither he resolved to re- move. Stores, utensils, even portions of the buildings, were placed on board the vessels, carried across the Bay of Fundy, and landed at the chosen spot. It was on the north side of the basin at the mouth of the River Annapolis, called by the French the Equille, and, after- wards, the Dauphin. The axe-men began their task ; the dense forest was cleared away, and the buildings of the infant colony soon rose in its place.
But while De Monts and his company were strug- gling against despair at St. Croix, the enemies of his monopoly were busy at Paris ; and, by a ship from France, he was warned that prompt measures were needful to thwart their machinations. Therefore he set sail, leaving Pontgrave to command at Port Royal ; while Champlain, Champdore, and others, undaunted by the past, volunteered for a second winter in the wil- derness. And here we leave them, to follow their chief on his forlorn errand. 20*
CHAPTER IV.
1605 — 1607. LESCARBOT AND CHAMPLAIN.
DE MONTS AT PARIS. — MAIIC LESCARBOT. — DISASTER. — EMBARKATION. — ARRIVAL. — DISAPPOINTMENT. — WINTER LIFE AT PORT HOYAL. — L'ORDRE DE BON-TEMPS. — HOPES BLIGHTED.
EVIL reports of a churlish wilderness, a pitiless cli- mate, disease, misery, and death, had heralded the arrival of De Monts. The outlay had been great, the returns small ; and when he reached Paris he found his friends cold, his enemies active and keen. Poutrin- court, however, was still full of zeal ; and, though his private affairs urgently called for his presence in France, he resolved, at no small sacrifice, to go in person to Acadia. He had, moreover, a friend who proved an invaluable ally. This was Marc Lescarbot, " avocat en Parlement" He had been roughly handled by for- tune, and was in the mood for such a venture. Unlike De Monts, Poutrincourt, Champlain, and others of his associates, he was not within the pale of the noblesse, belonging to the class of '•'•gens de robe" which stood at the head of the bourgeoisie, dnd which, in its higher grades, formed within itself a virtual nobility. Les- carbot was no common man. Not that his abundant gift of verse-making was likely to avail much in the woods of New France, nor yet his classic lore, dashed
1605. J MARC LESCARBOT.
with a little harmless pedantry, born not of the man, but of the times. But his zeal, his good sense, the vigor of his understanding, and the breadth of his views, were as conspicuous as his quick wit and his lively fancy. One of the best, as well as earliest, records of the early settlement of North America is due to his pen ; and it has been said with truth, that he was no less able to build up a colony than to write its historv.
d
De Monts and Poutrincourt bestirred themselves to find a priest, inasmuch as the foes of the enterprise had been loud in lamentations that the spiritual welfare of the Indians had been slighted. But it was Holy Week. All the priests were, or professed to be, busy with exer- cises and confessions, and not one could be found to undertake the mission of Acadia. They were more successful in engaging mechanics and laborers for the voyage. These were paid a portion of their wages in advance, and were sent in a body to Rochelle, consigned to two merchants of that port, members of the com- pany. De Monts and Poutrincourt went thither by post. Lescarbot soon followed, and no sooner reached Rochelle than he penned and printed his Adieu a la France, a poem which gained for him some credit.
More serious matters awaited him, however, than this dalliance with the Muse. Rochelle was the centre and citadel of Calvinism, a town of austere and grim aspect, divided, like Cisatlantic communities of later growth, betwixt trade and religion, and, in the interest of both, exacting a deportment of discreet and well
23(5 tESCARBOT AND CHAMPLAIN. |1G06.
ordered sobriety. " One must walk a strait path here," says Lescarbot, " unless he would hear from the mayor or the ministers." But the mechanics sent from Paris, flush of money, and lodged together in the quarter of St. Nicholas, made day and night hideous with riot, and their employers found not a few of them in the hands of the police. Their ship, bearing the inaus- picious name of the Jonas', lay anchored in the stream, her cargo on board, when a sudden gale blew her adrift. She struck on a pier, then grounded on the flats, bilged, careened, and settled in the mud. Her captain, who was ashore, with Poutrincourt, Lescarbot, and others, hastened aboard, and the pumps were set in motion ; while all Rochelle, we are told, came to gaze from the ramparts, with faces of condolence, but at heart well pleased with the disaster. The ship and her cargo were saved, but she must be emptied, repaired, and reladen. Thus a month was lost ; at length, on the thirteenth of May, 1606, the disorderly crew were all brought on board, and the Jonas put to sea. Poutrincourt and Lescarbot had charge of the expedition, De Monts remaining in France.
Off' the Azores, they spoke a supposed pirate. For the rest, they beguiled the voyage by harpooning por- poises, dancing on deck in calm weather, and fish- ing for cod on the Grand Bank. They were two months on their way, and when, fevered with eagerness to reach land, they listened hourly for the welcome cry, they were involved in impenetrable fogs. Sud- denly the mists parted, the sunlight shone forth, and
1606.J PORT ROYAL.
streamed fair and bright over the fresh hills and for- ests of the New World, in near view before them. But the black rocks lay between, lashed by the snow-white breakers. " Thus," writes Lescarbot,- " doth a man sometimes seek the land as one doth his beloved, who sometimes repulseth her sweetheart very rudely. Fi- nally, upon Saturday the fifteenth of July, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the sky began to salute us, as it were, with cannon - shots, shedding tears, as being sorry to have kept us so long in pain ; . . . . but, whilst we followed on our course, there came from the land odors incomparable for sweetness, brought with a warm wind so abundantly that all the orient parts could not produce greater abundance. We did stretch out our hands as it were to take them, so palpable were they, which I have admired a thousand times since." *
It was noon on the twenty-seventh when the Jonas passed the rocky gate-way of Port Royal Basin, and Lescarbot gazed with delight and wonder on the calm expanse of sunny waters, with its amphitheatre of woody hills, wherein he saw the future asylum of dis- tressed merit and impoverished industry. Slowly, be- fore a favoring breeze, they held their course towards the head of the harbor, which narrowed as they ad- vanced ; but all was solitude ; no moving sail, no sign of human presence. At length, on their left, nestling in deep forests, they saw the wooden walls and roofs of the infant colony. Then appeared a birch canoe, cautiously coming towards them, guided by
1 The translation is that of Purchas, Nova Francia, c. XII.
£38 LESCARBOT AND CHAMPLAIN. 11606.
an old Indian. Then a Frenchman, arquebuse in hand, came down to the shore ; and then, from the wooden bastion, sprang the smoke of a saluting shot. The ship replied ; the trumpets lent their voices to the din, and the forests and the hills gave back unwonted echoes. The voyagers landed, and found the colony of Port Royal dwindled to two solitary Frenchmen.
These soon told their story. The preceding winter had been one of much suffering, though by no means the counterpart of the woful experience of St. Croix. But when the spring had passed, the summer far advanced, and still no tidings of De Monts had come, Pontgrave grew deeply anxious. To maintain themselves with- out supplies and succor was impossible. He caused two small vessels to be built, and set forth in search of some of the French vessels on the fishing-stations. This was but twelve days before the arrival of the ship Jonas. Two men had bravely offered themselves to stay behind and guard the buildings, guns, and munitions; and an old Indian chief, named Membertou, a fast friend of the French, and still, we are told, a redoubted warrior, though reputed to number more than a hundred years, proved a stanch ally. When the ship approached, the two guardians were at dinner in their room at the fort. Membertou, always on the watch, saw the ad- vancing sail, and, shouting from the gate, roused them from their repast. In doubt who the new-comers might be, one ran to the shore with his gun, while the other repaired to the platform where four cannon were mounted, in the valorous resolve to show fight should
1606.] REUNION.
the strangers prove to be enemies. Happily this redun- dancy of mettle proved needless. He saw the white flag fluttering at the mast-head, and joyfully fired his pieces as a salute.
The voyagers landed and eagerly, surveyed their new home. Some wandered through the buildings; some visited the cluster of Indian wigwams hard by ; some roamed in the forest and over the meadows that bor- dered, the neighboring river. The deserted fort now swarmed with life; and the better to celebrate their prosperous arrival, Poutrincourt placed a hogshead of wine in the court-yard at the discretion of his followers, whose hilarity, in consequence, became exuberant. Nor was it diminished when Pontgrave's vessels were seen entering the harbor. A boat sent by Poutrincourt, more than a week before, to explore the coasts, had met them among the adjacent islands, and they had joyfully returned to Port Royal.
Pontgrave, however, soon sailed for France in the Jonas, hoping on his way to seize certain contraband fur-traders, reported to be at Canseau and Cape Breton. Poutrincourt and Champlain set forth on a voyage of discovery, in an ill-built vessel of eighteen tons, while Lescarbot remained in charge of Port Royal. They had little for their pains but danger, hardship, and mishap. The autumn gales cut short their exploration ; and, after advancing as far as the neighborhood of Hyannis, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, they turned back somewhat disgusted with their errand. Along the eastern verge of Cape Cod, they found the
24*0 LESCARBOT AND CHAMPLAIN. [1606.
shore thickly studded with the wigwams of a race who were less hunters, than tillers of the soil. At Chat- ham Harbor — called by them Port Fortune — five of the company, who, contrary, to orders, had remained on shore all night, were assailed, as they slept around their fire, by a shower of arrows from four hundred Indians. Two were killed outright, while the survivors fled for their boat, bristled like porcupines, — a scene oddly por- trayed by the untutored pencil of Champlain. He, with Poutrincourt and eight men, hearing the war- whoops and the cries for aid, sprang up from sleep, snatched their weapons, pulled ashore in their shirts, and charged the yelling multitude, who fled before their spectral assailants, and vanished in the woods. " Thus," observes Lescarbot, " did thirty-five thousand Midianites fly before Gideon and his three hundred." The French buried their dead comrades ; but, as they chanted their funeral hymn, the Indians, at a safe distance on a neigh- boring hill, were dancing in glee and triumph, and mocking them with unseemly gestures ; and no sooner had the party reembarked, than they dug up the dead bodies, burnt them, and arrayed themselves in their shirts. Little pleased with the country or its inhabi- tants, the voyagers turned their prow towards Port Royal. Near Mount Desert, on a stormy night, their rudder broke, and .they had a hair-breadth escape from destruction. The chief object of their voyage, that of discovering a site for their colony under a more south- ern sky, had failed. Pontgrave's son had his hand blown off by the bursting of his gun ; several of their
AVOCATIONS OF LESCARBOT. #4,]
number had been killed ; others were sick or wounded ; and thus, on the fourteenth of November, with some- what downcast visages, they guided their helpless ves- sel with a pair of oars to the landing at Port Royal.
" I will not," says Lescarbot, " compare their perils to those of Ulysses, nor yet of .-Eneas, lest thereby I should sully our holy enterprise with things impure."
He and his followers had been expecting them with great anxiety. His alert and buoyant spirit had con- ceived a plan for enlivening the courage of the com- pany, a little dashed of late with misgivings and fore- bodings. Accordingly, as Poutrincourt, Champlain, and their weather-beaten crew approached the wooden gate-way of Port Royal, Neptune issued forth, followed by his tritons, who greeted the voyagers in good French verse, written in all haste for the occasion by Lescarbot. And, as they entered, they beheld, blazoned over the arch, the arms of France, circled with laurels, and flanked by the scutcheons of De Monts and Poutrin- court.1
The ingenious author of these devices had busied himself, during the absence of his associates, in more serious labors for the welfare of the colony. He ex- plored the low borders of the River Equille, or Annap- olis. Here, in the solitude, he saw great meadows, where the moose, with their young, were grazing, and where at times the rank grass was beaten to a pulp by the trampling of their hoofs. He burned the
1 Lescarbot, Muses de la Nouvetle France, where the programme is given, and the speeches of Neptune and the tritons in full. .
21
LESCARBOT AND CHAMPLAIN. [IGOt,.
grass, and sowed crops of wheat, rye, and barley in its stead. He made gardens, near the fort, where, in his zeal, he plied the hoe with his own hands, late into the moonlight evenings. The priests, of whom at the outset there had been no lack, had all succumbed to the scurvy at St. Croix ; and Lescarbot, so far as a layman might, essayed to supply their place, reading on Sun- days from the Scriptures, and adding expositions of his own after a fashion which may cast a shade of doubt on the rigor of his catholicity. Of an evening, when not engrossed with his garden, he was reading or writ- ing in his room, perhaps preparing the material of that History of New France in which, despite the versa- tility of his busy brain, his excellent good sense and true capacity are clearly made manifest.
Now, however, when the whole company were re- assembled, Lescarbot found associates more congenial than the rude soldiers, mechanics, and laborers who gathered at night around the blazing logs in their rude hall. Port Royal was a quadrangle of wooden build- ings, enclosing a spacious court. At the southeast corner was the arched gate-way, whence a path, a few paces in length, led to the water. It was flanked by a sort of bastion of palisades, while at the southwest corner was another bastion, on which four cannon were mounted. On the east side of the quadrangle was a range of magazines and storehouses ; on the west were quarters for the men ; on the north, a dining-hall and lodgings for the principal persons of the company ; while on the south, or water side, were the kitchen, the
1606.J "L'ORDRE DE BON-TEMPS."
forge, and the oven. Except the garden - patches and the cemetery, the adjacent ground was thickly studded with the stumps of the newly felled trees.
Most bountiful provision had been made for the tem- poral wants of the colonists, and Lescarbot is profuse in praise of the liberality of De Monts and two merchants of Rochelle, who had freighted the ship Jonas. Of wine, in particular, the supply was so generous that every man in Port Royal was served with three pints daily.
The principal persons of the colony sat, fifteen in number, at Poutrincourt's table, which, by an ingenious device of Champlain, was always well furnished. He formed the fifteen into a new order, christened " L'Ordre de Bon -Temps." Each was Grand Master in turn, holding office for one day. It was his function to cater for the company ; and, as it became a point of honor to fill the post with credit, the prospective Grand Master was usually busy, for several days before coming to his dignity, in hunting, fishing, or bartering provisions with the Indians. Thus did Poutrincourt's table groan beneath all the luxuries of the winter forest: flesh of moose, caribou, and deer, beaver, otter, and hare, bears, and wild-cats ; with ducks, geese, grouse, and plover ; sturgeon, too, and trout, and fish innumerable, speared through the ice of the Equille, or drawn from the depths of the neighboring sea. " And," says Les- carbot, in closing his bill of fare, "whatever our gour- mands at home may think, we found as good cheer at Port Royal as they at their Rue aux Ours1 in Paris,
1 A short street between Rue St Martin and Rue St. Denis, once re- nowned for its restaurants.
244 LESCARBOT AND CHAMPLAIN. [1606.
and that, too, at a cheaper rate." As for the prepara- tion of this manifold provision, for that too was the Grand Master answerable ; since, during his day of office, he was autocrat of the kitchen.
Nor did this bounteous repast lack a solemn and befitting ceremonial. When the hour had struck, —
O *
after the manner of our fathers they dined at noon, — the Grand Master entered the hall, a napkin on his shoulder, his staff of office in his hand, and the collar of the order — of which the chronicler fails not to commemorate the costliness — about his neck. The brotherhood followed, each bearing a dish. The in- vited guests were Indian chiefs, of whom old Member- tou was daily present, seated at table with the French, who took pleasure in this red -skin companionship. Those of humbler degree, warriors, squaws, and chil- dren, sat on the floor or crouched together in the cor- ners of the hall, eagerly waiting their portion of biscuit or of bread, a novel and much coveted luxury. Treated always with kindness, they became fond of the French, who often followed them on their moose - hunts, and shared their winter bivouac.
At their evening meal there was less of form and circumstance ; and, when the winter night closed in, when the flame crackled and the sparks streamed up the wide-throated chimney, when the founders of New France and their tawny allies were gathered around the blaze, then did the Grand Master resign the collar and the staff to the successor of his honors, and, with jovial courtesy, pledge him in a cup of wine.1 Thus did 1 Lescarbot, (1612,) 11/581.
1607.] RETURN OF SPRING.
these ingenious Frenchmen beguile the winter of their exile.
It was a winter unusually benignant. Until Jan- uary, they wore no warmer garment than their doub- lets. They made hunting and fishing parties, in which the Indians, whose lodges were always to be seen under the friendly shelter of the buildings, failed not to bear a part. " I remember," says Lescarbot, " that on the fourteenth of January, of a Sunday afternoon, we amused ourselves with singing and music on the River Equille, and that in the same month we went to see the wheat - fields two leagues from the fort, and dined merrily in the sunshine."
Good spirits and good cheer saved them in great measure from the scurvy, and though, towards the end of winter, severe cold set in, yet only four men died. The snow thawed at last, and as patches of the black and oozy soil began to appear, they saw the grain of their last autumn's sowing already piercing the mould. The forced inaction of the winter was over. The car- penters built a water-mill ; others enclosed fields and laid out gardens; others, again, with scoop-nets and baskets, caught the herrings and alewives as they ran up the innumerable rivulets. The leaders of the colony set a contagious example of activity. Poutrincourt for- got the prejudices of his noble birth, and went himself into the woods to gather turpentine from the pines, which he converted into tar by a process of his own invention ; while Lescarbot, eager to test the qualities of the soil, was again, hoe in hand, at work all day in his garden. 21*
LESCARBOT AND CHAMPLAIN. (1607.
All seemed full of promise ; but alas for the bright hope that kindled the manly heart of Champlain and the earnest spirit of the vivacious advocate ! A sudden blight fell on them, and their rising prosperity withered to the ground. On a morning, late in spring, as the French were at breakfast, the ever watchful Membertou came in with news of an approaching sail. They has- tened to the shore ; but the vision of the centenarian sagamore put them all to shame. They could see noth- ing. At length their doubts were resolved. In full view a small vessel stood on towards them, and anchored before the fort. She was commanded by one Chevalier, a young man from St. Malo, and was freighted with dis- astrous tidings. De Monts's monopoly was rescinded. The life of the enterprise was stopped, and the estab- lishment at Port Royal could no longer be supported ; for its expense was great, the body of the colony being laborers in the pay of the company. Nor was the annulling of the patent the full extent of the disaster ; for, during the last summer, the Dutch had found their way to the St. Lawrence, and carried away a rich har- vest of furs, while other interloping traders had plied a busy traffic along the coasts, and, in the excess of their avidity, dug up the bodies of buried. Indians to rob them of their funeral robes.
It was to the merchants and fishermen of the Nor- man, Breton, and Biscayan ports, exasperated at their exclusion from a lucrative trade, and at the confiscations which had sometimes followed their attempts to engage in it, that this sudden blow was due. Money had been
1607.] PORT ROYAL ABANDONED.
used freely at court, and the monopoly, unjustly granted, had been more unjustly withdrawn. De Monts and his company, who had spent a hundred thousand livres, were allowed six thousand in requital, to be collected from the fur-traders in the form of a tax.
Chevalier, captain of the ill-omened bark, was enter- tained with a hospitality little deserved, since, having been entrusted with sundry hams, fruits, spices, sweet- meats, jellies, and other dainties, sent by the generous De Monts to his friends of New France, he with his crew had devoured them on the voyage, alleging, in justification, that, in their belief, the inmates of Port Royal would all be dead before their arrival.
Choice there was none, and Port Royal must be abandoned. Built on a false basis, sustained only by the fleeting favor of a government, the generous enterprise had come to nought. Yet Poutrincourt, who in virtue of his grant from De Monts owned the locality, bravely resolved, that, come what might, he would see the adventure to an end, even should it involve emigration with his family to the wilderness. Meanwhile, he began the dreary task of abandonment, sending boat-loads of men and stores to Causeau, where lay the ship Jonas, eking out her diminished profits by fishing for cod.
Membertou was full of grief at the departure of his friends. He had built a palisaded village not far from Port Royal, and here were mustered some four hundred of his warriors for a foray into the country of the Ar- mouchiquois, dwellers along the coasts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire,- and Western Maine. In behalf of
LESCARBOT AND CHAMPLAIN. [1G07
this martial concourse he had proved himself a sturdy beggar, pursuing Poutrincourt with daily petitions, now for a bushel of beans, now for a basket of bread, and now for a barrel of wine to regale his greasy crew. Membertou's long life had not been one of repose. In deeds of blood and treachery he had no rival in the Aca- dian forest ; and, as his old age was beset with enemies, his alliance with the French had a foundation of policy no less than of affection. For the rest, in right of his quality of Sagamore he claimed perfect equality both with Poutrincourt and with the King, laying his shriv- elled forefingers side by side in token of friendship be- tween peers. Calumny did not spare 'him ; and a rival chief intimated to the French, that, under cover of a war with the Armouchiquois, the crafty veteran meant to seize and plunder Port Royal. Precautions, therefore, were taken ; but they were 'seemingly needless ; for, their feasts and dances over, the warriors launched their birchen flotilla and set forth. After an absence of six weeks they reappeared with howls of victory, and their exploits were commemorated in French verse by the muse of the indefatigable Lescarbot.1
With a heavy heart the latter bade farewell to the dwellings, the cornfields, the gardens, and all the dawn- ing prosperity of Port Royal, and sailed for Canseau in a small vessel on the thirtieth of July. Poutrincourt and Champlain remained behind, for the former was resolved to learn before his departure the results of his agricultural labors. Reaching a harbor on the south-
1 See Muses de la Nouvdle France.
1607.] CHARACTER OP THE ENTERPRISE.
ern coast of Nova Scotia, six leagues west of Canseau, Lescarbot found a fishing-vessel commanded and owned by an old Basque, named Savalet, who for forty-two successive years had carried to France his annual cargo of codfish. He was in great glee at the success of his present venture, reckoning his profits at ten thousand francs. The Indians, however, annoyed him beyond measure, boarding him from their canoes as his fishing- boats came along-side, and helping themselves at will to his halibut and cod. At Canseau — a harbor near the cape now bearing the name — the ship Jonas still lay, her hold well stored with fish ; and here, on the twenty- seventh of August, Lescarbot was rejoined by Poutrin- court and Champlain, who had come from Port Royal in an open boat. For a few days, they amused them- selves with gathering raspberries on the islands ; then they spread their sails for France, and early in October, 1607, anchored in the harbor of St. Malo.
First of Europeans, they had essayed to found an agricultural colony in the New World. The leaders of the enterprise had acted less as merchants than as citi- zens ; and the fur-trading monopoly, odious in itself, had been used as the instrument of a large and generous design. There was a radical defect, however, in theii
o
scheme of settlement. Excepting a few of the leaders those engaged in it had not chosen a home in the wil- derness of New France, but were mere hirelings, care- less of the welfare of the colony. The life which should have pervaded all the members was confined to the heads alone.
250
.bESCARBOT AND CHAMPLAIN.
[1607.
Towards the fickle and bloodthirsty race who claimed the lordship of the forests these colonists bore tbem- selves in a spirit of kindness contrasting brightly with the rapacious cruelty of the Spaniards and the harsh- ness of the English settlers. When the last boat-load
O
left Port Royal, the shore resounded with lamentation ; and nothing could console the afflicted savages but reiterated promises of a speedy return.
CHAPTER V.
1610, 1611. THE JESUITS AND THEIR PATRONESS.
I'OUTUINCOUET AND THE JESUITS. — HE SAILS FOB ACADIA. — SUDDKK
CONVERSIONS. — BIENCOURT. — DEATH OF THE KING. — MADAME DB GUEKCHEVILLE. — BlAKD AND MASSE. — THE JESUITS TjRIUMPHAMT.
POUTRINCOURT, we have seen, owned Port Royal in virtue of a grant from De Monts. The ardent and adventurous baron was in evil case, involved in litiira-
» o
tion and low in purse ; but nothing could damp his zeal. Acadia must become a new France, and he, Poutrincourt, must be its father. He gained from the King a confirmation of his grant, and, to supply the lack of his own weakened resources, associated with himself one Robin, a man of family and wealth. This did not save him from a host of delays and vexations; and it was not until the spring of 1610 that he found himself in a condition to embark on his new and doubt- ful venture.
Meanwhile an influence, of sinister omen as he thought, had begun to act upon his schemes. The Jesuits were potent at court. One of their number, the famous Father Cotton, was confessor to Henry the Fourth, and, on matters of this world as of the next, was ever whispering at the facile ear of the renegade Kin-. New France offered a fresh field of action to
THE JESUITS AND THEIR PATRONESS. [1010.
the indefatigable society of Jesus, and Cotton urged upon the royal convert, that, for the saving of souls, some of its members should be attached to the pro- posed enterprise. The King, profoundly indifferent in matters of religion, saw no evil in a proposal which at least promised to place the Atlantic betwixt him and some of those busy friends whom at heart he deeply mistrusted.1 Other influences, too, seconded the confessor. Devout ladies of the court, and the Queen herself, supplying the lack of virtue with an overflow- ing piety, burned, we are assured, with a holy zeal for snatching the tribes of the West from the bondage of Satan. Therefore it was insisted that the projected colony should combine the spiritual with the tempora. character, or, in other words, that Poutrincourt should take Jesuits with him. Pierre Biard, Professor of Theology at Lyons, was named for the mission, and repaired in haste to Bordeaux, the port of embarkation, where he found no vessel, and no sign of preparation ; and here, in wrath and discomfiture, he remained for a whole year.
That Poutrincourt was a good Catholic appears from a letter to the Pope, written for him in Latin by Lescarbot, asking a blessing on his enterprise, and as- suring His Holiness that one of his grand objects was the saving of souls.2 But, like other good citizens, he belonged to the national party in the Church, those
1 The missionary Biard makes the characteristic assertion, that the King initiated the Jesuit project, and that Father Cotton merely obeyed his orders. Biard, Relation, c. XI.
2 See, Lescarbot, (1618,) 605.
1610.| THE JESUITS DISAPPOINTED.
liberal Catholics, who, side by side with the Huguenots, had made head against the League with its Spanish allies, and placed Henry the Fourth upon the throne. The Jesuits, an order Spanish in origin and policy, redoubtable champions of ultramontane principles, the sword and shield of the Papacy in its broadest preten- sions to spiritual and temporal sway, were to him, as to others of his party, objects of deep dislike and distrust. He feared them in his colony, evaded what he dared not refuse, left Biard waiting in solitude at Bordeaux, and sought to postpone the evil day by assuring Father Cotton, that, though Port Royal was at present in no state to receive the missionaries, preparation should be made to entertain them the next year after a befitting fashion.
Poutrincourt owned the barony of St. Just in Cham- pagne, inherited a few years before from his mother. Hence, early in February, 1610, he set forth in a boat loaded to the gunwales with provisions, furniture, goods, and munitions for Port Royal, descended the Rivers Aube and Seine, and reached Dieppe safely with his charge.1 Here his ship was awaiting him ; and on the twenty-sixth of February he set sail, giving the slip to the indignant Jesuit at Bordeaux.
O
The tedium of a long passage was unpleasantly broken by a mutiny among the crew. It was sup- pressed, however, and Poutrincourt entered at length the familiar basin of Port Royal. The buildings were
1 Lescarbot, Relation Derniere, 6. This is a pamphlet of thirty - nine pages, containing matters not included in the larger work. 22
251 THE JESUITS AND THEIR PATRONESS.
still standing, whole and sound save a partial falling-in of the roofs. Even furniture was found untouched in the deserted chambers. The centenarian Mernbertou was still alive, his leathern, wrinkled visage beaming with welcome.
Poutrincourt set himself without delay to the task of Christianizing New France, in an access of zeal which his desire of proving that Jesuit aid was super- fluous may be supposed largely to have reinforced. He had a priest with him, one La Fleche, whom he urged to the pious work. No time was lost. Membertou first was catechised, confessed his sins, and renounced the Devil, whom we are told he had faithfully served during a hundred and ten years. His squaws, his children, his grandchildren, his entire clan, were next won over. It was in June, the day of St. John the Baptist, when the naked proselytes^ twenty-one in number, were gathered on the shore at Port Royal. Here was the priest in the vestments of his office ; here were gentlemen in gay attire, soldiers, laborers, lackeys, all the infant colony. The converts kneeled ; the sacred rite was finished, Te Deum was sung, and the roar of cannon proclaimed to the astonished wilderness this triumph over the pow- ers of darkness.1 Membertou was named Henri, after the King; his principal squaw, Marie, after the Queen. One of his sons received the name of the Pope, an- other that of the Dauphin ; his daughter was called Marguerite, after the divorced Marguerite de Valois, and, in like manner, the rest of the squalid company
i Lescarbot, Relation Dernilre, 11.
»610.] INDIAN PROSELYTES.
exchanged their barbaric appellatives for the names of princes, nobles, and ladies of rank.1
The fame of this chef-d'oeuvre of Christian piety, as Lescarbot gravely calls it, spread far and wide through the forest, whose denizens, partly out of a notion that the rite would bring good luck, partly to please the French, and partly to share in the good cheer with which the apostolic efforts of Father la Fleche had been sagaciously seconded, came flocking to enroll themselves under the banners of the Faith. Their zeal ran high.
O
They would take no refusal. Membertou was for war on all who would not turn Christian. A living skele- ton was seen crawling from hut to hut in search of the priest and his saving waters ; while another neophyte, at the point of death, asked anxiously whether, in the realms of bliss to which he was bound, pies were to be had comparable to those with which the French regaled him.
A formal register of baptisms was drawn up to be carried to France in the returning ship, of which Pou- trincourt's son, Biencourt, a spirited youth of eighteen, was to take charge. He sailed in July, his father keep- ing him company as far as Port la Heve, whence, bid- ding the young man farewell, he attempted to return in an open boat to Port Royal. A north wind blew him out to sea ; and for six days he was out of sight of land, subsisting on rain-water wrung from the boat's sail, and on a few wild-fowl which he had shot on an island. Five weeks passed before he could rejoin his
1 Rfgitre de Bapteme de I'Eglise du Port Royal en la Noucelle France.
THE JESUITS AND THEIR PATRONESS. [1G10.
colonists, who, despairing of his safety, were about to choose a new chief.
Meanwhile young Biencourt, speeding on his way, heard dire news from a fisherman on the Grand Bank. The knife of Ravaillac had done its work. Henry the Fourth was dead.
, There is an ancient street in Paris, where a great thoroughfare contracts to a narrow pass, the Rue de la Ferronnerie. Tall buildings overshadow it, packed from pavement to tiles with human life, and from the dingy front of one of them the sculptured head of a man looks down on the throng that ceaselessly defiles beneath. On the fourteenth of May, 1610, a ponderous coach, studded with fleurs-de-lis and rich with gilding, rolled along this street. In it was a small man, well advanced in life, whose profile once seen could not be forgotten : a hooked nose, a protruding chin, a brow full of wrinkles, grizzled hair, a short, grizzled beard, and stiff, gray moustaches, bristling like a cat's. One would have thought him some whiskered satyr, grim from the rack of tumultuous years ; but his alert, up- right port bespoke unshaken vigor, and his clear eye was full of buoyant life. Following on the foot-way strode a tall, strong, and somewhat corpulent man, with sinister, deep-set eyes, and a red beard, his arm and shoulder covered with his cloak. In the throat of the thoroughfare, where the sculptured image of Henry the Fourth still guards the spot, a collision of two carts stopped the coach. Ravaillac quickened his pace. In an instant he was at the door; his cloak was dropped ;
161 0.J SINISTER OMENS.
a long knife was in his hand ; his foot upon a guard- stone, he thrust his head and shoulders into the coach, and with frantic force stabbed thrice at the Kinjj's
o
heart. A broken exclamation, a gasping convulsion ; then the grim visage drooped on the bleeding breast. Henry breathed his last, and the hope of Europe died with him.
The omens were sinister for old France and for New. Marie de Medicis, " cette grosse banquiere" coarse scion of a bad stock, false wife and faithless queen, par- amour of an intriguing foreigner, tool of the Jesuits and of Spain, was Regent in the minority of her imbe- cile son. The Huguenots drooped, the national party collapsed, the vigorous hand of Sully was felt no more, and the treasure gathered for a vast and beneficent en- terprise became the instrument of despotism and the prey of corruption. Under such dark auspices, the stripling envoy entered the thronged chambers of the Louvre.
He gained audience of the Queen, and displayed his list of baptisms; while the ever present Jesuits failed not to seize him by the button,1 assuring him not only that the late King had deeply at heart the establishment of their Society in Acadia, but that to this end he had made them a grant of two thousand livres a year. The Jesuits had found an ally and the intended mission a friend at court, whose story and whose character are too striking to pass unnoticed.
1 Lescarbot, (1618,) 662: ". . . . n« manyuerent de I'empmgner par u* ehevaa."
22*
2,58 -I'HE JESUITS AND THEIR PATRONESS. [1610.
This was a Lady of Honor to the Queen, Antoinette de Pons, Marquise de Guercheville, once renowned for grace and beauty and not less conspicuous for qualities rare in the unbridled court of Henry's predecessor, where her youth had been passed. When the civil war was at its height, the royal heart, leaping with insatia- ble restlessness from , battle to battle, from mistress to mistress, had found a brief repose in the affections of his Corisande, famed in tradition and romance ; but Cori- sande was suddenly abandoned, and the young widow, Madame de Guercheville, became the loadstar of his erratic fancy. It was an evil hour for the Bearnais. Henry sheathed in rusty steel, battling for his crown and his life, and Henry robed in royalty and throned triumphant in the Louvre, alike urged their suit in vain. Unused to defeat, the King's passion rose higher for the obstacle that barred it. On one occasion he was met with an answer not unworthy of record: —
" Sire, my rank, perhaps, is not high enough to per- mit me to be your wife, but my heart is too high to permit me to be your mistress."
She left the court and retired to her chateau of La Roche-Guyon, on tbe Seine, ten leagues below Paris, where, fond of magnificence, she is said to have Jived in much expense and splendor. The indefatigable King, haunted by her memory, made a hunting-party in the neighboring forests ; and, as evening drew near,
1 A similar reply is attributed to Catherine de Rohan, Duchcsse de Deux- Fonts : "Je suis trop pauvre pour etre votre femme, et de trop bonne maison pour etre votre maitresse." Her suitor also was Henry the Fourth. Dictionnaire de Bayle, III. 2182.
1610.] MADAME DE GUERCHEVILLE.
separating himself from his courtiers, he sent a gentle- man of his train to ask of Madame de Guercheville the shelter of her roof. The reply conveyed a dutiful ac- knowledgment of the honor, and an offer of the best entertainment within her power. It was night when Henry, with his little band of horsemen, approached the chateau, where lights were burning in every window, after a fashion of the day on occasions of welcome to an honored guest. Pages stood in the gate- way, each with a blazing torch ; and here, too, were gentlemen of the neighborhood, gathered to greet their sover- eign. Madame de Guercheville came forth, followed by the women of her household ; and when the King, unprepared for so benign a welcome, giddy with love and hope, saw her radiant in pearls and more radiant yet in a beauty enhanced by the wavy torchlight and the surrounding shadows, he scarcely dared trust his senses : —
" Que vois-je, Madame ; est-ce bien vous, et suis-je ce roi meprise ? "
He gave her his hand, and she led him within the chateau, where, at the door of the apartment destined for him, she left him, with a graceful reverence. The King, nowise disconcerted, doubted not that she had gone to give orders for his entertainment, when an attendant came to tell him that she had descended to the court-yard and called for her coach. Thither he hastened in alarm : —
" What ! am I driving you from your house I "
" Sire," replied Madame de Guercheville, " where a
260 THE JESUITS AND THEIR PATRONESS. [1610
King is, he should be the sole master; but, for my part, I like to preserve some little authority wherever I may be."
With another deep reverence, she entered her coach and disappeared, seeking shelter under the roof of a friend, some two leagues off, and leaving the baffled King to such consolation as he might find in a magnifi- cent repast, bereft of the presence of the hostess.1
1 Mtmoires de fAbbe de Choisy, liv. XII. The elaborate notices of Ma- dame de Guercheville in the Biogrnphie Ge'nfrale and the Biographie Universelle are from this source. She figures under the name of Sci- linde in Les Amours du Grand Alcandre (Henry IV.). See Collection Peti- tot, LXIII. 515, note, where the passage is extracted.
The Abbe de Choisy says that when the King was enamored of her she was married to M. de Liancourt. This, it seems, is a mistake, this second marriage not taking place till 1594. Madame de Guercheville refused to take the name of Liancourt, because it had once been borne by the Duchesse de Beaufort, who had done it no honor, — a scruple very reasonably characterized by her biographer as " trop •affect^."
The following is De Choisy's account : —
" Enfin ce prince s'avisa un jour, pour derniere ressource, de faire une partie de chasse du cote de La Roche-Guy on ; et, sur la fin de la jour nee, s'etant se'pare' de la plupart de ses courtisans, il envoya un gentilhomme a La Roche - Guyon demander le couvert pour une nuit. Madame de Guercheville, sans s'embarrasser, repondit au gentilhomme, que le Roi lui feroit beaucoup d'honneur, et qu'elle le recevroit de son mieux. En effet, elle donna ordre a un magnifique souper ; on eclaira toutes les fene'- tres du chfiteau avec des torches (c'etoit la mode en ce temps-la) ; elle se para de ses plus beaux habits, se couvrit de perles (c'e'toit aussi la mode) ; et lorsque le Roi arriva k 1'entree de la nuit, elle alia le recevoir a la porte de sa maison, accompagnee de toutes ses famines, et de quelques gentils- hommes du voisinage. Des pages portoient les torches devant elle. Le Roi, transports' de joie, la trouva plus belle que jamais : les ombres de la nuit, la lumiere des flambeaux, les diamans, la surprise d'un accueil si favorable et si peu accoutume', tout contribuait a renouveler ses aneiennes blessures. 'Quevois-je, madame?' lui dit ce monarque tremblant; 'est-ce bien vous, et suis-je ce roi meprise!' Madame de Guerche- ville 1'interrompit, en le priant de monter dans son appartement pour se reposer. II lui donna la main. Elle le conduisit jusqu'a la porte de
1610.1 MADAME DE GUEUCHEVILLB.
Henry could admire the virtue which he could not vanquish ; and, long after, on his marriage, he acknowl- edged his sense of her worth by begging her to accept an honorable post near the person of the Queen.
"Madame," he said, presenting her to Marie de Medicis, " I give you a Lady of Honor who is a lady of honor indeed."
Some twenty years had passed since the adventure of La Roche-Guyon. Madame de Guercheville had outlived the charms which had attracted her royal suitor, but the virtue which repelled him was reinforced by a devotion no less uncompromising. A rosary in her hand and a Jesuit at her side, she realized the utmost wishes of the subtle fathers who had moulded and who guided her. She readily took fire, when they told her of the benighted souls of New France, and the wrongs of Father Biard kindled her utmost indig- nation. She declared herself the protectress of the American missions ; and the only difficulty, as a Jesuit writer tells us, was to restrain her zeal within reasona- ble bounds.1
BH chambre, lui fit une grande rdvcrence, et se retira. Le Roi ne s'en e'tonna pas ; il crut qu'elle vouloit aller donner ordre a la lete qu'elle lui prc'paroit. Mais il tut bien surpris quand on lui vint dire qu'elle etoit descendue dans sa cour, et qu'elle avoit crie" tout liaut : Q'i'on ntttlle mon coche ! coninie pour aller coucher hors de chez elle. II dcscendit aus- sttot, et tout e'perdu lui dit : ' Quoi! niadame, je vous chasserai de votre maison ? ' — ' Sire,' lui re'pondit-elle d'un ton ferine,' ' un roi doit etre le maitre partout oil il est ; et pour moi, je suis bien aise d'avoir quelque pouvoir dans les lieux oil je me trouve.' Et, sans vouloir 1'e'couter davantage, elle monta dans son coche, et alia coucher a deux lieues de Ik chez une de ses araies." i Charlevoix, I. 122.
THE JESUITS AND THEIR PATRONESS. [1010.
She had two illustrious coadjutors. The first was the jealous Queen, whose unbridled rage and vulgar clamor had made the Louvre a hell. The second was Hen- riette d'Entragues, Marquise de Verneuil, the crafty and capricious siren who had awakened these conjugal tempests. To this singular coalition were joine'd many other ladies of the court ; for the pious flame, fanned by the Jesuits, spread through hall and boudoir, and fair votaries of the Loves and Graces found it a more grate- ful task to win heaven for the heathen than to merit it for themselves.
Young Biencourt saw it vain to resist. Biard must go with him in the returning ship, and also another Jesuit, Enemond Masse. The two fathers repaired to Dieppe, wafted on the wind of court-favor, which they never doubted would bear them to their journey's end. Not so, however. Poutrincourt and his associates, in the dearth of their own resources, had bargained with two Huguenot merchants of Dieppe, Du Jardin and Du Quesne, to equip and load the vessel, in considera- tion of their becoming partners in the expected prof- its. Their indignation was extreme when they saw the intended passengers. They declared, that they would not aid in building up a colony for the profit of the King of Spain, nor risk their money in a venture where Jesuits were allowed to intermeddle ; and they closed with a flat refusal to receive them on board, unless, they added with patriotic sarcasm, the Queen would direct them to transport the whole order beyond sea.1
i Lescarbot, (1618,) 664.
1611.] THE JESUITS TRIUMPHANT.
Biard and Masse insisted, on which the merchants de- manded reimbursement for their outlay, as they would have no further concern in the business.
Biard communicated with Father Cotton, Father Cotton with Madame de Guercheville. No more was needed. A subscription was set on foot by the zealous Lady of Honor, and an ample fund raised within the precincts of the court. Biard, in the name of the " Province of France of the Order of Jesus," bought out the interest of the two merchants for thirty-eight hundred livres, thus constituting the Jesuits partners in business with their enemies. Nor was this all ; for, out of the ample proceeds of the subscription, he lent to the needy associates a further sum of seven hundred and thirty -seven livres, and advanced twelve hundred and twenty-five more to complete the outfit of the ship. Well pleased, the triumphant priests now embarked, and friend and foe set sail together on the twenty-sixth of January, 161 1.1
1 Lcscarbot, (1618,) 665, gives the contract with the Jesuits in full. Compare Biard, Relation, c. XII; Champlain, (1632,) 100; Charlevoix, I. 123; De Laet, 1. II. c. XXI.; Lettre dtt P. Pierre Biard au T. R. P. Cluiide At/itaviva, General de la ComjHiyiiie de Jesus a Rome, Di-fipe, 21 Jtinn'ir, l(ill ; Lettr?. dtt P. Biard au R. P. Christophe Bulth'tzar, Proi-incial de France a Paris, Port Royal, 10 Jnin, 1611 ; Isttre du P. Biard au T. R. P. Clmule AijiMciva, Port Royal, 31 Janvier, 1U12. These letters form part of an interesting collection recently published by H. P. Auguste Carnyon, S. J., under the title, Premiere Mission dts J&ttites an Canada, (Paris, 186J). They are taken from the Jesuit archives at Rome.
CHAPTER VI.
1611, 1612. JESUITS IN ACADIA.
THE JESUITS ARRIVE. — COLLISION OF POWERS TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL. — EXCURSION OF BIENCOURT. — BIARD'S INDIAN STUDIES. — MISERY AT PORT ROYAL. — GRANT TO MADAME DE GUERCHEVILLE. — GILBERT DU THET. — QUARRELS. — ANATHEMAS. — TRUCE.
THE voyage was one of inordinate length, — beset, too, with icebergs, larger and taller, according to the Jesuit voyagers, than the Church of Notre Dame ; but on the day of Pentecost they anchored before Port Royal. Then first were seen in the wilderness of New France the close black cap, the close black robe of the Jesuit father, and the features seamed with study and thought and discipline. Then first did this mighty Proteus, this many-colored Society of Jesus, enter upon that rude field of toil and woe, where, in after-years, the devoted zeal of its apostles was to lend dignity to their order and do honor to humanity.
Few were the regions of the known world to which the potent brotherhood had not stretched the vast net- work of its influence. Jesuits had disputed in theology with the bonzes of Japan, and taught astronomy to the mandarins of China ; had wrought prodigies of sudden conversion among the followers of Brahma, preached the papal supremacy to Abyssinian schismatics, carried
1611.] BIARD AND POUTRINCOURT.
the cross among- the savages of Caffraria, wrought reputed miracles in Brazil, and gathered the tribes of Paraguay heneath their paternal sway. And now, with the aid of the Virgin and her votary at court, they would build another empire among the tribes of New France. The omens were sinister and the outset was unpropitious. The Society was destined to reap few laurels from the brief apostleship of Biard and Masse.1
When the voyagers landed, they found at Port Royal a band of half-famished men, eagerly expecting their succor. The voyage of four months had, however, nearly exhausted their own very moderate stock of provisions, and the mutual congratulations of the old colonists and the new were damped by a vision of starvation. A friction, too, speedily declared itself be- tween the spiritual and the temporal powers. Pont- grave's son, then trading on the coast, had exasperated the Indians by an outrage on one of their women, and, dreading the wrath of Poutrincourt, had fled to the
O
woods. Biard saw fit to take his part, remonstrated for him with vehemence, gained his pardon, received his confession, and absolved him. The Jesuit says,
1 On the tenth of June, 1611, Biard and Masse wrote the first letters ever sent by their onler from New France. The letter of Masse is to Aquaviva, General of the Jesuits. " Je vous 1'avoue," he says, "j'ai dit alors franchemcnt ii Dieu : Me voici : Si vous choisissex ce qu'il y a de faible ct de meprisable dans ce nionde, pour renverser et dctruire ce qui est fort, vous trouverez tout cela dans Eiu-moiul " (Masse). See the letter in Carayon, 39. There is an error of date in Biard's Rtlation, where he places the arrival on the twenty-second of June, instead of the twenty -second of May. 23
265 JESUITS IN ACADIA. [1611.
that he was treated with great consideration by Pou- trincourt, and that he shall be forever beholden to him. The latter, however, chafed at Biard's interference.
" Father," he said, " I know my duty, and I beg you will leave me to do it. I, with my sword, have hopes of Paradise as well as you with your breviary. Show me my path to Heaven. I will show you yours on earth." 1
He soon set sail for France, leaving his son Bien- court in charge. This hardy young sailor, of a char- acter and vigor beyond his years, had, on his visit to court, received the post of Vice- Admiral in the seas of New France, and in this capacity had a certain author- ity over the trading-vessels of St. Malo and Rochelle, several of which were upon the coast. To compel the recognition of this authority, and also to purchase pro- visions, he set forth in a boat filled with armed follow- ers. His first collision was with young Pontgrave, who with a few men had built a trading -hut on the St. John, where he proposed to winter. Meeting with resistance, Biencourt took the whole party pris- oners, in spite of the remonstrances of Biard. Next, proceeding along the coast, he levied tribute on four or five traders wintering at St. Croix, and, continuing his course to the Kennebec, narrowly escaped a fatal collision with the Indians of that region. He found them greatly enraged at the conduct of certain English adventurers, who, three or four years before, had set
l Lescarbot, (1618,) 669. Compare Biard, Relation, c. XIV.; and Ib, Z^ettre au R. P. Clmstophe Balthazar, in Carayon, 9.
1611.] MEMBERTOU.
dogs upon them, beaten them with sticks, and other- wise outraged them.1
It was late in November, and winter, dreary and bleak, was closing around the comfortless tenements of Port Royal, when the adventurers returned, after a voyavge wellnigh bootless. Here they found Masse, a lonely hermit, half starved, in a wretched hut. He had tried a forest-life among the Indians, with signal ill success. Hard fare, smoke, filth, the scolding of women, and the cries of children had reduced him to a lamentable plight of body and mind, worn him to a skeleton, and sent him back to Port Royal without a single convert. The French were on the point of los- ing a fast friend, and, as we are told, a devout Chris- tian, in the sagamore Membertou, who, reaching the settlement in a dying condition, was placed in Biard's bed, and attended by the two Jesuits. The old savage was as remarkable in person as in character, for he was bearded like a Frenchman. He insisted on being buried with his heathen forefathers, but, persuaded with much ado to forego a wish fatal to his salvation, slept at last in consecrated ground.2
1 They must have been the colonists under Popham and Gilbert, who, in 1607 and 1608, made an abortive and disastrous attempt to settle at the month of the Kennebec.
2 " C'a este le plus grand, renomme et redoutd sauvage qui ayt est<5 de memoire d'liomme ; de riche tuille, et plus hault ct membru que n'est I'ordinaire des autres, barbu comnie un fran?oys," etc. — Ltilredn P. liiard au K. P. Provincial, Port Roynl, 31 Junrier, 1612, in Carayon, 44. Of the character of the Christianity he had imbibed under the instruction of Father la Fleche, Biard gives the following illustration. He, Biard, taught him to say the Lord's Prayer. At the petition, " Give us this day our daily bread," Membertou remarked, " But if I ask for nothing bu bread, I shall have no fish or moose-meat." Carayon, 27.
£68 JESUITS IN ACADIA. [1611.
Biard set himself to the study of the Indian lan- guage, a hard and thorny path, on which he made small progress, and often went astray. Seated, pencil in hand, hefore some Indian squatting on the floor, whom with the bribe of a mouldy biscuit he had lured into the hut, he plied him with questions which the latter often neither would nor could answer. What was the Indian word for Faith, Hope, Charity, Sacrament, Baptism. Eucharist, Trinity, Incarnation ? The perplexed sav- age, willing to amuse himself, and impelled, as Biard thinks, by .the Devil, gave him scurrilous and unseemly phrases as the equivalent of things holy, which, stu- diously incorporated into the father's Indian catechism, produced on his pupils an effect the reverse of that intended.1
The dark months wore slowly on. A band of half- famished men gathered about the huge fires of their barn-like hall, moody, sullen, and quarrelsome. Dis- cord was here in the black robe of the Jesuit, in the brown capote of the rival trader. The position of the wretched little colony may well provoke reflection. Here lay the shaggy continent, from Florida to the Pole, outstretched in savage slumber along the sea, the stern domain of Nature, or, to adopt the ready solution of the Jesuits, a realm of the Powers of Night, blasted beneath the sceptre of Hell. On the banks of James
1 Biard says that Biencourt, " qui entend le sauvage le mieux de tous ceux qui sont icy, a pris d'un grand zele, et prend chaque jour beaucoup de peine a nous servir de truchement. Mais, ne S9ay comment, aussi tost qu'on vient a traitter de Dieu, il se sent le mesme que Moyse, 1'esprit estonne, le gosier tary, et la langue nouee." — Lettre du P. Biard au /?. P. a Purl*. Port Royal, 31 Janvier, 1612, in Carnyon, 14.
1612.] DISSENSION.
River was a nest of woe-begone Englishmen, a handful of Dutch fur-traders at the mouth of the Hudson,1 and a few shivering Frenchmen among the snow-drifts of Acadia ; while deep within the wild monotony of desolation, on the icy verge of the great northern river, the hand of Champlain upheld the fleur-de-lis on the rock of Quebec, and more than this ; — but of him and his deeds hereafter. These were the advance guard, the forlorn hope of civilization, messengers of promise to a desert continent. Yet, unconscious of their high function, not content with inevitable woes, they were rent by petty jealousies and miserable feuds, while each of these detached fragments of rival nation- alities, scarcely able to maintain its own wretched exist- ence on a few square miles, begrudged to the others the smallest share in a domain which all the nations of Europe could not have sufficed to fill.
One evening, as the forlorn tenants of Port Royal sat together disconsolate, Biard was seized with a spirit of prophecy. He called upon Biencourt to serve out to the company present the little of wine that remained, — a proposal which met with high favor from the lat- ter, though apparently with but little from the youthful Vice-Admiral. The wine was ordered, however, and, as an unwonted cheer ran around the circle, the Jesuit announced that an inward voice told him how, within a month, they should see a ship from France. In
1 It is not certain that the Dutch had any permanent trading-post here before 1613, whtn they had four houses at Manhattan. O'Callaghan. Hist. New Netherland, 1. 69.
23*
JESUITS IN ACADIA. [1612.
truth, they saw one within a week. On the twenty- third of January, 161£, arrived a small vessel laden with a moderate store of provisions and abundant seeds of future strife.
This was the expected succor sent by Poutrincourt. A series of ruinous voyages had exhausted his resources; but should he leave his son and his companions to per- ish "? His credit was gone ; his hopes were dashed ; yet assistance was proffered, and, in his extremity, he was forced to accept it. It came from Madame de Guercheville and her Jesuit advisers. She offered to buy the interest of a thousand crowns in the enterprise. The ill-omened succor could not be refused ; but this was not all. The zealous Protectress of the Missions obtained from De Monts, whose fortunes, like those of Poutrincourt, had ebbed low, a transfer of all his claims to the lands of Acadia; while the young King, Louis the Thirteenth, was persuaded to give her, in addition, a new grant of all the territory of North America, from the St. Lawrence to Florida. Thus did Madame de Guercheville, in other words, the Jesuits who used her name as a cover, become proprietors of the greater part of the future United States and British Provinces. The English colony of Virginia and the Dutch trading- houses of New York were included within the limits of this destined northern Paraguay, while Port Royal, the seigniory of the unfortunate Poutrincourt, was en- compassed, like a petty island, by the vast domain of the Society of Jesus. They could not deprive him of it, since his title had been confirmed by the late King,
1612.] BIENCOUBT AND THE PRIESTS.
but they flattered themselves, to borrow their own lan- guage, that he would be " confined as in a prison." l His grant, however, had been vaguely worded, and, while they held him restricted to an insignificant patch of earth, he claimed lordship over a wide and indefinite territory. Here was argument for endless strife. Other interests, too, were adverse. Poutrincourt, in his discouragement, had abandoned his plan of liberal colonization, and now thought of nothing but beaver- skins. He wished to make a trading-post; the Jes- uits wished to make a Mission.
When the vessel anchored before Port Royal, Bien- court, with disgust and anger, saw another Jesuit landed at the pier. This was Gilbert du Thet, a lay-brother, versed in affairs of this world, who hud come out as representative and administrator of Madame de Guer- cheville. Poutrincourt, also, had his agent on board ; and, without the loss of a day, the two began to quarrel. A truce ensued ; then a smothered feud pervading the whole colony, and ending in a notable explosion. The Jesuits, chafing under the sway of Biencourt, had with- drawn without ceremony, and betaken themselves to the vessel, intending to sail for France. Biencourt, exas- perated at such a breach of discipline, and fearing their representations at court, ordered them to return, adding, that, since the Queen had commended them to his espe- cial care, he could not, in conscience, lose sight of them. The fathers, indignant, excommunicated him. On this, the sagamore Louis, son of the grisly convert Member-
i Biard, Relation, c. XIX.
JESUITS IN ACADIA. [1612.
tou, begged leave to kill them ; but Biencourt would not countenance this summary mode of relieving his embarrassment. He again, in the King's name, or- dered the clerical mutineers to return to the fort. Biard declared that he would not, threatened to excom- municate any who should lay hand on him, and called the Vice-Admiral a robber. His wrath, however, soon cooled ; he yielded to necessity, and came quietly ashore, where, for the next three months, neither he nor his colleagues would say mass, or perform any office of religion.1 At length a change came over him ; he made advances of peace, prayed that the past might be forgotten, said mass again, and closed with a peti- tion that Brother du Thet might be allowed to go to France in a trading-vessel then on the coast. His peti- tion granted, he wrote to Poutrincourt a letter over- flowing with praises of his son ; and, charged with this missive, Du Thet set sail.
1 Lescarbot, (1618,) 676. Biard passes over the affair in silence. In bis letters (see Carayon) prior to tbis time, he speaks favorably both of Biencourt and Poutrincourt.
CHAPTER VII.
1613. SAUSSAYE. ARGALL.
VOYAGE OF SAUSSAYE. — MOUNT DESERT. — AROALL. ATTACKS THE FREKCB. — DEATH OF Du THET. — ST. SAVIOR DESTROYED.
PENDING these squabbles, the Jesuits at home were far from idle. Bent on ridding themselves of Poutriu- court, they seized, in satisfaction of debts due them, all the cargo of his returning vessel, and involved him in a network of litigation. If we adopt his own state- ments in a letter to his friend Lescarbot, he was out- rageously misused, and, indeed, defrauded, by his co- partners, who at length had him thrown into prison.1 Here, exasperated, weary, sick of Acadia, and anxious for the wretched exiles who looked to him for succor, the unfortunate man fell ill. Regaining his liberty, he again addressed himself, with what strength remained, to the forlorn task of sending relief to his son and his comrades.
Scarcely had Brother Gilbert du Thet arrived in France, when Madame de Guercheville and her Jes- uits, strong in court-favor, strong in the charity of wealthy penitents, prepared to take possession of their empire beyond sea. Contributions were asked, and » See the letter, in Lescarbot, (1618,) 678.
SAUSSAYE.— ARGALL. [1613
not in vain ; for the sagacious fathers, mindful of every spring of influence, had deeply studied the mazes of feminine psychology, and then, as now, were favorite confessors of the fair. It was on the twelfth of March, 1613, that the " Mayflower" of the Jesuits sailed from Honfleur for the shores of New England. She was a small craft of a hundred tons, bearing forty-eight sail- ors and colonists, including two Jesuits, Father Quen- tiu and Du Thet. She carried horses, too, and goats, and was abundantly stored with all things needful by the pious munificence of her patrons. A courtier named Saussaye commanded her, and, as she winged her way across the Atlantic, benedictions hovered over her from lordly halls and perfumed chambers.
On the sixteenth of May, Saussaye touched at La Heve, where he heard mass, planted a cross, and dis- played the scutcheon of Madame de Guercheville. Thence, passing on to Port Royal, he found Biard, Masse, their servant-boy, an apothecary, and one man beside. Biencourt and his followers were scattered about the woods and shores, digging ground-nuts,1 catching alewives in the brooks, and by .similar expe- dients sustaining their miserable existence. Taking the two Jesuits on board, the voyagers steered for the Penobscot. A fog rose upon the sea. They sailed to and fro, groping their way in blindness, straining their
1 The tuberous roots of Glycine apios, a beautiful climbing plant, with clusters of fragrant purple flowers, often a conspicuous ornament of New- England road-sides. The tubers, resembling small potatoes, are strung together by a connecting fibre. The Jesuits compared them to a ro- sary.
1613.] MOUNT DESERT.
eyes through the mist, and trembling each instant lest they should descry the black outline of some deadly reef and the ghostly death-dance of the breakers. But Heaven heard their prayers. At night they could see the stars.1 The sun rose resplendent on a laughing sea, and his morning beams streamed fair and full on the wild heights of the Island of Mount Desert. Ab- rupt and sheer, they towered above the waves: walls of sheeted granite, ramparts and bastions begrimed with the war of elements, buttressed by ancient crags where the white surf broke ceaselessly, bristling with firs, and half wrapped in ragged woods. The ship bore on before a favoring wind, foam spouting beneath her bows as she entered Frenchman's Bay, where dome -like islands rose, green with forests and gray with jutting rocks, while restless waves sparkled and danced between.
Saussaye anchored in a harbor on the east side of Mount Desert. The jet-black shade betwixt crags and sea, the pines along the cliff', pencilled against the fiery sunset, the dreamy slumber of distant mountains bathed in shadowy purple, — such is the scene that in this our day greets the wandering artist, the roving collegian bivouacked on the shore, or the pilgrim from stifled cities renewing his jaded strength in the mighty life of
1 " Suruint en mer vne si espaisse brume, que nous n'y voyons pas plus de iour que cle nuict. Nous apprehensions grandement ce danger, parce qu'en cet endroict, il y a beaucoup de brisans et rochers .... De sa bonte, Dieu nous exau^a, car le soir mesme nous commen9asmes a voir lea estoiles, et le matin les broue'es se dissiperent ; nous nous reconnusmea estre au deuant des Monts deserts." — Biard, Relation, c. XXIII.
SAUSSAYE. — ARGALL. [1618.
Nature. Perhaps they then greeted the adventurous Frenchman. Peace on the wilderness ; peace on the sea. Was there peace in this missionary bark, pioneer of Christianity and civilization 1 Far from it. A rahble of angry sailors clamored on her deck, ready to mutiny over the terms of their engagement. Should the time of their stay be reckoned from their landing at La Heve, or from their anchoring at Mount Desert ? Flory, the naval commander, took their part. Sailor, courtier, priest, gave tongue together in vociferous de- bate. Poutrincourt was far away, a ruined man ; and the intractable Vice- Admiral had ceased from troub- ling; yet not the less were the omens of the pious enter- prise sinister and dark. The company however, went ashore, raised a cross, heard mass, and named the place St. Savior.1
At a distance in the woods they saw the signal-smoke of Indians, whom Biard lost no time in visiting. Some of them were from a village on the shore, three leagues westward. Always fond of the French, they urged the latter to go with them to their wigwams. The astute savages had learned already how to deal with a Jesuit.
" Our great chief, Asticou, is there. He wishes for baptism. He is very sick. He will die unbaptized. He will burn in Hell, and it will be all your fault."
1 Probably all Frenchman's Bay was included under the name of the Harbor of St. Sauveur. The landing-place so called seems to have been near the entrance of the bay, certainly south of Bar Harbor. The Indian name of the Island of Mount Desert was Pemetic. Its present name, as before ment;oned, was given by Champlain.
1613.] MOUNT DESERT.
This was enough. Biard embarked in a canoe, and
C*
they paddled him to the spot, where he found the great chief, Asticou, in his wigwam, with a heavy cold in the head. Disappointed of his charitable purpose, the priest consoled himself with observing the beauties of the neiohbori nor shore, which seemed to him better fit-
<5 C> '
ted than St. Savior for the intended settlement. It was a gentle slope, descending to the sea, and covered with tall grass. It looked southeast upon a harbor where a fleet might ride at anchor, sheltered from the gales by a cluster of small islands.1
The ship was brought to the spot ; the colonists dis- embarked. First they planted a cross ; then they began their labors, and, with their labors, their quarrels. Saus- saye, zealous for agriculture, wished to break ground and raise crops immediately ; the rest opposed him, wishing first to be housed and fortified. This dispute begat others. Debate ran high, when, suddenly, all was
1 Biard says that the place was only three leagues from St. Savior, and that he could go and return in an afternoon. He adds that it was " separe de la (jrande Isle des Monts Deserts." He was evidently mistaken in this. St. Savior being on the east side of Mount Desert, there is no place sepa- rated from it, and .answering to his description, which he could have reached within the time mentioned. He no doubt crossed Mount Desert Sound, which, with Soames's Sound, nearly severs the island. The set- tlement must have been on the western side of Soames's Sound. Here, about a mile from the open sea, on the farm of Mr. Fernald, is a spot perfectly answering to the minute description of Biard: "Le terroir noir, gras, et fertile;" "la jolie colline esleuee doucement sur la mer, et baignc'e a ses costez de deux fontaines ; " " les petites islettes qui rompent les flots et les vents." The situation is picturesque in the extreme. On the opposite, or eastern shore of the Sound, are found heaps of clam-shells and other indications of an Indian village, proba- bly that of Asticou. I am indebted to E. L. Hamlin, Esq., of Bangor, for pointing out this locality. 24
SAUSSAYE. — ARGALL. [1613.
harmony, and the disputants were friends once more in the pacification of a common danger.
Far out at sea, beyond the islands that sheltered their harbor, they saw an approaching sail ; and, as she drew near, straining their anxious eyes, they could descry the blood-red flags that streamed from her mast-head and her stern ; then the black muzzles of her cannon, — they counted seven on a side; then the throng of men upon her decks. The wind was brisk and fair ; all her sails were set ; she came on, writes a spectator, more swiftly than an arrow.1
Six years before, in 1607, ^e ships of Captain New- port had conveyed to the banks of James River the first vital germ of English colonization on the continent. Noble and wealthy speculators, with Hispaniola, Mex- ico, and Peru for their inspiration, had combined to gather the fancied golden harvest of Virginia, received a charter from the crown, and taken possession of their El Dorado. From tavern, gaming-house, and brothel was drawn the staple of the colony, — ruined gentlemen, prodigal sons, disreputable retainers, debauched trades- men. Yet it would be foul slander to affirm that the founders of Virginia were all of this stamp ; for among the riotous crew were men of worth, and, high above them all, a hero disguised by the homeliest of names. Again and again, in direst woe and jeopardy, the infant settlement owed its life to the heart and hand of John Smith.
1 " La nauire Anglois venoit plus viste q'un dard, ayant le vent a sou- hait, tout pauis de rouge, les pauillons d'Angleterre flottans, et troia trompettes et deux tambours faisans rage de sonner." — Biard, IMation, c XXV.
1613.] SAMUEL ARGALL.
Several years had elapsed since Newport's voyage ; and the colony, depleted by famine, disease, and an In- dian war, had been recruited by fresh emigration, when one Samuel Argall arrived at Jamestown, captain of an illicit trading - vessel. He was a man of ability and force, — one of those compounds of craft and daring in which the age was fruitful ; for the rest, unscrupulous and grasping. In the spring of 1613 he achieved a characteristic exploit, the abduction of Pocahontas. that most interesting of young squaws, or, to borrow the style of the day, of Indian princesses. Sailing up the Potomac, he lured her on board his ship ; then, with infamous treachery, he carried off the benefactress and savior of the colony a prisoner to Jamestown. Here a young man of family, Rolfe, became enamored of her, married her with more than ordinary ceremony, and thus secured a firm alliance between her tribesmen and the English.
Meanwhile Argall had set forth on another enter- prise. With a ship of one hundred and thirty tons, carrying fourteen guns and sixty men, he sailed in May for islands off' the coast of Maine to fish for cod.1 Thick fogs involved him ; and, when the weather cleared, he found himself not far from the Bay of Pe- nobscot. Canoes came out from shore ; the Indians climbed the ship's side, and, as they gained the deck, greeted the astonished English with an odd panto- mime of bows and flourishes, which, in the belief of the latter, could have been learned from none but French-
1 Letter of Argall to Nicholas Hawes, June, 1613, in Purchas, IV. 1764.
250 SAUSSAYE. — ARGALL. [1613.
men.1 By signs, too, and by often repeating the word Norman, — by which they always designated the French, — they betrayed the presence of the latter. Argall, eager as a hound on the scent, questioned them as well as his total ignorance of their language would permit. He learned, by signs, the position and numbers of the colonists. Clearly they were no match for him. Assur- ing the Indians that the Normans were his friends and that he longed to see them, he retained one of the vis- itors as a guide, dismissed the rest with presents, and shaped his course for Mount Desert.2
Now the wild heights rose in view ; now the Eng- lish could see the masts of a small ship anchored in the bay ; and now, as they rounded the islands, four white tents were visible on the grassy slope between the water and the woods. They were a gift from the Queen to Madame de Guercheville and her missionaries. Ar- gall's pirates prepared for fight, while their Indian guide, amazed, broke into a howl of lamentation.
On shore all was confusion. The pilot went to reconnoitre, and ended by hiding among the islands. Saussaye lost presence of mind, and did nothing for defence. La Motte, his lieutenant, with an ensign, a sergeant, the Jesuit Du Thet, and a few of the bravest men, hastened on board the vessel, but had no time to
1 " . . . . et aux ceremonies que les sauvages faisoient pour leur cora- plaire, ils recognoissoient que c'etoient ce'rcmonies de courtoisie et ciuili- tez fram.-oises." — Biard, Relation, c. XXV.
2 Holmes, American Annals, by a misapprehension of Champlain's nar- rative, represents Argall as having a squadron of eleven ships. He cer- tainly had but one.
1613.] ARGALL ATTACKS THE FRENCH. 281
cast loose her cables. Argall bore down on them, with a furious din of drums and trumpets, showed his broad- side, and replied to their hail with a volley of cannon and musket shot. " Fire ! Fire ! " screamed the French captain, Flory. But there was no gunner to obey, till the Jesuit Du Thet seized and applied the match. " The cannon made as much noise as the enemy's," writes his colleague ; but, as the inexperienced artillerist forgot to aim the piece, no other result ensued. Another storm of musketry, and Brother Gilbert du Thet rolled help- less on the deck. The French ship was mute. The English plied her for a time with shot, then lowered a boat and boarded. Under the awnings which covered her, dead and wounded men -lay strewn about her deck, and among them the brave priest, smothering in his blood. He had his wish ; for, on leaving France, he had prayed with uplifted hands that he might not return, but perish in that holy enterprise. Like the Order of which he was a member, lie was a compound of qualities in appearance contradictory. La Motte, sword in hand, showed fight to the last, and won the esteem of his captors.
The English landed without meeting any show of resistance, and ranged at will among the tents, the piles of baggage and stores, and the buildings and defences newly begun. Argall asked for the commander, but Saussaye had fled to the woods. The crafty English- man seized his trunks, caused the locks to be picked, searched till he found the royal letters and commissions, withdrew them, replaced everything else as he had
24*
SAUSSAYE. — ARGALL. [HU3.
found it, and again closed the lids. In the morning-, Saussaye, betwixt the English and starvation, preferred the former, and issued from his hiding-place. Argall received him with studious courtesy. That country, he said, belonged to his master, King James. Doubt- less they had authority from their own sovereign for thus encroaching upon it ; and, for his part, he was pre- pared to yield all respect to the commissions of the King of France, that the peace between the two nations might nbt be disturbed. Therefore he prayed that the commissions might be shown to him. Saussaye opened his trunks. The royal signature was nowhere to be found. At this, Argall's courtesy was changed to wrath. He denounced the Frenchmen as robbers and pirates who deserved the gallows, removed their prop- erty on board his ship, and spent the afternoon in divid- ing it among his followers. The French, disconsolate, remained on the scene of their woes, where the greedy sailors as they came ashore would snatch from them, now a cloak, now a hat, now a doublet, till the unfor- tunate colonists were left half naked. In other re- spects the English treated their captives well, — except two of them, whom they flogged ; and Argall, whom Biard, after recounting his knavery, calls u a gentle- man of noble courage," having gained his point, re- turned to his former courtesy.
But how to dispose of the prisoners 1 Fifteen of them, including Saussaye and the Jesuit Masse, were turned adrift in an open boat, at the mercy of the wil- derness and the sea. Nearly all were landsmen ; but
1613.] RETURN TO FRANCE.
while their unpractised hands were struggling with the oars, they were joined among the islands hy the fugitive pilot and his boat's crew. Worn and half starved, the united hands made their perilous way eastward, stopping from time to time to hear mass, make a procession, or catch codfish. Thus sustained in the spirit and in the flesh, cheered too by the Indians, who proved fast friends in need, they crossed the Bay of Fundy, doubled Cape Sable, and followed the southern coast of Nova Scotia, till they happily fell in with two French trading- vessels, which bore them in safety to St. Malo.
CHAPTER VIII.
1613 — 1615. RUIN OF FRENCH ACADIA.
THE JESUITS AT JAMESTOWN. — WRATH OF SIR THOMAS DALE. — A NBW EXPEDITION. — PORT ROYAL DEMOLISHED. — EQUIVOCAL POSTURE OF THE JESUITS. — THEIR ADVENTURES. — THE FRENCH WILL NOT ABAN- DON ACADIA.
" PRAISED be God, behold two thirds of our com- pany safe in France, telling their strange adventures to their relations and friends. And now you will wish to know what befell the rest of us." Thus writes Father Biard, who, with his companions in misfortune, four- teen in all, prisoners on board Argall's ship and the prize, were borne captive to Virginia. Old Point Com- fort was reached at length, the site of Fortress Mon- roe ; Hampton Roads, renowned in our day for the sea-fight of the Titans ; Sewell's Point ; the Rip Raps; Newport News ; — all household words in the ears of this generation. Now, far on their right, buried in the damp shade of immemorial verdure, lay, untrodden and voiceless, those fields of future fame where stretched the leaguering lines of Washington, where the lilies of France floated beside the banners of the new-born
1 " Dieu soit beny. Voyla ja les deux tiers de nostre troupe reconduicts en France sains et sauues parmy leurs parents et amis, qui les oyent con- ter leurs grandes aventures. Ores consequemment vous desirez sijauoir ce qui deuiendra 1'autre tiers." — Biard, Relation, c. XXVIII.
1613.] THE WRATH OF SIR THOMAS DALE.
Republic, and where, in later years, embattled treason confronted the manhood of an outraged nation. And now before them they could descry the masts of small craft at anchor, a cluster of rude dwellings fresh from the axe, scattered tenements, and fields green with to- bacco.
Throughout the voyage the prisoners had been soothed with flattering tales of the benignity of the Governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale, his love of the French, and his respect for the memory of Henry the Fourth, to whom, they were told, he was much beholden for countenance and favor. On their landing at Jamestown, this consoling picture was reversed. The indignant governor fumed and blustered, talked of halter and gallows, and declared that he would hang them all. In vain Argall remonstrated, urging that he had pledged his word for their lives. Dale, outraged by their inva- sion of British territory, was deaf to all appeals ; when Argall, driven to extremity, displayed the stolen com- missions, and proclaimed his stratagem, of which the French themselves had to that moment been ignorant. As they were accredited by their government, their lives at least were safe. Yet the wrath of Sir Thomas Dale still burned high. He summoned his council, and they resolved promptly to wipe off all stain of French intrusion from shores which King James claimed as his own.
Their action was utterly unauthorized. The two kingdoms, were at peace. James the First, by the patents of 1606, had granted all North America, from
RUIN OF FRENCH ACADIA. [1613.
the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, to the two companies of London and Plymouth, Virginia being assigned to the former, while to the latter were given Maine and Acadia, with adjacent regions. Over these, though as yet the claimants had not taken possession of them, the authorities of Virginia had no color of jurisdiction. England claimed all North America, in virtue of the discovery of Cabot ; and Sir Thomas Dale became the self-constituted champion of British rights, not the less zealous that his champion- ship promised a harvest of booty.
Argall's ship, the captured ship of Saussaye, and another smaller vessel, were at once equipped and de- spatched on their errand of havoc. Argall commanded ; and Biard, with Quentin and several others of the pris- oners, were embarked with him.1 They shaped their course first for Mount Desert. Here they landed, lev-
*
elled Saussaye's unfinished defences, cut down the French cross, and planted one of their own in its place. Next they sought out the island of St. Croix, seized a quantity of salt, and razed to the ground all that re- mained of the dilapidated buildings of De Monts. They crossed the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal, guided, says Biard, by an Indian chief, — an improbable asser- tion, since the natives of these coasts hated the Eng- lish as much as they loved the French, and now well knew the designs of the former. The unfortunate set-
1 In his Relation, Biard does not explain the reason of his accompany- ing the expedition. In his letter to the General of the Jesuits, dated Amiens, 26 May, 1614, (Carayon,) he says that it was " dans le dessein de profiler de la premiere occasion qui se rencontrerait, pour nous renvoyer dans no'.rr p.itre "
1613.] THE ENGLISH AT PORT ROYAL.
tlement \vas tenantless. Biencourt, with some of his men, was on a visit to neighboring bands of Indians, while the rest were reaping in the fields on the river two leagues above the fort. Succor from Poutrincourt had arrived during the summer. The magazines were by no means empty, and there were cattle, horses, and hogs in adjacent fields and enclosures. Exulting at their good fortune, Argall's men butchered or carried off the animals, ransacked the buildings, plundered them even to the locks and bolts of the doors ; then laid the whole in ashes ; " and may it please the Lord," adds the pious Biard, " that the sins therein committed may likewise have been consumed in that burning."
Port Royal demolished, the marauders went in boats up the river to the fields where the reapers were at work. These fled, and took refuge behind the ridge of a hill, whence they gazed helplessly on the destruc- tion of their harvest. Biard approached them, and, according to the declaration of Poutrincourt made and attested before the Admiralty of Guienne, tried to per- suade them to desert his son, Biencourt, and take ser- vice with Argall. The reply of otfe of the men gave little encouragement for further parley : —
" Begone, or I will split your head with this hatchet." There is flat contradiction here between the narrative of the Josuit and those of Poutrincourt and contem- porary English writers, who agree in affirming that Biard, "out of indigestible malice that he had conceived against Biencourt," l encouraged the attack on the set-
1 Briefe Intelligence from Virginia by Letters. See Purchas, IV. 1808.
288 RUIN OF FRENCH ACADIA. [1613.
dements of St. Croix and Port Royal, and guided the English thither. The priest himself admits that both French and English regarded him as a traitor, and that his life was in danger. While Argall's ship was at anchor, a Frenchman shouted to the English from a distance that they would do well to kill him. The mas- ter of the ship, a Puritan, in his ahomination of priests and above all of Jesuits, was at the same time urging his commander to set Biard ashore and leave him to the mercy of his countrymen. In this pass, he was saved, to adopt his own account, by what he calls his sim- plicity; for he tells us, that, while — instigated, like the rest of his enemies, by the Devil — the robber and the robbed were joining hands to ruin him, he was on his knees before Argall, begging him to take pity on the French, and leave them a boat, together with provisions to, sustain their miserable lives through the winter. This spectacle of charity, he further says, so moved the noble heart of the commander, that he closed his ears to all the promptings of foreign and domestic malice.1
Compare Poutrincourt's letter to Lescarbot, in Lescarbot, (1618,) 684. Also, Plainte du Sieur de Poutn'ncourt devant le Juge de I'Admiraute de Guy- oine, Lescarbot, 687.
1 " le ne S9ay qui secourut tant a propos le lesuite en ce danger que sa simplicite. Car tout de mesme que s'il eust este bien fauorise et qu'il eust pen beaucoup enuers ledit Anglois, il se mit a genoux deuarit le Capitaine par deux diuerses fois et a deux diuersea occasions, a celle fin de le flechir a misericorde enuers les Francois du dit Port Royal esgares par les bois, et pour luy persuader de leur laisser quelques vuires, Inur chaloupe et quelqu'autre moyen de passer 1'hyuer. Et voyez combien differentos petitions on faisoit audit Capitaine : car au mesme temps que le JP. Biard le supplioit ainsi pour les Francois, vn Francois crioit de loin, avec outrages ct iniures, qu'il le falloit massacrer.
" Or Argal, qui est d'vn coaur noble, voyant ceste tant sincere affection
10 IS.] BIENCOURT AND THE ENGLISH.
The English had scarcely reembarked, when Bien- court arrived with his followers, and beheld the scene of destruction. Hopelessly outnumbered, he tried to lure Argall and some of his officers into an ambuscade, but they would not be entrapped. Biencourt now asked for an interview. The word of honor was mu- tually given, and the two chiefs met in a meadow not far from the demolished dwellings. An anonymous English writer says that Biencourt offered to transfer his allegiance to King James, provided he was permitted to remain at Port Royal and carry on the fur - trade under a guaranty of English protection ; but that Ar- gall would not listen to his overtures.1 The interview proved a stormy one. Biard says that the Frenchman vomited against him every species of malignant abuse. " In the mean time," he adds, " you will considerately observe to what madness the evil spirit exciteth those who sell themselves to him."2 According to Poutrin- court, Argall admitted that the priest had urged him to attack Port Royal.8 Certain it is, that the young man demanded his surrender, frankly declaring that he meant to hang him. " Whilest they were discoursing together," says the old English writer above mentioned, " one of the savages rushing suddenly forth from the
du lesuite, et de 1'autre costc tant bestiale et enragce inhumanitc de ce Francois, laquelle ne recognoissoit ny sa propre nation, ny bien-faicts, ny religion, ny estoit dompte par 1'affliction et verges de Dieu, estima," etc. — Uiard, Relation, c. XXIX. He writes throughout in the third person.
* Briefe Intelligence, Purchas, I V. 1808.
2 Biard, e. XXIX. : " Ccpendant vous remarqiierez sagement ixisqmt k quelle rage le malin esprit agite ceux qui se vcndcnt a luy."
8 Plainte du Sieur de Poutrincourt, Lescarbot, (1618,) 689. 25
2QO EUIN OF FRENCH ACADIA. [101 3
Woods, and licentiated to come neere, did after his manner, with such broken French as he had, earnestly mediate a peace, wondring why they that seemed to he of one Country, should vse others with such hostilitie, and that with such a forme of habit and gesture as made them both to laugh." *
His work done, and, as he thought, the French settlements of Acadia effectually blotted out, Argall set sail for Virginia on the thirteenth of November. Scarcely was he at sea when a storm scattered the vessels. Of the smallest of the three nothing was ever
O
heard. Argall, severely buffeted, reached his port in safety, having first, it is said, compelled the Dutch at Manhattan to acknowledge for a time the sovereignty of King James.2 The captured ship of Saussaye, with Biard and his colleague Quentin on board, was forced to yield to the fury of the western gales, and bear away for the Azores. To Biard the change of destination was nowise unwelcome. He stood in fear of the trucu- lent governor of Virginia, and his tempest-rocked slum- bers were haunted with unpleasant visions of a rope's end.3 It seems that some of the French at Port Royal, disappointed in their hope of hanging him, had com- mended him to Sir Thomas Dale as a proper subject
1 Purchas, IV. 1808.
2 Description of the Pronnce of New Albion, in New York Historical C-ilfco- . tions, Second Series, I. 335. The statement is doubtful. It is supported, however, by the excellent authority of Dr. O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland, I. 69.
:< " Lc Marechal Thomas Deel (que vous avez ouy estre fort aspre en ses humeurs) .... attendoit en bon deuotion le Pere Biard pour luy tost accourcir les voyages, luy faisant trouuer an milieu d'une eschelle le bout du monde." — Biard, Relation, c. XXX., XXX III.
101G.] ADVENTURES OF THE JESUITS.
for the gallows, drawing up a paper, signed by six of them, and containing allegations of a nature well fitted to kindle the wrath of that vehement official. The vessel was commanded by Turnel, Argall's lieutenant, appar- ently an officer of merit, a scholar and linguist. He had treated his prisoner with great kindness, because, says the latter, " he esteemed and loved him for his naive simplicity and ingenuous candor." But of late, thinking his kindness misplaced, he had changed it for an extreme coldness, preferring, in the words of Biard himself, " to think that the Jesuit had lied, rather than «o many who accused him." 2
Water ran low, provisions began to fail, and they eked out their meagre supply by butchering the horses taken at Port Royal. At length they came within sight of Fayal, when a new terror seized the minds of the two Jesuits. Might not the Englishmen fear that their prisoners would denounce them to the fervent Catholics of that island as pirates and sacrilegious kidnappers of priests ? From such hazard the escape was obvious. What more simple than to drop the priests into the sea \ 8 In truth, the English had no little dread of the results of conference between the Jesuits and the Port- uguese authorities of Fayal; but the conscience or hu-
1 " . . . . il avoit faict cstat de le priser et 1'aymer pour sa naifue sim- plicitc et ouuerte candeur." — Biard, Relation, c. XXX.
2 " . . . . il aimoit mieux croire quo le Icsuite fust menteur que non pas tant d'tiutres qui I'aceusoyent." — Ibid.
3 " Oe souci nous inquic'tuit fort. Qu'allaient-ils faire ? Nousjette- raient-ils a 1'eau 1" — Lellre du P. Biard au T. R. P. Claude. Aytiaviva, Amiens, 26 Mai, 1614, in Carayon, 106. Like all Biard's letters to Aqua viva, this is translated from the original Latin.
RUIN ()F FRENCH ACADIA. [1613.
manity of Turnel revolted at the expedient which awa- kened grievous apprehension in the troubled mind of Biard. He contented himself with requiring1 that the two priests should remain hidden while the ship lay off the port. Biard does not say that he enforced the demand either by threats or by the imposition of oaths. He and his companion, however, rigidly complied with it, lying close in the hold or under the boats, while suspicious officials searched the ship, — a proof, he tri- umphantly declares, of the audacious malice which has asserted it as a tenet of Rome that no faith need be kept with heretics.
Once more at sea, Turnel shaped his course for home, having, with some difficulty, gained a supply of water and provision at Fayal. All was now harmony betwixt him and his prisoners. Arrived at Pembroke, in Wales, the appearance of the vessel — a French craft in English hands — again drew upon him the suspicion of piracy. • The Jesuits, dangerous witnesses among the Catholics of Fayal, could at the worst do little harm with the Vice-Admiral at Pembroke. To him, therefore, he led the prisoners, in the sable garb of their order, now much the worse for wear, and com- mended them as persons without reproach, " wherein," adds the modest father, " he spoke the truth." * The result of this evidence was, we are told, that Turnel was henceforth treated, not as a pirate, but, according to his deserts, as an honorable gentleman. This inter-
1 ". . . . gens irreprochables, ce disoit-il, et disoit vray." — Biard. Relation, c. XXXII.
1614.] FORTUNES OF THE COLONISTS.
view led to a meeting- with certain dignitaries of the
O ^
Anglican church, who, much interested in an encounter with Jesuits in their robes, were filled, says Biard, with wonder and admiration at what they were told of their conduct.1 He explains that these churchmen differ widely in form and doctrine from the English Calvin- ists, who, he says, are called Puritans; and he adds that they are superior in every respect to these, whom they detest as an execrable pest.2
Biard was sent to Dover and thence to Calais, re- turning-, perhaps, to the tranquil honors of his chair of theology at Lyons. Saussaye, La Motte, Flory, and other prisoners, were, at various times, sent from Vir- ginia to England and ultimately to France. Madame de GuercheviJle, her pious designs crushed in the bud, seems to have gained no further satisfaction than the restoration of the vessel. The French ambassador complained of the outrage, but answer was postponed ; and. in the troubled state of France, the matter appears to have been dropped.3
Argall, whose violent, unscrupulous, and crafty char- acter was offset by a gallant bearing and various traits of martial virtue, became deputy-governor of Virginia, and, under a military code, ruled the colony with a rod of iron. He enforced the observance of Sunday with an edifying vigor. Those who absented themselves
1 " . . . . et les ministres en demonstroyent grands signes estonne- ment et d'admiration." — Biard, lielation, e. XXXI.
2 ". . . . et los detestent comme peste execrable." — Ibid. c. XXXII.
8 Order of Council respecting certain claims w/ainst Capt. An/all, etc. An- •wer to the preceding Order. See Colonial Documents of New York, III. 1, 2. 25*
RUIN OF FRENCH ACADIA. 11615
from church were, for the first offence, imprisoned for the night, and reduced to slavery for a week ; for the second offence, a month ; and for the third, a year. Nor was he less strenuous in his devotion to Mammon. He enriched himself by extortion and wholesale pecu- lation, and his audacious dexterity, aided by the coun- tenance of the Earl of Warwick, who is said to have had a trading connection with him, thwarted all the efforts of the company to bring him to account. In 1623, he was knighted by the hand of King James.1
Early in the spring following the English attack, Poutrincourt came to Port Royal. He found the place in ashes, and his unfortunate son, with the men under his command, wandering houseless in the forests. They had passed a winter of extreme misery, sustaining their wretched existence with roots, the buds of trees, and lichens peeled from the rocks.
Despairing of his enterprise, Poutrinconrt returned to France. In the next year, 1615, during the civil disturbances which followed the marriage of the King, command was given him of the royal forces destined for the attack on Mery ; and here, happier in his death than in his life, he fell, sword in hand.2
Despite their reverses, the French kept a tenacious hold on Acadia.3 Biencourt, partially at least, rebuilt
1 Argall's history may be gleaned from Purchas, Smith, Stith, Gorges, Beverly, etc. An excellent summary will be found in Belknap's Aumi- can Biography, anl a briefer one in AHen's.
2 Nobilissimi Unrols Potrincurtii Epitapliium, Lescarbot, (1618,) 691 lie took the town, but was killed immediately after by a treacherous shot, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. He was buried on his barony of St. Just.
R According to Biard, more than five hundred French vessels sailed
1615.] FRANCE AND ENGLAND.
Port Royal ; while winter after winter the smoke of fur- traders' huts curled into the still, sharp air of these frosty wilds, till at length, with happier auspices, plans of settlement were resumed.1
Rude hands strangled the "northern Paraguay "in its birth. Its beginnings had been feeble, but behind were the forces of a mighty organization, at once devoted and ambitious, enthusiastic and calculating. Seven years later the Mayflower landed her emigrants at Plymouth. What would have been the issues had the zeal of the pious Lady of Honor preoccupied New England with a Jesuit colony 1 A collision of adverse elements ; a conflict of water and fire ; the death-grapple of the iron Puritans with these indomitable priests.
In a semi-piratical descent, an obscure stroke of law- less violence, began the strife of France and England, Protestantism and Rome, which, for a century and a half, shook the struggling communities of North Amer- ica, and closed at last in the memorable triumph on the Plains of Abraham.
annually, at this time, to America, for the whale and cod fishery and the fur-trade.
1 There is an autograph letter in the Archives de la Marine from Bien- court, — who had succeeded to his father's designation, — written at Port Royal in September, 1618, and addressed " aiix Autoritfs de la Viilc de Paris," in which he urges upon them the advantages of establishing for- tified posts in Aciidia, thus defending it Jigainst incursions of the Knglish, who had lately seized a French trader from Dieppe, and insuring the con- tinuance and increase of the traffic in furs from which the city of Paris lerived sut-h advantages. Moreover, he adds, it will serve as an asylum for the indigent and suffering of the city, to their own great benefit and the advantage of the municipality, who will be relieved of the burden of their maintenance. It does not appear that the city responded t" IUH appeal.
CHAPTER IX.
1608, 1609. CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC.
A NEW ENTERPRISE. — THE ST. LAWRENCE. — CONFLICT WITFI BASQUES.— T.VDOUSSAC. — QUEBEC FOUNDED. — CONSPIRACY. — WINTER. — Tiw
MONTAGNAIS. — SPRING. — PROJECTS OF EXPLORATION.
A LONELY ship sailed up the St. Lawrence. The white whales floundering1 in the Bay of Tadoussac, and the wild duck diving as the foaming prow drew near, — there was no life but these in all that watery solitude, twenty miles from shore to shore. The ship was from Honflecr, and was commanded by Samuel de Cham- plain. He was the ^iEneas of a destined people, and in her womb lay the embryo life of Canada.
De Monts, after his exclusive privilege of trade was revoked, and his Acadian enterprise ruined, had aban- doned it, as we have seen, to Poutrincourt. Well, per haps, would it have been for him, had he abandoned with it all Transatlantic enterprises ; but the passion for discovery, the noble ambition of founding colonies, had taken possession of his mind. Nor does it appear that he was actuated by hopes of gain. Yet the prof- its of the fur-trade were vital to the new designs he was meditating, to meet the heavy outlay they de- manded ; and he solicited and obtained a fresh monop- oly of the traffic for one year.1
1 See the patent in Champlain, (1613,) 163.
1608.] VIEWS OF CHAMPLAIN. £97
Champlain was, at the time, in Paris ; but his unquiet thoughts turned westward. He was enamored of the New World, whose rugged charms had seized his fancy and his heart ; and as explorers of Arctic seas have pined in their repose for polar ice and snow, so did he, with restless longing, revert to the fog-wrapped coasts, the piny odors of forests, the noise of waters, the sharp and piercing sunlight, so dear to his remembrance. Fain would he unveil the mystery of that boundless wilderness, and plant the Catholic faith and the power of France amid its ancient barbarism.
Five years before, he had explored the St. Lawrence as far as the rapids above Montreal. On its banks, as he thought, was the true site for a settlement, a fortified post, whence, as from a secure basis, the waters of the vast interior might be traced back towards their sources, and a western route discovered to China and the East. For the fur-trade, too, the innumerable streams that descended to the great river might all be closed against foreign intrusion by a single fort at some commanding point, and made tributary to a rich and permanent com- merce ; while — and this was nearer to his heart, for he had often been heard to say that the saving of a soul was worth more than the conquest of an empire — countless savage tribes, in the bondage of Satan, might by the same avenues be reached and redeemed.
De Monts embraced his views ; and, fitting out two ships, gave command of one to the elder Pontgrave, of the other to Champlain. The former was to trade with the Indians and bring back the cargo of furs
CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC. [1608.
which, it was hoped, would meet the expense of the voyage. To the latter fell the harder task of settle- ment and exploration.
Pontgrave, laden with goods for the Indian trade of Tadoussac, sailed from Honfleur on the fifth of April, 1608. Champlain, with men, arms, and stores for the colony, followed eight days later. On the fifteenth of May he was on the Grand Bank ; on the thirtieth he passed Gaspe, and on the third of June neared Ta- doussac. No life was to be seen. Had Pontgrave yet arrived 1 He anchored, lowered a boat, and rowed into the port, round the rocky point at the southeast, then, from the fury of its winds and currents, called La Pointe de Tous les Diables.1 There was life enough within, and more than he cared to find. In the still anchorage under the cliffs lay Pontgrave's vessel, and at her side another ship. The latter was a Basque fur-trader.
Pontgrave, arriving a few days before, had found himself anticipated by the Basques, who were busied in a brisk trade with bands of Indians cabined along the borders of the cove. In all haste he displayed the royal letters, and commanded a cessation of the prohib- ited traffic ; but the Basques proved refractory, declared that they would trade in spite of the King, fired on Pontgrave with cannon and musketry, wounded him and two of his men, and killed a third. They then boarded his vessel, and carried away all his cannon,
i Champlain, (1613,) 166. Also called La Pointe aux Kochers. Ibid. (1632,) 119.
1608.] TADOUSSAC.
small arms, and ammunition, saying that they would restore them when they had finished their trade and were ready to return home.
Champlain found his comrade on shore, in a disabled condition. The Basques, though still strong enough to make fight, were alarmed for the consequences of their procedure, and anxious to come to terms. A peace, therefore, was signed on hoard their vessel ; all differ- ences were referred to the judgment of the French courts, harmony was restored, and the choleric stran- gers betook themselves to catching whales.
This port of Tadoussac was long the centre of the Canadian fur - trade. A desolation of barren moun- tains closes around it, betwixt whose ribs of rugged granite, bristling with savins, birches, and firs, the Sa- guenay rolls its gloomy waters from the northern wil- derness. Centuries of civilization have not tamed the wildness of the place ; and still, in grim repose, the mountains hold their guard around the waveless lake that glistens in their shadow, and doubles, in its sullen mirror, crag, precipice, and forest.
Near the brink of the cove or harbor where the vessels lay, and a little below the mouth of a brook which formed one of the outlets of this small lake, stood the remains of the wooden barrack built by Chau- vin eight years before. Above the brook were the lodges of an Indian camp,1 — stacks of poles covered with birch - bark. They belonged to an Algonquin horde, called Moniagnais, denizens of surrounding
1 Plan du Port de Tadoussac, Champlain, (1613,) 172.
300 CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC. [1008.
wilds, and gatherers of their only harvest, — skins of the moose, caribou, and bear ; fur of the beaver, marten, otter, fox, wild-cat, and lynx. Nor was this all, for they were intermediate traders betwixt the French and the shivering bands who roamed the weary stretch of stunted forest between the head waters of the Saguenay and Hudson's Bay. Indefatigable canoe -men, in their birchen vessels, light as egg-shells, they threaded the devious tracks of countless rippling streams, shady by- ways of the forest, where the wild duck scarcely finds depth to swim ; then descended to their mart along those scenes of picturesque yet dreary grandeur which steam has made familiar to modern tourists. With slowly moving paddles, they glided beneath the cliff' whose shaggy brows frown across the zenith, and whose base the deep waves wash with a hoarse and hollow cadence ; and they passed the sepulchral Bay of the Trinity, dark as the tide of Acheron, — a sanctuary of solitude and silence, where the soul of the wilderness dwells embodied in voiceless rock : depths which, as the fable runs, no sounding line can fathom, and heights at whose dizzy verge the wheeling eagle seems a speck.1 And now, peace being established with the Basques, and the wounded Pontgrave busied, as far as might be, in transferring to the hold of his ship the rich lading of the Indian canoes, Chainplain spread his sails, and once
more held his course up the St. Lawrence. .Far to
1
1 Bouchette estimates the height of these cliffs at eighteen hundred feet. They overhang the river and bay. The scene is one of the most remarkable on the continent.
1608.J QUEBEC. 301
the south, in sun and shadow, slumbered the woody mountains whence fell the countless springs of the St. John, behind tenantless shores, now white with glim- mering villiiges, — La Chenaie, Granville, Kamouraska, St. Roche, St. Jean, Vincelot, Berthier. But on the north, the jealous wilderness still asserts its sway, crowding to the river's verge its rocky walls, its domes and towers of granite ; and to this hour, its solitude is scarcely broken.
Above the point of the Island of Orleans, a constric- tion of the vast channel narrows it to a mile ; on one hand, the green heights of Point Levi ; on the other, the cliffs of Quebec.1 Here, a small stream, the St. Charles, enters the St. Lawrence, and in the angle betwixt them rises the promontory, on two sides a natural fortress. Land among the walnut-trees that formed a belt between the cliffs and the St. Lawrence. Climb the steep height, now bearing aloft its ponderous
1 The origin of this name has been disputed, but there is no good ground to doubt its Indian origin, which is distinctly affirmed by Champlain and Lesearbot. Charlevoix, Pastes C/ironologiques, (1608,) derives it from the Algonquin word Qntbeio, or Quelibec, signifying a ««;•- rowing or contracting (rtfrfrissemfnt). A half-breed Algonquin told Gar- neau that the word Quel>ec or Ouabec means a strait. The same writer was told by M. Malo, a missionary among the Micmacs, a branch of the Al- gonqnins, that in their dialect the word Kibec had the same meaning. Martin says, " Lea Algonquins 1'appellent Oual>ec, ct les Micmacs fober/itf, c'est k dire. ' la oil la riviere est fermde.' " Martin's Bresstini, App. 326. The derivations given by Potherie, Le Beau, and others, are purely fan- ciful. The circumstance of the word Quel>ec being found engraved on the ancient seal of Lord Suffolk (see Hawkins, Picture of Qntbec) can only be regarded as a curious coincidence. In Cartier's times the site of Quebec was occupied by a tribe of the Iroquois race, who called their village Stadacont The Hurons called it, says Sagard, Atou-ta-requee. IP the modern Huron dialect, Tiatou-tu-riti means the narrows 26
302 CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC. 11608
load of churches, convents, dwellings, ramparts, and batteries, — there was an accessible point, a rough pas- sage, gullied downward where Prescott Gate now opens on the Lower Town. Mount to the highest summit, Cape Diamond,1 now zigzagged with warlike masonry. Then the fierce sun fell on the bald, baking rock, with its crisped mosses and parched lichens. Two centuries and a half have quickened the solitude with swarm- ing life, covered the deep bosom of the river with barge and steamer and gliding sail, and reared cities and vil- lages on the site of forests ; but nothing can destroy the surpassing grandeur of the scene.
Grasp the savin anchored in the fissure, lean over the brink of the precipice, and look downward, a little to the left, on the belt of woods which covers the strand between the water and the base of the cliffs. Here a gang of axe-men are at work, and Points Levi and Or- leans echo the crash of falling trees.
These axe-men were pioneers of an advancing host, — advancing, it is true, with feeble and uncertain progress : priests, soldiers, peasants, feudal scutcheons, royal insignia. Not the Middle Age, but engendered of it by the stronger life of Modern Centralization ; sharply stamped with a parental likeness ; heir to pa- rental weakness and parental force.
A few weeks passed, and a pile of wooden buildings rose on the brink of the St. Lawrence, on or near the
1 Champlain calls Cape Diamond, Mont du Gas (Guast), from the fam- ily name of De Monts. He gives the name of Cape Diamond to Pointa a Puiseaux. See Map of Quebec, (1613).
1608.] CONSPIRACY. 303
site of the market-place of the Lower Town of Quebec.1 The pencil of Champlain, always regardless of propor- tion and perspective, has preserved its semblance. A strong wooden wall, surmounted by a gallery loop-holed for musketry, enclosed three buildings, containing quar- ters for himself and his men, together with a court- yard, from one side of which rose a tall dove-cot, like a belfry. A moat surrounded the whole, and two or three small cannon were planted on salient platforms towards the river. There was a large magazine near at hand, and a part of the adjacent ground was laid out as a garden.
In this garden Champlain was one morning direct- ing his laborers, when the pilot of the ship approached him with an anxious countenance, and muttered a re- quest to speak with him in private. Champlain assent- ing, they withdrew to the neighboring woods, \rhen the pilot disburdened himself of his secret. One Antoine Natel, a locksmith, smitten by conscience or fear, had revealed to him a conspiracy to murder his commander and deliver Quebec into the hands of the Basques and of certain Spaniards lately arrived at Tadoussac. An- other locksmith, named Duvrd, was the author of the plot, and, with the aid of three accomplices, had befooled or terrified nearly all the company into bear- ing a part in it. Each was assured that he should make his fortune, and all were mutually pledged to poniard the first betrayer of the secret. The critical point of their enterprise was the killing of Champlain. Some were for strangling him in his bed, some for
1 Compare Faribault, Voyages de D&ouverte au Canada, 105.
304- CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC. [1608.
raising a false alarm in the night and shooting him as he issued from his quarters.
Having heard the pilot's story, Champlain, remain- ing iu the woods, desired his informant to find Antoine Natel, and bring him to the spot. Natel soon appeared, trembling with excitement and fear, and a close exam- ination left no doubt of the truth of his statement. A shallop, built by Pontgrave at Tadoussac. had lately arrived, and orders were now given that it should an chor before the buildings. On board was a young man in whom confidence could be placed. Champlain sent him two bottles of wine, with a direction to tell the four ringleaders that they had been given him by his Basque friends at Tadoussac, and to invite them to share the good cheer. They came aboard in the even- ing, and were instantly seized and secured. " Voyla done iites galants Men estonnez" writes Champlain.
It was ten o'clock, and most of the men on shore were asleep. They were wakened suddenly, and told of the discovery of the plot and the arrest of the ring- leaders. Pardon was then promised them, and they were dismissed again to their beds greatly relieved, for they had lived in trepidation, each fearing the other. Duval's body, swinging from a gibbet, gave wholesome warning to those he had seduced ; and his head was displayed on a pike, from the highest roof of the buildings, food for birds, and a lesson to sedition. His three accomplices were carried by Pontgrave to France, where they made their atonement in the galleys.1
It was on the eighteenth of September that Pont- * Lescarbot, (1612,) 623 ; Purchas, IV. 1642.
1608.] THE MONTAGNAIS. 305
grave set sail, leaving Champlain with twenty-eight men to hold Quebec through the winter. Three weeks later and shores and hiils glowed with gay prognostics of approaching desolation, — the yellow and scarlet of the maples, the deep purple of the ash, the garnet hue of young oaks, the bonfire blaze of tbe tupelo at the water's edge, and the golden plumage of birch-saplings in the fissure of the cliff'. It was a short-lived beauty. The forest dropped its festal robes. Shrivelled and faded, they rustled to the earth. The crystal air and laughing sun of October passed away, and November sank upon the shivering waste, chill, and sombre as the tomb.
A roving band of Montagnais had built their huts near the buildings, and were busying themselves in their autumn eel-fishery, on which they greatly relied to sustain their miserable lives through the winter. Their slimy harvest gathered, and duly smoked and dried, they gave it for safe-keeping to Champlain, and set forth to hunt beavers. It was deep in the winter before they came back, reclaimed their eels, built their birch cabins again, and disposed themselves for a life of ease, until famine or tbeir enemies should put a period to their enjoyments. These were by no means without alloy. As, gorged with food, they lay dozing on piles of branches in their smoky huts, where, through the crev- ices of the thin birch - bark, streamed in a cold capa- ble at times of congealing mercury, — as they thus re» posed, their slumbers were beset with nightmare visions of Iroquois forays, scalpings, butcherings, and
26*
306 CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC. [1608
ings. As dreams were their oracles, the camp was wild with fright. They sent out no scouts and placed no guard ; but, with each repetition of these nocturnal terrors, they came flocking in a' body to beg admission within the fort. The women and children were allowed to enter the yard and remain during the night, while anxious fathers and jealous husbands shivered in the darkness without.
On one occasion, a group of wretched beings was seen on the farther bank of the St. Lawrence, like wild animals driven by famine to the borders of the settler's clearing. The river was full of drifting- ice : none
C1 C*
could cross without risk of life. T\\e Indians, in their desperation, made the attempt ; and midway their canoes were ground to atoms among the tossing masses. Agile as wild-cats, they all leaped upon a huge raft of ice, the squaws carrying their children on their shoulders, — a feat at which Champlain marvelled when he saw their starved and emaciated condition. Here they began a wail of despair ; when happily the pressure of other masses thrust the sheet of ice against the northern shore. Landing, they soon made their appearance at the fort, worn to skeletons and horrible to look upon. The French gave them food, which they devoured with a frenzied avidity, and, unappeas'ed, fell upon a dead dog left on the snow by Champlain for two months past as a bait for foxes. They broke this carrion into frag- ments, thawed and devoured it, to the disgust of the spectators, who tried vainly to prevent them.
This was but a severe access of that periodical fam-
1609.] WINTER AT QUEBEC.
ine which, during winter, was a normal condition of the Algonquin tribes of Acadia and the Lower St. Lawrence, who, unlike the cognate tribes of New Eng- land, never tilled the soil or made any reasonable pro- vision against the time of need.
One would gladly know how the founders of Quebec spent the long hours of their first winter ; but on this point the only man among them, perhaps, who could write, has not thought it necessary to enlarge. He himself beguiled his leisure with trapping foxes, or hanging a dead dog from a tree and watching the hun- gry martens in their efforts to reach it. Towards the close of winter, all found abundant employment in nursing themselves or their neighbors, for the inevitable scurvy broke out with virulence. At the middle of May, only eight men of the twenty-eight were alive, and of these half were suffering from disease.1
This wintry purgatory wore away ; the icy stalactites that hung from the cliffs fell crashing to the earth ; the clamor of the wild geese was heard ; the bluebirds appeared in the naked woods ; the water-willows were covered with their soft caterpillar - like blossoms ; the twigs of the swamp -maple were flushed with ruddy bloom ; the ash hung out its black-tufted flowers ; the shad-bush seemed a wreath of snow ; the white stars of the bloodroot gleamed among dank, fallen leaves ; and in the young grass of the wet meadows, the marsh- marygolds shone like spots of gold.
Great was the joy of Champlain when he saw a
1 Champlain, (1613,) 205.
308 CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC. [1609.
sail -boat rounding1 the Point of Orleans, betokening that the spring had brought with it the longed-for suc- cors. A son-in-law of Pontgrave, named Marais, was on board, and he reported that Pontgrave was then at Tadoussac, where he had lately arrived. Thither Cham- plain hastened, to take counsel with his comrade. His constitution or his courage had defied the scurvy. They met, and it was determined betwixt them, that, while Pontgrave remained in charge of Quebec, Champlain should enter at once on his long-meditated explorations, by which, like La Salle seventy years later, he had good hope of finding a way to China.
But there was a lion in the path. The Indian tribes, war-hawks of the wilderness, to whom peace was un- known, infested with their scalping parties the streams and pathways of the forest, increasing tenfold its in- separable risks. That to all these hazards Champlain was more than indifferent, his after-career bears abun- dant witness ; yet now an expedient for evading them offered itself, so consonant with his instincts that he was fain to accept it. Might he not anticipate sur- prises, join a war-party, and fight his way to discovery ?
During the last autumn, a young chief from the banks of the then unknown Ottawa had been at Que- bec ; and, amazed at what he saw, he had begged Champlain to join him in the spring against his ene-, mies. These enemies were a formidable race of sav- ages, the Iroquois, or Five Confederate Nations, dwell- ers in fortified villages within limits now embraced by the State of New York, to whom was afterwards given
1609.] THE IROQUOIS. 3QC)
the fanciful name of " Romans of the New World," and who even then were a terror to all the surrounding forests. Conspicuous among1 their enemies were their kindred, the tribes of the Hurons, dwelling on. the lake which bears their name, and allies of Algonquin bands on the Ottawa. All alike were tillers of the soil, liv- ing at ease when compared to the famished Algonquins of the Lower St. Lawrence.1
What was Champlain's plan, or had he a plan 1 To influence Indian counsels, to hold the balance of power between adverse tribes, to envelop in the network of her power and diplomacy the remotest hordes of the wilderness, — such, from first to last, was the policy of France in America. Of this policy the Father of New France may perhaps be held to have set a rash and premature example. Yet, while he was apparently fol- <owiug the dictates of his own adventurous spirit, it became evident, a few years later, that, under his thirst for discovery and spirit of knight-errantry lay a con- sistent and deliberate purpose. This purpose will be shown hereafter. That it had already assumed a defi- nite shape is not likely ; yet his after - course makes it evident, that, in embroiling himself and his colony with the most formidable savages on the continent, he was by no means acting so recklessly as at first sight would appear.
1 The tribes east of the Mississippi, between the latitudes of Lake Su- perior and the Ohio, were divided into two groups or families, distin- guished by a radical difference of language. One of these families of tribes is called Algonquin, from the name of a small Indian community on the Ottawa. The other is called the Huron-lroquois, from the names of its two principal member*
CHAPTER X.
1609. LAKE CHAM PLAIN.
CHAMPLAIN joins A WAR-PAETT. — PREPARATION. — DEPARTURE. •- THB RIVER RICHELIEU. — THE SPIRITS CONSULTED. — DISCOVERY OF LAKH CHAMPLAIN. — BATTLE WITH THE IUOQUOIS. — FATE OF PRISONERS. — PANIC OF THE VICTORS.
IT was past the middle of May, and the expected warriors from the upper country had not come : a delay which seems to have given Champlain little concern, for, without waiting longer, he set forth with no better allies than a band of Montagnais. But, as he moved up the St. Lawrence, he saw, thickly clustered in the bordering forest, the lodges of an Indian camp, and, landing, found his Huron and Algonquin allies. Few of them had ever seen a white man. They surrounded the steel-clad strangers in speechless wonderment. Champlain asked for their chief, and the staring throng moved with him towards a lodge where sat, not one chief, but two, for each band had its own. There were feasting, smoking, speeches ; and, the needful cer- emony over, all descended together to Quebec ; for the strangers were bent on seeing those wonders of archi- tecture whose fame had pierced the recesses of their forests.
On their arrival, they feasted their eyes and glutted
1609.] INDIAN WARRIORS.
their appetites ; yelped consternation at the sharp ex- plosion of the arquebuse and the roar of the cannon ; pitched their camps, and bedecked themselves for their war-dance. In the still night, their fire glared against the black and jagged cliff, and the fierce red light fell on tawny limbs convulsed with frenzied gestures and ferocious stampings ; on contorted visages, hideous with paint; on brandished weapons, stone war -clubs, stone hatchets, and stone-pointed lances ; while the drum kept up its hollow boom, and the air was split with mingled yells, till the horned owl on Point Levi, startled at the sound, gave back a whoop no less discordant.
Stand with Champlain and view the war-dance ; sit with him at the war-feast, — a close-packed company, ring within ring of ravenous feasters ; then embark with him on his hare-brained venture of discovery. It was in a small shallop, carrying, besides himself, eleven men of Pontgrave's party, including his son-in-law, Marais, and La Routte, his pilot. They were armed with the arquebuse, a matchlock or firelock somewhat like the modern carbine, and from its shortness not ill-suited for use in the forest. On the twenty-eighth of May,1 they spread their sails and held their course against the cur- rent, while around them the river was alive with canoes, and hundreds of naked arms plied the paddle with a steady, measured sweep. They crossed the Lake of St. Peter, thre;ided the devious channels among its many islands, and reached at last the mouth of the Riviere
1 Champlain's dates, in this part of his narrative, are exceedingly care- less and confused, May and June being mixed indiscriminately.
LAKE CHAMPLAIN. |1G09.
des Iroquois, since called the Richelieu, or the St. John.1 Here, probably on the site of the town of Sorel, the leisurely warriors encamped for two days, hunted, fished, and took their ease, regaling their allies with venison and wild - fowl. They quarrelled, too ; three fourths of their number seceded, took to their canoes in dudgeon, and paddled towards their homes, while the rest pursued their course up the broad and placid stream.
On left and right stretched walls of verdure, fresh with the life of June. Now, aloft in the lonely air rose the cliffs of Beloeil, and now, before them, framed in circling forests, the Basin of Chambly spread its tranquil mirror, glittering in the sun. The shallop out- sailed the canoes. Champlain, leaving his allies behind, crossed the basin and essayed to pursue his course; but as he listened in the stillness, the unwelcome noise of rapids reached his ear, and, by glimpses through the dark foliage of the Islets of St. John, he could see the gleam of snowy foam and the flash of hurrying waters. Leaving the boat by the shore in charge of four men, he set forth with Marais, La Routte, and five others, to explore the wild before him. They pushed their te- dious way through the damps and shadows of the wood, through thickets and tangled vines, over mossy rocks and mouldering logs. Still the hoarse surging of the rapids followed them ; and when, parting the screen of foliage, they looked forth, they saw the river thick set with rocks, where, plunging over ledges, gurgling
1 Also called the Chambly, the St. Louis, and the Sorel.
1609.J THE RIVER KICHELIEU.
under drift-logs, darting along clefts, and boiling iu chasms, the angry waters filled the solitude with mo- notonous ravings.1
Champluin, disconsolate, retraced his steps. He had learned the value of an Indian's word. His menda- cious allies had promised him, that, throughout their course, his shallop could pass unobstructed. But should he abandon the adventure, and forego the discov- ery of that great lake, studded with islands and bor- dered with a fertile laud of forests, which his red com- panions had traced in outline, and by word and sign had painted to his fancy1?
When he reached the shallop, he found the whole savage crew gathered at the spot. He mildly rebuked their bad faith, but added, that, though they had deceived him, he, as far as might be, would fulfil his pledge. To this end, he directed Marais, with the boat and the greater part of the men, to return to Quebec, while he, with two who offered to follow him, should proceed in the Indian canoes.
The warriors lifted their canoes from the water, and in long procession through the forest, under the flicker- ing sun and shade, bore them on their shoulders around the rapids to the smooth stream above. Here the chiefs made a muster of their forces, counting twenty-four canoes and sixty warriors. All 'embarked again, and advanced once more, by marsh, meadow, forest, and scattered islands, then full of game, for it was an uniu-
1 In spite of the changes of civilization, the tourist, with Chauiplain'a journal in his hand, can easily trace each stage of his progress. 27
LAKE CHAMPLAIN. [1609
habited land, the war-path and battle-ground of hostile tribes. The warriors observed a certain system in their advance. Some were in front as a vanguard ; oth- ers formed the main body ; while an equal number were in the forests on the flanks and rear, hunting for the subsistence of the whole ; for, though they had a pro- vision of parched maize pounded into meal, they kept it for use when, from the vicinity of the enemy, hunt- ing should become impossible.
Late in the day, they landed and drew up their canoes, ranging them closely, side by side. All was life and bustle. Some stripped sheets of bark, to cover their camp-sheds ; others gathered wood, — the forest was full of dead, dry trees; others felled the living trees, for a barricade. They seem to have had steel axes, obtained by barter from the French ; for in less than two hours they had made a strong defensive work, a half- circle in form, open on the river side, where their canoes lay on the strand, and large enough to enclose all their huts and sheds.1 Some of their number had gone for- ward as scouts, and, returning, reported no signs of an enemy. This was the extent of their precaution, for they placed no guard, but al), in full security, stretched
1 Such extempore works of defence are still used among some tribes of the remote West. The author lias twice seen them, made of trees piled together as described by Cliamplain, probably by war-parties of the Crow or Snake Indians. In 1637, the Algonquins at Trois Rivieres, alarmed at a sudden raid of Iroquois, threw up a much more elaborate work of two lines of pickets, the intervening space being filled with earth. Le Jeune, Relation, 1637, 271.
Champlain, usually too concise, is very minute in his description of the march and encampment
1609.] INDIAN ORACLE. 315
themselves to sleep, — a vicious custom from which the lazy warrior of the forest rarely departs.
They had not forgotten, however, to take counsel of their oracle. The medicine - man pitched his magic lodge in the woods, — a small stack of poles, planted in a circle and brought together at the tops like stacked muskets. Over these he placed the filthy deer-skins which served him for a robe, and creeping in at a narrow orifice, he hid himself from view. Crouched in a ball upon the earth, he invoked the spirits in mumbling, in- articulate tones ; while his naked auditory, squatted on the ground like apes, listened in wonderment and awe. Suddenly, the lodge moved, rocking with' violence to and fro, by the power of the spirits, as the Indians thought, while Champlain could plainly see the tawny fist of the medicine - man shaking the poles. They begged him to keep a watchful eye on the peak of the lodge, whence fire and smoke would presently issue; but with the best efforts of his vision, he discovered none. Meanwhile the medicine -man was seized with such convulsions, that, when his divination was over, his naked body streamed with perspiration. In loud, clear tones, and in an unknown tongue, he invoked the Spirit, who was understood to be present in the form of -a stone, and whose feeble and squeaking accents were heard at intervals like the wail of a young puppy.1
1 Tliis mode of divination was universal among the Algonquin tribes, and is not extinct to this day among their roving northern bands. Le Jeune, Lafitau, and other early Jesuit writers describe it witli great mi- nuteness. The former (Relation, 1634) speaks of an audacious conjurer, who, having invoked the Manitou, or Spirit, killed him with a hatchet.
LAKE CHAMFLAIN. J1G00.
Thus did they consult the Spirit — as Champlain thinks, the Devil — at all their camps. His replies, for the most part, seem to have given them great con- tent ; yet they took other measures, also, of which the military advantages were less questionable. The prin- cipal chief gathered handles of sticks, and, without wasting his breath, stuck them in the earth in a certain order, calling each by the name of some warrior, a few taller thaii the rest representing the subordinate chiefs. Thus was indicated the position which each was to hold in the expected battle. All gathered around and atten- tively studied the sticks, ranged like a child's wooden soldiers, or the pieces on a chess-board ; then, with no further instruction, they formed their ranks, broke them, and reformed them again and again with an excellent alacrity and skill.
Again the canoes advanced, the river widening as they went. Great islands appeared, leagues in extent : Isle a la Motte, Long Island, Grande Isle. Channels where ships might float and broad reaches of expanding water stretched between them, and Champlain entered the lake which preserves his name to posterity. Cum- berland Head was passed, and from the opening of the great channel between Grande Isle and the main, he could look forth on the wilderness sea. Edged with woods, the tranquil flood spread southward beyond the sight. Far on the left, the forest ridges of the Green
T.: all appearance he was a stone, which, however, when struck witli the hatchet, proved to be full of flesh and blood. A kindred superstition pre- vails among the Crow Indians.
16091 DANGER. — PRECAUTION.
Mountains were heaved against the sun, patches of snow still glistening on their tops ; and on the right rose the Adirondacks, haunts in these later years of amateur sportsmen from counting-rooms or college halls, nay, of adventurous beauty, with sketch-book and pencil. Then the Iroquois made them their hunting-ground ; and beyond, in the valleys of the Mohawk, the Onondaga, and the Genesee, stretched the long line of their five cantons and palisaded towns.
At night, they were encamped again. The scene is a familiar one to many a tourist and sportsman ; and, perhaps, standing at sunset on the peaceful strand, Champlain saw what a roving student of this generation has seen on those same shores, at that same hour, — the glow of the vanished sun behind the western moun- tains, darkly piled in mist and shadow along the sky ; near at hand, the dead pine, mighty in decay, stretching its ragged arms athwart the burning heaven, the crow perched on its top like an image carved in jet; and aloft, the night-hawk, circling in his flight, and, with a strange whirring sound, diving through the air each moment for the insects he makes his prey.
The progress of the party was becoming dangerous. They changed their mode of advance, and moved only in the night. ^_A11 day, they Lay close in the depth of the g, lounging, smoking tobacco of their own
raising, and__bpgnjling
shallow, hqjvterjuul ohsr;pn<> jesting with which knots of Iiidiaus are wont to am use, their -leisure. /At fwiligJit they embarked again, paddling^their cautioji&_way_ti)l
27 »
LAKE CHAMPLAIN. (1G09.
Q^ed^i?n. Their goal was the rocky promontory where Fort Ticonderoga was long afterward built. Thence, they would pass the outlet of Lake George, and launch their canoes again on that Coino of the wilderness, whose waters, limpid as a fountain - head, stretched far southward between their flanking mountains. Landing at the future site of Fort William Henry, they would carry their canoes through the forest to the River Hudson, and descending it, at- tack, perhaps, some outlying town of the Mohawks. In the next century this chain of lakes and rivers be- came the grand highway of savage and civilized war, a bloody debatable ground linked to memories of mo- mentous conflicts.
The allies were spared so long a progress. On the morning of the twenty-ninth of July, after paddling all night, they hid as usual in the forest on the western shore, not far from Crown Point. The warriors stretched themselves to their slumbers, and Champlain, after Wfdking for a time through the surrounding woods, returned to take his repose on a pile of spruce-boughs. Sleeping, he dreamed a dream, wherein he beheld the Iroquois drowning in the lake ; and, essaying to rescue them, he was told by his Algonquin friends that they were good for nothing and had better be left to their fate. Now, he had been daily beset, on awakening, by his superstitious allies, eager to learn about his dreams ; and, to this moment, his unbroken slumbers had failed to furnish the desired prognostics. The announcement of this auspicious vision filled the crowd with joy, and at
1609.1 ENCOUNTER WITH IROQUOIS.
nightfall they embarked, flushed with anticipated vic- tories.1
It was ten o'clock in the evening, when they descried dark objects in motion on the lake before them. These were a flotilla of Iroquois canoes, heavier and slower than theirs, for they were made of oak-bark.2 Each party saw the other, and the mingled war-cries pealed over the darkened water. The Iroquois, who were near the shore, having no stomach for an aquatic battle, landed, and, making night hideous with their clamors, began to barricade themselves. Chatnplain could see them in the woods, laboring like beavers, hacking down trees with iron axes taken from the Canadian tribes in war, and with stone hatchets of their own making. The allies remained on the lake, a bowshot from the hostile barricade, their canoes made fast together by
i The power of dreams among Indians in their primitive condition can scarcely be over-estimated. Among the ancient Hurons and cognate tribes, they were the universal authority and oracle; but while a dreamer of reputation had unlimited power, the dream of a vaurien was held in no account. There were professed interpreters of dreams. Brebeuf, Rel. dts llnrons, 117.
A man, dreaming that he had killed his wife, made it an excuse for killing her in fact. All these tribes, including the Iroquois, had a stated game called Ononhara, or the dreaming game, in which dreams were made the pretext for the wildest extravagances. See Lafitau, Charlevoix, Sagard, Brebeuf, etc.
-J Champlain, (1613,) 232. Probably a mistake; the Iroquois canoes were usually of elm-bark. The paper-birch was used wherever it could be had, being incomparably the best material. All the tribes, from the moutli of the Saco northward and eastward, and along the entire northern portion of the valley of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, used the birch. The best substitutes were elm and spruce. The birch-bark, from its laminated texture, could be peeled at any time; the others only when the sap was in motion
320 LAKE CHAMPLAIN. [1009
poles lashed across. All night, they danced with as much vigor as the frailty of their vessels would permit, their throats making amends for the enforced restraint of their limbs. It was agreed on both sides that the fight should be deferred till daybreak ; but meanwhile a commerce of abuse, sarcasm, menace, and boasting gave unceasing exercise to the lungs and fancy of the com- batants, — " much," says Champlain, " like the besiegers and besieged in a beleaguered town."
As day approached, lie and his two followers put on the light armor of the time. Champlain wore the doublet and long hose then in vogue. Over the doublet he buckled on a breastplate, and probably a back-piece, while his thighs were protected by cuisses of steel, and his head by a plumed casque. Across his shoulder hung the strap of his bandoleer, or ammunition-box ; at his side was his sword, and in his hand his arquelmse, which he had loaded with four balls.1 Such was the equipment of this ancient Indian-fighter, whose exploits date eleven years before the landing of the Puritans at Plymouth, and sixty-six years before King Philip's War.
Each of the three Frenchmen was in a separate canoe, and, as it grew light, they kept themselves hid- den, either by lying at the bottom, or covering them- selves with an Indian robe. The canoes approached the shore, and all landed without opposition at some distance from the Iroquois, whom they presently could see filing
i Champlain, in his rude drawing of the battle, (ed. 1613,) portrays himself and his equipment with sufficient distinctness. Compare plates of the weapons and armor of the period in Meyrick, Ancient Armor, and Susane, Ilistoire de I'Ancienne Infanterie Fran false.
1609.] VICTORY.
out of their barricade, tall, strong1 men, some two hun- dred in number, of the boldest and fiercest warriors of North America. They advanced through the forest with a steadiness which excited the admiration of Cham- plain. Among them could be seen several chiefs, made conspicuous by their tall plumes. StQiB£-Jbujie^^shjeids of wood and hide, and some were covered with a kind ofliTmor maiEr'&f tuiigliTwgs— luterjaced \yitli-a^vt*ge- table fibre supposej_b^£)liainpla4ft-ta.JhacatloJi.1
The allies, growing anxious, called with loud cries for their champion, and opened their ranks that he might pass to the front. He did so, and, advancing before his red companions-in-arms, stood revealed to the astonished gaze of the Iroquois, who, beholding1 the warlike nppncition in their path, stared i" muff* nmngp- ment. But his arquebuse was levelled ; the report startled the woods, a chief fell dead, and another by his side rolled among the bushes. Then there rose from the allies a yell, which, says Champlain, would have drowned a thunder-clap, and the forest was full of whizzing arrows. For a moment, the Iroquois stood firm and sent back their arrows lustily; but when an- other an*1 /iiiother gunshot came from the thickets on *lieir (lank, they broke and fled in uncontrollable terror. Swifter chan hounds, the allies tore through the bushes
1 According to Lafitau, both bucklers and breastplates were in frequent use among the Iroquois. The former were very large, and made of cedar wood covered with interwoven thongs of hide. The kuulred nation of the Hurons, says Sagard, ( Voyage dest llurons, 126-206,) carried large shields, and wore greaves for the legs and cuirasses made of twigs in- terwoven with cords. His account corresponds with thnt of Champlain, who gives a wood-cut of a warrior thus armed.
LAKE CHAMPLAIN. [1609.
in pursuit. Some of the Iroquois were killed ; more were taken. Camp, canoes, provisions, all were aban- doned, and many weapons flung down in the panic flight. The arquebuse had done its work. The vic- tory was complete.
At night, the victors made their bivouac in the forest. A great fire was kindled, and near it, one of the captives was bound to a tree. The fierce crowd "thronged around him, firebrands in their hands. Cham- plain sickened at his tortures : —
" Let me send a bullet through his heart."
o
They would not listen ; and when he saw the scaJp torn from the living head,1 he turned away in anger and disgust. They followed : . —
"Do what you will with him.'
He turned again, and at the report of his arquebuse the wretch's woes were ended.
In his remonstrance, he had told them that the French never so used their prisoners. Not, indeed, their prisoners of war ; but had Champlain stood a few months later in the frenzied crowd on the Place de la Greve at Paris. — had he seen the regicide Ravaillac, the veins of his forehead bursting with anguish, the hot
1 It lias been erroneously asserted that tlie practice of scalping did not prevail among the Indians hefore the advent of Europeans. In 1535, Cartier saw five scalps at Quebec, dried and stretched on hoops. In 1564, Laudonniere saw them among the Indians of Florida. The Algon- quins of New England and Nova Scotia were accustomed to cut off an<? carry away the head, which they afterwards scalped. Those of Canada, it seems, sometimes scalped dead bodies on the field. The Algonqujr/ practice of carrying off heads as trophies is mentioned by Lalemar.t, Roger Williams, Lescarbot, and Champlain. Compare Historical Maya- zine, V. 253.
1C09.] GRATITUDE OF THE VICTORS.
lead and oil seething in his lacerated breast, and the horses vainly panting to drag his strong limbs asunder, — he might have felt that Indian barbarity had found its match in the hell-born ingenuity of grave and learned judges.
The victors made a prompt retreat from the scene of their triumph. Three or four days brought them to the mouth of the Richelieu. Here they separated.; the Hurons and Algonquins made for the Ottawa, their homeward route, each with a share of prisoners for future torments. At parting they invited Champlain to visit their towns and aid them again in their wars, — an invitation which this paladin of the woods failed not to accept.
The companions now remaining to him were the Montagnais. In their camp on the Richelieu, one of them dreamed that a war-party of Iroquois was close upon them ; whereupon, in a torrent of rain, they left their huts, paddled in dismay to the islands above the Lake of St. Peter, and hid themselves all night in the rushes. In the morning, they took heart, emerged from their hiding-places, descended to Quebec, and went thence to Tadoussac, whither Champlain accompanied them. Mere, the squaws, stark naked, swam out to the canoes to receive the heads of the dead Iroquois, and, hanging them from their necks, danced in triumphant glee along the shore. One of the heads and a pair of arms were then bestowed on Champlain, — touching memorials of gratitude, which, however, he was by no means to keep for himself, but to present them to the King.
LAKE CHAMPLAIN. [1609.
Thas did New France rush into collision with the redoubted warriors of the Five Nations. Here was the beginning, in some measures doubtless the cause, of a long suite of murderous conflicts, bearing havoc and flame to generations yet unborn. Champlain had in- vaded the tiger's den ; and now, in smothered fury, the patient savage would lie biding his day of blood.
CHAPTER XI.
1610 — 1612. WAR. TRADE. DISCOVERY.
CHAMPLAIN AT FONTAINEBLEAU. — CHAMPLAIN ON THE ST. LAWRENCE. — ALARM. — BATTLE. — WAR PARTIES. — ICEBEKGS. — ADVENTURERS. — CHAMPLAIN AT MONTREAL. — RETURN TO FRANCE. — TUB COMTE DB SOISSONS. — THE PRINCE OF CONDE.
CHAMPLAIN and Pontorrave returned to France.
O
Pierre Chauvin of Dieppe held Quebec in their ab- sence. The King was at Fontainebleau, — it was a few months before his assassination, — and here Champlain recounted his adventures, to the great contentment of the lively monarch. He gave him also, not the head of the dead Iroquois, but a belt wrought in embroidery of dyed quills of the Canada porcupine, together with two small birds of scarlet plumage, and the skull of a gar-fish.
De Monts was at court, striving for a renewal of his monopoly. His efforts failed ; on which, with admira- ble spirit, but with little discretion, he resolved to push his enterprise without it. Early in the spring of 1610, the ship was ready, and Champlain and Pontgrave were on board, when a violent illness seized the former, reducing him to the most miserable of all conflicts, the battle of the eager spirit against the treacherous and failing flesh. Partially recovered, he put to sea. giddy
28
826 WAR. — TRADE. — DISCOVERY. [1010.
and weak, in wretched plight for the hard career of toil and battle which the New World offered him. The voyage was prosperous, no other mishap occurring than that of an ardent youth of St. Malo, who drank the health of Pontgrave with such persistent enthusiasm that he fell overheard and was drowned.
There were ships at Tadoussac, fast loading with furs; boats, too, higher up the river, anticipating the trade, and draining De Monts's resources in advance. Champlain, who had full discretion to fight and explore wherever he should see fit, had provided, to use his own phrase, " two strings to his bow." On the one hand, the Montagnais had promised to guide him northward to Hudson's Bay ; on the other, the Hurons were to show him the Great Lakes, with the mines of copper on their shores ; and to each was the same reward promised, — to join them against the common foe, the deadly Iroquois. The rendezvous was at the mouth of the River Richelieu. Thither the Hurons were to de- scend in force, together with Algonquins of the Ottawa ; and thither Champlain now repaired, while around his boat swarmed a multitude of Montagnais canoes, filled with warriors whose lank hair streamed loose in the wind.
There is an island in the St. Lawrence near the mouth of the Richelieu. On the nineteenth of June, it was swarming 'with busy and clamorous savages, Champlain's Montagnais allies, cutting down the trees and clearing the ground for a dance and a feast ; for they were hourly expecting the Algonquin warriors,
1610.] ALARM.
and -were eager to welcome them with befitting honors. But suddenly, far out on the river, they saw an ad- vancing canoe. Now on this side, now on that, the flashing paddles urged it forward as if death were on its track ; and as it drew near, the strangers cried out that the Algonquins were in the forest, a league dis- tant, engaged with a hundred warriors of the Iroquois, who, outnumbered, were fighting savagely within a bar- ricade of trees.
The air was split with shrill outcries. The Monia- gnais snatched their
war^clubs^wprd-blades madejast to poles. — and, pell- mell. ran -headkmg to their^canoes. impeding ^ch nflipr in their haste, screeching to Champlain to follow,, and invoking with no less vehemence the aid of certain fur- traders, just arrived in four boats from below. These; as it was not their cue to fight, lent them a deaf ear ; on which, in disgust and scorn, they paddled off, call- ing to the recusants that they were women, fit for nothing' but to make war on beaver - skins.
O
Champlain and four of his men were in the canoes. They shot across the intervening water, and, as theii prows grated on the pebbles, each warrior flung down his paddle, snatched his weapons, and ran like a grey hound into the woods. The five Frenchmen followed striving vainly to keep pace with the naked, light- limbed rabble, bounding like shadows through the for- est. They quickly disappeared. Even their shrill cries grew faint, till Champlain and his men, discom- forted and vexed, found themselves deserted iu the
WAR. — TRADE. — DISCOVERT. [ItilO.
midst of a swamp'. The day was sultry, the forest air heavy and dense, filled, too, with hosts of mosquitoes, " so thick," says the 'chief sufferer, " that we could scarcely draw breath, and it was wonderful how cruelty they persecuted us." 1 Through black mud, spongy moss, water knee-deep ; over fallen trees ; among slimy logs and entangling roots ; tripped by vines ; lashed by recoiling boughs ; panting under their steel head-pieces and heavy corselets, the Frenchmen struggled on, bevvil dered and indignant. At length they descried two Indians running1 in the distance, and shouted to them
O 7
in desperation, that, if they wished for their aid, they must guide them to the enemy.
And now they could hear the yells of the comba- tants ; now there was light in the forest before them ; and now they issued into a partial clearing made by the Iroquois axe-men.near the river. Champlain saw their barricade. Trees were piled into a circular breastwork, trunks, boughs, and matted foliage forming a strong defence, within which, grinding their teeth, the Iroquois stood savagely at bay. Around them flocked the allies, half hidden in the edges of the forest, like hounds around a wild boar, eager, clamorous, yet afraid to rush in. They had attacked, and had met a bloody rebuff. All their hope was now in the French; and when they saw them, a yell arose from hundreds of throats that outdid the wilderness-voices whence its tones were borrowed, —
1 ". . . . quantite de mousquites, qui estoient si espoisscs qu'elles ne nous permettoient point presque de reprendre nostre halaine, tant elles nous persecutoient, et si cruellement que c'estoit chose estrange." — Champlain, (1613,) 260.
1610.J BATTLE. — VICTORY.
the whoop of the horned owl, the scream of the cougar, the howl of starved wolves on a winter night. A fierce response pealed from the desperate band within ; and amid a storm of arrows from both sides, the Frenchmen threw themselves into the fray. Champlain felt a stone-headed arrow splitting his ear and tearing through the muscles of his neck. He drew it out, and, the mo- ment after, did a similar office for one of his men. But the Iroquois had by no means recovered from their first terror at the arquehuse ; and when the mysterious and terrible assailants, clad in steel and armed with portable thunder-bolts, ran up to the barricade, thrust their pieces through the crevices, and shot death among the crowd within, they could not control their fright, but with every report threw themselves flat on the earth. Ani- mated with unwonted valor, the allies, covered by their large shields, began to drag out tlje felled trees of the barricade, while others, under Champlain's direction, gathered like a dark cloud at the edge of the forest, preparing to close the affair with a final rush. And now, new actors appeared on the scene. These were a boat's crew of the fur-traders under a young man of St. Malo, one Des Prairies, who, when he heard the fir- ing, could not resist the impulse to join the fight. On seeing them, Champlain checked the assault, in order, as he says, that the new-comers might have their share in the sport. The traders opened fire, with great zest and no less execution ; while the Iroquois, now wild with terror, leaped and writhed to dodge the shot which tore resistlessly through their frail armor of twigs. Cham-
28*
330 WAR. — TRADE. —DISCOVERY. J1G10
plain gave the signal ; the crowd ran to the barricade, dragged down the boughs or clambered over them, and bore themselves, in his own words, " so well and manfully," that, though wofully scratched and torn by the sharp points, they quickly forced an entrance. The French ceased their fire, and, followed by a smaller body of Indians, scaled the barricade on the farther side. Now, amid bowlings, shouts, and screeches, the work was finished. Some of the Iroquois were cut down as they stood, hewing with their war-clubs, and foaming like slaughtered tigers ; some climbed the barrier and were killed by the furious crowd without ; some were drowned in the river ; while fifteen, the only survivors, were made prisoners. " By the grace of God," writes Champlain, " behold the battle won ! " Drunk with ferocious ecstasy, the conquerors scalped the dead and gathered fagots for the living, while some of the fur- traders, too late to bear part in the fight, robbed the carcasses of their blood - bedrenched robes of beaver- skin, amid the derision of the surrounding Indians.1
That night, the torture-fires blazed along the shore. Champlain saved one prisoner from their clutches, but nothing could save the rest. One body was quartered and eaten.2 Of the remaining captives, some were kept
1 Champlain, (1613,) 254. This narrative, like most others, is much abridged in the edition of 1632.
2 Traces of cannibalism may be found among most of the North Amer- ican tribes, though they are rarely very conspicuous. Sometimes the practice arose, as in the present instance, from revenge or ferocity; sometimes it bore a religious character, as with the Miamis, among whom there existed a secret religious fraternity of man-eaters ; sometimes the heart of a brave enemy was devoured in the idea that it made the eater
1610.] A SAVAGE CONCOURSE.
in reserve for the women and young girls, who, as the warriors were forced to admit, far excelled them in the art of torture by reason of their feminine subtlety.
On the next day, a large band of Hurons appeared at the rendezvous, greatly vexed that they had come too late. The shores were thickly studded with Indian huts ; the woods were full of them. Here were war- riors of three designations, including many subordinate tribes, and representing three grades of savage society. Here were the Hurons, the Algonquins of the Ottawa, and the Montagnais ; afterwards styled by a Franciscan friar, than whom few men better knew them, the No- bles, the Burghers, and the Peasantry and Paupers of the forest.1 Many of them, from the remote interior, had never before seen a white man ; and, wrapped like statues in their robes, they stood gazing on the French with a fixed stare of wild and wondering eyes.
Judged by the standard of Indian war, a heavy blow had been struck on the common enemy. Here were hundreds of assembled warriors ; yet none thought of following up their success. Elated with unexpected fortune, they danced, they sang; then loaded their canoes, hung • their scalps on poles, broke up their camps, and set forth triumphant for their homes. Champlain had fought their battles, and now might claim, on their part, guidance and escort to the distant
brave. This last practice was common. The ferocious threat, used in speaking of an enemy, " I will eat his heart," is by no means a mere fig- ure of speech. The roving hunter- tribes, in their winter wanderings were not infrequently impelled to cannibalism by famine. 1 Sagard, Voyage des Uuions, 184.
WAK. — TRADE.— DISCOVERY. [1G10
interior. Why he did not do. so is scarcely apparent. There were cares, it seems, connected with the very life of his puny colony, which demanded his return to France. Nor were his anxieties lessened by the arrival of a ship from his native town of Brouage, fraught with the tidings of the King's assassination. Here was a death-blow to all that had remained of De Monts's credit at court ; while that unfortunate nobleman, like his old associate, Poutrincourt, was moving with swift strides toward financial ruin. With the revocation of his monopoly, fur-traders had swarmed to the St. Law- rence. Tadoussac was full of them, and for that year the trade was spoiled. Far from aiding to support a burdensome enterprise of colonization, it was, in itself, an occasion of heavy loss.
Champlain bade farewell to his garden at Quebec, where maize, wheat, rye, and barley,, with vegetables of all kinds, and a small vineyard of native grapes, — for he was a zealous horticulturist,1 — held forth a promise which he was not to see fulfilled. He left one Du Pare in command, with sixteen men, and, sailing on the eighth of August, arrived at Honfleur with no worse accident than that of running over a sleeping whale near the Grand Bank.
With the opening spring he was afloat again. Per- ils awaited him worse than those of Iroquois toma- hawks ; for, approaching Newfoundland, the ship was entangled for days among drifting fields and bergs of ice. Escaping at length, she arrived at Tadoussac on
1 During the next year, he planted roses around Quebec. Champlain, (1613,) 313.
1611.J ADVENTURERS.
the thirteenth of May, 1611. She had anticipated the spring. Forests and mountains, far and near, all were white with snow. A principal object with Champlain was to establish such relations with the great Indian communities of the interior as to secure to De Monts and his associates the advantage of trade with them ; and to this end he now repaired to Montreal, a position in the gate-way, as it were, of their yearly descents of trade or war. On arriving, he began to survey the ground for the site of a permanent post.
A few days convinced him, that, under the present system, all his efforts would be vain. Wild reports of the wonders of New France had gone abroad, and a crowd of hungry adventurers had hastened to the land of promise, eager to grow rich, they scarcely knew how, and soon to return disgusted. A fleet of boats and small vessels followed in Champlain's wake. Within a few days, thirteen of them arrived at Mon- treal, and more soon appeared. He was to break the ground ; others would reap the harvest. Travel, dis- covery, and battle, all must inure to the profit, not of the colony, but of a crew of greedy traders.
Champlain, however, chose the site and cleared the ground for his intended post. It was immediately above a small stream, now running under arches of masonry, and entering the St. Lawrence at Point Cal- liere, within the modern city. He called it Place Royale ; l and here, on the margin of the river, he built
1 The mountain being Mont Royal (Montreal). The Hospital of the Gray Nuns was built on a portion cf Champlain's Place Royale.
S3 i WAK. — TRADE. - DISCOVERY. [1611.
a wall of bricks made on the spot, in order to meas- ure the destructive effects of the " ice - shove " in the spring.
Now, down the surges of St. Louis, where the mighty floods of the St. Lawrence, contracted to a nar- row throat, roll in fury among their sunken rocks, — here, through foam and spray and the roar of the angry torrent, a fleet of birch canoes came dancing like dry leaves on the froth of some riotous brook. They bore a band of Hurons, first at the rendezvous. As they drew near the landing., all the fur-traders' boats blazed forth in a clattering fusillade, which was designed to bid them welcome, but, in fact, terrified many of them to such a degree that they scarcely dared to come ashore. Nor were they reassured by the bearing of the disorderly crowd, who, in jealous competition for their beaver-skins, left them not a moment's peace, and outraged all their notions of decorum. More soon appeared, till hundreds of warriors were encamped along the shore, all restless, suspicious, and alarmed. Late one night, they awak- ened Champlain. On going with them to their camp, he found chiefs and warriors in solemn conclave around the glimmering firelight. Though they were fearful of the rest, their trust in him was boundless. " Come to our country, buy our beaver, build a fort, teach us the true faith, do what you will, but do not bring this crowd with you." An idea had seized them that these lawless hands of rival traders, all well armed, meant to attack, plunder, and kill them. Champlain assured them of safety, and the whole night was consumed in friendly
1611.] NARROW ESCAPE OF CHAMPLAIN.
colloquy. Soon afterward, however, the camp broke up, and the uneasy warriors removed to the borders of the Lake of St. Louis, placing the rapids betwixt themselves and the objects of their alarm. Here Champlain visited them, and hence these intrepid canoe-men, kneeling1 in their birchen egg-shells, carried him homeward down the rapids, somewhat, as he admits, to the discomposure of his nerves.1
The great gathering dispersed : the traders descended to Tadoussac, Champlain to Quebec ; the Indians went, some to their homes, some to fight the Iroquois. A few months later, Champlain was in close conference with De Monts, at PODS, a place near Rochelle, of which the latter was governor. The last two years had made it apparent, that to keep the colony alive and maintain a basis for those discoveries on which his heart was bent, Wcis, without a change of system, impossible. De Monts, engrossed with the cares of his govern- ment, placed all in the hands of his associate, and Champlain, fully empowered to act as he should judge expedient, set out for Paris. On the way, Fortune, at one stroke, well nigh crirshed him and New France together ; for his horse fell on him, and he narrowly escaped with life. When he was partially recovered, he resumed his journey, pondering on means of rescue
1 The first white man to descend the rapids of St. Louis was a youth who had volunteered, the previous summer, to go with the Hurons to their country and winter among them, — a proposal to which Champlain gladly assented. The second was a young man named Louis, who had gone up with Indians to an island in the rapid, to shoot herons, and was drowned in the descent. The third was Champlain himself.
WAR. — TRADE. — DISCOVERY. [1612.
for the fading colony. A powerful protector must be had, — a great name to shield the enterprise from as- saults and intrigues of jealous rival interests. On reaching Paris, he addressed himself to a prince of the blood, Charles of Bourbon, Comte de Soissons ; described New France, its resources^ its boundless ex- tent, urged the need of unfolding a mystery pregnant perhaps with results of the deepest moment, laid before him maps and memoirs, and begged him to become the guardian of this new world. The royal consent being obtained, the Comte de Soissons became Lieutenant- General for the King in New France, with viceregal powers. These, in turn, he conferred upon Champlain, making him his lieutenant, with full control over the trade in furs at and above Quebec, and with power to associata with himself such persons as he saw fit, to aid in the exploration and settlement of the country.1
Scarcely was the commission drawn when the Comte de Soissons, attacked with fever, died, to the joy of the Breton and Norman traders, whose jubilation, however, found a speedy end. Henry of Bourbon, Prince of Conde, First Prince of the Blood, assumed the vacant protectorship. He was grandson of the gay and gal- lant Conde of the Civil Wars, was father of the great Conde, the man of steel, the youthful victor of Rocroy, and was husband of Charlotte de Montmorenci, whose blonde beauties had fired the inflammable heart of
1 Commission de Monseigneur le Comte de Soissons donne"e au Sieur de Chitmplein. See Champlain, (1632,) 231, and Me~moires des Cotamis- satires, II. 451.
161'J.l CONDE.- PLANS OF CHAMPLAIN.
387
Henry the Fourth. To the unspeakable wrath of that keen lover, the prudent Conde fled with his bride, first to Brussels, then to Italy ; nor did he return to Fiance till the regicide's knife had put his jealous fears to rest.1 Arrived, he began to intrigue against the court. In 1614, two years after the death of the Comte de Soissons, his plots were hatched into life, and, after exciting a wild alarm, ended in his three years' imprisonment at Viucennes. He was a man of common abilities, greedy of money and power, and scarcely seeking even the decency of a pretext to cover his mean ambition.2 His chief honor — an honor somewhat equivocal — is, as Voltaire observes, to have been father of the great Conde. Busy with his nas- cent conspiracy, he cared little for colonies and dis- coveries ; and his rank and power were his sole quali- fications for his new post.
In Champlain alone was the life of New France. By instinct and temperament he was more impelled to the adventurous toils of exploration than to the duller task of building colonies. The profits of trade had value in his eyes only as means to these ends, and set- tlements were important chiefly as a base of discovery. Two great objects eclipsed all others, — to find a route to the Indies, and to bring the heathen tribes into the embraces of the Church, since, while he cared little
1 The anecdote, as told by the Princess herself to her wandering court during the romantic campaigning of the Fronde, will be found in the curious Me'moires de Lenet.
'2 Me'moires de Madame de Motteville, passim ; Sismondi, Histolre de.* Francais, XXIV., XXV. passim. 29
338 WAR. — TRADE. — DISCOVERY. [1612.
for their bodies, his solicitude for their souls knew no bounds.
It was no part of his plan to establish an odious monopoly. He sought rather to enlist the rival traders in his cause ; and he now, in concurrence with De Monts, invited them to become sharers in the traffic, under certain regulations and on condition of aiding in the establishment and support of the colony. The mer- chants of St. Malo and Rouen accepted the terms, and became members of the new company ; but the intrac- table heretics of Rochelle, refractory in commerce as in religion, kept aloof, and preferred the chances of an illicit trade. The prospects of New France were far from flattering; for little could be hoped from this unwilling league of selfish traders, each jealous of the rest. They gave the Prince of Conde large gratuities to secure his countenance and support. The hungry viceroy took them, and with these emoluments his inter- est in the colony ended.
CHAPTER XII.
1612, 1613. THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAN.
ILLUSIONS. — A PATH TO THE NORTH SEA. — THE OTTAWA. — FOREST TRAVELLERS. — INDIAN FEAST. — THE IMPOSTOR EXPOSED. — RETURN TO MONTREAL.
THE arrangements just indicated were a work of time. In the summer of 1612, Champlain was forced to forego his yearly voyage to New France ; nor, even in the following spring, were his labors finished and the rival interests brought to harmony. Meanwhile, inci- dents occurred destined to have no small influence on his movements. Three years before, after his second fight with the Iroquois, a young man of his company had boldly volunteered to join the Indians on thetr home- ward journey and winter among them. Champlain gladly assented, and in the following summer, the ad- venturer returned. Another young man, one Nicholas de Vignan, next offered himself; and he, also, embark- ing in the Algonquin canoes, passed up the Ottawa and was seen no more for a twelvemonth. In 161)3 he reappeared in Paris, bringing a tale of wonders ; for, says Champlain, " he was the most impudent liar that has been seen for many a day." He averred that at the sources of the Ottawa he had found a great lake ;
34.Q THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAN. [1613.
that he had crossed it, and discovered a river flowing northward ; that he had descended this river, and reached the shores of the sea ; that here he had seen the wreck of an English ship, whose crew, escaping to land, had been killed by the Indians ; and that this sea was distant from Montreal only seventeen days by canoe. The clearness, consistency, and apparent sim- plicity of his story deceived Champlain, who had heard of a voyage of the English to the northern seas, coupled with rumors of wreck and disaster,1 and was thus con- firmed in his belief of Vignan's honesty. The Mare- chal de Brissac, the President Jeannin, and other per- sons of eminence about the court, greatly interested by these dexterous fabrications, urged Champlain to follow up without delay a discovery which promised results so important ; while he, with the Pacific, Japan, China, the Spice Islands, and India stretching in flattering vista before his fancy, entered with eagerness on the chase of this illusion. Early in the spring of 1613, the unwearied voyager crossed the Atlantic, and sailed up the St. Lawrence. On Monday, the twenty - seventh of May, he left the island of St. Helen, opposite Montreal, with four Frenchmen, one of whom was Nicholas de Vignan, and one Indian, in two small canoes. They passed the swift current at St. Ann's, crossed the Lake of Two Mountains, and advanced up the Ottawa till the rapids of Carillon and the Long
1 Evidently the voyage of Henry Hudson in 1610-12, when that voy ager, after discovering Hudson's Strait, lost his life through a mutiny Compare Je'remie, Relation, in Recueil de Voyages au Nord, VI.
1613.1 CHAMPLAIN ON THE OTTAWA.
Saut checked tlieir course. So dense and tangled was the forest, that they were forced to remain in the bed of the river, trailing their canoes along the bank with cords, or pushing them by main force up the current. Champlain's foot slipped ; he fell in the rapids, two boulders against which he braced himself saving him from being swept down, while the cord of the canoe, twisted round his hand, nearly severed it. At length they reached smoother water, and presently met fif- teen canoes of friendly Indians. Champlain gave them the most awkward of his Frenchmen and took one of. their number in return, — an exchange greatly to his profit.
All day they plied their paddles. Night came, and they made their camp-fire in the forest. He who now, when two centuries and a half are passed, would see the evening bivouac of Champlain, has but to encamp, with Indian guides, on the upper waters of this same Ottawa, — to tin's day a solitude, — or on the borders of some lonely river of New Brunswick or of Maine.
As, crackling in the forest stillness, the flame cast its keen red light around, wild forms stood forth against the outer gloom ; — the strong, the weak, the old, the young ; all the leafy host of the wilderness ; moss - bearded ancients tottering to their death, sap- lings slender and smooth, trunks hideous with wens and goitres and strange deformity ; the oak, a giant in rusty mail ; the Atlantean column of the pine, bearing on high its murmuring world of verdure ; the birch, ghastly and wan, a spectre in the darkness ; and, aloft,
29 »
THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAN. [1613.
the knotted boughs, uncouth, distorted shapes struggling amid dim clouds of foliage.
The voyagers gathered around the flame, the red men and the white, these cross-legged on the earth, those crouching like apes, each feature painted in fiery light as they waited their evening meal, — trout and perch on forked sticks hefore the scorching blaze. Then each spread his couch — boughs of the spruce, hemlock, balsam-fir, or pine — and stretched himself to rest. Perhaps, as the night wore on, chilled by the river - damps, some slumberer woke, rose, kneeled by the sunken fire, spread his numbed hands over the dull embers, and stirred them with a half -consumed brand. Then the sparks, streaming upward, roamed like fire-flies among the dusky boughs. The scared owl screamed, and the watcher turned quick glances into the dark, lest, from those caverns of gloom, the lurk- ing savage might leap upon his defenceless vigil. As he lay once more by the replenished fire1, sounds stole upon his ear, faint, mysterious, startling to the awa- kened fancy, — the whispering fall of a leaf, the creak- ing of a bough, the stir of some night insect, the soft footfall of some prowling beast, from the far-off shore the mournful howl of a lonely wolf, or the leaping of a fish where, athwart the pines, the weird moon gleamed on the midnight river.
Day dawned. The east glowed with tranquil fire, that pierced, with eyes of flame, the fir-trees whose jagged tops stood drawn in black against the burning heaven Beneath, the glossy river slept in shadow, or spread
1613.] THE CHAUDIERE. 34,3
far and wide in sheets of burnished bronze ; and, in the western sky, the white moon hung like a disk of silver. Now, a fervid light touched the dead top of the hemlock, and now, creeping downward, it bathed the mossy beard of the patriarchal cedar, unstirred in the breathless air. Now, a fiercer spark beamed from the east ; and, now, half risen on the sight, a dome of crimson fire, the sun blazed with floods of radiance across the awakened wilderness.
The paddles flashed ; the voyagers held their course. And soon the still surface was flecked with spots of foam ; islets of froth floated by, tokens of some great convulsion. Then, on their left, the falling curtain of the Rideau shone like silver betwixt its bordering woods, and in front, white as a snow-drift, the cataracts of the Chaudiere barred their way. They saw the dark cliffs, gloomy with impending firs, and the darker torrent, rolling its mad surges along the gulf between. They saw the unbridled river careering down its sheeted rocks, foaming in unfathomed chasms, wearying the solitude with the hoarse outcry of its agony and rage.
On the brink of the rocky basin where the plunging torrent boiled like a caldron, and pufls of spray sprang out from its concussion like smoke from the throat of a camion, — here Champlain's two Indians took their stand, and, with a loud invocation, threw tobacco into the foam, an offering to the local spirit, the Manitou of the cataract.1
1 An invariable custom with the upper Indians on passing this place. When many were present, it was attended with solemn dances and
THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAN. [1613.
Over the rocks, through the woods ; then they launched their canoes again, and, with toil and struggle, made their amphibious way, now pushing, now drag- ging, now lifting, now paddling, now shoving with poles. When the evening sun poured its level rays across the quiet Lake of the Chaudiere. they landed, and made their peaceful camp on the verge of a woody island.
Day by day brought a renewal of their toils. Hour by hour, they moved prosperously up the long winding of the solitary stream; then, in quick succession, rapid followed rapid, till the bed of the Ottawa seemed a slope of foam. Now, like a wall bristling at the top with woody islets, the Falls of the Chats faced them with the sheer plunge of their sixteen cataracts. Now they glided beneath overhanging cliffs, where, seeing but unseen, the crouched wild-cat eyed them from the thicket ; now through the maze of water-girded rocks, which the white cedar and the spruce clasped with ser- pent-like roots, or among islands where old hemlocks, dead at the top, darkened the water with deep green shadow. Here, too, the rock-maple reared its verdant masses, the beech its glistening leaves and clean, smooth stem, and behind, stiff and sombre, rose the balsam-fir. Here, in the tortuous channels, the muskrat swam and plunged, and the splashing wild duck dived beneath the
speeches, a contribution of tobacco being first taken on a dish. It was thought to insure a safe voyage ; but was often an occasion of disaster, since hostile war-parties, lying in ambush at the spot, would surprise and kill the votaries of the Manitou in the very presence of their guardian.
1613.] CHAMPLAIN AS A PIONEER.
alders or among the red and matted roots of thirsty water-willows. Aloft, the white pine towered " proudly eminent " above a sea of verdure. Old fir-trees, hoary and grim, shaggy with pendent mosses, leaned above the stream, and beneath, dead and submerged, some fallen oak thrust from the current its bare, bleached limbs, like the skeleton of a drowned giant. In the weedy cove stood the moose, neck-deep in water to escape the flies, wading sho'reward, with glistening sides, as the canoes drew near, shaking his broad antlers and writhing his hideous nostril, as with clumsy trot he vanished in the woods.
In these ancient wilds, to whose ever verdant antiq uity the pyramids are young and Nineveh a mushroom of yesterday ; where the sage wanderer of the Odyssey, could he have urged his pilgrimage so far, would have surveyed the same* grand and stern monotony, the same dark sweep of melancholy woods ; and where, as of yore, the bear and the wolf still lurk in the thicket, and the lynx glares from the leafy bough ; — here, while New England was a solitude, and the settlers of Virginia scarcely dared venture inland beyond the sound of cannon-shot, Champlain was planting on shores and islands the emblems of his Faith.1 Of the pioneers of the North American forests, his name stands foremost on the list. It was he who struck the deepest and boldest strokes into the heart of their pristine barba- rism. At Chantilly, at Fontainebleau, at Paris, in the
1 They were large crosses of white cedar, placed at various point* along the river
34-6 THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAN. [1013.
cabinets of princes and of royalty itself, mingling with the proud vanities of the court ; then lost from sight in the depths of Canada, the companion of savages, sharer of their toils, privations, and battles, more hardy, patient, and bold than they ; — such, for successive years, were the alternations of this man's life.
To follow on his trail once more. His Indians said that the rapids of the river above -were impassable. Nicholas de Vignan affirmed the contrary ; but from the first, Vignan had been found always in the wrong. His aim seems to have been to involve his leader in difficulties, and disgust him with a journey which must soon result in exposing the imposture which had occasioned it. Champlain took the counsel of the In- dians. The party left the river, and entered the forest.
Each Indian shouldered a canoe. The Frenchmen carried the baggage, paddles, arms, and fishing-nets. Champlain's share was three paddles, three arquebuses, his capote, and various " bagatelles." Thus they strug- gled on, till, at night, tired and half starved, they built their fire on the border of a lake, doubtless an expan- sion of the river. Here, clouds of mosquitoes gave them no peace, and piling decayed wood on the flame, they sat to leeward in the smoke. Their march, in the morning, was through a pine forest. A whirlwind had swept it, and in the track of the tornado the trees lay uptorn, inverted, prostrate, and flung in disordered heaps, boughs, roots, and trunks mixed in wild con- fusion. Over, under, and through these masses the travellers made their painful way ; then through the
1613.] OTTAWA TOWNS.
pitfalls and impediments of the living forest, till a sunnj transparency in the screen of young foliage before them gladdened their eyes with the assurance that they had reached again the banks of the open stream.
At the point where they issued it could no longer be called a stream, for it was that broad expansion now known as Lake Coulange. Below, were the dangerous rapids of the Calumet ; above, the river was split into two arms, folding in their watery embrace the large island called Isle des Allumettes. This neighborhood was the seat of the principal Indian population of the river, ancestors of the modern Ottawas ; l and, as the
1 Usually called Algoumequins, or Algonqnins, by Champlain and other early writers, — a name now always used in a generic sense to des- ignate a large family of cognate tribes, speaking languages radically simi- lar, and covering a vast extent of country. The Ottawas, however, soon became known by their tribal name, written in various forms by French and English writers, as Otttotiais, Outaouaks, Tnwaas, Oadauwaus, Outauies, Oulaouucs, Uiawas, Olbtwwaivwitg, Onttoaels, Outltnvaals, Atlnwawas. The French nicknamed them " C/ieveux Releces," from their mode of wearing their hair. Champlain gives the same name to a tribe near Lake Huron.
The Ottawas or Algonquins of the Isle des Allumettes and its neigh- borhood are most frequently mentioned by the early writers as la Nation de i'lsle. Lalemant (Relation den Huroiis, ItioO) calls them Ehonkeronons. Vimont (Relation, 1G40) calls them Kichesipirini. The name Alyonqnin was used generally as early as the time of Sagard, whose Histoire du Canada appeared in 1G36. Champlain always limits it to the tribes of thfs Ottawa.
As the Ottawas were at first called Algonquins, so all the Algonquin tribes of the Great Lakes were afterwards, without distinction, called Ottawas, because the latter had first become known to the French. Dablon, Rd>itio», 1670, c. X.
Isle des Allumettes was called also Isle du Borgne, from a renowned one-eyed chief who made his abode here, and who, after greatly exasper- ating the Jesuits by his evil courses, at last became a convert and died in the Faith. They regarded the people of this island as the haughtiest of all the tribes. Lc Jeune, Relation, 1G3G, 230.
THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAN. [1613,
canoes advanced, unwonted signs of human life could be seen on the borders of the lake. Here was a rough clearing. The trees had been burned ; there was a rude and desolate gap in the sombre green of the pine forest. Dead trunks, blasted and black with fire, stood grimly upright amid the charred stumps and prostrate bodies of comrades half consumed. In the intervening- spaces, the soil had been feebly scratched with hoes of wood or bone, and a crop of maize was growing, now some four inches high.1 The dwellings of these slov- enly farmers, framed of poles covered with sheets of bark, were scattered here and there, singly or in groups, while their tenants were running to the shore in amaze- ment. Warriors stood with their hands over their mouths, — the usual Indian attitude of astonishment; squaws stared betwixt curiosity and fear ; naked pap- pooses screamed and ran. The chief, Nibachis, offered the calumet, then harangued the crowd : " These white- men must have fallen from the clouds. How else could they have reached us through the woods and rapids which even we find it hard to pass "? The French chief can do anything. All that we have heard of him must be true." And they hastened to regale the hungry vis- itors with a repast of fish.
Champlain asked for guidance to the settlements above. It was readily granted. Escorted by his friendly hosts, he advanced beyond the head of Lake
1 Champlain, Quatriesme Voyarje, 29. This is a pamphlet of fifty-two pages, containing the journal of his voyage of 1613, and apparently pub- lished at the close of that year.
1613.] OTTAWA CEMETERY.
Coulange, and, lauding, saw the unaccustomed sight of pathways through the forest.. They led to the clearings and cabins of a chief named Tessooat, who, amazed at the apparition of the white strangers, exclaimed that he must be in a dream.1 Next, the voyagers crossed to the neighboring island, then deeply wooded with pine, elm, and oak. Here were more desolate clearings, more rude cornfields and bark -built cabins. Here, too, was a cemetery, which excited the wonder, of Champlain, for the dead were better cared for than the living. Over each grave a flat tablet of wood was supported on posts, and at one end stood an upright tablet, carved with an intended representation of the features of the deceased. If a chief, the head was adorned with a plume. If a warrior, there were figures near it of a shield, a lance, a war-club, and a bow and arrows ; if a boy, of a- small bow and one arrow ; and if a woman or a girl, of a kettle, an earthen pot, a wooden spoon, and a paddle. The whole was decorated with red and yellow paint ; and beneath slept the departed, wrapped in a robe of skins, his earthly treasures about him, ready for use in the land of souls.
Tessouat was to give a tabagie, or solemn feast, in honor of Champlain, and the chiefs and elders of the
1 Tessouat's village seems to have been on the Lower Lake des Allu- niettes, a wide expansion of that ami of the Ottawa which flows along the southern side of Isle des Allumettes. Champlain is clearly wrong, by one degree, in his reckoning of the latitude, — 47° for 46?. Tessouat was father, or predecessor, of the chief Le Borgne, whose Indian namn was the same. See note, ante, p. 347. 30
350 rHE IMPOSTOR VIGNAN. [1613.
island were invited. Runners were sent to summon the guests from neighboring hamlets ; and, on the mor- row, Tessouat's squaws swept his cabin for the festivity. Then Charnplain and his Frenchmen were seated on skins in the place of honor, and the naked guests ap- peared in quick succession, each with his wooden dish and spoon, and each ejaculating his guttural salute as he stooped at the low door. The spacious cabin was full. The congregated wisdom and prowess of the nation sat expectant on the bare earth. Each long, bare arm thrust forth its dish in turn as the host served out the banquet, in which, as courtesy enjoined, he himself was to have no share. First, a mess of pounded maize wherein were boiled, without salt, mor- sels of fish and dark scraps of meat ; then, fish and flesh broiled on the embers, with a kettle of cold water from the river. Champlain, in wise distrust of Ottawa cookery, confined himself to the simpler and less doubt- ful viands. A few minutes, and all alike had vanished. The kettles were empty. Then pipes were filled and touched with fire brought in by the duteous squaws, while the young men who had stood thronged about the entrance now modestly withdrew, and the door was closed for counsel.1
First, the pipes were passed to Champlain. Then,
1 Cliamplain's account of this feast (Quatriesme Voyage, 32) is unusually minute and graphic. In every particular — excepting the pounded maize — it might, as the writer can attest, be taken as the description of a sim- ilar feast among some of the tribes of the Far West at the present day, as, for example, one of the remoter bands of the Dacotah, a race radi- cally distinct from the Algonquin.
1613.] INDIAN FEAST.
for full half an hour, the assembly smoked in silence. At length, when the fitting1 time was come, he addressed them in a speech in which he declared, that, moved by affection, he visited their country to see its richness and its beauty, and to aid them in their wars ; and he now begged them to furnish him with four canoes and eight men, to convey him to the country of the Nipissings, a tribe dwelling northward on the lake which bears their name.1
His audience looked grave, for they were but cold and jealous friends of the Nipissings. For a time they discoursed in murmuring tones among themselves, all smoking meanwhile with redoubled vigor. Then Tes- souat, chief of these forest republicans, rose and spoke in behalf of all.
" We always knew you for our best friend among the Frenchmen. We love you like our own children. But why did you break your word with us last year when we all went down to meet you at Montreal to give you presents and go with you to war 1 You were not there, but other Frenchmen were there who abused us. We will never go again. As for the four canoes, you shall have them if you insist upon it ; but it grieves
1 The Nebecerini of Champlain, called also Nipissinr/ues, Nipissiriniens, Nibissiriniens, Bissiriniens, Epiciriniens, by various early French writers. They are the Askikouanheronons of Lalcmant, who borrowed the name from the Huron tongue, and were also called Sarders from their ill repute as magicians.
They belonged, like the Ottawas, to the great Algonquin family, and are considered by Charlevoix (Journal Hislorique, 186) as alone preserv- ing the original type of that race and language. They had, however, borrowed certain usages from their Huron neighbors.
352 THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAN [1G13.
us to think of the hardships you must endure. The Nipissings have weak hearts. They are good for nothing in war, but they kill us with charms, and they poison us. Therefore we are on bad terms with them. They will kill you, too."v
Such was the pith of Tessouat's discourse, and at each clause, the conclave responded in unison with an approving grunt.
Charnplain urged his petition ; sought to relieve their tender scruples in his behalf; assured them that he was charm-proof, and that he feared no hardships. At length he gained his point. The canoes and the men were promised, and, seeing himself as he thought on the highway to his phantom Northern Sea, he left his en- tertainers to their pipes, and with a light heart issued from the close and smoky den to breathe the fresh air of the afternoon. He visited the Indian fields, with their young crops of pumpkins, beans, and French peas, — the last a novelty obtained from the traders.1 Here, Thomas, the interpreter, soon joined him with a coun- tenance of ill news. In the absence of Champlain, the assembly had reconsidered their assent. The canoes were denied.
With a troubled mind he hastened again to the hall of council, and addressed the naked senate in terms bet- ter suited to his exigencies than to their dignity.
1 " Pour passer le reste du jour, je fus me pourmener par les jardins, qui n'estoient remplis que de quelques citrouilles, phasioles, et de nos pois, qu'ils commencent a cultiver, ou Thomas, mon truchement, qui en- tendoit fort bien la langue, me vint trouver," etc. — Champlain, (1632.) 1. IV. c. II.
1618.J THE IMPOSTOR UNMASKED. 353
<; I thought you were men ; I thought you would hold fast to your word : but I find you children, with- out truth. You call yourselves my friends, yet you break faith with me. Still I would not incommode you ; and if you cannot give me four canoes, two will
serve." l
The burden of the reply was, rapids, rocks, cataracts, and the wickedness of the Nipissings.
" This young man," rejoined Champlain, pointing to Vignan, who sat by his side, "• has been to their coun- try, and did not find the road or the people so bad as you have said."
" Nicholas," demanded Tessouat, " did you say that you had been to the Nipissings ^ "
The impostor sat mute for a time, then replied, —
" Yes, I have been there."
Hereupon an outcry broke forth from the assem- bly, and their small, deep-set eyes were turned on him askance, "as if," says Champlain, " they would have torn and eaten him."
" You are a liar," returned the unceremonious host ; " you know very well that you slept here among my children every night and rose again every morning ; and if you ever went where you pretend to have gone, it must have been when you were asleep. How can you be so impudent as to lie to your chief, and so wicked as to risk his life among so many dangers ? He ought to
1 " . . . . et leur dis, que je les nvois jusques & ce jour estimez hommcs, et veritables, et que maintenant Us se monstroient enfants et mensongers," etc. — Champlain, (1632,) 1. IV. c. II. 30 «
THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAN. [1613.
kill you with tortures worse than those with which we kill our enemies." l
Champlain urged him to reply, but he sat motion- less and dumb. Then he led him from the cabin and conjured him to declare if, in truth, he had seen this sea of the North. Vignan. with oaths, affirmed that all he had said was true. Returning to the council, Champlain repeated his story: how he had seen the sea, the wreck of an English ship, eighty English scalps, and an English boy, prisoner among the In- dians.
At this, an outcry rose, louder than before.
" You are a liar." " Which way did you go ? " " By what rivers ? " " By what lakes I " " Who went with you 1 "
Vignan had made a map of his travels, which Champlain now produced, desiring him to explain it to his questioners ; but his assurance had failed him, and he could not utter a word.
Champlain was greatly agitated. His hopes and heart were in the enterprise ; his reputation was in a measure at stake ; and now, when he thought his tri- umph so near, he shrank from believing himself the
1 " Alors Tessouat .... luy dit en son langage : Nicholas, est-il vray que tu as dit avoir este aux Nebecerini ? II fut longtemps sans parler, puis il leur dit en leur langue, qu'il parloit aucunement : Ouy j'y ay este. Aussitost ils le regarderent de travers, et se jettant sur luy, comme s'ils 1'eussent voulu manger ou descliirer, firent de grands cris, et Tessouat luy dit : Tu es un asseure' menteur : tu S9ais bien que tous les soirs tu couchois a mes costez avec mes enfants, et tous les matins tu t'y levois : situ as este vers ces peuples, 9'a este en dormant." etc. — Champluin, (1632,) 1. IV. c. II.
1613.J RETURN TO MONTREAL.
sport of an impudent impostor. The council broke up ; the Indians displeased and moody, and he, on his part, full of anxieties and doubts. At length, one of the canoes being ready for departure, the time of deci- sion came, and he called Vignan before him.
" If you have deceived me, confess it no\v, and the past shall be forgiven. But if you persist, you will soon be discovered, and then you shall be hanged."
Vignan pondered for a moment ; then fell on his knees, owned his treachery, and begged for mercy. Ohamplain broke into a rage, and, unable, as he says, to endure the sight of him, ordered him from his pres- ence, and sent the interpreter after him to make further examination.' Vanity, the love of notoriety, and the hope of reward, seem to have been his inducements ; for he had, in truth, spent a quiet winter in Tessouat's cabin, his nearest approach to the Northern Sea ; and he had flattered himself that he might escape the neces- sity of guiding his commander to this pretended dis- covery. The Indians were somewhat exultant. " Why did you not listen to chiefs and warriors, instead of believing the lies of tin's fellow 1 " And they counselled Champlain to have him killed at once, adding that they would save their friends trouble by taking that office upon themselves.
No motive remaining for farther advance, the party set forth on their return, attended by a fleet of forty canoes bound to Montreal l for trade. They passed
1 The name is used here for distinctness. The locality is indicated by Champlain as le Saut, from the Saut St. Louis, immediately above.
356 THE IMPOSTOR VIGNAN. [1618
the perilous rapids of the Calumet, and were one night encamped on an island, when an Indian, slumbering in an uneasy posture, was visited with a nightmare. He leaped up with a yell, screamed that somebody was kill-, ing him, and ran for refuge into the river. Instantly all his companions were on their feet, and hearing in fancy the Iroquois war-whoop, they took to the water, splash- ing, diving, and wading up to their necks in the blind- ness of their fright. Champlam and his Frenchmen, roused at the noise, snatched their weapons and looked in vain for an enemy. The panic-stricken warriors, reassured at length, waded crestfallen ashorej and the whole ended in a laugh/
At the Chaudiere, an abundant contribution of to- bacco was collected on a wooden platter, and, after a solemn harangue, was thrown to the guardian Manitou. On the seventeenth of June they approached Montreal, where the assembled traders greeted them with dis- charges of small arms and cannon. Here, among the rest, was Champlain's lieutenant, Du Pare, with his men, who had amused their leisure with hunting, and were revelling in a sylvan abundance, while their baffled chief, with worry of mind, fatigue of body, and a Lenten diet of half -cooked fish, was grievously fallen away in flesh and strength. He kept his word with De Vignan, left the scoundrel unpunished, bade farewell to the Indians, and, promising to rejoin them the next year, embarked in one of the trading-ships for France.
CHAPTER XIII.
1615. DISCOVERY OF LAKE HURON.
RELIGIOUS ZEAL OP CHAMPLAIX. — RECOLLET FRIARS. — ST. FRAXCJS. — EXPLORATION AND WAR. — LE CAUON ON THE OTTAWA. — Cn AMI-LAIN REACHES LAKE HURON. — THE HURON TOWNS. — MASS IN THE WILDER- NESS.
IN New France, spiritual and temporal interests were inseparably blended, and, as will hereafter appear, the conversion of the Indians became vital to commer- cial and political growth. But, with the single-hearted founder of the colony, considerations of material advan- tage, though clearly recognized, were no less clearly subordinate. He would fain rescue from perdition a people living, as he says, '; like brute beasts, without faith, without law, without religion, without God." While the want of funds and the indifference of his mer- chant associates, who as yet did not fully see that their trade would find in the missions its surest ally, were threatening to wreck his benevolent schemes, he found a kindred spirit in his friend Houe'l, Secretary to the King and comptroller-general of the salt-works of Brouage. Near this town was a convent of Recollet friars, some of whom were well known to Houe'l. To them he addressed himself; and several of the brotherhood, " in- flamed," we are told, " with charity," were eager to
DISCOVERY OF LAKE HURON. [1615.
undertake the mission. But the Recollets, mendicants by profession, were as weak in resources as Champlain himself. He repaired to Paris, then filled with bishops, cardinals, and nobles, assembled for the States-General. Responding to his appeal, they subscribed fifteen hun- dred livres for the purchase of vestments, candles, and ornaments for altars. The Pope authorized the mis- sion, and the King gave letters-patent in its favor.1
The Recollets form a branch of the great Franciscan order, founded early in the thirteenth century by St. Francis of Assisi. Saint, hero, or madman, according to the point of view from which he is regarded, he belonged to an era of the Church when the tumult of invading heresies awakened in her defence a band of impassioned champions, widely different from the placid saints of an earlier age. He was very young when dreams and voices began to reveal to him his vocation, and kindle his high-wrought nature to sevenfold heat. Self-respect, natural affection, decency, became in his eyes but stumbling-blocks and snares. He robbed his father to build a church ; and, like so many of the Ro- man Catholic saints, confounded filth with humility, exchanged clothes with beggars, and walked the streets of Assisi in rags amid the hootings of his townsmen. He vowed perpetual poverty and perpetual beggary, and, in token of his renunciation of the world, stripped him- self naked before the Bishop of Assisi ; then begged of him in charity a peasant's mantle. Crowds gath-
1 The papal brief and the royal letter are in Sagard, Hist, de la Nou- velle France, and Le Clerc, Etablissement de la Foy.
1615.] RfcOOLLET FRIARS.
ered to his fervid and dramatic eloquence. His hand- ful of disciples multiplied with an amazing increase. Europe became thickly dotted with their convents. At the end of the eighteenth century, the three Orders of St. Francis numbered a hundred and fifteen thousand friars and twenty-eight thousand nuns. Four popes, forty-five cardinals, and forty-six canonized martyrs were enrolled on their record, besides about two thou- sand more who had shed their blood for the Faith.1 Their missions embraced nearly all the known world ; and in 1621, there were, in Spanish America alone, five hundred Franciscan convents.2
In process of time the Franciscans had relaxed their ancient rigor ; but much of their pristine ^f'vh still subsisted in the Recollets, a reformed branch of the Order, sometimes known as Franciscans of the Strict Observance.
Four friars were named for the mission of New France, — Denis Jamet, Jean Dolbeau, Joseph le Caron, and Pacifiqne du Plessis. " They packed their church ornaments," says Champlain, "and we, our luggage." All alike confessed their sins, and, embarking at Hon- fleur, readied Quebec at the end of May, 1615. Great was the perplexity of the Indians as the apostolic men- dicants landed beneath the rock. Their garb was a form of that common to the brotherhood of St. Fran- cis, consisting of a rude garment of coarse gray cloth,
1 Helyot, Hi.itolre des Ordres Relitjieiix et Militaires, devotes his seventh volume- (cd. 1792) to the Franciscans and Jesuits. He draws largely from the great work of Wadding on the Franciscans
2 Le Cierc, Elablisstment de la Foy, I. 33-52.
360 DISCOVERY OF LAKE HURON. [1616.
girt at the waist with the knotted cord of the Order, and furnished with a peaked hood, to be drawn over the head. Their naked feet were shod with wooden sandals, more than an inch thick.1
Their first care was to choose a site for their con- vent, ne*ar the fortified dwellings and storehouses built by Champlain. This done, they made an altar, and celebrated the first mass ever said in Canada. Dolbeau was the officiating priest ; all New France kneeled on the bare earth around him, and cannon from the ship and the ramparts hailed the mystic rite.2 Then, in imitation of the Apostles, they took counsel together, and assigned to each his province in the vast field of their mission : to Le Caron, the Hurons, and to Dol- beau, the Montagnais; while Jamet and Du Plessis were to remain for the present near Quebec.
Dolbeau, full of zeal, set forth for his post, and, in the next winter, essayed to follow the roving hordes of Tadoussac to their frozen hunting-grounds. He was not robust, and his eyes were weak. Lodged in a hut of birch-bark, full of abominations, dogs, fleas, stench, and all uncleanness, he succumbed at length to the smoke, which had wellnigh blinded him, forcing him to remain for several days with his eyes closed.8 After debating within himself whether- God required of him the sacrifice of his sight, he solved his doubts with a negative, and returned to Quebec, only to set forth
1 An engraving of their habit will be found in Helyot, (1792).
2 Lettre (lit P. Jean Dolbeau an P. Didace David, son ami; de Quebec le 20 Jaillet, 1615. See Le Clerc, Etablissement de la Foy, I. 62.
8 Sagard, Hist, de la Nouvelle France, 26.
1015.] POLICY OF CHAMPLAIN. 35 J
again with opening spring on a tour so extensive, that it brought him in contact with outlying bands of the Esquimaux.1 Meanwhile Le Caron had long been ab- sent on a mission of more noteworthy adventure.
While his brethren were building their convent and garnishing their altar at Quebec, the ardent friar had hastened to the site of Montreal, then thronged with a savage concourse, come down for the yearly trade. He mingled with them, studied their manners, tried to learn their languages; and when, soon after, Champlain and Pontgrave arrived, he declared his purpose of winter- ing in their villages. Dissuasion availed nothing. " What," he demanded, " are privations to him whose life is devoted to perpetual poverty, who has no am- bition but to serve God ? "
The assembled Indians were more eager for temporaV than for spiritual succor, and beset Champlain with im- portunate clamors for aid against the Iroquois. He and Pontgrave were of one mind. The aid demanded must be given, and that from no motive of the hour, but in pursuance of a deliberate policy. It was evident that the innumerable tribes of New France, otherwise divided, were united in a common fear and hate of these formidable bands, who, in the strength of their fivefold league, spread havoc and desolation through all the surrounding wilds. It was the aim of Champlain, as of his successors, to persuade the threatened and endangered hordes to live at peace with each other, and to form, against the common foe, a virtual league, of
1 Le Clerc, Etablissement de la Foy, I. 71. 31
DISCOVERY OF LAKE HURON. [1615.
which the French colony would be the heart and the head, and which would continually widen with the wi- dening area of discovery. With French soldiers to fight their battles, French priests to baptize them, and French traders to supply their increasing1 wants, their depend- ence would be complete. They would become assured tributaries to the growth of New France. It was a triple alliance of soldier, priest, and trader. The sol- dier might be a roving knight, the priest a martyr and a saint ; but both alike were subserving the interests of that commerce which formed the only solid basis of the colony. The scheme of English colonization made no account of the Indian tribes. In the scheme of French colonization they were all in all.
In one point the plan was fatally defective, since it involved the deadly enmity of a race whose character and whose power were as yet but ill understood, — the fiercest, the boldest, the most politic, and the most am- bitious savages to whom the American forest has ever given birth and nurture.
The chiefs and warriors met in council, — Algonquins of the Ottawa, Hurons from the borders of the great Fresh Water Sea. Champlain promised to join them with all the men at his command, while they, on their part, were to muster without delay twenty-five hundred warriors for an inroad into the country of the Iroquois. He descended at once to Quebec for needful prepara- tion ; but when, after a short delay, he returned to Mon- treal, he found, to his chagrin, a solitude. The wild concourse had vanished ; nothing remained but the
1615.] LE CARON'S JOURNEY.
skeleton poles of their huts, the srnoke of their fires, and the refuse of their encampments. Impatient at his delay, they had set forth for their villages, and with them had gone Father Joseph le Caron.
Twelve Frenchmen, well armed, had attended him. Summer was at its height, and as his canoe stole along the still bosom of the glassy river, — as the friar gazed about him on the tawny multitude whose fragile craft, like swarms of gliding insects, covered the breath- less water, — he bethought him, perhaps, of his white- washed cell in the convent of Brouage, of his book, his table, his rosary, and all the narrow routine of that familiar life from which he had awakened to contrasts so startling. That his progress up the Ottawa was far from being an excursion of pleasure, is attested by his letters, fragments of which have come down to us.
" It would be hard to tell you," he writes to a friend, " how tired I was with paddling all day, with all my strength, among the Indians; wading the rivers a hun- dred times and more, through the mud and over the sharp rocks that cut my feet ; carrying the canoe and luggage through the woods to avoid the rapids and frightful cataracts ; and half starved all the while, for we had nothing to eat but a little sagamite, a sort of porridge of water and pounded maize, of which they gave us a very small allowance every morning and night. But I must needs tell you what abundant con- solation I found under all my troubles ; for when one sees so many infidels needing nothing but a drop of water to make them children of God, he feels an i
,%4, DISCOVERY OF LAKE HURON. [161o.
pressible ardor to labor for their conversion, and sacri- fice to it his repose and his life." 1
While the devoted missionary toiled painfully towards the scene of his apostleship, the no less ardent soldier was following on his track. Champlain, with two canoes, ten Indians, Etienne Brule his interpreter, and another Frenchman, pushed up the riotous stream till he reached the Algonquin villages which had formed the term of his former journeying. He passed the Uvo lakes of the Allumettes ; and now, for twenty miles, the Ottawa stretched before him, straight as the bee can fly, deep, narrow, and black, between its mountain-shores. He passed the rapids of the Joachims and the Caribou, — the Rocher Capitaine, where the angry current whirls in its rocky prison, — the Deux Rivieres, where it bursts its mountain-barrier, — and reached at length the trib- utary waters of the Mattawan. He turned to the left, ascended this little stream, forty miles or more, and, crossing a portage-track, well trodden, stood on the margin of Lake Nipissing. The canoes were launched again. All day, they glided by leafy shores and ver- dant islands floating on the depth of blue. And now appeared unwonted signs of human life, clusters of bark
1 " .... Car helas quancl on voit un si grand nombre d'lnfidcls, et qu'il ne tient qu'a une goutte d'eau pour les rendre enfans de Dieu, on ressent je ne s<,'ay quelle ardeur de travailler a leur conversion et d'y sacrifier son repos et sa vie." — Le Caron in Le Clerc, I. 74. Le Clerc, usually exact, affixes a wrong date to Le Caron's departure, which took place, not in the autumn, but about the first of July, Champlain following on the ninth. Of the last writer the editions consulted have been those of 1020 and 1627, the narrative being abridged in the edition of 1032. Compare Sagard, Hist, de la Nouvelle France
1615.] LAKE HURON.
lodges, half hidden in the vastness of the woods. It was the village of an Algonquin band, called by cour- tesy a nation, the Nipissings, a race so beset with spirits, so infested by demons, and abounding in magi- cians, that the Jesuits, in after-years, stigmatized them all as " the Sorcerers." In this questionable company Champlain spent two days, feasted on fish from the lake, deer and bears from the forest. Then, descending to the outlet of the water, his canoes floated westward down the current of French River.
Days passed, and no sight of human form had enliv- ened the rocky desolation. Hunger was pressing them hard, for the ten gluttonous Indians had devoured al- ready their whole provision for the voyage, and they were forced to subsist on the blueberries and wild rasp- berries that grew abundantly in the meagre soil, when suddenly they encountered a troop of three hundred Indians, whom, from their bizarre and startling mode of wearing their hair, Champlain named the Cheveux Relcves. " Not one of our courtiers," he says, " takes so much pains in dressing his locks." Here, how- ever, their care of the toilet ended ; for, though tattooed on various parts of the body, and armed with bows, arrows, and shields of bison-hide, they wore no cloth- ing whatever. Savage as was their aspect, they were busied in the pacific task of gathering blueberries for their winter store. Their demeanor, too, was friendly ; and from them the voyager learned that the great lake of the Hurons was close at hand.1
1 These savages belonged to a numerous Algonquin tribe who occupied 31*
366 DISCOVERY OF LAKE HURON. |1615.
Now, far along the western sky was traced the watery line of that inland ocean, and, first of white men, save the humble friar, Champlain beheld the"Mer Douce," the Fresh Water Sea of the Hurons. Before him, too far for sight, lay the spirit-haunted Manitoua- lins, and, southward, spread the vast bosom of the Georgian Bay. For more than a hundred miles, his course was along its eastern shores, through tortuous channels of islets countless as the sea-sands, — an archi- pelago of rocks worn for ages by the wash of waves. Not to this day does the handiwork of man break the savage charm of those lonely coasts. He crossed Byng Inlet, Franklin Inlet, Parry Sound, and the wider bay of Matchedash, and seems to have debarked at the inlet now called Thunder Bay, at the entrance of the Bay of Matchedash and a little west of the Harbor of Pene- tanguishine.
An Indian trail led inland, now through woods and thickets, now across broad meadows, over brooks, and along the skirts of green acclivities. To the eye of Champlain, accustomed to the desolation he had left behind, it seemed a land of beauty and abundance. There was a broad opening in the forest, fields of maize, idle pumpkins ripening in the sun, patches of sunflow- ers, from the seeds of which the Indians made hair-oil,
a district west and southwest of the Nottawassaga Bay of Lake Huron, within the modern counties of Bruce and Grey, Canada West. Sagard speaks of meeting a party of them near the place where they were met by Champlain. Sagard, Grand Voyage da Pays ties Hurons, 77- The Ot- tawas, a kindred people, were afterwards, as already mentioned, called Cheveux Releves by the French.
1615.] THE HURONS.
and, iu the midst, the Huron town of Otouacha. In all essential points, it resembled that which Carrier, eighty years hefore, had seen at Montreal : the same triple palisade of crossed and intersecting trunks, and the same long lodges of bark, each containing many households. Here, within an area of sixty or seventy miles, was the seat of one of the most remarkable sav- age communities of the continent. By the Indian standard, it was a mighty nation ; yet the entire Huron population did not exceed that of a second or third class American city, and the draft of twenty-five hundred warriors pledged to Champlain must have left its sev- enteen or eighteen villages bereft of fighting men.1
Of this people, its tragic fate, and the heroic lives spent in ministering to it, I purpose to speak more fully in another work. To the south and southeast lay other tribes of kindred race and tongue, all stationary, all tillers of the soil, and all in a state of social advance- ment when compared with the roving bands of Eastern Canada : the Neutral Nation 2 west of the Niagara, and the Eries and Andastes in Western New York and Pennsylvania ; while from the Genesee eastward to the Hudson lay the banded tribes of the Iroquois, leading members of this potent family, deadly foes of their kindred, and at last their destroyers.
1 The number of villages is Champlain's estimate. Le Jeune, Sagard, and Lulemnnt afterwards reckoned them at from twenty to thirty-two. Le Clerc, following Le Caron, makes the population about ten thousand souls ; but several later observers set it at above thirty thousand.
2 A warlike people, called Neutral from their neutrality between the Hurons and the Iroquois, which did not save them from sharing the d*» itruction which overwhelmed the former
3(38 DISCOVERY OF LAKE HURON. [1615.
In Champlain the Hurons beheld the champion who was to lead them to assured victory. In the great lodge at Otouacha there was bountiful feasting in his honor, and consumption without stint of corn, pump- kins, and fish. Other welcome, too, was tendered, of which the Hurons were ever liberal, but which, with all courtesy, was declined by the virtuous Champlain. Next, he went to Carmaron, a league distant ; then to Touaguainchain and Tequinonquihaye ; till at length he reached Carhagouha, with its triple palisade thirty-five feet high, and its dark throngs of mustering warriors. Here he found Le Carou. The Indians, ea^er to do
7 O
him honor, had built for him a bark lodge in the neighboring forest, fashioned like their own, but much smaller. Here the friar had made an altar, garnishing it with those indispensable decorations which he had borne with him through all the vicissitudes of his pain- ful journeying ; and hither, night and day, came a curious multitude to listen to his annunciations of the novel doctrine. It was a joyful hour when he saw Champlain approach his hermitage ; and the two men embraced like brothers long sundered.
The twelfth of August was a day evermore marked with white in the friar's calendar. Arrayed in priestly vestments, he stood before his simple altar ; behind him his little band of Christians, — the twelve Frenchmen who had attended him, and the two who had followed Champlain. Here stood their devout and valiant chief, and, at his side, the dauntless woodsman, pioneer of pioneers, Etienne Brule, the interpreter. The Host
1615.] THE FIRST MASS.
was raised aloft ; the worshippers kneeled. Then their rough voices joined in the hymn of praise, Te Deum laudamm j and then a volley of their guns proclaimed the triumph of the Faith to the okies, manitous, and all the brood of anomalous devils who had reigned with undisputed sway in these wild realms of darkness. The brave friar, a true soldier of the Church, had led her forlorn hope into the fastnesses of Hell ; and now, with contented heart, he might depart in peace, for he had the first mass in the country of the Hurons.
,-JD
CHAPTER XIV.
1615, 1616. THE GREAT WAR-PARTY.
MUSTER OF WARRIORS. — DEPARTURE. — THE RIVER TRENT. — LAKE On- TARIO. — THK IROQUOIS TOWNS. — ATTACK. — REPULSE. — CHAMPLAIH WOUNDED. — RETRKAT. — ADVENTURES OF ETIENNE BRULE. — WINTEP HUNT. — CHAJU'LAUJ LOST IN THE FOREST. — MADK UMPIRE OF INDIAN QUARRELS.
WEARY of the inanity of the Indian town- — idleness without repose, for they would never leave him alone — and of the continuous feasting with which they nearly stifled him, Cham plain, with some of his French- men, set forth on a tour of observation. Journeying at their ease hy the Indian trails, they visited, in three days, five palisaded villages. The country delighted them : its meadows, its deep woods, its pine and cedar thickets, full of hares and partridges, its wild grapes and plums, cherries, crab-apples, nuts, and raspberries. It was the seventeenth of August when they reached the Huron metropolis, Cahiague, in the modern town- ship of Orillia, three leagues west of the River Severn, by which Lake Simcoe pours its waters into the bay of Matchedash. A shrill clamor of rejoicing, the fixed stare of wondering squaws, and the screaming flight of terrified children, hailed the arrival of Champlain. By his estimate, the place contained two hundred lodges ;
c^,*r
L / H&OfJ
1615.] HURON WARRIORS.
but they must have heen relatively small, since, had they been of the enormous capacity sometimes found in these structures, Cahiague alone would have held the whole Huron population. Here was the chief ren- dezvous, and the town swarmed with gathering war- riors. There was cheering news ; for an allied nation, probably the Eries, had promised to join the Hurons in the enemy's country, with five hundred men.1 Feasts and the war-dance consumed the days, till at length the tardy bands had all arrived; and, shouldering their ca- noes and scanty baggage, the naked host set forth.
At the outlet of Lake Sirncoe, they all stopped to fish, — their simple substitute for a commissariat. Hence, too, the intrepid Etienne Brule, at his own request, was sent with twelve Indians to hasten forward the five hundred allied warriors, — a venture of deadly hazard, since his course must lie through the borders of the Iroquois.
It was the eighth of September, and Champlain, shivering in his blanket, awoke to see the bordering meadows sparkling with an early frost, soon to vanish under the bright autumnal sun. The Huron fleet pur- sued its course along the bosom of Lake Siincoe, up the little River Talbot, across the portage to Balsam Lake, and down the chain of lakes which form the sources of the River Trent. As the long line of canoes moved on its devious way, no human life was seen, no
1 Champlain, (1G27,) 31. While the French were aiding the Hurona against the Iroquois, the Dutch on the Hudson aided the Iroquois n gainst this nation of allies, who captured three Dutchmen, but are said to ha»e set them free in the belief that they were French. Ibid.
gyg THE GREAT WAR-PARTY. [1616.
sign of friend or foe. Yet, at times, to the fancy of Champlain, the horders of the stream seemed decked with groves and shrubhery by the hands of man, and mighty walnut-trees, laced with grape-vines, seemed decorations of a pleasure-ground.
They stopped and encamped for a deer-hunt. Five hundred Indians, in line, like the skirmishers of an army advancing to battle, drove the game to the end of a woody point ; and the canoe-men killed them with spears and arrows as they took to the river. Champlain and his men keenly relished the sport, but paid a heavy price for their pleasure. A Frenchman, firing at a buck, brought down an Indian, and there was need of a liberal largess to console the sufferer and his friends.
The canoes now issued from the mouth of the Trent. Like a flock of venturous wild-fowl, they put boldly forth upon the broad breast of Lake Ontario, crossed it in safety, and landed within the borders of New York, on or near the point of land west of Hungry Bay. After hiding their light craft in the woods, the warriors took up their swift and wary march, filing in silence between the woods and the lake, for twelve miles along the pebbly strand. Then they struck inland, threaded the forest, crossed the River Onondaga, and after a march of four days, were deep within the western lim- its of the Iroquois. Some of their scouts met a fish- ing-party of this people, and captured them, eleven in number, men, women, and children. They were brought to the camp of the exultant Hurons. As a beginning of the jubilation, a chief cut off a finger of one of the
1615.] JROQUOIS FORTIFICATION.
women ; but desisted from farther torturing on the an- gry protest of Champlain, reserving that pleasure for a more convenient season.
Light broke in upon the forest. The hostile town was close at hand. Rugged fields lay before them, with a slovenly and savage cultivation. The young Hurons in advance saw the Iroquois at work among the pumpkins and maize, gathering their rustling har- vest, for it was the tenth of October. Nothing could restrain the hare-brained and ungoverned crew. They screamed their war-cry and rushed in ; but the Iroquois snatched their weapons, killed and wounded five or six of the assailants, and drove back the rest discomfited. Champlain and his Frenchmen were forced to inter- pose ; and the crack of their pieces from the border of the woods stopped the pursuing enemy, who withdrew to their defences, bearing with them their dead and wounded.1
It was a town of the Senecas, the most populous and one of the most warlike of the five Iroquois tribes ; and its site was on or near one of the lakes of central New York, perhaps Lake Canandaigua.2 Champlain
1 Le Clerc, I. 79-87, gives a few particulars not mentioned by Cham- plain, whose account will be found in the editions of 1620, 1627, and 1632.
2 There can be no doubt that the Entouohronons, or Ontouoronons of Champlain wore the Senecas, whose western limit at this period was the Genesee. Lake Ontario, the Lac St. Louis of the French, was called by the Hurons the Lake of the Ontouoronons. Hence its present name.
It is impossible, from Champlain's account, to identify the precise posi- tion of the town attacked. O. H. Marshall, Esq., in an excellent lecture on early western exploration, published in the Western Literary M -- ger, alluding to this expedition, speaks of the town as situated on Lak» 32
,374- THE GREAT WAR-PARTY. [1616.
describes its defensive works as much stronger than
o
those of the Huron villages. They consisted of four concentric rows of palisades, formed of trunks and trees, thirty feet high, set aslant in the earth, and intersecting each other near the top, where they supported a kind of gallery, well defended by shot -proof timber, and furnished with wooden gutters for quenching tire. A pond or lake, which washed one side of the palisade, and was led by sluices within the town, gave au ample supply of water, while the galleries were well provided with magazines of stones.
Cham plain was greatly exasperated at the desultory and futile procedure of his Huron allies. At their even- ing camp in the adjacent forest, he upbraided the throng of chiefs and warriors somewhat sharply, and, having finished his admonition, he proceeded to instruct them in the art of war. In the morning, aided doubtless by his ten or twelve Frenchmen, they betook themselves with alacrity to their prescribed task. A wooden tower was made, high enough to overlook the palisade, and large enough to shelter four or five marksmen. Huge wooden shields, or movable parapets, like the mantelets of the Middle Ages, were also constructed. Four hours sufficed to finish the work, and then the assault began. Two hundred of the strongest warriors, with unwonted prowess, dragged the tower forward, and planted it
Onoiulaga. He is followed by Brodhead, History of New York, and Clark, Hislory of Onondaga. It must, however, have been further westward, as the eastern borders of the Ontouoronons or Senecas were at some distance west of Lake Onondaga. The suggestion of Lake Canandaigua is due to Dr. O'Callaghan
1615.] CHAMPLAIX WOUNDED. 375
within a pike's length of the palisade. Three arqut- busiers mounted to the top, and opened a raking1 fire along the galleries, now thronged with wild and naked defenders. Bat nothing could restrain the ungov- ernable Hurons. They abandoned their mantelets, and, deaf to every command, swarmed out like bees upon the open field, leaped, shouted, shrieked their war-cries, and shot off their arrows ; while the Iroquois, hurling defiance from their ramparts, sent back a shower of stones and arrows in reply. A Huron, bolder than the fest, ran forward with firebrands to burn the palisade, and others followed with wood to feed the flame. But it was stupidly kindled on the leeward side, without the protecting shields designed to cover it ; and torrents of water, poured down from the gutters above, quickly extinguished it. The confusion was redoubled. Cham-
O
plain strove in vain to restore order. Each warrior was yelling at the top of his throat, and his voice was drowned in the outrageous din. Thinking, as he says, that his head would split with shouting, he gave over the attempt, and busied himself and his men with pick- ing off the Iroquois along their ramparts.
The attack lasted three hours, when the assailants fell back to their fortified camp, with seventeen warriors wounded. Champlain, too, had received an arrow in his knee and another in his leg, which, for the time, disabled him. He was urgent, however, to renew the attack ; while the Hurons, crestfallen and disheartened, refused to move from their camp unless the five hun- dred allies, for some time expected, should appear.
THE GREAT WAR-PARTY. [1615.
They waited five days in vain, beguiling1 the interval with frequent skirmishes, in which they were always worsted ; then began hastily to retreat in confused files along the sombre forest-pathways, while the Iroquois, sallying from their stronghold, showered arrows on their flanks and rear. Their wounded, Champlain among the rest, had been packed in baskets for trans- portation, each borne on the back of a strong warrior, " bundled in a heap," says Champlain, " doubled and strapped together after such a fashion that one could move no more than an infant in swaddling-clothes. .... I lost all patience, and as soon as I could bear my weight I got out of this prison, or to speak plainly, out of Hell." l
At length the dismal march was ended. They reached the spot where their canoes were hidden, found them untouched, embarked, and recrossed to the northern shore of Lake Ontario. The Hurons had promised Champlain an escort to Quebec ; but as the chiefs had little power in peace or war, beyond that of persuasion, each warrior found good reasons for refusing to go or lend his canoe. Champlain, too, had lost prestige. The " man with the iron breast " had proved not insep- arably wedded to victory ; and though the fault was their own, yet not the less was the lustre of their hero tarnished. There was no alternative. He must winter with the Hurons. The great war-party broke into fragments, each band betaking itself to its hunting-
* Champlain, (1G27,) 46. In the edition of 1632 there are some onus- Bions and verbal changes in this part of the narrative.
1615.] tTIENNE BRULfi.
ground.' A chief named Durantal,or Darontal,1 offered Champlain the shelter of his lodge, and he was fain to accept it.
And now to pause for a moment and trace the foot- steps of Etienne Brule on his hazardous mission to the five hundred allies. Three years passed before Cham- plain saw him. It was in the summer of 1618, that, reaching the Saut St. Louis, he there found the inter- preter, his hands and his swarthy face marked witli dire traces of the ordeal he had passed. Brule then told him his story.
He had set forth, as already mentioned, with twelve Indians, to hasten the march of the allies, who were to join the Hurons before the hostile town. Crossing Lake Ontario, the party pushed onward with all speed, avoiding trails, threading the thickest forests and dark- est swamps, for it was the land of their arch-enemies, the fierce and watchful Senecas. They were well ad- vanced on their way when they saw a small party of these Iroquois crossing a meadow, set upon them, sur- prised them, killed four, and took two prisoners. They led them to Carantouan, the place of their destination, a palisaded town with a population of eight hundred warriors, or about four thousand souls. The dwellings and defences were like those of the Hurons ; and there can be little doubt that the Carantouans were the Erics, or a subdivision of that nation. They were welcomed with feasts, dances, and an uproar of rejoicing. The
1 Champlain, with his usual carelessness, calls him by either name in differently.
82*
THE GREAT WAR-PARTY. [1616
five hundred warriors prepared to depart, but, engrossed by the general festivity, they prepared so slowly, that, though the hostile town was but three days distant, they found on reaching it that the besiegers were gone. Brule now returned with them to Carantouan, and, with enter- prise worthy of his commander, spent the winter in a tour of exploration. Descending a river, evidently the Susquehanna, he followed it to its junction with the sea, through territories of populous tribes, at war the one with the other. When, in the spring, he returned to Car- antouan, five or six of the Indians offered to guide him towards his countrymen. Less fortunate than before, he encountered on the way a band of Iroquois, who, rush- ing upon the party, scattered' them through the woods. Brule ran like the rest. The cries of pursuers and pur- sued died away in the distance. The forest was still around him. He was lost in the shady labyrinth. For three or four days he wandered, helpless and famished, till at length he found an Indian foot-path, and, choosing between starvation and the Iroquois, desperately followed it to throw himself on their mercy. He soon saw three Indians in the distance, laden with fish newly caught, and called to them in the Huron tongue, which was radically similar to that of the Iroquois. They stood amazed, then turned to fly; but Brule, gaunt with famine, flung down his weapons in token of amity. They now drew near, listened to the story of his distress, lighted their pipes, and smoked with him ; then guided him to theif village, and gave him food. A crowd gathered about him. " Whence do vou come "? Are vou not one or
IBIS. i £TIENNE BRULE.
the Frenchmen, the men of iron, who make war on
t " us ?
Brule answered that he was of a nation better than the French and fast friends of the Iroquois.
His captors, incredulous, tied him to a tree, tore out his beard by handfuls, and burned him with firebrands, while their chief vainly interposed in his behalf. He was a good Catholic, and wore an Agnus 'Dei at his breast. One of his torturers asked what it was, and thrust out his hand to take it.
" If you touch it," exclaimed Brule, " you and all your race will die."
The Indian persisted. The day was hot, and one of those thunder-gusts which often succeed the fierce heats of au American midsummer was rising against the sky. Brule pointed to the inky clouds as tokens of the anger of his God. The storm broke, and, as the celestial ar- tillery boomed over their.darkening forests, the Iroquois were stricken with a superstitious terror. All fled from the spot, leaving their victim still bound fast, until the chief who had endeavored to protect him returned, cut the cords, and leading him to his lodge dressed his wounds. Thenceforth there was neither dance nor feast to which Brule was not invited ; and when he wished to return to his countrymen, a party of Iroquois guided him four days on his way. He reached the friendly Hurons in safety, and joined them on their yearly de- scent to meet the French traders at Montreal.1
1 The story of Etienne Brulc", whose name may possibly allude to the fierv ordeal through which he had passed, is in Champlain's narrative of
380 THE GREAT WAR-PARTY. [1615
Brule's adventures find in some points their counter- part in those of his commander on the winter hunting- grounds of his Huron allies. As we turn the ancient, worm-eaten page which preserves the simple record of his fortunes, a wild and dreary scene rises before the mind : a chill November air, a murky sky, a cold lake, bare and shivering forests, the earth strewn with crisp, brown leaves, and, by the water-side, the bark sheds and smoking camp-fires of a band of Indian hunters. Champlain was of the party. There was ample argu- ment for his gun, for the morning was vocal with the clamor of wild-fowl, and his evening meal was enliv- ened by the rueful music of the wolves. It was a lake north or northwest of the site of Kingston. On the borders of a neighboring river, twenty-five of the In- dians had been busied ten days in preparing for their annual deer-hunt. They planted posts interlaced with boughs in two straight converging lines, each extending more than half a mile through forests and swamps. At the angle where they met was made a strong enclosure like a pound. At dawn of day the hunters spread themselves through the woods, and advanced with shouts and clattering of sticks, driving the deer before them
his voyage of 1618. It will be found in the edition of 1627, but is omitted in the condensed edition of 1632.
Brule met a lamentable fate. In 1632 he was treacherously murdered by Hurons at one of their villages near Penetanguishine. Several years after, when the Huron country was ravaged and half depopulated by an epidemic, the Indians believed that it was caused by the French in re- venge for his death, and a renowned sorcerer averred that he had seen a sister of the murdered man flying over their country, breathing forth pestilence and death. Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 34 j Brebeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 28; 1637, 160, 167, (Quebec, 1858).
1615.] CHAMPLAIN LOST IN THE WOODS. $81
into the enclosure, where others lay in wait to despatch them with arrows and spears,
Champlaiii was in the woods with the rest, when he saw a bird, apparently a red-headed woodpecker, whose novel appearance greatly excited his astonishment ; and, gun in hand, he set forth in pursuit. The bird, flitting from tree to tree, lured him deeper and deeper yet into the forest ; then took wing and vanished. The disappointed sportsman essayed to retrace his steps. But whither to turn ? The day was clouded, and he had left his pocket-compass at the camp. The forest closed around him, trees mingled with trees in limit- less confusion. Bewildered and lost, he wandered all day, and at night slept fasting at the foot of a great tree. Awaking, he wandered on till afternoon, when beneath him a sullen pond lay glimmering, deep set among the shadowing pines. There were water-fowl along its brink, some of which he shot, and for the first time found food to allay his hunger. He kindled afire, cooked his game, and, exhausted, blanketless, drenched by a cold rain, invoked his patron saint, and again lay down to sleep. Another day of blind and weary wan- dering succeeded, and another night of exhaustion. He had found paths in the wilderness, but they were not made by human feet. Once more aroused from his shivering repose, he journeyed on till he heard the tink- ling of a little brook from the shaggy depths of a ra vine, and, looking down on this wild nursling of the wilderness, bethought him of following its guidance, in hope that it might lead him to the river where the hunt-
THE GREAT WAR-PARTY. [1616.
ers were now encamped. With toilsome steps lie traced the infant stream, now lost beneath the decaying masses of fallen trunks or the impervious intricacies of matted " windfalls," now stealing through swampy thickets or gurgling in the shade of rocks, till it entered at length, not into the river, but into a small lake. Circling around the brink, he found the point where, gliding among clammy roots of alders, the brook ran out and resumed its course. And now, listening in the dead stillness of the woods, a dull, hoarse sound rose upon his ear. He went forward, listened again, and could plainly hear the plunge of waters. There was broad light before him, and, thrusting himself through the en- tanglement of bushes, he stood on the edge of a meadow. Wild animals were here of various kinds ; some skulking in the bordering thickets, some browsing on the dry and matted grass. On his right rolled the river, wide and turbulent, and along its bank he saw the portage-path by which the Indians passed the neighboring rapids. He gazed about him. The rocky hills seemed familiar to his eye. A clue was found at last; and, kindling his evening fire, with grateful heart he broke a long fast on the game he had killed. With the break of day, he descended at his ease along the bank, and soon descried the smoke of the Indian fires slowly curling in the heavy morning air against the gray borders of the adjacent forest. Great was the joy on both sides. The anxious Indians had searched for him without ceasing ; and from that day forth his host, Durantal, would never sutler him to go into the forest alone.
1616.] WINTER JOURNEYING. 383
They were thirty-eight days encamped on this name- less river, and killed, in that time, a hundred and twenty deer. Hard frosts were needful to give them passage over the land of lakes and marshes that lay between them and the Huron towns. Therefore they lay wait- ing till the fourth of December ; when the frost qarne, bridged the lakes and streams, and made the oozy marsh as firm as granite. Snow followed, powdering the broad wastes with dreary white. Then they broke up their camp, packed their game on sledges or on their shoul- ders, tied on their snow-shoes, and set forth. Cham- plain could scarcely endure his load, though some of the Indians carried a weight fivefold greater. At night, they heard the cleaving ice uttering its strange groans of torment, and on the morrow there came a thaw. For four days they waded through slush .and water up to their knees ; then came the shivering north- west wind, and all was hard again. In nineteen days they reached the town of Cahiague, and, lounging around their smoky lodge-fires, the hunters forgot the hardships of the past.
For Champluin there was no rest. A double mo- tive urged him, — discovery, and the strengthening of his colony by widening its circle of trade. First, he repaired to Carhagouha ; and here, in his hermitage, he found the friar, still praying, preaching, making cate- chismsj and struggling with the manifold difficulties of the Huron tongue. After spending several weeks together, they began their journeyings, and in three days reached the chief village of the Nation of Tobacco, a
88 4 THE GREAT WAR-PARTY [1616.
powerful tribe akin to the Hurons, and soon to be in- corporated with them.1 After visiting seven of their towns, the travellers passed westward to those of the mysterious people whom Champlain calls the Cheveux Releves, and whom 'he commends for neatness and inge- nuity no less than he condemns them for the nullity of their summer attire.2 Crowds escorted the strangers
<T*
from town to town, and their arrival was everywhere the signal of festivity. Champlain exchanged with his hosts pledges of perpetual amity, and urged them to come down with the Hurons to the yearly trade at Montreal ; while the friar, in broken Indian, expounded the Faith. Spring was now advancing, and Champlain, anxious for his colony, turned homeward, following that long circuit of Lake Huron and the Ottawa which Iroquois hostility made the only practicable route. Scarcely had he reached the lake of the Nipissings, and exacted from them a pledge to guide him to that delusive north- ern sea which never ceased to possess his thoughts, when evil news called him back in haste to the Huron towns. A band of those Algonquins who dwelt on the great island in the Ottawa had spent the winter en- camped near Cahiague, whose inhabitants made them a present of an Iroquois prisoner, with the friendly wish that they should enjoy the pleasure of torturing him. The Algonquins, on the contrary, fed, clothed, and adopted him. On this, the donors, in a rage, sent a
1 The Dionondadies, Petuneux, or Nation of Tobacco, had till recently, wjcording to Lalemant, been at war with the Hurons. a See ante, p. 365
161G.J RETURN TO QUEBEC.
warrior to kill the Iroquois. He stabbed him, accord- ingly, in the midst of the Algonquin chiefs, who in re- quital riddled the murderer with arrows. Here was a casus Mil involving most serious issues for the French, since the Algonquins, by their position on the Ottawa, would cut off the Hurons and all their allies from coming down to trade. Already, a fight had taken place at Cahiague ; the principal Algonquin chief had been wounded, and his band forced to purchase safety by a heavy tribute of wampum.1
All eyes turned to Champlain as umpire of the quar rel. The great council - house was filled with Huron and Algonquin chiefs, smoking with that immobility of feature beneath which their race often hide a more than tiger-like ferocity. The umpire addressed the assembly, enlarged on the folly of falling to blows between them- selves when the common enemy stood ready to devour them both, extolled the advantages of the French trade and alliance, and, with zeal not wholly disinterested, urged them to shake hands like brothers. The friendly counsel was accepted ; gifts of wampum were tendered and accepted, the pipe of peace was smoked, the storm dispelled, and the commerce of New France rescued from a serious peril.2
Once more Champlaiu turned homeward, and with
1 Wampum was a sort of beads, of several colors, made originally by the Indians from the inner portion of certain shells, and afterwards by the French of porcelain and glass. It served a treble purpose, — that of currency, decoration, and record. Wrought into belts of various devices, each having its significance, it preserved the substance of treaties and compacts from generation to generation.
2 Champlain, (1627,) 63-72.
33
385 THE GREAT WAR-FAKTr. f!616.
him went his Huron host, Durantal. Le Caron had preceded him ; and, on the eleventh of July, the fellow- travellers met again in the embryo capital of Canada. The Indians had reported that Champlain was dead, and he was welcomed as one risen from the grave. The friars — they were all here — chanted lauds in their chapel, with a solemn mass and thanksgiving. To the two travellers, fresh from the hardships of the wilder- ness, the hospitable board of Quebec, the kindly society of countrymen and friends, the adjacent gardens, — always to Champlain an object of especial interest, — seemed like the comforts and repose of home.
The chief Durantal found entertainment worthy of his high estate. The fort, the ship, the armor, the plumes, the cannon, the marvellous architecture of the houses and barracks, the splendors of the chapel, and above all the good cheer, outran the boldest excursion of his fancy; and he paddled back at last to his lodge in. the woods, bewildered with admiring astonishment.
CHAPTER XV.
1616—1627. HOSTILE SECTS. RIVAL INTERESTS.
QtF.r.EC. — EMBARRASSMENTS OP CHAMPLAIN. — MONTMORESCY. — MA- DAME DE CHAMPLAIN. — DISORDERS AND DANGERS OF THE COLONY.— A NEW MONOPOLY. — THE Due DE VENTADOUK. — JESUITS. — CATHOLICS AND HERETICS. — RICHELIEU. — THE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES.
AND now a change began in the life of Champlain. His forest rovings were over. The fire that had flashed the keen flame of daring adventure must now be sub- dued to the duller uses of practical labor. To battle with savages and the elements was doubtless more con- genial with his nature than to nurse a puny colony into growth and strength ; yet to each task he gave himself with the same strong devotion.
At Quebec the signs of growth were faint and few. By the water-side, beneath the cliff', still stood the so- called " habitation," built in haste eight years before ; near it were the warehouses of the traders, the tenement of the friars, and their rude little chapel. On the verge of the rock above, where now are seen the buttresses of the demolished Castle of St. Louis, Champlain built a fort, behind which were gardens, fields, and a few small buildings. A mile and a half distant, by the bank of the St. Charles, on the site of the present General Hospital, the Recollets, a few years later, built
388 HOSTILE SECTS. — RIVAL INTERESTS. 11616-24.
a convent of stone. Quebec could scarcely be called a settlement. It was half trading-factory, half mission. Its permanent inmates did not exceed fifty or sixty per- sons, — fur-traders, friars, and two or three wretched families, who had no inducement and little wish to labor. The fort is facetiously represented as having two old women for garrison, and a brace of hens for senti- nels.1 All was discord and disorder. Champlain was the nominal commander ; but the actual authority was with the merchants, who held, excepting the friars, nearly every one in their pay. Each was jealous of the other, but all were united in a common jealousy of Champlain. From a short-sighted view of self-interest, they sought to check the colonization which they were pledged to promote. The few families whom they brought over were forbidden to trade with the Indians, and compelled to sell the fruits of their labor to the agents of the company at a low, fixed price, receiving goods in return at an inordinate valuation. Some of the merchants were of Rouen, some of St. Malo ; some were Catholics, some were Huguenots. Hence unceas- ing bickerings. All exercise of the Reformed Relig- ion, on land or water, was prohibited within the limits of New France ; but the Huguenots set the prohibition at nought, roaring their heretical psalmody with such vigor from their ships in the river, that the unhallowed strains polluted the ears of the Indians on shore. The merchants of Rochelle, who had refused to join the company, carried on a bold, illicit traffic along the bor-
1 Advis au Roy sur les Affaires de la Nouuelle France, 7.
16-20.] MADAME DE CHAMPLAIN.
389
ders of the St. Lawrence, eluding pursuit, or, if hard pressed, showing fight ; and this was a source of per- petual irritation to the incensed monopolists.1
Champlain, in his singularly trying position, displayed a mingled zeal and fortitude. He went every year to France, laboring for the interests of the colony. To throw open the trade to all competitors was a measure beyond the wisdom of the times ; and he aimed only so to bind and regulate the monopoly as to make it sub- serve the generous purpose to which he had given him- self. The imprisonment of Conde was a source of fresh embarrassment ; but the young Duke de Montmorency assumed his place, purchasing from him the profitable lieutenancy of New France for eleven thousand crowns, and continuing Champlain in command. Champlain had succeeded in binding the company of merchants with new and more stringent engagements ; and, in the Vain belief that these might not be wholly broken, he began to conceive fresh hopes for the colony. In this faith he embarked with his wife for Quebec in the spring of 1620; and, as the boat drew near the landing, the cannon welcomed her to the rock of her banishment. The buildings were falling to ruin ; rain entered on all sides ; the court-yard, says Champlain, was as squalid and dilapidated as a grange pillaged by soldiers. Ma- dame de Champlain was still very young. If the Ur- suline tradition is to be trusted, the Indians, amazed at
1 Charaplain, (1627,) (1032,) passim ; Sagard, Hist, du Canada, passim; Le Clerc, Etailissement de la Foy, cc. IV.-VII. ; Advls an Ho>j sur let Affaires de la Noucelle France; Decret de Prise de Corps d'lletert, MS.' J'itiiiUe de la Nouvelle France a la France sa Germaine, passim. 33*
HOSTILE SECTS. — RIVAL INTERESTS. [161G-24.
her beauty and touched by her gentleness, would have worshipped her as a divinity. Her husband had mar- ried her at the age of t\velve ; when, to his horror, he presently discovered that she was infected witli the here- sies of her father, a disguised Huguenot. He addressed himself at once to her conversion, and his pious efforts were something more than successful. During the four years which she passed in Canada, her zeal, it is true, •was chiefly exercised in admonishing Indian squaws and catechising their children ; but, on her return to France, nothing would content her but to become a nun.
. ( C5
Champlain refused ; but, as she was childless, he at length consented to a virtual, though not formal, separa- tion. After his death she gained her wish, became an Ursuline nun, founded a convent of that order atMeaux, and died with a reputation almost saintly.1
At Quebec, matters grew from bad to worse. The few emigrants, with no inducement to labor, fell into a lazy apathy, lounging about the trading-houses, gain- ing, drinking when drink could be had, or roving into the woods on vagabond hunting excursions. The In- dians could not be trusted. In the year 1617 they had murdered two men near the end of the Island of Orleans. Terrified at what they had done, and incited perhaps by other causes, the Montagnais and their kindred bands mustered at Three Rivers to the number of eight h indred, resolved to destroy the French. The secret was betrayed ; and the childish multitude, naked
1 Extraits des Clironiques de I'Ordre des Ursulines, Journal de Que>Mtct 10 Mars, 1855.
1621.] A- NEW MONOPOLY.
and famishing, became suppliants to their intended victims for the means of life. The French, themselves at the point of starvation, could give little or nothing. An enemy, far more formidable, awaited them ; and now were seen the fruits of Cham plain's intermeddling in Indian wars. In the summer of 1622, the Iroquois descended upon the settlement. A strong party of their warriors hovered about Quebec, but, still fearful of the fatal arquebuse, forbore to attack it, and assailed the Recollet convent on the St. Charles. The prudent friars had fortified themselves. While some prayed in the chapel, the rest, with their Indian converts, manned the walls. The Iroquois respected their redoubts and demi-lunes, and withdrew, after burning two Huron prisoners.
Yielding at length to reiterated complaints, the Viceroy Mont m or en cy suppressed the company of St. Malo and Rouen, and conferred the trade of New France, burdened with similar conditions, destined to be similarly broken, on two Huguenots, William and Emery de Caen.1 The change was a signal for fresh disorders. The enraged monopolists refused to yield. The rival traders filled Quebec with their quarrels ; and the evil rose to such a pitch, that Champluin joined with the Recollets and the better - disposed among the colonists in sending one of the friars to lay their grievances before the King. The result was a temporary union of the two companies, together
1 Lettrede Montmorency a Champlain,2 Fevrier, 1621, MS. ; Paris Docu- ments in archives of Massachusetts, I. 493.
HOSTILE SECTS. — RIVAL INTERESTS. [1625
with a variety of arrets and regulations, suited, it was thought, to restore tranquillity.1
A new change was at hand. Montmorency, tired of his viceroyalty, which gave him ceaseless annoy- ance, sold it to his nephew, the Due de Ventadour. It was no worldly motive which prompted this young nobleman to assume the burden of fostering the in- fancy of New France. He had retired from the court, and entered into holy orders. For trade and colonization he cared nothing. The conversion of infidels was his sole care. The Jesuits had the keep- ing of his conscience, and in his eyes they were the most fitting instruments for his purpose. The Recol- lets, it is true, had labored with an unflagging devotion. The six friars of their Order — for this was the number which the Calvinist Caen had bound himself to sup- port— had established five distinct missions, extending from Acadia to the borders of Lake Huron ; but the field was too vast for their powers. Ostensibly by a spontaneous movement of their own, but in reality, it is probable, under influences brought to bear on them from without, the Recollets applied for the assistance of the Jesuits, who, strong in resources as in energy, would not be compelled to rest on the reluctant sunjjo..rt,of Huguenots. Three of their brotherhood, Charles Lale- mant, Enemond Masse, and Jean de Brebeuf, accord- ingly embarked ; and, fourteen years after Biard and Masse had landed in Acadia, Canada beheld for the
1 Le Roy a Champlain, 20 Mars, 1622 ; Champlain, (1632, Seconde Par- tie) ; Le Clerc, Etablissement de la Fay, c. VI. ; Sagard, Histoire du Co- naila, c. VII
1626.] ARRIVAL OF JESUITS. 393
first time those whose names stand so prominent on her annals, — the mysterious followers of Loyola. Their reception was most inauspicious. Champlain was ab- sent. Caen would not lodge them in the fort ; the traders would not admit them to their houses. Noth- ing seemed left for them but to return as they came; when a boat, bearing several Recollets, approached the ship to proffer them the hospitalities of the convent on the St. Charles.1 They accepted the proffer, and be- came guests of the charitable friars, who nevertheless entertained a lurking jealousy of these formidable fel- low-laborers. The Jesuits soon unearthed and publicly burnt a libel against their Order belonging to some of the traders. Their strength was soon increased. The Fathers Noirot and De la Noue landed, with twenty laborers, and the Jesuits were no longer houseless.2 Brebeuf set forth for the arduous mission of the Hu- rons ; but, on arriving at Trois Rivieres, he learned that one of his Franciscan predecessors, Nicholas Viel, had recently been drowned by Indians of that tribe, in the rapid behind Montreal, known to this day as the Saut au Recollet. Less ambitious for martyrdom than he afterwards approved himself, he postponed his voyage to a more auspicious season. In the fol-
1 Le Clerc, AtaUissement tie La Foy, I. 310 ; Latemant a Champlain, 28 Ju-llet, 1625, in Le Clerc, I. 313; Lalemant, Relation, 1625, in Mercurt Frannils, XIII.
'2 Lalemant, in a letter dated 1 August, 1626, says that at tliat time there were only forty -three Frenchmen at Quebec. The Jesuits em- ployed themselves in confessing them, preaching ^two sermons a month, studying the Indian languages, and cultivating the ground, as a prepa- ration for more arduous work. See Carayon, Premiere Mission, 117.
HOSTILE SECTS. — K1VAL INTERESTS. [1028.
lowing spring he renewed the attempt, in company with De la Noue and one of the friars. The Indians, however, refused to receive him into their canoes, alleging that his tall and portly frame would overset them ; and it was only by dint of many presents, that their pretended scruples could he conquered. Breheuf emharked with his companions, and, after months of toil, reached the harbarous scene of his labors, his suf- ferings, and his death.
Meanwhile the Viceroy had been deeply scandalized by the contumacious heresy of Emery de Caen, who not only assembled his Huguenot sailors at prayers, but forced Catholics to join them. He was ordered thence- forth to prohibit his crews from all praying and psalm- singing on the River St. Lawrence. The crews re- volted, and a compromise was made. It was agreed, that, for the present, they might pray, but not sing.1 " A bad bargain," says the pious Champlain, " but we made the best of it we could. Caen, enraged at the
7 O
Viceroy's reproofs, lost no opportunity to vent his spleen against the Jesuits, whom he cordially hated.
Twenty years had passed since the founding of Que- bec, and still the colony could scarcely be said to exist but in the founder's brain. Those who should have been its support were engrossed by trade or propagan- dism. Champlain might look back on fruitless toils, hopes hopelessly deferred, a life spent seemingly in vain.
1 " .... en fin, fut accorde qu'ils ne chanteroient point lea Pseaumea, mais qu'ils s'assembleroient pour faire leur prieres." — Cliamplain, (1632, Seconde Partie,) 108.
1628.] TRADING-POSTS. 395
The population of Quebec had risen to about a hun- dred and five persons, men, women, and children. Of these, one or two families had now learned to support themselves from the products of the soil. The rest lived on supplies from France. . All withered under the monopoly of the Caens.1 Champlain had long desired to rebuild the fort, which was weak and ruinous ; but the merchants would not grant the men and means which, by their charter, they were bound to furnish. At length, however, his urgency in part prevailed, and the work began to advance. At Cape Tourrnente there was a small outpost for pasturing the cattle of the set- tlement. The chief trading-stations were Quebec, Trois Rivieres, the Rapids of St. Louis, and above all, Ta- doussac. Here the ships from France usually anchored, forwarding their cargoes to Quebec in boats or small craft, kept in readiness for the purpose. Here, amid the desolation, nestled the little chapel of the Recollet mission. Here, too, were the cabins of the traders; and, in the spring, a host of bark wigwams, with in- numerable canoes of savages, bluffing the fruits of their winter hunt from the solitudes of flic interior. In one year, the Caens and their associates brought from Canada twenty-two thousand beaver-skins, though the usual number did not exceed twelve or fifteen thou- sand.2
While infant Canada was thus struggling into a half-
1 Adi-Is an R»y, passim ; Plaints de la Nouvelle France.
9 Lnlemant, Helalion, 1625, in Mercure Francois, XIII. The skins sold at a nistole each. The Caens employed forty men and upwards in Can- ada, besides a hundred and fifty in their ships.
3Q6 HOSTILE SECTS. — BIVAL INTERESTS. |1(30-50.
stifled being-, the foundation of a commonwealth, des- tined to a marvellous vigor of development, had been laid on the Rock of Plymouth. In their character, as in their destiny, the rivals were widely different ; yet, at the outset, New England was unfaithful to the principle of her existence. Seldom has religious tyranny as- sumed a form more oppressive than among the Puritan exiles. New-England Protestantism appealed to Lib- erty ; then closed the door against her. On a stock of freedom she grafted a scion of despotism ; l yet the vital juices of the root penetrated at last to the uttermost branches, and nourished them to an irrepressible strength
1 In Massachusetts, none but church-members could vote or hold office. In other words, the deputies to the General Court were deputies of churches, and the Governor and Magistrates were church - members, elected by church-members. Church and State were not united : they were identified. A majority of the people, including men of wealth, ability, and character, were deprived of the rights of freemen, because they wore not church-members. When some of them petitioned the Gen- eral Court for redress, they were imprisoned and heavily fined as guilty of sedition. Their sedition consisted in their proposing to appeal to Par- liament, though it was then composed of Puritans. See Palfrey, His- tory of Neto EiKjIand, II. c. IV.
The New -England Purit^s were foes, not only of Episcopacy, but of Presbytery^ But uufcwtheir system of separate and independent churches, it was impos^l Ho pn force the desired uniformity of doctrine. Therefore, while inveighing; against English and Scottish Presbytery, they established a virtual Presbytery of their own. A distinction was made. The New-England Synod could not coerce an erring church ; it could only advise and exhort. This was clearly insufficient, and, accord- ingly, in cases of heresy and schism, the cioil power was invoked. That is to say, the churches in their ecclesiastical capacity consigned doctrinal offenders for punishment to the same churches acting in a civil capacity, while they professed an abomination of Presbytery because it endangered liberty of conscience. See A Platform of Church Di.sci/>line, gather' d out of the Word of God and agreed n/>on by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches assembled in the Synod at Cambridge, in New Enyland, c. XVII S§ 8, 9.
1626-27.] RICHELIEU
and expansion. With New France it was otherwise. She was consistent to the last. Root, stem, and branch, she was the nursling of authority. Deadly absolutism blighted her early and her later growth. Friars and Jesuits, a Ventadour and a Richelieu, shaped her des- tinies. All that conflicted against advancing liberty,
— the centralized power of the crown and the tiara,
— the ultramontane in religion, — the despotic in pol- icy, — found their fullest expression and most fatal exercise. Her records shine with glorious deeds, the self-devotion of heroes and of martyrs ; and the result of all is disorder, im'becility, ruin.
The great champion of Absolutism, Richelieu, was now supreme in France. His thin frame, pale cheek, and cold, calm eye, concealed an inexorable will, and a mind of vast capacity, armed with all the resources of boldness and of craft. Under his potent agency, the royal power, in the weak hands of Louis the Thirteenth, waxed and strengthened daily, triumphing over the fac- tions of the court, the turbulence of the Huguenots, the ambitious independence of the nobles, and all the elements of anarchy which, since the death of Henry the Fourth, had risen into fresh life. With no friends and a thousand enemies, disliked and feared by the pit- iful King whom he served, making his tool by turns of every party and of every principle, he advanced by countless crooked paths towards his object, — the great- ness of France under a concentred and undivided au- thority.
In the midst of more urgent cares, he addressed
34
398 HOSTILE SECTS. — RIVAL INTERESTS. [162fi-27
himself to fostering the commercial and naval power. Montmorency then held the ancient charge of Admiral of France. Richelieu hought it, suppressed it, and, in its stead, constituted himself Grand Master and Super- intendent of Navigation and Commerce. In this new capacity, the mismanaged affairs of New France were not long concealed from him ; and he applied a prompt and powerful remedy. The privileges of the Caens were ttnnulled. A company was formed, to consist of a hundred associates, and to be called the Company of New France. Richelieu himself was the head, and the Marechal Deffiat, with other men of rank, besides many merchants and burghers of condition, were mem- bers.1 The whole of New France, from Florida to the Arctic Circle, and from Newfoundland to the sources of the St. Lawrence and its tributary waters, was con- ferred on them forever, with the attributes of sovereign power. A perpetual monopoly of the fur - trade was granted them, witfi a monopoly of all other commerce within the limits of their government for fifteen years.2 The trade of the colony was declared free, for the same period, from all duties and imposts. Nobles, officers, and ecclesiastics, members of the Company, might en- gage in commercial pursuits without derogating from the privileges of their order. And, in evidence of his good-will, the King gave them two ships of war, armed and equipped.
1 Noms, Sumoms, et Qualitez des Associez de la Compagnie de la Nouvelle France, MS. •
2 The whale and the cod fishery were, however, to remain open to all.
1627.] EXCLUSION OF HUGUENOTS. 399
On their part, the Company were bound to convey to Ne\v France, during the next year, 1628, two or three hundred men of all trades, and before the year 164-3, to increase the number to four thousand 1 persons, of both sexes; to lodge and support them for three years; and, this time expired, to give them cleared lands for their maintenance. Every settler must be a Frenchman and a Catholic; and for every new settlement at least three ecclesiastics must be provided. Thus was New France to be forever free from the taint of heresy. The stain of her infancy was to be wiped away. She was to be a land set apart ; a sheepfold of the faith- ful. The Huguenots, the only emigrating class in France, were forbidden to touch her shores ; and when at last the drayonnadcs expelled them, they carried their skill and industry to enrich foreign countries, and the British colonies in America. There is nothing im- probable in the supposition, that, had New France been thrown open to Huguenot emigration, Canada would never have been a British province, that the field of Anglo-American settlement would have been greatly narrowed, and that large portions of the United States would at this day have been occupied by a vigorous and expansive French population.
A trading company was now feudal proprietor of all domains in North America within the claim of France.
1 Charlevoix erroneously says sixteen thousand. Compare Acte pour I' Etublissemenl de la Comjxuinie des Cent Associes, in Mercure Fran$ais, XIV. piirtie II. 232 ; Edits et Ordonnances, I. 6. The act of establishment was originally published in a small duodecimo volume, which differs, though not very essentially, from the copy in the Mercure.
4,00 HOSTILE SECTS. — RIVAL INTERESTS. [1027.
Fealty and homage, on its part, and, on the part of the crown, the appointment of supreme judicial officers, and the confirmation of the titles of dukes, marquises, counts, and barons, were the only reservations. The King" heaped favors on the new corporation. Twelve of the bourgeois members were ennobled ; while artisans and even manufacturers were tempted, by extraordinary privileges, to emigrate to the New World. The asso- ciates, of whom Cham plain was one, entered upon their functions with a capital of three hundred thousand livres.1
1 Articles et Conventions de Societe et Compagme, in Mercure Franqait, XIV. partie II. 250.
CHAPTER XVI.
1628, 1629. THE ENGLISH AT QUEBEC.
REVOLT OF ROCHELLE. — WAR WITH ENGLAND. — THE ENGLISH ON THB ST. LAWRENCE. — BOLD ATTITUDE OF CIIAMPLAI.N. — THF. FRENCH SQU \DKON DESTHOYED. — FAMINE. — RETURN OF THE ENGLISH. — QUE-
BEC BUKKENDERED. — ANOTHER NAVAL BATTLE. — MlClIEL. — CHAM- PLAIN AT LONDON.
THE first care of the new company was to succor Quebec, whose inmates were on the verge of starvation. Four armed vessels, with a fleet of transports commanded by Roquemont, one of the associates, sailed from Dieppe with colonists and supplies in April, 162S ; hut, nearly at the same time, another squadron, destined also for Quehec, was sailing from an English port. War had at length broken out in France. The Huguenot revolt had come to a head. Hochelle was in arms against the
O
King; and Richelieu, with his royal wand, was belea- guering it with the whole strength of the kingdom. Charles the First, of England, urged by the heated passions of Buckingham, had declared himself for the rebels, and sent a fleet to their aid. At home, Charles detested the followers of Calvin as dangerous to his own authority ; abroad, he befriended them as dangerous to the authority of a rival. In France, Richelieu crushed Protestantism as being a curb to the House of Bour- 34*
4,02 THE ENGLISH AT QUEBEC. [1G28.
bon ; in Germany, he nursed and strengthened it as a curb to the House of Austria.
The attempts of Sir William Alexander to colonize Acadia had of late turned attention in England towards the New World ; and, on the breaking out of the war, an enterprise was set on foot, under the auspices of that singular personage, to seize on the French possessions in North America. At its head was a subject of France, David Kirk, a Calvinist of Dieppe. With him were his brothers, Louis and Thomas Kirk; and many Hu- guenot refugees were among the crews. Having been expelled from New France as settlers, the persecuted sect were returning as enemies. One Captain Michel, who had been in the service of the Caens, " a furious Calvinist," l is said to have instigated the attempt, act- ing, it is affirmed, under the influence of one of his for- mer employers.
Meanwhile the famished tenants of Quebec were ea- gerly waiting the expected succor. Daily they gazed beyond Point Levi and along the channels of Orleans, in the vain hope of seeing the approaching sails. At length, on the ninth of July, two men, worn with strug- gling through forests and over torrents, crossed the St.
o o O
Charles and mounted the rock. They were from the outpost at Cape Tourmente, and brought news, that, according to the report of Indians, six large vessels lay in the harbor of Tadoussac.2 The friar Le Caron was at Quebec, and, with a brother Recollet, he set forth in a
1 " Calviniste furieux." — Charlevoix, I. 171. a Champlaiu, (1632, Seconde Partie,) 152
1628.J KIRK SUMMONS QUEBEC.
canoe to gain further intelligence. As the two mission- ary scouts were paddling along the borders of the Island of Orleans, they met tw<j canoes advancing in hot haste, manned by Indians, who with shouts and gestures warned them to turn back. The friars, however, waited till the canoes came up, when they beheld a man lying disabled at the bottom of one of them, his moustaches burned by the flash of the musket which had wounded him. He proved to be Foucher, who commanded at Cape Tourmente. On that morning, — such was the story of the fugitives, — twenty men had landed at that post from a small fishing-vessel. Being to all appear- ance French, they were hospitably received ; but no sooner had they entered the houses than they began to pillage and burn all before them, killing the cattle, wounding the commandant, and making several pris-
oners.1
The character of the fleet at Tadoussac was now suf- ficiently clear. Quebec was incapable of defence. Only fifty pounds of gunpowder were left in the magazine ; and the fort, owing to the neglect and ill-will of the Caens, was so wretchedly constructed, that, a few days before, two towers of the main building had fallen. Champlain, however, assigned to each man his post, and waited the result.2 On the next afternoon, a boat was seen issuing from behind the Point of Orleans and hovering hesitatingly about the mouth of the St. Charles. On being challenged, the men on board proved to be Basque fishermen, lately captured by the English, and
i Sa^ard, 919 « 10 July, 1628.
4Q4< THE ENGLISH AT QUEBEC. [1628.
now sent by Kirk unwilling messengers to Champlaiu. Climbing the steep pathway to the fort, they delivered their letter, — a summons, couched in terms of great courtesy, to surrender Quebec. There was no hope but in courage. A bold front must supply the lack of bat- teries and ramparts ; and Champlain dismissed the Basques with a reply, in which, with equal courtesy, he expressed his determination to hold his position to the last.1
All now stood on the watch, hourly expecting the enemy ; when, instead of the hostile squadron, a small boat crept into sight, and one Desdames, with ten Frenchmen, landed at the storehouses. • He brought stirring news. The French commander, Roquemont, had despatched him to tell Champlain that the ships of the Hundred Associates were ascending the St. Law- rence, with reinforcements and supplies of all kinds. But, on his way, Desdames had seen an ominous sight, — the English squadron standing under full sail out of Tadoussac, and steering downwards as if to intercept the advancing succor. He had only escaped them by dragging his boat up the beach, and hiding it ; and scarcely were they out of sight when the booming of cannon told him that the fight was begun.
Racked with suspense, the starving tenants of Quebec waited the result ; but they waited in vain. No white sail moved athwart the green solitudes of Orleans. Neither friend nor foe appeared ; and it was not till long afterward that Indians brought them the tidings that
1 Ragard, 922; Champlain, (1632, Seconde Partie,) 157.
1629.] FAMINE.
Roquemont's crowded transports had been overpowered, and all the supplies destined to relieve their miseries sunk in the St. Lawrence or seized by the victorious English. Kirk, however, deceived by the bold attitude of Champlain, had been too discreet to attack Quebec, and after his victory employed himself in cruising for French fishing-vessels along the borders of the Gulf. Meanwhile, the suffering at Quebec increased daily. Somewhat less than a hundred men, women, and chil- dren were cooped up in the fort, subsisting on a meagre pittance of pease and Indian corn. The garden of the Heberts, the only thrifty settlers, was ransacked for every root or seed that could afford nutriment. Months wore on, and, in the spring, the distress had risen to such a pitch that Champlain had wellnigh resolved to leave to the women, children, and sick, the little food that remained, and with the able-bodied men invade the Iroquois, seize one of their villages, fortify himself in it, and sustain his followers on the buried stores ;»f maize with which the strongholds of these provident savages were always furnished.
Seven ounces of pounded pease were now the daily food of each ; and, at the end of May, even this failed. Men, women, and children betook themselves to the woods, gathering acorns and grubbing up roots. Those of the plant called Solomon's seal were most in re- quest.1 Some joined the Hurons or the Algonquins; some wandered towards the Abenakis of Maine ; some descended in a boat to Gaspe, trusting to meet a French i Sagard, 977
4,06 THE ENGLISH AT QUEBEC. [1629.
fishing-vessel. There was scarcely one who would not have hailed the English as deliverers. But the Eng- lish had sailed home with their hooty, and the season was so late that there was little prospect of their return. Forgotten alike hy friends and foes, Quebec was on the verge of extinction.
On the morning of the nineteenth of July, an In- dian, renowned as a fisher of eels, who had built his hut on the St. Charles, hard by the new dwelling of the Jesuits, came, with his usual imperturbability of visage, to Champlain. He had just discovered three ships sailing up the south channel of Orleans. Cham- plain was alone. All his followers were absent, fishing or searching for roots. At about ten o'clock his servant appeared with four small bags of roots, and the tidings that he had seen the three ships a league off, behind Point Levi. As man after man hastened in, Cham- plain ordered the starved and ragged band, sixteen in all,1 to their posts, whence, with hungry eyes, they watched the English vessels anchoring in the basin be- low, and a boat, with a white flag, moving towards the shore. A young officer landed with a summons to sur- render. The terms of capitulation were at length set- tled. The French were to be conveyed to their own country ; and each soldier was allowed to take with him furs to the value of twenty crowns. On this some murmuring rose, several of those who had gone to the Hurons having lately returned with peltry of no small value. Their complaints were vain ; and on the tuen- 1 Champlain, (1632, Seconde Partie,) 267
162y.] NAVAL FIGHT.
tieth of July, amid the roar of cannon from the ships, Louis Kirk, the Admiral's brother, landed at the head of his soldiers, and planted the cross of St. George where the followers of Wolfe again planted it a hundred and thirty years later. After inspecting the worthless fort, he repaired to the houses of the Recollets and Jesuits on the St. Charles. He treated the former with great cour- tesy, hut displayed against the latter a violent aversion, expressing his regret that he could not have begun his operations by battering their house about their ears. The inhabitants had no cause to complain of him. He urged the widow and family of the settler Hebert, the patriarch, as he has been styled, of New France, to re- main and enjoy the fruits of their industry under Eng- lish allegiance ; and, as beggary in France was the alternative, his offer was accepted.
Champlnin, bereft of ins command, grew restless, and begged to be sent to Tadoussac, where the Admiral, David Kirk, lay with his main squadron, having sent his brothers Louis and Thomas to seize Quebec. Ac- cordingly, Champlain, with the Jesuits, embarking with Thomas Kirk, descended the river. Off Mai Bay a strange sail was seen. As she approached, she proved to be a French ship. In fact, she was on her way to Quebec with supplies, which, if- earlier sent, would have saved the place. She had passed the Admiral's squadron in a fog ; but here her good fortune ceased. Thomas Kirk bore clown on her, and the cannonade began. The fight was hot and doubtful ; but at length the French struck, and Kirk sailed into Tadoussao
4Q8 THE ENGLISH AT QUEBEC. [1629.
with his prize. Here lay his brother, the Admiral, with five armed ships. Though horn at Dieppe, he was Scotch on the father's side, and had been a wine- merchant at Bordeaux. His two voyages to Canada were private adventures ; and, though he had captured nineteen fishing-vessels, besides Roquemont's eighteen transports, and other prizes, the result had not answered his hopes. His mood, therefore, was far from benign, especially as he feared, that, owing to the declaration of peace, he would be forced to disgorge a part of his booty ; yet, excepting the Jesuits, he treated his cap- tives with courtesy, and often amused himself with shooting larks on shore in company with Champlain. The Huguenots, however, of whom there were many in the ships, showed an exceeding bitterness against the Catholics. Chief among them was Michel, who had instigated and conducted the enterprise, the merchant- admiral being a very indifferent seaman. Michel, whose skill was great, held a high command and the title of Rear-Admiral. He was a man of a sensitive tempera- ment, easily piqued on the point of honor. His morbid and irritable nerves were wrought to the pitch of frenzy by the reproaches of treachery and perfidy with winch the French prisoners assailed him, while, on the other hand, he was in a state of continual ragfe at the fancied
7 O
neglect and contumely of his English associates. He raved against Kirk, who, as he declared, treated him with an insupportable arrogance. " I have left my coun- try," he exclaimed, " for the service of foreigners ; and they give me nothing but ingratitude and scorn." His
1629.] MICHEL AND THE JESUITS. 4,99
fevered mind, acting- on his diseased body, often excited him to transports of fury, in which he cursed indiscrim- inately the people of St. Mala, against whom he had a grudge, and the Jesuits, whom he detested. On one occasion, Kirk was conversing with the latter.
"Gentlemen," he said, '; your business in Canada was to enjoy what belonged to M. de Caen, whom you dispossessed."
" Pardon me, Sir," answered Brebeuf, " we came purely for the glory of God, and exposed ourselves to every kind of danger to convert the Indians."
Here Michel broke in : "Ay, ay, convert the In- dians ! You mean, convert the beaver!"
" That is false ! " retorted Brebeuf.
Michel raised his fist, exclaiming, " But for the re- spect I owe the General, I would strike you for giving me the lie."
Brebeuf, a man of powerful frame and vehement passions, nevertheless regained his practised self-com- mand, and replied: "You must excuse me. I did not mean to give you the lie. I should be very sorry to do so. The words I used are those we use in the schools when a doubtful question is advanced, and they mean no offence. Therefore I ask you to pardon me."
Despite the apology, Michel's frenzied brain harped on the presumed insult, and he raved about it without ceasing.
" Bon Dieu /" said Champlain, "you swear well for a Reformer ! "
" I know it," returned Michel; " I should be content
35
THE ENGLISH AT QUEBEC. [1629.
if I had but struck that Jesuit who gave me the lie be- fore my General."
At length, one of his transports of rage ended in a lethargy from which he never awoke. His funeral was conducted with a pomp suited to his rank ; and, amid discharges of cannon whose dreary roar was echoed from, the yawning gulf of the Saguenay, his body was borne to its rest under the rocks of Tadoussac. Good Catholics and good Frenchmen saw in his fate the immediate finffer of Providence. " I do not doubt
C*
that his soul is in perdition," remarks Champlain, who, however, had endeavored to befriend the unfortu- nate man during the access of his frenzy.1
Having finished their carousings, which were profuse, and their trade with the Indians, which was not lucra- tive, the English steered down the St. Lawrence. Kirk feared greatly a meeting with Razilly, a naval officer of distinction,2 who was to have sailed from France with a strong force to succor Quebec ; but, peace having been proclaimed, the expedition had been limited to two ships under Captain Daniel. Thus Kirk, wilfully ignoring the treaty of peace, was left to pursue his depredations unmolested. Daniel, however, though too weak to cope with him, achieved a signal exploit. On the island of Cape Breton, near the site of Louisburg, he found an English fort, built two months before, under the aus-
1 Champlain, (1682, Seconde Partie,) 256: "jenedottte point qii'elle ne toil anx fnfers." The dialogue above is literally translated. The Jesu- its Le Joune and Charlevoix tell the story with evident satisfaction.
2 Claude de Kazilly was one of three brothers, all distinguished in the marine service.
1629.] NEW FRANCE RECLAIMED.
pices, doubtless, of Sir William Alexander. Daniel, re- garding it as a bold encroachment on French territory, stormed it at the head of his pikemen, entered sword in hand, and took it with all its defenders.1
Meanwhile, Kirk with his prisoners was crossing the Atlantic. His squadron at length reached Plymouth, whence Champlain set forth for London. Here he had an interview with the French ambassador, who, at his instance, gained from the King a promise, that, in pur- suance of the terms of the treaty concluded in the pre- vious April, New France should be restored to the French crown.2
1 Relation du Voyage fait par le Capitaine Daniel; Champlain, (1632, Secomle Partie,) 271.
2 Besides Champlain, Sagard, and Du Creux, consult, on this period, Extrait r.onceinant ce qui s'est passe dans I'Acadie et le Canada en 1627 et 1628 tit/fun retjucte du Cttecalicr Louis Kirk, in JUe'moires des Cuminisituires, II. 275 ; Lilenv co»tinen(es Promissionpm Jiei/ls ad tradenrfinn, etc., in Hazard, I. 314; Tmite de Paix fait a Suze, Ibid. 319; liet/lemens entre fa Hoys dt France et d' Anyleterre, in Mercure Franyais, XVIII. 39; Rush worth, II 24.
CHAPTER XVII.
1632 — 1635. DEATH OF CHAMPLAIN.
NEW FRANCE REST >RED TO THE FRENCH CROWN. — ZEAL OF CHAMTLAIN. — THE KMGLISH LEAVE QUEBEC. — KETUKN OF JESUITS. — ARUIVAL OF CHAMI-LAIN. — DAILY LIKE AT QUEBEC. — PKOPAGANDISM. — POLICY AND RELIGION. — DEATH OF CHAMPLAIN.
Ox Monday, the fifth of July, 1632, Emery cle Caen anchored before Quebec. He was commissioned by the French crown to reclaim the place from the English ; to hold, for one year, a monopoly of the fur-trade, as an indemnity for his losses in the war ; and, this time expired, to give place to the Hundred Associates of New France.1
By the convention of Suza, New France was to be restored to the French crown ; yet it had been matter of debate whether a fulfilment of this engagement was worth the demanding. That wilderness of woods and savages had been ruinous to nearly all connected with it. The Caens had suffered heavily. The Associates were on the verge of bankruptcy. These deserts were useless unless peopled ; and to people them would depopu'ate France. Thus argued the inexperienced reasoners of the time, judging from the wretched precedents of
1 Articles accordes au Sr. de Caen, MS. ; Acte de Protestation dtt Sr. da C'aen, MS.
1632.] OLD AND NEW FRANCE.
Spanish and Portuguese colonization. The world had not as yet the example of an island kingdom, which, vitalized by a stable and regulated liberty, has peopled a continent and spread colonies over all the earth, gain- ing constantly new vigor with the matchless growth of its offspring.
On the other hand, honor, it was urged, demanded that France should be reinstated in the land which she had discovered and explored. Should she, the centre of civilization, remain cooped up within her own narrow limits, while rivals and enemies were sharing the vast regions of the West 1 The commerce and fisheries of New France would in time become a school for French sailors. Mines even now might be discovered ; and the fur-trade, 'well conducted, could not but be a source of wealth. Disbanded soldiers and women from the streets might be shipped to Canada. Then New France would be peopled and old France purified. A power more po- tent than reason reinforced such arguments. Richelieu seems to have regarded it as an act of personal encroach- ment that the subjects of a foreign crown should seize on the domain of a company of which he was the head; and it could not be supposed, that, with power to eject them, the arrogant minister would suffer them to re- main in undisturbed possession. A spirit far purer, far more generous, was active in the same behalf. The character of Champlain belonged rather to the Middle Age than to the seventeenth century. Long toil and endurance had calmed the adventurous enthusiasm of
his youth into a steadfast earnestness of purpose ; and 35 »
DEATH OF CHAMPLAIN. [1632.
he gave himself with a loyal zeal and devotedness to the profoundly mistaken principles which he had es- poused. In his mind, patriotism and religion were in- separably linked. France was the champion of Chris- tianity, and her honor, her greatness, were involved in IILT fidelity to this high function. Should she abandon to perdition the darkened nations among whom she had cast the first faint rays of hope "? Among the members of the Company were those who shared his zeal ; and though its capital was exhausted, and many of the mer- chants were withdrawing in despair, these enthusiasts formed a subordinate association, raised a new fund, and embarked on the venture afresh.1
England, then, unwillingly resigned her prize, and Caen was despatched to reclaim Quebec from the re- luctant hands of Thomas Kirk. The latter, obedient to an order from the King of England, struck his flag, embarked his followers, and abandoned the scene of his conquest. Caen landed with the Jesuits, Paul le Jeune and Anne de la None. They climbed the steep stair-way which led up the rock, and as they reached the top, the dilapidated fort lay on their left, while farther on was the massive cottage of the Heberts, surrounded with its vegetable-gardens, — the only thrifty spot amid a scene of neglect. But few Indians could be seen. True to their native instincts, they had, at first, left the defeated French and welcomed the conquerors. Their English partialities were, however, but short- lived. Their intrusion into houses and store-rooms, the
1 Etat de la defense de la Compagnie de la Nouvelle France, MS
1633 J CHA.MPLAIN RESUMES COMMAND. 4J5
stench of their tobacco, and their importunate begging, though before borne patiently, were rewarded by the new-comers with oaths, and sometimes with blows. The Indians soon shunned Quebec, seldom approaching it except when drawn by necessity or a craving for brandy. This was now the case ; and several Algon- quin families, maddened with drink, were howling, screeching, and fighting within their bark lodges. The women were frenzied like the men. It was dangerous to approach the place unarmed.1
In the following spring, 1633, on the twenty-third of May, Champlain, commissioned anew by Richelieu, resumed command at Quebec in behalf of the Company.3 Father le Jeune, Superior of the mission, was wakened from his morning sleep by the boom of the saluting can- non. Before he could sally forth, the convent-door was darkened by the stately form of his brother Jesuit, Bre- beuf, newly arrived ; and the Indians, who stood by, uttered ejaculations of astonishment at the raptures of their greeting. The father hastened to the fort, and arrived in time to see a file of musketeers and pike- men mounting the pathway of the cliff below, and the heretic Caen resigning the keys of the citadel into the Catholic hands of Champlain. Le Jeune's delight exudes in praises of one not always a theme of Jesuit eulogy, but on whom, in the hope of a continuance of
1 Ildation da Voyage fait a Canada pour 'a prise de possession du Fort d» Quebec par les Francois, in Mercure Francois, XVIII.
2 Voya<je de Cliaiiplain, in Mercure Francois, XIX.; Lettre de Cam i
. MS.
446 DEATH OF CHAMPLAIN. [1033.
his favors, no praise could now be ill bestowed. " I sometimes think that this great man [Richelieu,] who by his admirable wisdom and matchless conduct of af- fairs is so renowned on earth, is preparing for himself a dazzling crown of glory in Heaven by the care he evinces for the conversion of so many lost infidel souls in this savage land. I pray affectionately for him .every day," etc.1
For Champlain, too, he has praises which, if more measured, are at least as sincere. Indeed, the Father Superior had the best reason to be pleased with the temporal head of the colony. In his youth, Champlain had fought on the side of that more liberal and national form of Romanism of which the Jesuits were the most emphatic antagonists. Now, as Le Jeune tells us, with evident contentment, he chose him, the' Jesuit, as direc- tor of his conscience. In truth, there were none but Jesuits to confess and absolve him ; for the Recollets, virtually ejected, were seen no more in Canada, and the followers of Loyola were sole masters of the field. The manly heart of the commandant, earnest, zealous, and direct, was seldom chary of its confidence, or apt to stand too warily on its guard in presence of a pro- found art mingled with a no less profound -sincerity.
A stranger visiting the fort of Quebec would have been astonished at its air of conventual decorum. Black Jesuits and scarfed officers mingled at Cham- plain's table. There was little conversation, but, in its place, histories and the lives of saints were read aloud, as * Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 26, (Quebec, 1858).
1633.] NEW FRANCE A MISSION. 4,17
in a monastic refectory.1 Prayers, masses, and confes- sions followed each other with an edifying regularity, and the bell of the adjacent chapel, built by Champlain, rang morning, noon, and night. Godless soldiers caught the infection, and whipped themselves in pen- ance for their sins.2 Debauched artisans outdid each other in the fury of their contrition. Quebec was be- come a Mission. Indians gathered thither as of old, not from the baneful lure of brandy, for the traffic in it was no longer tolerated, but from the less pernicious at- tractions of gifts, kind words, and politic blandishments. To the vital principle of propagandism the commercial and the military character were subordinated ; or, to speak more justly, trade, policy, and military power leaned on the missions as their main support, the grand instru- ment of their extension. The missions were to explore the interior ; the missions were to win over the savage hordes at once to Heaven and to France. Peaceful, benign, beneficent, were the weapons of this conquest. France aimed to subdue, not by the sword, but by the cross ; not to overwhelm and crush the nations she invaded, but to convert, to civilize, and embrace them among her children.
And who were the instruments and the promoters of this proselytism, at once so devout and so politic ? Who can answer; who can trace out the crossing and mingling currents of wisdom and folly, ignorance and knowledge,
1 I* Jcune, Relation, 1G34, 2, (Quebcc.1858). Compare Du Creux, £fo. tor in Caiiailensis, 156.
2 Lc Jeune, Relation, 1635, 4, 5, (Paris, 1636).
418 DEATH OF UHAMFfcAIN. [1635.
truth and falsehood, weakness and force, the nohle and the base ; can analyze a systematized contradiction, and follow through its secret wheels, springs, and levers, a phenomenon of moral mechanism ^ Who can define the Jesuit \ The story of these missions, marvellous as a tale of chivalry or legends of the lives of saints, will he the theme of a separate work. For many years, it was the history of New France and of the wild com- munities of her desert empire.
Two years passed. The mission of the Hurons was established, and here the indomitable Brebeuf, with a band worthy of him, toiled amid miseries and perils as fearful as ever shook the constancy of man ; while Champlain at Quebec, in a life uneventful, yet harassing and laborious, was busied in the round of cares which his post involved.
Christmas day, 1635, was a dark day in the annals of New France. In a chamber of the fort, breathless and cold, lay the hardy frame which war, the wilderness, and the sea had buffeted so long in vain. After two months and a half of illness, Champlain, at the age of sixty-eight, was dead. His last cares were for his colony and the succor of its suffering families. Jes- uits, officers, soldiers, traders, and the few settlers of Quebec followed his remains to the church ; Le Jeune pronounced his eulogy,1 and the feeble community built a tomb to his honor.2
The colony could ill spare him. For twenty-seven
i Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 200, (Paris, 1637). 8 Viraont, Relation, 1643,3, (Quebec, 1858 >.
1635.) HIS CHARACTER. 4,19
years lie had labored hard and ceaselessly for its wel- fare, sacrificing fortune, repose, and domestic peace to a cause embraced with enthusiasm and pursued with in- trepid persistency. His character belonged partly to the past, partly to the present. The preux chevalier ', the crusader, the romance-loving explorer, the curious, knowledge-seeking traveller, the practical navigator, all claimed their share in him. His views, though far beyond those of the mean spirits around him, belonged to bis age and his creed. He was less statesman than soldier. He leaned to the most direct and boldest policy, and one of his last acts was to petition Richelieu for men and munitions for repressing that standing menace to the colony, the Iroquois.1 His dauntless courage was matched by an unwearied patience, a pa- tience proved by life-long vexations, and not wholly sub- dued even by the saintly follies of his wife. He is charged with credulity, from which few of his age were free, and which in all ages has been the foible of earnest and generous natures, too ardent to criticise, and too honorable to doubt the honor of others. Per- haps in his later years the heretic might like him more had the Jesuit liked him less. The adventurous explorer of Lake Huron, the bold invader of the Iro- quois, befits but indifferently the monastic sobrieties of the fort of Quebec and his sombre environment of priests. Yet Champlain was no formalist, nor was his an empty zeal. A soldier from his youth, in an age of unbridled license, his life had answered to his maxims ;
1 Lettre de Champlain nu Ministre, 15 Aont, 1635, MS.
DEATH OF CHAMPLAIN. [1635.
and when a generation had passed after his visit to the Hurons, their elders remembered with astonishment the continence of the great French war-chief.1
His books mark the man, — all for his theme and his purpose, nothing1 for himself. Crude in style, full of the superficial errors of carelessness and haste, rarely diffuse, often brief to a fault, they bear on every page the palpable impress of truth.
With the life of the faithful soldier closes the open- ing period of New France. Heroes of another stamp succeed ; and it remains to tell hereafter the story of their devoted lives, their faults, their follies, and their virtues.
1 Vimont, Relation, 1640, 146, (Paris, 1641).
ERRATUM. For Brebeuf, read Brebcuf, wherever the name occurs.
THE END.
INDEX.
ACADIE, 220.
Algonquins, 347.
Allumcttcs, Isle clcs, 347.
Annapolis Harbor, 225.
Antarctic France, 22.
Anticosti, 209.
Apalachen, 183, note.
Appalache, mountains of, C8; gold mines of, 54, 70.
Arciniega, Sanclio de, 93.
Argiill, Samuel, 279; attacks tlie French at Mount Desert, 280 ; his duplicity, 281 ; destroys French settlements in Acadia, 280 ; his subsequent career, 293.
Arlac, Laudonni^rc's ensign, 5G ; releases Laudonniere, 04 ; his battle with the Thimajjoa, 70.
Anhert of Dieppe, 174.
Aubry, Nicholas, 224, 227.
Audiibon, J. J., 51.
Audusta, cliief near Port Royal, 80.
Avacal, 183, note.
Avilc's. — See Menendez.
Ayllon, Vasquez de, his voyages, 7.
BAOALAOS, 171, note, 199. Bacd'iis, Island of, 184.
Barrc", Nicholas, taxes command at Charlesfort, 38.
Bar tram, John and William, 51, note.
Basques, the, 170, 171 ; their quar- rel with Pontgravo, 298.
Bazares, Guido de las, 13.
Beaupre, Vicomte de, 201.
Biard, Pierre, Jesuit, ordered to Acadia, 252 ; sails, 203 ; his In- dian studies, 208; his visit to Asticou, 277 ; his equivocal con- duct, 287 ; his voyage to Walee, 2'.)0 ; his arrival at Pembroke 2112 ; his return to France, 293.
Biencourt, son of Poutrincourt, 255 ; apjtcars at court, 257 ; his voyage to the Kenncbec, 200 ; quarrels with the Jesuits, 271 ; his interview with Argall, 289; remains in Acadia, 294, 295, note.
Bimini, Island of, 0.
Black Drink, 149.
Bois-Lecomte, his voyage to Bra- zil, 23.
Borgia, general of the Jesuits, 100.
Bourdet, Captain, arrives in Flrr- ida, Gl.
Bourdelais, Francois, 149.
Brazil, Huguenot colony in, 22. |421]
422
INDEX.
Brebeuf, Jean de, Jesuit, lands at Quebec, 392; his dialogue with Michel, 409 ; returns to Quebec, 415 ; goes to the Hurons, 418.
Bretons, the, 170, 171.
Brion-Chabot, Philippe de, 181.
Brule, Etienne, 368; his embassy to the Eries, 371, 377; reaches the Susquehanna, 378; captured by the Iroquois, 378 ; his death, 380, note. '
CABE<JA DE VACA, his journey across the continent, 8.
Cabot, Sebastian, 170, 171, note.
Caen, William and Emery de, 391, 394, 395 ; reclaim Quebec, 414.
Calos, King of, 69.
Canada, its name and limits, 183, note, 184, note ; restored to France, 412.
Cancello, his mission and death, 13.
Cannibalism among the Indians, 330, note.
Canoes, materials of their construc- tion, 319, note.
Cape Ann, called St. Louis, 232.
Cape Cod, called Cap Blanc, 232.
Cap Kouge, River of, 201, 205.
Carantouans, Indians, 377.
Caroline, Fort, 48. — See Fort Car- oline.
Carder, Jacques, 181 ; his first voy- age, 181 ; his second voyage, 183 ; reaches Quebec, 185 ; visits Hochelaga, 188; winters on the St. Charles, 193; returns to St. Malo, 196 ; his third voyage, 198, 200 ; abandons New France, 202.
Catherine de Medicis, 90.
Cazenove, lieutenant of Gourgues, 152, 155
Challeux escapes from Fort Caro- line, 113, 117.
Champdore, French pilot, 226.
Champlain, Samuel de, 215; his West-India journal, 216; his first voyage to Canada, 219 ; embarks with De Monts, 222 ; explores the coast of New England, 231 ; explores it n second time, 239; again ascends the St. Lawrence, 296, 297; founds Quebec, 302; suppresses a mutiny, 303 ; winters at Quebec, 307 ; joins a war- party, 308; ascends the Riche- lieu, 312; discovers Lake Cham- plain, 316 ; meets the Iroquois, 319; his fight with them, 320; returns to France, 325; his ill- ness, 325 ; again sails for Canada, 826 ; second battle with the Iro- quois, 327 ; makes a clearing at Montreal, 333; injured by the fall of his horse, 335; ascends the Ottawa, 340; returns to Montreal, 355; discovers Lake Nipissing, 364 ; discovers Lake Huron, 366 ; reaches the Huron Indians, 366 ; joins a Huron war- party, 370 ; discovers Lake Onta- rio, 372 ; enters New York, 372 ; attacks a Seneca town, 373; re- pulsed, 375; lost in the woods, 381 ; visits the Tobacco Nation, 383 ; umpire of Indian quarrels, 385 ; his position at Quebec, 387 ; refuses to surrender it, 404 ; his capitulation with Kirk, 406 ; traits of his character, 413; re- sumes command at Quebec, 415; his death, 418 ; his character and writings, 419, 420.
Champlain, Madame de. !iS!i.
INDEX.
423
Charles the Ninth, 139. Charleshourg-Royal, 201. Charlesfort, 35 ; abandoned, 39. Chastes, Ay mar de, 218, 220. Chaudicre, cataract of the, 343. Chauvin, Captain, 213, 218, 325. Chedotel, Norman pilot, 212. Chenonceau River, 35. Chevalier, Captain, 247. Cheveux Kelevc's, Indians, 365. Cliicora, 34, note. Chilaga. — See Hochelaga. Cibola, 82. Cointac, 25.
Coligny, Caspar de, 18, 29, 138. Colombo, Don Francisco, 216. Company of New France, 398. Condd, Prince of, 336. Conspiracy of French in Florida,
60,63.
Cortereal, 179. Corterealis, Terra, 183, note. Cosette, French captain, 103. Cotton, Father, urges Henry IV.
to send Jesuits to Acadia, 251. Coudoungny, 187. Couexis, chief of the Savannah, 37. Cousin, French navigator, 169.
DALB, Sir Thomas, 285.
Daniel, Captain, takes a French
fort, 410.
Debr6, Pierre, 146. Demons, Isles of, 173, 203. De Monts. — See Monts. Denis of Ilonflcur, 174. D'Entragues, Henriette, 262. Desdames, 404. Des Prairies, fights the Iroquois,
829. Dolbeau, Jean, Recollet friar, 359;
his missionary experience, 360.
Donnacona, 185, 196, 198.
Du Pare, lieutenant of Champlain,
332. Du Plessis, Pacifique, Recollet
friar, 359. Durantal, Huron cliief, 877, 382,
386.
Du Thet, Jesuit, 271 ; killed, 281. Duval, mutinies against Champlain.
803.
ESPIBITC SANTO, Bay of, 9.
FERNANDINA, 33.
Florida, its original extent, its
claimants, 14; Indians of, 49;
scenery of, 61, 57. Fort Caroline, 48; famine at, 71;
its defenceless condition, 105;
taken by the Spaniards, 111 ;
massacre at, 115; retaken by
Gourgues, 164.
Fouchcr, Frencli captain, 403. Fountain of Youth, 6. Fourneaux, his treachery, 63;
hanged, 67.
France in the sixteenth century, 17. Francis the First, 176. Francis of Assisi, St., 358. Franciscans, the, 358. Fundy, Bay of, 225. Fur trade, 209.
GAMBIB, Pierre, his adventures
and death, 68.
Ganabara, Huguenot colony at, 22. Garay, his voyages, 7. Genre, his treachery, 60. Gourgues, Dominique de, 140;
resolves to avenge the murdered
French, 141; his speech, 143;
lands in Florida, 144 ; his coun*
424
INDEX.
cil with the Indians, 145 ; attacks a Spanish fort, 151, 152; takes Fort San Matco, 155 ; hangs the Spaniards, 156 ; leaves Florida, 158; his death, 159.
Grotaut, his adventures, 68.
Grotius, 160.
Guerclieville, Marquise de, her ad- venture with Henry IV., 258; her zeal for conversion, 261 ; her American domain, 270.
Guise, Due de, 18.
HAWKINS, Sir John, 79; relieves the French, 81.
He'bert, first settler of Quebec, 407, 414.
Henry the Fourth, 214 ; his assas- sination, 256 ; his passion for Madame de Guercheville, 258.
Hoehelaga, River of, 183, note; town of, 186, 188; Indians of, 189, note.
Houcl, friend of Champlain, 357.
Hostaqua, chief of Florida, 68.
Huguenots in Brazil, 22.
Huguenot party, character of, 29.
Huron Indians, 309, 367.
Huron, Lake, its discovery, 366.
INDIANS of Florida, 49. — See Hu- ron ; Algonquin ; Irotjuois ; etc.
Iroquois, the, 308; their armor, 321 ; routed by Champlain, 321 ; again routed, 329 ; attacked a third time by Champlain, 373 ; attack the Re'collet convent, 391.
JAMESTOWN, 284. Jamet, Denis, Re'collet friar, 359. Jesuits, 264 ; in Acadia, 265 ; quar- rel with Biencourt, 271 ; their
domain in America, 270 ; plan of colonization, 273, 274 ; land at Quebec, 392; their position at Quebec, 416.
Jordan, a river of Florida, 7, 34, note.
KIRK, David, 402; defeats tho
French fleet, 405. Kirk, Louis, 402; occupies Quebec,
407. Kirk, Thomas, 402 ; takes a French
ship, 407 ; yields up Quebec, 414.
LABRADOR, 172, 183, note, 197. La Caille, Francois de, 54, 62, 129,
133. La: Chcre, banished by Albert, 38 ;
killed by his companions, 40. La Grange, French captain, 104, 121. Lalemant, Charles, Jesuit, 392. La Roche, Marquis de, 210, 211,
212. La Roche Ferricre, his adventures,
68.
La Routte, pilot of Champlain, 311. Laudonniere, Rene' de, 42 ; robs
Satouriona of his prisoners, 56;
imprisoned by his followers, 63 ;
removed from command, 83; es
capes from Fort Caroline, 112. Laudonniere, Vale of, 47. Le Breton, Christoplie, 133. Le Caron, Joseph, Re'collet friar,
359 ; his missionary enterprise,
361; ascends the Ottawa, 363;
says mass among the llurons,
368 ; at Quebec, 402. Le Jeune, Paul, Jesuit, 414, 415. Le Moyne, artist of Laudonniere,
104 ; escapes from Fort Caroline:,
112, 114, 117.
INDEX.
425
LeYy, Baron de, 174.
Le'ry, Jean de, Calvinist minister, 24, note, 27.
Lescarbot, Marc, 234 ; his masque- rade at Port Royal, 241 ; his win- ter employments, 242.
Lorraine, Cardinal of, 18.
MALLARD, Captain, 117.
Marguerite, story of, 203.
Marais, son-in-law of Pontgrave', 308, 811.
Masse, Father, 262; sails for Aca- dia, 263 ; his attempts at conver- sion, 267 ; lands at Quebec, 392.
May, River of, 32.
Medicine-lodge of the Algonquins, 315.
Mcdicis, Catherine de, 18.
Memberton, chief of Acadia, 238, 247, 254, 255, 267.
Mendoza, chaplain of Menendez, 94-96, 107-109, 119, 126.
Menendez, Pedro, de Avilc's, his history and character, 86 ; peti- tions for the conquest of Florida, 88; the scope of his plan, 92; attacks Ribnut's ships, 98 ; marches against Fort Caroline, 107, 108; his desperate position, 110; takes Fort Caroline, 112; his piety, 114, 116; meets the shipwrecked French, 122; his cruelty and treachery, 124 ; mas- sacres the French, 127 ; meeting with Hibaut, 129; slaughters him and his followers, 131 ; his de- spatch to the King, 135; his plans, 136 ; in favor at court, 160 ; his death, 161.
Menendez, Bartholomew, 119.
Mercceur, Due de, 212.
Merrimac Rivtr, called La Rivien dti Gas, 232.
Michel, Captain, 402; his quarrel with Bre'beuf, 409; his death, 410.
Mollua, chief on the St. John's, 53
Montagnais Indians, 299, 305.
Montluc, Blaise dc, 142.
Montmorenci, Due de, 389.
Montreal, visited by Cartier, 189; natives of, 189, note; Mountain of, 183.
Monts, Pierre du Guast, Sieur de, 220; sails for Acadia, 223; set- tles at St. Croix, 227 ; his plans of settlement on the St. Law- rence, 296, 325.
Moscosa, 183, note.
Mount Desert, 230; Saussaye ar- rives at, 275; French colony at, 277 ; destroyed by Argall, 280.
NARVAEZ, his expedition to Flor- ida, 7.
Natel, Antoine, discloses a plan of mutiny to Champlain, 303.
New France, 183, note.
Company of, 398.
Newfoundland, fisheries of, 170 172, 208.
Nipissing Indians, 351.
Nipissing Lake, 364.
Normans, the, 170. .
Norumbega, or Norembega, 183, note, 197, note, 230, 2ol, note.
None, Anne de la, Jesuit, 393, 414.
OATIICAQUA, chief of Florida, 69. Olotoraca, Indian warrior, 148, 150,
163, 154.
Orleans, Island of, 184, note. Ortelius, his map, 183, note.
426
LS!DEX.
Ottawa River, 341.
Ottigny, Laudonniere's lieutenant, 46 ; his voyage up the St. John's, 61 ; releases Laudonniere, 64 ; attacks Potanou, 70; his battle with the Thimagoa, 76.
Ouadc, chief of the Savannah, 37.
Outina, chief of the Thimagoa, 63, 66, 70; made prisoner by Lau- donniere, 73.
PANUCO River, 12.
Patiiio, officer of Menendez, 101.
Paul the Fifth, Pope, 160.
Pedro de Santander, his memorial to Philip II., 13, note.
Penobscot River, 230.
Pentagoet. — See Penobscot.
Philip the Second, 17, 86, 138.
Pierria, Albert de, left at Port Royal, 35.
Pinzon, 109.
Piracy of French in Florida. 61, 64.
Place Royale, 333.
Pommeraye, Charles de la, 183.
Ponce de Leon, 6 ; his death, 7.
Pontbriand, Claude de, 183.
Pontgrave, merchant of St. Malo, 213, 215, 219, 230; his son quar- rels with Poutrincourt, 265; his second voyage with Champlain, 298.
Popham, his colony on the Ken- nebec, 2G6.
Port Royal, N.S., 226; French es- tablishment at, 242; winter em- ployments at, 243; abandoned, 247.
Port Royal, S.C., Ribaut's visit to, 83.
Potanou, King, 49; attacked by the French. 56 .
Poutrincourt, Baron de, 221, 225, 228, 251, 253; his attempts at conversion, 254 ; quarrels with the Jesuits, 265, 270; his death, 294.
Puritans, their despotic enactments, 396, note.
QUEBEC, Carrier's visit to, 185; origin of the name, 301, note; founded by Champlain, 302 ; win- ter at, 307; its condition, 387; famine at, 405; taken by the English, 406 ; re-occupied by the French, 414 ; piety of its inmates 416.
Quentin, Jesuit, 274, 290.
RECOLLETS, the, 358.
Ribaut, Jean, sails for Florida, 30 ; again sails for Florida, 82 ; sails from Fort Caroline, 105; wrecked, 121; meets Menendez, 129; his death, 134.
Ribaut, Jacques, 116, 118.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 397; assumes control of New France, 398 ; his policy, 401, 413.
Rio Janeiro, Huguenot colony at, 22.
Roberval, Viceroy of Canada, 197 ; sails for Canada, 202 ; his colony, 205 ; his death, 207.
Rochelle, disorders at, 235 ; revolt of, 401.
Roquemont, French naval com- mander, 404.
Roquette, his conspiracy, 60.
Rossignol, 224.
SABLE ISLAND, convicts on, 211 Sagard, Franciscan friar, 223.
INDEX.
427
Saguenay, country of, 183, note; river of, 184.
San Mateo, Fort. — See Fort Caro- line.
San Agustin, its foundation, 101.
San Pelayo, flag-ship of Menendez, 93.
Sarrope, Island of, 70.
Satouriona, chief of the St. John's, 44 ; visits Fort Caroline, 48 ; his war-party, 55 ; his meeting with Gourgues, 145.
Saussaye sails for Acadia, 274 ; at- tacked by Argall, 280.
Scalping, antiquity of the practice, 322, note.
Seloy, Indian chief of Florida, 101.
Seneca Indians, 373.
Siincoe, Lake, 371.
Soissons, Corate de, lieutenant- general in New France, 336.
Soli's de las Meras, 122.
Soto, Hernando de, his expedition to Florida, 9 ; his death, 12.
Spain in the sixteenth century, 16, 86. .
Spainards of the sixteenth century, 5.
Stadacono. — See Quebec.
St. Augustine. — See San Agustin.
St. Charles River, 186.
St. Croix, 226.
St. Francis of Assisi, 858.
St. John, River of, 226.
St. John's River, 83, 45; scenery of, 51.
St. John's Bluff, 46.
St. Lawrence, Bay of, 183.
St. Louis, rapids of, 334, 335, note.
St. Malo, 181.
St. Mary's Bay, 224.'
Sully, minister of Henry IV., 221. I
TADOUSSAC, 213, 299. Tessouat, Indian chief, 849. Thevet, Andre", 24, note, 173, 185
note, 203, 205, note, 206. Thimagoa Indians of Florida, 52. Tobacco, nation of, 383. Trenchant, pilot of Laudonniore,
64, 66.
Trent River, 871. Turnel, lieutenant of Argall, 291.
VASQUEZ DE ATLLOW, his voyages, 7.
Vasseur, his voyage up the St. John's, 63 ; attacks Potanou, 67.
Ventadour, Due de, 892.
Verdier, captain of Laudonnibre, 82. •
Verrazano, 175; his voyage to America, 176 ; his subsequent life, 180.
Vicente, officer of Menendez, 101.
Viel, Nicolas, Re'collet friar, 393.
Vignan, Nicolas de, his pretended discovery, 339; his imposition exposed, 353.
Villafane, his voyage to Florida, 14.
Villaroel, Gonzalo de, 156, note.
Villegagnon, Nicolas Durand de, his adventures, his character, 1'J; his quarrels, 20 ; his scheme of Huguenot colonization, 21 ; his expedition to Brazil, 22 ; his des- potic rule, 22 ; his polemics, 23 ; his reception of the ministers, 23 ; his reconversion to Roman- ism, 25; his tyranny, 26; his controversy with Calvin, 27.
WAMPUM, 885, note.
Partatn, Francis
5057 France and England in North P24 America
1869
v.l
cop. 2
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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY