滚动新闻中心» 热点资讯

• Nevertheless, he made what preparations he could, begging all the while for more soldiers, and carrying on at the same time a correspondence with his rival, Dongan. At first, it was courteous on both sides; but it soon grew pungent, and at last acrid. Denonville wrote to announce his arrival, and Dongan replied in French: "Sir, I have had the honor of receiving your letter, and greatly rejoice at having so good a neighbor, whose reputation is so widely spread that it has anticipated your arrival. I have a very high respect for the king of France, of whose bread I have eaten so much that I feel under an obligation to prevent whatever can give the least umbrage to our masters. M. de la Barre is a very worthy gentleman, but he has not written to me in a civil and befitting style." [9]
• praise as La Tour in censure. Both of them wrote in the next
• matters relating to the seigniorial system.
• On the next morning, as they descended the river, they saw a wooden canoe full of Indians; and Tonty gave chase. He had nearly overtaken it, when more than a hundred men appeared suddenly on the shore, with bows bent to defend their countrymen. La Salle called out to Tonty to withdraw. He obeyed; and the whole party encamped on the opposite bank. Tonty offered to cross the river with a peace-pipe, and set out accordingly with a small party of men. When he landed, the Indians made signs of friendship by joining their hands,—a proceeding by which Tonty, having but one hand, was somewhat embarrassed; but he directed his men to respond in his stead. La Salle and Membré now joined him, and went with the Indians to their village, three leagues distant. Here they spent the night. "The Sieur de la Salle," writes Membré, "whose very air, engaging manners, tact, and address attract love and [Pg 304] respect alike, produced such an effect on the hearts of these people that they did not know how to treat us well enough."[240]
• interesting Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation. It was burned in
• Why the Illinois should ever have been called the "Divine," it is not easy to see. The Memoirs of St. Simon suggest an explanation. Madame de Frontenac and her friend Mademoiselle d'Outrelaise, he tells us, lived together in apartments at the Arsenal, where they held their salon and exercised a great power in society. They were called at court les Divines. (St. Simon, v. 335: Cheruel.) In compliment to Frontenac, the river may have been named after his wife or her friend. The suggestion is due to M. Margry. I have seen a map by Raudin, Frontenac's engineer, on which the river is called "Rivière de la Divine ou l'Outrelaise."
• [16] The Dutch clergyman, Megapolensis, at this time living at Fort Orange, bears the strongest testimony to the ferocity with which his friends, the Mohawks, treated their prisoners. He mentions the same modes of torture which Jogues describes, and is very explicit as to cannibalism. "The common people," he says, "eat the arms, buttocks, and trunk; but the chiefs eat the head and the heart." (Short Sketch of the Mohawk Indians.) This feast was of a religious character.
• That Quebec was to become the capital of a great empire there seemed in truth good reason to believe. The young king and his minister Colbert had labored in earnest to build up a new France in the west. For years past, ship-loads of emigrants had landed every summer on the strand beneath the rock. All was life and action, and the air was full of promise. The royal agent Talon had written to his master: "This part of the French monarchy is destined to a grand future. All that I see around me points to it; and the colonies of foreign nations, so long settled on the seaboard, are trembling with fright in view of what his Majesty has accomplished here within the last seven years. The measures we have taken to confine them within narrow limits, and the prior claim we have established against them by formal acts of possession, do not permit them to extend themselves except at peril of having war declared against them as usurpers; and this, in fact, is what they seem greatly to fear." [2]
• les priver de tous honneurs, même d’y ajouter quelque marque
• At the end of August, 1643, a vessel arrived at Villemarie with a reinforcement commanded by Louis d'Ailleboust de Coulonges, a pious gentleman of Champagne, and one of the Associates of Montreal. [6] Some years before, he had asked in wedlock the hand of Barbe de Boulogne; but the young lady had, when a child, in the ardor of her piety, taken a vow of perpetual chastity. By the advice 265 of her Jesuit confessor, she accepted his suit, on condition that she should preserve, to the hour of her death, the state to which Holy Church has always ascribed a peculiar merit. [7] D'Ailleboust married her; and when, soon after, he conceived the purpose of devoting his life to the work of the Faith in Canada, he invited his maiden spouse to go with him. She refused, and forbade him to mention the subject again. Her health was indifferent, and about this time she fell ill. As a last resort, she made a promise to God, that, if He would restore her, she would go to Canada with her husband; and forthwith her maladies ceased. Still her reluctance continued; she hesitated, and then refused again, when an inward light revealed to her that it was her duty to cast her lot in the wilderness. She accordingly embarked with d'Ailleboust, accompanied by her sister, Mademoiselle Philippine de Boulogne, who had caught the contagion of her zeal. The presence of these damsels would, to all appearance, be rather a burden than a profit to the colonists, beset as they then were by Indians, and often in peril of starvation; but the spectacle of their ardor, as disinterested as it was extravagant, would serve to exalt the religious enthusiasm in which alone was the life of Villemarie.
• 1645-1648.
• Meanwhile they amused themselves with bantering their prisoners. "Uncle," said one of them to an old Algonquin, "you are a dead man. You are going to the land of souls. Tell them to take heart: they will have good company soon, for we are going to send all the rest of your nation to join them. This will be good news for them." [10]
• 321 To return to Druilletes. The smoke of the wigwam blinded him; and it is no matter of surprise to hear that he was cured by a miracle. He returned from his winter roving to Quebec in high health, and soon set forth on a new mission. On the River Kennebec, in the present State of Maine, dwelt the Abenaquis, an Algonquin people, destined hereafter to become a thorn in the sides of the New-England colonists. Some of them had visited their friends, the Christian Indians of Sillery. Here they became converted, went home, and preached the Faith to their countrymen, and this to such purpose that the Abenaquis sent to Quebec to ask for a missionary. Apart from the saving of souls, there were solid reasons for acceding to their request. The Abenaquis were near the colonies of New England,—indeed, the Plymouth colony, under its charter, claimed jurisdiction over them; and in case of rupture, they would prove serviceable friends or dangerous enemies to New France. [2] Their messengers were favorably received; and Druilletes was ordered to proceed upon the new mission.
• THE GREAT MOGUL ENTERING THE ENGLISH CAMP. (See p. 317.)
• The nomenclature differs materially from that of Coronelli's map, published four years later. Here the whole of the French territory is laid down as "Canada, ou La Nouvelle France," of which "La Louisiane" forms an integral part. The map of Homannus, like that of Franquelin, makes two distinct provinces, of which one is styled "Canada" and the other "La Louisiane," the latter including Michigan and the greater part of New York. Franquelin gives the shape of Hudson's Bay, and of all the Great Lakes, with remarkable accuracy. He makes the Mississippi bend much too far to the West. The peculiar sinuosities of its course are indicated; and some of its bends—as, for example, that at New Orleans—are easily recognized. Its mouths are represented with great minuteness; and it may be inferred from the map that, since La Salle's time, they have advanced considerably into the sea.
• French. They afterwards admitted that all had deserted but
• SEPARATION.
• [6] Colbert à Duchesneau, 8 Mai, 1679
• *** Journal des Jésuites, Nov., 1660
• Here ends the wild and mournful story of the explorers of the Mississippi. Of all their toil and [Pg 473] sacrifice, no fruit remained but a great geographical discovery, and a grand type of incarnate energy and will. Where La Salle had ploughed, others were to sow the seed; and on the path which the undespairing Norman had hewn out, the Canadian D'Iberville was to win for France a vast though a transient dominion.
• marriageable, it would be well, in order that they might
• excommunication is printed in the Appendix to the Esquisse
• ** La Tour, Vie de Laval, chap. x.
• [47] See "The Jesuits in North America."
• him in connection with large sums borrowed in Lauson’s time
• Thus the whole country was torn by religious animosity; the nobles were insolent to the Crown, and the people were nothing. Such was the divided condition of Poland which led to its dismemberment. All nobility of mind was destroyed; pride and oppression were the inseparable consequences of such a system. There was no middle class, no popular class; it was a country of lords and slaves—of one class domineering over the other. The Greek Catholics were the Dissidents, and the Dissidents sought aid from Russia—which was also Greek in religion—and, to insure this aid, condescended to the lowest arts of solicitation, to the practice of fawning, stooping, and cringing to the great barbarous power of Russia on one side, and to the equally barbarous power of Turkey on the other. The nobles could bring large bodies of cavalry into the field, as many, at times, as a hundred thousand; but as they had no free people, and dreaded to arm their slaves, they had little or no infantry, except such as they hired, and even this was in no condition to withstand the heavy masses of Russian infantry, much less such armies as Prussia or Austria might be tempted to bring against them.
• * Talon au ministre, 4 Oct., 1665.
• Lettres de Ratification, MS.
• La Barre embarked and hastened home in advance 111 of his men. His camp was again full of the sick. Their comrades placed them, shivering with ague fits, on board the flat-boats and canoes; and the whole force, scattered and disordered, floated down the current to Montreal. Nothing had been gained but a thin and flimsy truce, with new troubles and dangers plainly visible behind it. The better to understand their nature, let us look for a moment at an episode of the campaign.
• The Swedes cursed the less than half assistance of their British allies, and Gustavus endeavoured to fight his way without them. He continued to win victory after victory on land; but Catherine soon brought down on his squadron of galleys, which attended his march along the coast to keep up his supplies, an overwhelming fleet of galleys[354] of her own. A desperate battle ensued, but the Swedish galley-fleet was at length overcome. Gustavus was thus greatly embarrassed, and compelled to stand merely on the defensive, till it was time to go into winter quarters. He continued for twelve months to do battle with Russia, and, though with insufficient forces, threatened the very capital of that country. A little support from Britain, Prussia, and Holland, would have enabled Sweden to regain its territories on the eastern shores of the Baltic, to curb the power of Russia, and to assume that station in the North which is essential to the peace of Europe. These countries, however, had not the statesmanship to appreciate this point, or the friendly feeling to effect it, and Gustavus was left to struggle on alone.
• Thus this mighty armada—of which such high things were expected—was dispersed; Rodney, sending part of his fleet to Jamaica, proceeded to join Arbuthnot at New York, with eleven ships of the line and four frigates. The news of his approach reached the French and Americans there, at the same time as that of the return of De Guichen to Europe, and spread the greatest consternation. To consider what was best to do in the circumstances, a meeting was proposed at Hartford, in Connecticut, between Washington and Rochambeau, which took place on the 21st of September. At this moment a discovery took place which had a startling effect on the Americans, and was calculated to inspire the most gloomy views of their condition. General Arnold, who had fought his way up from the humble station of a horse-dealer to that which he now held, had, on all occasions, shown himself an officer of the most daring and enterprising character. Having been appointed military governor of Philadelphia, after its evacuation by General Clinton in 1778, as a post where he might recover from the severe wounds which he had received in the recent campaign, he began a style of living much too magnificent for his finances, for, with all his abilities, Arnold was a vain and extravagant man. He married a beautiful young lady of that city of Royalist origin. Rumours to his disadvantage were soon afloat, originating in this cause, for whatever he did was regarded by the staunch Whigs with an unfavourable eye. Congress was the more ready to listen to charges against him, because, involved himself in debts incurred by his extravagance, he pressed them for large claims upon them, which they had no means to satisfy. Commissioners were selected by them to examine his claims, and these men, appointed for their hard, mean natures, reduced his demands extremely. Arnold uttered his indignation at such treatment in no measured terms, and the consequence was that he was arrested, tried by a court-martial, on various charges of peculation in his different commands, and for extortion on the citizens of Philadelphia. Some of these were declared groundless, but others were pronounced to be proved, and Arnold was condemned to be reprimanded by the Commander-in-Chief. This put the climax to his wrath. Washington, who had, in Arnold's opinion, been as unjustly exalted and favoured for his defeats and delays, as he himself had been envied and repressed for his brilliant exploits, was of all men the one from whom he could not receive with patience a formal condemnation. This sentence was carried into effect in January, 1779, and Arnold, stung to the quick, was prepared to perpetrate some desperate design. The opportunity came when he was placed in command of West Point, on the Hudson, which was the key to all intercourse between the Northern and Southern States.
• La Barre was greatly pleased with this letter, and made use of it to justify himself to the king. His colleague, Meules, on the other hand, declared that Lamberville, anxious to make favor with the governor, had written only what La Barre wished to hear. The intendant also informs the minister that La Barre's excuses are a mere pretence; that everybody is astonished and disgusted with him; that the sickness of the troops was his own fault, because he kept them encamped on wet ground for an unconscionable length of time; that Big Mouth shamefully befooled and bullied him; that, after the council at La Famine, he lost his wits, and went off in a fright; that, 115 since the return of the troops, the officers have openly expressed their contempt for him; and that the people would have risen against him, if he, Meules, had not taken measures to quiet them. [24] These, with many other charges, flew across the sea from the pen of the intendant.
• The late President Sparks, some time after the publication of his Life of La Salle, caused a collection to be made of documents relating to that explorer, with the intention of incorporating them in a future edition. This intention was never carried into effect, and the documents were never used. With the liberality which always distinguished him, he placed them at my [Pg xiii] disposal, and this privilege has been kindly continued by Mrs. Sparks.
• In the following November, a yet more distant and perilous mission was begun. Brébeuf and Chaumonot set out for the Neutral Nation. This fierce people, as we have already seen, occupied that part of Canada which lies immediately north of Lake Erie, while a wing of their territory extended across the Niagara into Western New York. [4] In their athletic proportions, the ferocity 143 of their manners, and the extravagance of their superstitions, no American tribe has ever exceeded them. They carried to a preposterous excess the Indian notion, that insanity is endowed with a mysterious and superhuman power. Their country was full of pretended maniacs, who, to propitiate their guardian spirits, or okies, and acquire the mystic virtue which pertained to madness, raved stark naked through the villages, scattering the brands of the lodge-fires, and upsetting everything in their way.
• Gouverneur et à Madame la Gouvernante, signé Jean, évesque
• **** From a mémoire of 18 Feb., 1685 (Archives de
• [7] Journal of Wentworth Greenhalgh, 1677, in N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 250.
• Péronne Dumesnil.—The Old Council.—Alleged Murder.—The New Council.—Bourdon And Villeray.—Strong Measures.—Escape Of Duhesnil.—Views Of Colbert.
• DEPARTURE OF HENNEPIN.
• Unsettled Condition of Europe—Machinations of Russia and Austria against Turkey—Disasters of the Austrians—Capture of Oczakoff—Further Designs of Catherine—Intervention of Pitt—Gustavus of Sweden invades Russia—His Temporary Check—He remodels the Diet and pursues the War—Joseph renews the War—Disaffection in Hungary—Revolution in the Austrian Netherlands—Abolition of the Joyeuse Entrée—The Emperor declared to have forfeited the Crown—The Austrian Troops retired to Luxembourg—Death of Joseph—Outbreak of the French Revolution—Efforts of Turgot and his Successors to introduce Reforms—Loménie de Brienne—Recall of Necker—Assembly of the States General—The Third Estate becomes the National Assembly—The Meeting in the Tennis Court—Contemplated Coup d'état—Project of a City Guard—Dismissal of Necker—Insurrection in Paris—The City Guard—Capture of the Bastille—The Noblesse renounce their Privileges—Bankruptcy and Famine—"O Richard, O Mon Roi!"—The Women and the National Guard march on Versailles—The King brought to Paris—Effect of the Revolution in England—Different Views of Burke and Fox—Rejection of Flood's Reform Bill—The Nootka Sound Affair—Satisfaction obtained from Spain—Motions of Reform in the Irish Parliament—Convention of Reichenbach—Continuance of the War between Sweden and Russia—Renewal of the War with Tippoo Sahib—Debates in Parliament—Discussions on the Eastern Question—The Canada Bill—It is made the occasion of speeches on the French Revolution—Breach between Fox and Burke—Abuse of Burke by the Whigs—Wilberforce's Notice for Immediate Emancipation—Colonisation of Sierra Leone—Bill for the Relief of Roman Catholics—Fox's Libel Bill—Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution"—Replies of Mackintosh and Paine—Dr. Price—Dr. Priestley—The Anniversary of the taking of the Bastille—The Birmingham Riots—Destruction of Priestley's Library—Suppression of the Riots—Mildness of the Sentences.
• [8] Papiers de Famille. He is said to have made several journeys into the forests, towards the North, in the years 1667 and 1668, and to have satisfied himself that little could be hoped from explorations in that direction.
• that the Indians, mingled with the French, might become a
• THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. (See p. 99.)
• 1682-1684.
• was soon sent back again.
• governor, Argenson, in a letter written on the fourth of
• Preparation was begun at once. The expense fell on the Jesuits, and the outfit is said to have cost them seven thousand livres,—a heavy sum for Canada at that day. A pious gentleman, Zachary Du Puys, major of the fort of Quebec, joined the expedition with ten soldiers; and between thirty and forty other Frenchmen also enrolled themselves, impelled by devotion or destitution. Four Jesuits, Le Mercier, the superior, with Dablon, Menard, and Frémin, besides two lay brothers of the order, formed, as it were, the pivot of the enterprise. The governor made them the grant of a hundred square leagues of land in the heart of the Iroquois country,—a preposterous act, which, had the Iroquois known it, would have rekindled the war; but Lauson had a mania for land-grants, and was himself the proprietor of vast domains which he could have occupied only at the cost of his scalp.
• On the 5th of May, towards evening, Massena attacked the British right, posted in Fuentes d'Onoro, with great impetuosity, and the whole fury of the battle, from beginning to end, was concentrated on this quarter. At first the British were forced back from the lower part of the town, driven to the top, where they retained only a cluster of houses and an old chapel. But Wellington pushed fresh bodies of troops up the hill, and again drove down the French at the point of the bayonet, and over the river Das Casas. The next day the battle was renewed with the greatest desperation, and again the British, overwhelmed with heavy columns of men, and attacked by the powerful body of cavalry, seemed on the point of giving way. The cannonade of Massena was terrible, but the British replied with equal vigour, and a Highland regiment, under Colonel Mackinnon, rushed forward with its wild cries, carrying all before it. The battle was continued on the low grounds, or on the borders of the river, till it was dark, when the French withdrew across the Das Casas. The battle was at an end. Massena had been supported by Marshal Bessières, but the two marshals had found their match in a single English general, and an army as inferior to their own in numbers as it was superior in solid strength. Four hundred French lay dead in Fuentes d'Onoro itself, and the killed, wounded,[16] and prisoners amounted, according to their own intercepted letters, to over three thousand. The British loss was two hundred and thirty-five killed—amongst whom was Colonel Cameron,—one thousand two hundred and thirty-four wounded, and three hundred and seventeen missing, or prisoners. Almeida was at once evacuated; the garrison blowing up some of the works, then crossing the Agueda, and joining the army of Massena, but not without heavy loss of men, besides all their baggage, artillery, and ammunition.
• [9] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 77. Compare Lettre du P. Jean de Brébeuf au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa, Général de la Compagnie de Jésus, Sainte Marie, 2 Juin, 1648, in Carayon.
• The animosity against the soldiers at Boston was actively kept up. The sentinel could not stand at his post without insult. Every day menaced a conflict. A fictitious account of an affray between the soldiers and the people of New York was circulated at Boston, in which the soldiers were represented as beaten. This gave impetus to the aggressive temper of the Bostonians. On the 2nd of March, a soldier, insulted by the men at Gray's rope-walk, resented it; they came to blows, and the soldier was overpowered. He fetched up some of his comrades, who, in their turn, beat and chased the rope-makers through the town. The passions of the mob were inflamed, and they began to arm themselves for an attack on the soldiery. In a few days the crowd assembled and assaulted a party of them in Dock Square. The officer prudently withdrew them to the barracks. As the evening advanced, the mob increased. They cried, "Turn out, and do for the soldiers!" They attacked and insulted a sentinel at the Custom House. A party of soldiers was sent by Captain Preston to the officers on duty to protect the man. The mob pelted them with pieces of wood, lumps of ice, etc., and denounced them as "cowards," "red-lobster rascals," and the like. The soldiers stood to defend the Custom House till they were fiercely attacked, and at length they fired in self-defence, killed three persons, and wounded several others—one mortally.
• There was no real motive for emigration. No persecution expelled the colonist from his home; for none but good Catholics were tolerated in New France. The settler could not trade with the Indians, except on condition of selling again to the Company at a fixed price. He might hunt, but he could not fish; and he was forced to beg 157 or buy food for years before he could obtain it from that rude soil in sufficient quantity for the wants of his family. The Company imported provisions every year for those in its employ; and of these supplies a portion was needed for the relief of starving settlers. Giffard and his seven men on his seigniory of Beauport were for some time the only settlers—excepting, perhaps, the Hébert family—who could support themselves throughout the year. The rigor of the climate repelled the emigrant; nor were the attractions which Father Le Jeune held forth—"piety, freedom, and independence"—of a nature to entice him across the sea, when it is remembered that this freedom consisted in subjection to the arbitrary will of a priest and a soldier, and in the liability, should he forget to go to mass, of being made fast to a post with a collar and chain, like a dog.
• original in the archives of the Propaganda at Rome, see
• Joseph, in the face of these things, passed an edict sequestrating all the abbeys in Brabant. The States of Brabant therefore refused the voting of any subsidies, and Joseph, irritated to deeper blindness, determined to abolish the Great Charter entitled the Joyeuse Entrée, so called because granted on the entry of Philip the Good into Brussels, and on which nearly all their privileges rested. To compel them to vote a permanent subsidy, the military surrounded the States of Hainault, forcibly dissolved their sitting, and then calling an extraordinary meeting of the States of Brabant, Trautmansdorff ordered them to pass an Act sanctioning such a subsidy. But the deputies remained firm, and thereupon the Joyeuse Entrée was annulled by proclamation, and the House of Assembly dissolved. Joseph vowed that he would extinguish the rebellion in blood, and reduce the Netherlands to the same despotism which ruled all his other states, except Hungary and the Tyrol.
• [469]
• In the spring of 1648 the excitement of the heathen party reached a crisis. A young Frenchman, named Jacques Douart, in the service of the mission, going out at evening a short distance from the Jesuit house of Sainte Marie, was tomahawked by unknown Indians, [9] who proved to be two brothers, instigated by the heathen chiefs. A great commotion followed, and for a few days it seemed that the adverse parties would fall to blows, at a time when the common enemy threatened to destroy them both. But sager counsels prevailed. In view of the manifest strength of the Christians, the pagans lowered their tone; and it soon became apparent that it was the part of the Jesuits to insist boldly on satisfaction for the outrage. They made no demand that the murderers should be punished or surrendered, but, with their usual good sense in such matters, conformed to Indian usage, and required that the nation at large should make atonement for the crime by presents. [10] The number of these, their value, and the mode of delivering them were all fixed by ancient custom; and some of the converts, acting as counsel, advised the Fathers of every step it behooved them to take in a case of such importance. As this is the best illustration of Huron justice on record, it may be well to observe 355 the method of procedure,—recollecting that the public, and not the criminal, was to pay the forfeit of the crime.
• [77] Extracts from this have already been given in connection with La Salle's supposed discovery of the Mississippi. Ante, p. 29.
• while clearing the lands and building the houses destined to be their own; nor was it till this work was done that the provident government despatched them to Quebec with orders to bring back wives. The settler, thus lodged and wedded, was required on his part to aid in clearing lands for those who should come after him. *
• Had nature disposed him to melancholy, there was much in his position to awaken it. A man of courts and camps, born and bred in the focus of a most gorgeous civilization, he was banished to the ends of the earth, among savage hordes and half-reclaimed forests, to exchange the splendors of St. Germain and the dawning glories of Versailles for a stern gray rock, haunted by sombre priests, rugged merchants and traders, blanketed Indians, and wild bush-rangers. But Frontenac was a man of action. He wasted no time in vain regrets, and 15 set himself to his work with the elastic vigor of youth. His first impressions had been very favorable. When, as he sailed up the St. Lawrence, the basin of Quebec opened before him, his imagination kindled with the grandeur of the scene. "I never," he wrote, "saw any thing more superb than the position of this town. It could not be better situated as the future capital of a great empire." [1]
• Rt. Hon. J. Toler, a peerage and chief justiceship.
• Open war now ensued, and for a time all was bewilderment and terror. How to check the inroads of an enemy so stealthy and so keen for blood was the problem that taxed the brain of Montmagny, the Governor. He thought he had found a solution, when he conceived the plan of building a fort at the mouth of the River Richelieu, by which the Iroquois always made their descents to the St. Lawrence. Happily for the perishing colony, the Cardinal de Richelieu, in 1642, sent out thirty or forty soldiers for its defence. [3] Ten times the number 243 would have been scarcely sufficient; but even this slight succor was hailed with delight, and Montmagny was enabled to carry into effect his plan of the fort, for which hitherto he had had neither builders nor garrison. He took with him, besides the new-comers, a body of soldiers and armed laborers from Quebec, and, with a force of about a hundred men in all, [4] sailed for the Richelieu, in a brigantine and two or three open boats.
• At the end of the fortnight Lord Grenville and Lord Grey pointed out the necessity of proceeding to appoint a regent. Ministers replied that the[9] physicians were confident of the king's speedy recovery; but as there were repeated adjournments and the reports of the physicians still held the same language, the sense of Parliament prevailed. On the 17th of December Mr. Perceval moved that on the 20th they should go into committee on the question of the Regency; and on that day the same resolutions were passed as had been passed in 1788—namely, that the Prince of Wales should be Regent under certain restrictions; that the right of creating peerages, and granting salaries, pensions, and offices in reversion, should be limited specifically, as in 1788. The royal dukes made a protest against these limitations; but on the 30th they were confirmed by both Houses, with additional resolutions for the care of his Majesty's person and the security of his private property, which were passed on the last day of the year 1810.
• [Pg 310]
• Lake Michigan, the "Lac des Illinois" of the French, was, according to a letter of Father Allouez, called "Machihiganing" by the Indians. Dablon writes the name "Mitchiganon."
• Accordingly, Benningsen communicated Alexander's willingness for peace, on the 21st of June, and the armistice was ratified on the 23rd. Buonaparte determined then, as on most occasions, to settle the treaty, not by diplomatists, but personally, with the Czar. A raft was prepared and anchored in the middle of the Niemen, and on the morning of the 25th of June, 1807, the two Emperors met on that raft, and embraced, amid the shouts of the two armies arranged on each bank. The two Emperors retired to a seat placed for them on the raft, and remained in conversation two hours, during which time their attendants remained at a distance. The town of Tilsit was declared neutral ground, and became a scene of festivities, in which the Russian, French, and even Prussian officers, who had been so long drenching the northern snows with each other's blood, vied in courtesies towards each other. Amongst them the two Emperors appeared as sworn brothers, relaxing into gaiety and airs of gallantry, like two young fashionables. On the 28th the King of Prussia arrived, and was treated with a marked difference. He was bluntly informed, that whatever part of his territories were restored would be solely at the solicitation of the Emperor of Russia.
• The colonists themselves soon began to suffer
• The question of Catholic Emancipation was brought forward on the 3rd of May, by Grattan: it was the last time that he did so, but he had the satisfaction of seeing that the question was rapidly advancing, for it was lost by only two votes. A fortnight afterwards Lord Donoughmore introduced a similar motion, in the hope of surmounting this small difference, but, after a long debate, he found the majority increased against it by thirty-nine votes. The closing contest of the Session was for Parliamentary Reform. Sir Francis Burdett brought on his annual motion, on the 1st of July, for the eighteenth time, but was defeated by one hundred and fifty-three votes against fifty-eight. He was seconded by Mr. George Lamb, younger brother of Lord Melbourne, who, however, did not go the length of annual parliaments and universal suffrage. Even at that day, Joseph Hume was for moderate reform, and Lord John Russell was alarmed at anything further than Triennial Parliaments, and the transferring the franchise from certain corrupt boroughs to others not yet represented. Such were the feeble ideas of Reform amongst its self-constituted leaders. Parliament was prorogued, on the 13th of July, by the Prince Regent in person.
• La Salle, pursues his reporter, went on to say that about this time a quantity of hemlock and verdigris was given him in a salad; and that the guilty person was a man in his employ named Nicolas Perrot, otherwise called Jolyc?ur, who confessed the crime.[93] The memoir adds that La Salle, who recovered from the effects of the poison, wholly exculpates the Jesuits.
• CHAPTER XVII. REIGN OF GEORGE III. (continued).
• [40] Procès Verbal de la Prise de Possession, etc., 14 Juin, 1671. The names are attached to this instrument.
• [Pg 140]
• CHAPTER I.
• Mademoiselle Jeanne Le Ber belonged to none of these sisterhoods. She was the favorite daughter of the chief merchant of Montreal, the same who, with the help of his money, got himself ennobled. She seems to have been a girl of a fine and sensitive nature; ardent, affectionate, and extremely susceptible to religious impressions. Religion at last gained absolute sway over her. Nothing could appease her longings or content the demands of her excited conscience but an entire consecration of herself to heaven. Constituted as she was, the resolution must have cost her an agony of mental conflict. Her story is a strange, and, as many will think, a very sad one. She renounced her suitors, and wished to renounce her inheritance; but her spiritual directors, too far-sighted to permit such a sacrifice, persuaded her to hold fast to her claims, and content herself with what they called “poverty of heart.” Her mother died, and her father, left with a family of young children, greatly needed her help; but she refused to leave her chamber where she had immured herself. Here she remained ten years, seeing nobody but her confessor and the girl who brought her food. Once only she emerged, and this was when her brother lay dead in the adjacent room, killed in a fight with the English. She suddenly appeared before her astonished sisters, stood for a moment in silent prayer by the body, and then vanished without uttering a word. “Such,” says her modern biographer, “was the sublimity of her virtue and the grandeur of her soul.” Not content with this domestic seclusion, she caused a cell to be made behind the altar in the newly built church of the Congregation, and here we will permit ourselves to cast a stolen glance at her through the narrow opening through which food was passed in to her. Her bed, a pile of straw which she never moved, lest it should become too soft, was so placed that her head could touch the partition, that alone separated it from the Host on the altar. Here she lay wrapped in a garment of coarse gray serge, worn, tattered, and unwashed. An old blanket, a stool, a spinning-wheel, a belt and shirt of haircloth, a scourge, and a pair of shoes made by herself of the husks of Indian-corn, appear to have formed the sum of her furniture and her wardrobe. Her employments were spinning and working embroidery for churches. She remained in this voluntary prison about twenty years; and the nun who brought her food testifies that she never omitted a mortification or a prayer, though commonly in a state of profound depression, and what her biographer calls “complete spiritual aridity.”
• * Lalemant, Relation, 1663, 6.
• But far different was the issue of the troubles with his Flemish subjects, which, with an unaccountable folly and absence of good faith, he had excited. He sent into the Netherlands Count Trautmansdorff as Governor, and General Dalton, a brutal Irishman, as commander. The latter ordered the professors of theology at Louvain to give way to the Emperor's reforms, and, as they refused, Dalton turned them out by force, shut up the colleges, and Joseph sent back again the German professors, who had been before recalled, to appease the popular indignation. But the colleges remained empty; not a student would attend the classes of the Germans. As the volunteer corps had disbanded themselves, in reliance on the Emperor's wish, Trautmansdorff calculated on an easy compulsion of the people, and he called on the Grand Council at Brussels to enforce the decrees of the Emperor. The Council paid no regard to the order.
• On the 14th of January, 1793, the members of the Convention met, amid a mob surrounding the House, and demanding, "Death to the tyrant! Death to him or to us!" Other crowds crammed the galleries. The debate, which had begun immediately after the king's speech, was renewed, and furious menaces and recriminations between the Girondists and the Mountain were uttered. At length the Convention reduced all the questions to these three: 1st. Is Louis Capet guilty of conspiring against the liberty of the nation and the safety of the State? 2nd. Shall the judgment, whatever it be, be referred to the sanction of the people? 3rd. What punishment shall be inflicted on him?
• [See larger version]
• There was another belt to scatter the clouds, that the sun might shine on the hearts of the Indians and the French, and reveal their sincerity and truth to all; then others still, to confirm the Hurons in thoughts of peace. By the fifteenth belt, Kiotsaton declared that the Iroquois had always wished to send home Jogues and Bressani to their friends, and had meant to do so; but that Jogues was stolen from them by the Dutch, and they had given Bressani to them because he desired it. "If he had but been patient," added the ambassador, "I would have brought him back myself. Now I know not what has befallen him. Perhaps he is drowned. Perhaps he is dead." Here Jogues said, with a smile, to the Jesuits near him, "They had the pile laid to burn me. They would have killed me a hundred times, if God had not saved my life."
• Provided with these, he set at nought the king’s letter, embarked under an assumed name, and sailed to Quebec, where he made his appearance on the 3d of August, 1661, * to the extreme wrath of Laval.
• Mohawk Inroads ? The Hunters of Men ? The Captive Converts ? The Escape of Marie ? Her Story ? The Algonquin Prisoner's Revenge ? Her Flight ? Terror of the Colonists ? Jesuit Intrepidity
• THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK AND HIS HUSSARS (THE BLACK BRUNSWICKERS). (See p. 590.)
• Autobiography, ascribes the miracle to the intercession of
• Pichegru, on his part, having driven back Clairfait, turned round on the Duke of York, who lay at Tournay. There he met with a severe repulse, and fell back with heavy loss; but Clairfait having again advanced to regain Courtrai, Pichegru once more engaged and defeated him. Clairfait then fell back into Flanders, to cover Ghent, Bruges, and Ostend. Pichegru, urged on against his better judgment by St. Just, who was the Commissioner from the Convention, sent Kleber and Marceau across the Sambre to attack General Kaunitz; but Kaunitz gave the French a severe defeat, killing four thousand of them; and had the Austrians been as rapid as they were brave, they might have nearly exterminated the whole of the French division. This success inspirited the Allies to advance actively, but the Duke of York, not taking into account the habitual slowness of German troops, shot ahead, expecting to fall in with Clairfait's columns at Turcoing; but there he only found the French, under Souham and Bonnaud, who well nigh enveloped him by their vast numbers, totally defeated, and nearly took him prisoner. This gave such a panic to the Austrians, that the entire army fell back, and Francis II., thoroughly discouraged, withdrew from the command and left it to the Prince of Coburg. The Duke of York rallied, and maintained his ground at Tournay against Pichegru, and Kaunitz followed up his advantage against Kleber and Moreau, driving them across the Sambre; but these were only temporary successes. Jourdain, finding no Prussians in the Moselle, drew nearer to the camp of Pichegru. There were various conflicts at Ypres, Charleroi, and on the plains of Fleurus. The Allies drove the French three times across the Sambre, but they returned with fresh and never-ending forces, and compelled the Allies to a general retreat. Bruges opened its gates to the French; Pichegru, aided by Moreau, compelled the Duke of York to retire successively on Oudenarde, Tournay, and Antwerp, places filled with the fame of Marlborough. At Antwerp the Duke of York was joined by Lord Moira, with ten thousand men, intended originally for La Vendée, but too late to prevent the massacre of Savenay. The English garrison quitted Ostend, and came round to Antwerp; and the British occupied that town, whilst Clairfait lay at Louvain, and the two armies, unitedly, protected Mechlin.
• reason, if any, he had for such delay. * Orders were issued, a little before the arrival of the yearly ships from France, that all single men should marry within a fortnight after the landing of the prospective brides. No mercy was shown to the obdurate bachelor. Talon issued an order forbidding unmarried men to hunt, fish, trade with the Indians, or go into the woods under any pretence whatsoever. ** In short, they were made as miserable as possible. Colbert goes further. He writes to the intendant, “those who may seem to have absolutely renounced marriage should be made to bear additional burdens, and be excluded from all honors: it would be well even to add some marks of infamy.” *** The success of these measures was complete. “No sooner,” says Mother Mary, “have the vessels arrived than the young men go to get wives; and, by reason of the great number they are married by thirties at a time.” Throughout the length and breadth of Canada, Hymen,
• After the Painting by BIRKET FOSTER, R.W.S.
• is somewhat surprising in view of recent American experience. “The first reflection I have to make,” says Dollier de Casson, “is on the advantage that women have in this place (Montreal) over men, for though the cold is very wholesome to both sexes, it is incomparably more so to the female, who is almost immortal here.” Her fecundity matched her longevity, and was the admiration of Talon and his successors, accustomed as they were to the scanty families of France.
• [238] In Tensas County, Louisiana. Tonty's estimates of distance are here much too low. They seem to be founded on observations of latitude, without reckoning the windings of the river. It may interest sportsmen to know that the party killed several large alligators, on their way. Membré is much astonished that such monsters should be born of eggs like chickens.
• * The above examples are all taken from the letters of
• ANOTHER EFFORT.
• CHAPTER XV.
• It is in his commercial, industrial, and colonial policy that the profound defects of the great minister’s system are most apparent. It was a system of authority, monopoly, and exclusion, in which the government, and not the individual, acted always the foremost part. Upright, incorruptible, ardent for the public good, inflexible, arrogant, and domineering, he sought to drive France into paths of prosperity, and create colonies by the
• The only matters of interest debated in Parliament during this year, except that of the discontent in the country, were a long debate on Catholic emancipation, in the month of May, which was negatived by a majority of only twenty-four, showing that that question was progressing towards its goal; and a motion of Lord Castlereagh for the gradual abolition of sinecures. This intimated some slight impression of the necessity to do something to abate the public dissatisfaction, but it was an impression only on the surface. This Ministry was too much determined to maintain the scale of war expenditure to which they had been accustomed to make any real retrenchment. A committee appointed to consider the scheme recommended the abolition of sinecures to the amount of fifty-four thousand pounds per annum, but neutralised the benefit by recommending instead a pension-list of forty-two thousand pounds per annum. The country received the amendment with disgust and derision.
• The glittering project which he now unfolded found favor in the eyes of the King and his minister; for both were in the flush of an unparalleled success, and looked in the future, as in the past, for nothing but triumphs. They granted more than the petitioner asked, as indeed they well might, if they expected the accomplishment of all that he proposed [Pg 351] to attempt. La Forest, La Salle's lieutenant, ejected from Fort Frontenac by La Barre, was now at Paris; and he was despatched to Canada, empowered to reoccupy, in La Salle's name, both Fort Frontenac and Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. The King himself wrote to La Barre in a strain that must have sent a cold thrill through the veins of that official. "I hear," he says, "that you have taken possession of Fort Frontenac, the property of the Sieur de la Salle, driven away his men, suffered his land to run to waste, and even told the Iroquois that they might seize him as an enemy of the colony." He adds, that, if this is true, La Barre must make reparation for the wrong, and place all La Salle's property, as well as his men, in the hands of the Sieur de la Forest, "as I am satisfied that Fort Frontenac was not abandoned, as you wrote to me that it had been."[270] Four days later, he wrote to the intendant of Canada, De Meules, to the effect that the bearer, La Forest, is to suffer no impediment, and that La Barre is to surrender to him without reserve all that belongs to La Salle.[271] Armed with this letter, La Forest sailed for Canada.[272]
• On the passage, the squadron of Sir John Warren came in sight of the French fleet of Villaret-Joyeuse, of nine ships of the line, but it bore away, and left them to pursue their course. They entered the Bay of Quiberon on the 25th of June and, after much wrangling as to the best situation for landing, they put the troops ashore at the village of Carnac. There they were immediately joined by Georges Cadoudal, d'Allègre, Dubois-Berthollet, and other Chouan chiefs, with about four thousand or five thousand of their wild and bandit-looking soldiers. Along with the Chouans came troops of peasants, crying "Vive le Roi!" and bringing in abundance of fresh eggs, poultry, and other provisions. Puisaye was delighted, and felt confident that all Brittany was ready to rise. But this delusion was soon dissipated. The Emigrants, accustomed to regular armies, looked with contempt on this wild and ragged band, and they, on their part, were not restrained, on the landing of the arms and uniforms, from seizing and carrying them off, without much exertion on the part of Puisaye. There was danger of bloodshed. At length, in about a couple of days, ten thousand of them were put into red coats, and furnished with muskets. But fatal dissensions prevented all operations. Puisaye proposed to march up the country, seize different towns, such as Vannes and Rennes, and take up their position behind the Mayenne; but d'Hervilly refused to march till the troops were formed into regular regiments, and the Emigrants joined him in despising the Chouans, and in complaining that they had not been taken to La Vendée to join Charette. Puisaye and d'Hervilly also disputed the supreme command, and Puisaye had to dispatch letters to London, to Count d'Artois, on the subject. At length, after five days had been wasted in this contention, Puisaye proposed that they should endeavour to carry Fort Penthièvre, which stood on a small peninsula on Quiberon Bay, and was united to the main land by a sandy isthmus. To this d'Hervilly consented, and Sir John Warren agreed to support him in the attempt. On the 1st of July Warren began to bombard the fort, and on the 3rd, the place being warmly assailed by both the British and the Chouans, the Republicans surrendered. Meanwhile, Puisaye had sent off emissaries all over Brittany, to rouse Scépeaux, Charette, Stofflet, and the rest of the insurgent chiefs. The news of the landing had flown all over Brittany in a few days, and the Royalists were full of joy.
• Some curious traits of this early day appear in the license of Jean Boisdon as innkeeper. He is required to establish himself on the great square of Quebec, close to the church, so that the parishioners may conveniently warm and refresh themselves between the services; but he is forbidden to entertain anybody during high mass, sermon, catechism, or vespers. *** Matters soon changed; Jean Boisdon lost his monopoly, and inns sprang up on all hands. They did not want for patrons, and we find some of their proprietors mentioned as among the few thriving men in Canada. Talon tried to regulate them, and, among other rules, ordained that no innkeeper should furnish food or drink to any hired laborer whatever, or to any
• Poncet his life; and he, or rather the Holy Virgin and the holy angels, labored so well in the work of peace, that on St. Michael’s Day it was resolved in a council of the elders that the father should be conducted to Quebec, and a lasting treaty made with the French.” *
• "The rain," says La Salle, "which lasted all day, and the raft we were obliged to make to cross the river, stopped us till noon of the twenty-fifth, when we continued our march through the woods, which was so interlaced with thorns and brambles that in two days and a half our clothes were all torn, and our faces so covered with blood that we hardly knew each other. On the twenty-eighth we found the woods more open, and began to fare better, meeting a good deal of game, which after this rarely failed us; so that we no longer carried provisions with us, but made a meal of roast meat wherever we happened to kill a deer, bear, or turkey. These are the choicest feasts on a journey like this; and till now we had generally gone without them, so that we had often walked all day without breakfast.
• The Jesuits, then as now, were the most forcible exponents of ultramontane principles. The church to rule the world; the Pope to rule the church; the Jesuits to rule the Pope: such was and is the simple programme of the Order of Jesus, and to it they have held fast, except on a few rare occasions of misunderstanding with the Vicegerent of Christ. * In the question of papal supremacy, as in most things else, Laval was of one mind with them.
• [See larger version]
• When Buonaparte reached Lyons, the soldiers, in spite of the Duke of Orleans, of Monsieur, and of Marshal Macdonald, went over to him to a man. He was now at the head of seven thousand men, and Macon, Chalons, Dijon, and nearly all Burgundy declared for him. Marseilles and Provence stood out, the authorities of Marseilles setting a price upon his head. But being now in Lyons, Buonaparte issued, with amazing rapidity, no fewer than eight decrees, abolishing every change made by the Bourbons during his absence, confiscating the property of every Emigrant who had not lost it before, restoring the tricolour flag and cockade, and the legion of honour; abolishing the two chambers, and calling a Champ-de-Mai, to be held in the month of May to determine on a new constitution, and to assist at the coronation of the Empress and the King of Rome. He boldly announced that the Empress was coming; that Austria, Russia, and Great Britain were all his friends, and that without this he could not have escaped. These decrees, disseminated on all sides, had a wonderful effect on the people, and he advanced rapidly, reaching Auxerre on the 17th of March. He rode on several hours in advance of his army, without Guards, talking familiarly with the people, sympathising in their distresses, and promising all sorts of redresses. The lancers of Auxerre and Montereau trampled the white cockade under foot and joined him. He appointed Cambacérès minister of justice; Fouché, of police; and Davoust Minister of War. But Fouché, doubting the sincerity of Buonaparte, at once offered his services to Louis, and promised, on being admitted to a private interview, to point out to the king a certain means of extinguishing the usurper. This was presumed to mean assassination by some of his secret agents, and was honourably rejected by Louis, and an officer was sent to arrest Fouché; but that adroit sycophant retired by a back door, locking it after him, got over a wall, and was the next moment in the house of the Duchess of St. Leu, and in the midst of the assembled Buonapartists, who received him with exultation.
• CHAPTER XXVIII.
• France was drifting toward the triumph of the parti dévot, the sinister reign of petticoat and cassock, the era of Maintenon and Tellier, and the
• At last, after having waited a long time for a favourable wind, and having had a great many difficulties to overcome, we are setting sail with four vessels, and nearly four hundred men on board. Everybody is well, including little Colin and my nephew. We all have good hope of a happy success. We are not going by way of Canada, but by the Gulf of Mexico. I passionately wish, and so do we all, that the success of this voyage may contribute to your repose and comfort. Assuredly, I shall spare no effort that it may; and I beg you, on your part, to preserve yourself for the love of us.
• A great number of ordinances of intendants are preserved. They were usually read to the people at the doors of churches after mass, or sometimes by the curé from his pulpit. They relate to a great variety of subjects,—regulation of inns and markets, poaching, preservation of game, sale of brandy, rent of pews, stray hogs, mad dogs, tithes, matrimonial quarrels, fast driving, wards and guardians, weights and measures, nuisances, value of coinage, trespass on lands, building churches, observance of Sunday, preservation of timber, seignior and vassal, settlement of boundaries, and many
• for ever.
• There were not wanting, however, those who strove to disturb the joy of Ireland, and the peace of England thus acquired, by sowing suspicions of the sincerity of England, and representing that the independence granted was spurious rather than real. Amongst these, Flood, the rival of Grattan in political and Parliamentary life, took the lead. He seized on every little circumstance to create doubts of the English carrying out the concession faithfully. He caught at an imprudent motion of the Earl of Abingdon, in the Peers, and still more vivaciously at the decision of an appeal from Ireland, in the Court of King's Bench, by Lord Mansfield. The case had remained over, and it was deemed impracticable to send it back to Ireland, though nearly finished before the Act of Repeal. Fox explained the case, and made the most explicit declaration of the "full, complete, absolute, and perpetual surrender of the British legislative and judicial supremacy over Ireland." But the suspicions had been too adroitly infused to be removed without a fresh and still more positive Act, which was passed in the next Session.
• ** Compare Marie de l’Incarnation, Lettre, 16 Oct., 1660,
• NAPOLEON AND HIS SUITE AT BOULOGNE. (See p. 490.)
• The Marquis of Granby resigned his posts as Paymaster-General of the Ordnance and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, much to the annoyance and against the entreaties of the king and the Duke of Grafton. Camden would have done the same, but as the Ministers were anxious to be rid of him, Chatham and his friends counselled him to remain, and put the Ministry to the odium of dismissing him. This was done, and thus two of the men most popular with the public—Granby and Camden—were lost to the Administration. The Seals, as Lord Shelburne had predicted, went a-begging. Charles Yorke, second son of the former Lord Chancellor, Hardwicke, had all his life been hankering after this prize, but as he was closely pledged to the party of Lord Rockingham, he most reluctantly declined it. Three days subsequently, however, the king, after the levee, suddenly called him into his closet, and so pressingly entreated him to accept the Seals and rescue his sovereign from an embarrassment, that he gave way. This was on the 18th of January. He was to be raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Morden, but, on encountering the keen reproaches of his party at Lord Rockingham's, he went home and committed suicide. The Seals were then successively offered to Mr. de Grey, the Attorney-General, to Sir Eardley Wilmot, and Lord Mansfield, who refused them, and they were obliged to be put in commission, Lord Mansfield consenting to occupy the woolsack, as Speaker to the House of Lords, till that was done. After some time, Sir Sidney Stafford Smythe, one of the barons of the Exchequer, the Honourable Henry Bathurst, one of the justices of the Common Pleas, and Sir Richard Aston, one of the justices of the King's Bench, were named the commissioners.
• [15] Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 41.
• The customs of the Natchez have been described by Du Pratz, Le Petit, Penecaut, and others. Charlevoix visited their temple in 1721, and found it in a somewhat shabby condition. At this time, the Taensas were extinct. In 1729 the Natchez, enraged by the arbitrary conduct of a French commandant, massacred the neighboring settlers, and were in consequence expelled from their country and nearly destroyed. A few still survive, incorporated with the Creeks; but they have lost their peculiar customs.
• Their hosts told them of the great river Mississippi, rising far in the north and flowing southward,—they knew not whither,—and of many tribes that dwelt along its banks. When at length they took their departure, they left behind them a reputation as medicine-men of transcendent power.
• About the middle of May Wellington entered Spain, leading the centre division himself, the right being commanded by General Hill, and the left by Sir Thomas Graham, the victor of Barrosa. As they advanced, the French hastily retreated towards Valladolid, thence towards Burgos; and by the 12th of June, Wellington being close on that city, they blew up the fortifications of the castle, and retreated beyond the Ebro, which they hoped to be able to defend. But Wellington left them no time to fortify themselves. On the 14th he crossed the Ebro; on the 16th he was in full march after them towards Vittoria, for they found the Ebro no defence, as they had not time to blow up the bridges. On the 16th and 17th Major-General Alten harassed their rear, and dispersed a whole brigade in the mountains, killing considerable numbers, and taking three hundred prisoners. On the 19th they found the French army, commanded by Joseph Buonaparte, with Jourdan as his second and adviser, drawn up under the walls of Vittoria. It was so placed as to command the passages of the river Zadora, and the three great roads from Madrid, Bilbao, and Logro?o. Their left extended to the heights of La Puebla, and behind this, at the village of Gomecha, was posted a reserve. The position was remarkably strong, and commanded by the hills interesting to Englishmen as those where the Black Prince, in his day, had defeated the French army at Najera, commanded by the gallant Duguesclin. Wellington took till the morning of the 21st to reconnoitre the position and to concentrate his army for the attack.[57]
• is 3418, 4312, and 5870, respectively. A small part of this
• His constant friction with the head of the church distressed the pious governor, and made his recall doubly a relief. According to a contemporary writer, Laval was the means of delivering him from the burden of government, having written to the President Lamoignon to urge his removal. ** Be this as it may, it is certain that the bishop was not sorry to be rid of him.
• instructions, marked secret, shows that, notwithstanding
• ROBESPIERRE.
• And now it remains to record one of the most heroic feats of arms ever achieved on this continent. That it may be rated as it merits, it will be well to glance for a moment at the condition of Canada, under the portentous cloud of war which constantly overshadowed it. **
• To another correspondent he defends himself against the charge of harshness to his men: "The facility I am said to want is out of place with this sort of people, who are libertines for the most part; and to indulge them means to tolerate blasphemy, drunkenness, lewdness, and a license incompatible with any kind of order. It will not be found that I have in any case whatever treated any man harshly, except for blasphemies and other such crimes openly committed. These I cannot tolerate: first, because such compliance would give grounds for another accusation, much more just; secondly, because, if I allowed such disorders to become habitual, it would be hard to keep the men in subordination and obedience, as regards executing the work I am commissioned to do; thirdly, because the debaucheries, too common with this rabble, are the source of endless delays and frequent thieving; and, finally, because I am a Christian, and do not want to bear the burden of their crimes.
• There was a gap in their number. The place of Antoine Daniel was empty, and never more to be filled by him,—never at least in the flesh: 372 for Chaumonot averred, that not long since, when the Fathers were met in council, he had seen their dead companion seated in their midst, as of old, with a countenance radiant and majestic. [20] They believed his story,—no doubt he believed it himself; and they consoled one another with the thought, that, in losing their colleague on earth, they had gained him as a powerful intercessor in heaven. Daniel's station had been at St. Joseph; but the mission and the missionary had alike ceased to exist.
• [Pg 146]
• Though a declaration of war had been issued both against France and Holland, there had been none against Spain. But Ministers hearing that a strong Spanish armament was being equipped in the port of Ferrol, and that French soldiers were expected to join and sail in it, despatched Captain Graham Moore, the brother of Sir John Moore, with four frigates to intercept four Spanish treasure-ships. The proceeding was certainly high-handed, but Ministers were justified by their knowledge that Spain paid subsidies to France. The Spaniards were furious in their indignation; an order was speedily issued to make reprisals on British ships and property, and on the 12th of December war was formally proclaimed against us.
• Sir Robert Wilson, the British Commissioner, urged Kutusoff, indeed, to make one general and determined attack on Buonaparte and this small body before the other divisions could come up; and there can be no doubt that, had he done so, he would have destroyed the division utterly, and made himself master of Napoleon's person. But though Kutusoff had fought the battle of Borodino, he had now grown over-cautious, and did not do that which it was the plan of Barclay de Tolly, whom he superseded, to do when the right moment came. Whilst Kutusoff was thus timidly cannonading, the division of Davoust came up, and he retired, allowing both Buonaparte and Davoust to secure themselves in Krasnoi. As for Ney, he was left behind wholly surrounded by the Russians who had harassed the rear of Davoust, and were thus interposed between Davoust and himself, as well as swarming on his own flanks and rear. Napoleon could not wait for him, even at Krasnoi. He learned that the Russians were drawing fast towards his crossing-places at the Dnieper and the Beresina; that Prince Galitzin with a strong force was about to occupy Krasnoi; that the Dnieper at Liady would be immediately in the hands of the enemy. He therefore called Mortier, and squeezing his hand sorrowfully told him that he had not a moment to lose; that the enemy were overwhelming him in all directions; that Kutusoff might have already reached Liady, perhaps Orcha, and the last winding of the Dnieper was yet before him. Then, with his heart full of Ney's misfortunes, he withdrew, in despair at being forced to abandon him, towards Liady. He marched on foot at the head of his Guard, and often talked of Ney. He called to mind his coup-d'?il, so accurate and true, his courage, proof against everything—in short, all the qualities which made him so brilliant on the field of battle. "He is lost! Well! I have three hundred millions in the Tuileries; I would give them all were he restored to me!"
• Fran?aise, III. 886. The dialogue, as here given from the
• Denonville replied with many compliments: "I know not what reason you may have had to be 124 dissatisfied with M. de la Barre; but I know very well that I should reproach myself all my life if I could fail to render to you all the civility and attention due to a person of so great rank and merit. In regard to the affair in which M. de la Barre interfered, as you write me, I presume you refer to his quarrel with the Senecas. As to that, Monsieur, I believe you understand the character of that nation well enough to perceive that it is not easy to live in friendship with a people who have neither religion, nor honor, nor subordination. The king, my master, entertains affection and friendship for this country solely through zeal for the establishment of religion here, and the support and protection of the missionaries whose ardor in preaching the faith leads them to expose themselves to the brutalities and persecutions of the most ferocious of tribes. You know better than I what fatigues and torments they have suffered for the sake of Jesus Christ. I know your heart is penetrated with the glory of that name which makes Hell tremble, and at the mention of which all the powers of Heaven fall prostrate. Shall we be so unhappy as to refuse them our master's protection? You are a man of rank and abounding in merit. You love our holy religion. Can we not then come to an understanding to sustain our missionaries by keeping those fierce tribes in respect and fear?" [10]
• to consider the question of reconstructing it, as it was in
• 1657-1668. THE DISPUTED BISHOPRIC.
• Here he heard his faithful servants, Duroc and Daru, whispering, as they thought he slept, of their critical situation, and caught the words "prisoner of State." On this, he started up, and demanded whether the reports of his Ministers were yet burnt, and being answered in the negative, he had both them and all documents which could give information of his affairs to the enemy put into the fire. Segur says that amongst these were materials for writing his life, for, like C?sar, he had determined to be his own historian. In tracing the map for a passage over the Beresina, his eye caught the word Pultowa, and he said, "Ah! Charles XII.—Pultowa!"
• The British Parliament accepted the measure without much debate, regarding it as a simple case of necessity. It passed the House of Lords with only three non-contents—Lords Derby, King, and Holland. In the Commons it was passed by a majority of two hundred and thirty-six against thirty. Mr. Grey moved an amendment, praying his Majesty to suspend the question till the sentiments of the Irish people at large could be ascertained regarding this measure. He said that twenty-seven counties had petitioned against the measure; that seven hundred and seven thousand persons had petitioned against it, and only three thousand for it. But this amendment was swept away by a vast majority; the Act was passed, and received the royal assent on the 2nd of July. This and the vote of the necessary moneys being the great business of the Session, Parliament was prorogued on the 29th of the same month.
• and Dollier de Casson, on the authority of one Lavigne, then
• There was one point on which the interference of his brother and of his correspondents was peculiarly annoying. They thought it for their interest that he [Pg 334] should remain a single man; whereas, it seems that his devotion to his purpose was not so engrossing as to exclude more tender subjects. He writes:—
• [9] This remarkable story is told by Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 56-58. He was present at the time, and knew all the circumstances.
• allowed to make in the colony. One of the first acts of the superior council was to order them to bring their invoices immediately before that body, which thereupon affixed prices to each article. The merchant who sold and the purchaser who bought above this tariff were alike condemned to heavy penalties; and so, too, was the merchant who chose to keep his goods rather than sell them at the price ordained. * Resident merchants, on the other hand, were favored to the utmost. They could sell at what price they saw fit; and, according to La Hontan, they made great profit by the sale of laces, ribbons, watches, jewels, and similar superfluities to the poor but extravagant colonists.
• * Lettre du Père Jean Pierron, de la Compagnie de Jésus,
• He presently set out on a roving mission through [Pg 134] Holland; and he recounts various mishaps which befell him, "in consequence of my zeal in laboring for the saving of souls," "I was at the bloody fight of Seneff," he pursues, "where so many perished by fire and sword, and where I had abundance of work in comforting and consoling the poor wounded soldiers. After undergoing great fatigues, and running extreme danger in the sieges of towns, in the trenches, and in battles, where I exposed myself freely for the salvation of others while the soldiers were breathing nothing but blood and carnage, I found myself at last in a way of satisfying my old inclination for travel."[109]
• *** Ibid.
• Soon after his marriage Buonaparte made a tour with his Imperial bride. It was very much the same that he had made with Josephine shortly before their coronation—namely, through the northern provinces of France, through Belgium and Holland. He decided, during this journey, on the occasion of his uniting the part of the Low Countries called Zealand with the Department of the Mouths of the Scheldt, on annexing the whole country to France for ever. But whilst conversing with Louis Buonaparte, his Holland king-brother at Antwerp, he suddenly stumbled on a discovery of some daring proceedings of Fouché, his Minister of Police, which sent him back to Paris in haste, and ruined that subtle diplomatist with him. The arbitrary disposition displayed in this arrangement very soon produced consequences between Napoleon and his brothers which made more than ever manifest to the world that no law or consideration could any longer influence Napoleon; that his self-will was, and must be, his only guide. His brother Lucien, who had from the first refused to become one of his puppets, and who was leading a private life in Italy, received an intimation from Fouché that Napoleon meant to arrest and shut him up. In consequence of this friendly hint, Lucien fled from the Continent, and ultimately took refuge in England, where he purchased an estate near Ludlow, and there resided till 1814, when the fall of his brother permitted him to return to France. Lucien Buonaparte (the ablest of the family next to Napoleon), now styled the Prince of Canino, from an estate which he purchased in Italy, and which the Pope raised to a principality, spent the three years in England in writing a poem entitled "Charlemagne; or, the Church Delivered."
• venerated recluse of Montreal. There are others quite as worthy of honor, whose names have died from memory. It is difficult to conceive a self-abnegation more complete than that of the hospital nuns of Quebec and Montreal. In the almost total absence of trained and skilled physicians, the burden of the sick and wounded fell upon them. Of the two communities, that of Montreal was the more wretchedly destitute, while that of Quebec was exposed, perhaps, to greater dangers. Nearly every ship from France brought some form of infection, and all infection found its way to the H?tel-Dieu of Quebec. The nuns died, but they never complained. Removed from the arena of ecclesiastical strife, too busy for the morbidness of the cloister, too much absorbed in practical benevolence to become the prey of illusions, they and their sister community were models of that benign and tender charity of which the Roman Catholic Church is so rich in examples. Nor should the Ursulines and the nuns of the Congregation be forgotten among those who, in another field of labor, have toiled patiently according to their light.
• CHAPTER III.
• Fox, on this occasion, also introduced the subject of the Prince of Wales's allowance, who, he contended, had far less than had been granted to a Prince of Wales since the accession of the House of Hanover, that allowance being one hundred thousand pounds a-year; and the present parsimony towards the prince being grossly aggravated by the royal Civil List having been raised, in this reign, from six hundred thousand pounds to nine hundred thousand pounds, and the Privy Purse from six thousand pounds to sixty thousand pounds. Fox's remarks were rendered all the more telling because, when the House went into committee on the finances, Pitt had made a most flourishing statement of the condition of the Exchequer. He took off the taxes which pressed most on the poorer portion of the population—namely, on servants, the late augmentations on malt, on waggons, on inhabited houses, etc.,—to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds and appropriated four hundred thousand pounds towards the reduction of the National Debt. Still blind to the storm rising across the strait of Dover, he declared that these were mere trifles compared with what he should be able to do shortly, for never was there a time when a more durable peace might be expected!
• The Spaniards had at length made Lord Wellington Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish armies,[56] but this appointment was little more than nominal, for the Spanish generals continued as froward and insubordinate as ever; and the Spanish Government was poorer than ever, its remittances from the South American colonies, which were asserting their independence, being stopped. Wellington's dependence, therefore, continued to rest on his army of British and Portuguese—sixty-three thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry.
• * Faillon, L’Héroine chrétienne du Canada, ou Vie de Mlle.
• But the Peace of Vienna was now concluded, and, on the 30th of October, Baron Lichtenthurm appeared in the camp of the Tyrolese, and delivered a letter to the leaders from the Archduke John, requesting them peaceably to disperse, and surrender the country to the Bavarians. This was a terrible blow to these brave men. They appeared prostrated by the news, and Hofer announced to Spechbacher, who was still fighting with the Bavarians, that peace was made with France, and that the Tyrol was forgotten! Hofer returned to his native vale of Passeyr, and still held out against the French, and the Italian mercenaries under Rusca, whom he defeated with great slaughter. But traitors were amongst them, who guided the French to their rear. Hofer escaped into the higher Alps, but thirty of the other leaders were taken and shot without mercy. Another traitor guided the French to Hofer's retreat in the high wintry Alps. He had been earnestly implored to quit the country, but he refused. As the French surrounded his hut, on the 17th of February, 1810, he came out calmly and submitted. He was carried to the fortress of Mantua, and Napoleon sent an order that he should be shot within four-and-twenty hours. He would not suffer himself to be blindfolded, nor would he kneel, but exclaimed—"I stand before my Creator, and, standing, I will restore to Him the spirit He gave!" Thus died, on the 20th of February, 1810, the brave Hofer—another murdered man, another victim of the sanguinary vengeance of Buonaparte against whatever was patriotic and independent.
• SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. (After the Portrait by J. Hoppner, R.A.)
• Edits et Ordonnances, II. 555. In the case of the habitant
• * Faillon, Colonie Fran?aise, III. 405.
• 25 Juin, 1660; Relation, 1660, 5; Juchereau, Histoire de
• "The rain," says La Salle, "which lasted all day, and the raft we were obliged to make to cross the river, stopped us till noon of the twenty-fifth, when we continued our march through the woods, which was so interlaced with thorns and brambles that in two days and a half our clothes were all torn, and our faces so covered with blood that we hardly knew each other. On the twenty-eighth we found the woods more open, and began to fare better, meeting a good deal of game, which after this rarely failed us; so that we no longer carried provisions with us, but made a meal of roast meat wherever we happened to kill a deer, bear, or turkey. These are the choicest feasts on a journey like this; and till now we had generally gone without them, so that we had often walked all day without breakfast.
• CHAPTER XIII
• The temporary excitement caused among the colonists by their return soon gave place to a dejection bordering on despair. "This pleasant land," writes Cavelier, "seemed to us an abode of weariness and a perpetual prison." Flattering themselves with the delusion, common to exiles of every kind, that they were objects of solicitude at home, they watched daily, with straining eyes, for an approaching sail. Ships, indeed, had ranged the coast to seek them, but with no friendly intent. Their thoughts dwelt, [Pg 416] with unspeakable yearning, on the France they had left behind, which, to their longing fancy, was pictured as an unattainable Eden. Well might they despond; for of a hundred and eighty colonists, besides the crew of the "Belle," less than forty-five remained. The weary precincts of Fort St. Louis, with its fence of rigid palisades, its area of trampled earth, its buildings of weather-stained timber, and its well-peopled graveyard without, were hateful to their sight. La Salle had a heavy task to save them from despair. His composure, his unfailing equanimity, his words of encouragement and cheer, were the breath of life to this forlorn company; for though he could not impart to minds of less adamantine temper the audacity of hope with which he still clung to the final accomplishment of his purposes, the contagion of his hardihood touched, nevertheless, the drooping spirits of his followers.[319]
• genuine physician in Canada (Callieres et Beauharnois au
• He made a jump at the guns, took them under his arm like so many feathers
• him with all solemnity at the church; but the governor would not go. He soon set out on a tour of observation as far as Montreal, whence he returned delighted with the country, and immediately wrote to Colbert in high praise of it, observing that the St. Lawrence was the most beautiful river he had ever seen. *
• conduite de la Compagnie appellée l'Hermitage.
• La Salle well knew what was before him, and nothing but necessity spurred him to this desperate journey. He says that he could trust nobody else to go in his stead, and that unless the articles lost in the "Griffin" were replaced without delay, the expedition would be retarded a full year, and he and his associates consumed by its expenses. "Therefore," he writes to one of them, "though the thaws of approaching spring greatly increased the difficulty of the way, interrupted as it was everywhere by marshes and rivers, to say nothing of the length of the journey, which is about five hundred leagues in a direct line, and the danger of meeting Indians of four or five different nations through whose country we were to pass, as well as an Iroquois army which we knew was coming that way; though we must suffer all the [Pg 190] time from hunger; sleep on the open ground, and often without food; watch by night and march by day, loaded with baggage, such as blanket, clothing, kettle, hatchet, gun, powder, lead, and skins to make moccasins; sometimes pushing through thickets, sometimes climbing rocks covered with ice and snow, sometimes wading whole days through marshes where the water was waist-deep or even more, at a season when the snow was not entirely melted,—though I knew all this, it did not prevent me from resolving to go on foot to Fort Frontenac, to learn for myself what had become of my vessel, and bring back the things we needed."[163]
• On Monday, the 17th, Fox renewed the discussion, supported by Mr. Grey, who complained that at a so-called loyal meeting held at Manchester, the people had been incited to attack the property of those of more liberal views; and that an association had been formed in London, at the "Crown and Anchor" Tavern, which had issued a paper called "A Pennyworth of Truth from Thomas Bull to his Brother John," containing most unfounded censures on the Dissenters, whom it charged as being the authors of the American war. He declared that this paper was far more inflammatory than Paine's "Rights of Man," and he desired that it might be read at the table. Fox severely criticised the conduct of the loyal associations, and the means taken by the subscription papers to mark out those who maintained Liberal opinions; all such marked persons, he said, were in danger, on any excitement, of having their persons or houses attacked. He mentioned one paper concluding with the words, "Destruction to Fox and all his Jacobin crew!" This was, he thought, pretty plainly marking him out for such treatment as Dr. Priestley and Mr. Walker had received. The motion was rejected.
• The country around Quebec was still an unbroken wilderness, with the exception of a small clearing made by the Sieur Giffard on his seigniory of Beauport, another made by M. de Puiseaux between Quebec and Sillery, and possibly one or two feeble attempts in other quarters. [12] The total population did not much exceed two hundred, including women and children. Of this number, by far the greater part were agents of the fur company known as the Hundred Associates, and men in their employ. Some of these had brought over their families. The remaining inhabitants were priests, nuns, and a very few colonists.
• RENEWED INTRIGUES.
• [222] He says that Pierson had come among the Indians to learn their language; that he "retained the frankness and rectitude of our country" and "a disposition always on the side of candor and sincerity. In a word, he seemed to me to be all that a Christian ought to be" (1697), 433.
• The Government and Parliament which, with so lavish a hand, had enabled the Continental monarchs to fight their battles, which had spent above two thousand millions of money in these wars, of which eight hundred millions remained as a perpetual debt, with the perpetual necessity of twenty-eight millions of taxation annually to discharge the interest—that burden on posterity which Napoleon had, with such satisfaction, at St. Helena, pronounced permanent—this same Government and Parliament, seeing the war concluded, were in great haste to stave off the effects of this burden from the landed aristocracy, the party which had incurred it, and to lay it upon the people. They saw that the ports of the world, once more open to us, would, in exchange for our manufactures, send us abundance of corn; and, that the rents might remain during peace at the enormous rate to which war prices had raised them, they must keep out this foreign corn. True, this exclusion of foreign corn must raise the cost of living to the vast labouring population to a ruinous degree, and threatened fearful convulsions from starving people in the manufacturing districts; but these considerations had no weight with the land-holding Government and its Parliamentary majority. In 1814 they were in haste to pass a Corn Law excluding all corn except at famine prices; but the lateness of the season, and an inundation of petitions against it, put it off for that Session. But in 1815 it was introduced again and carried by a large majority. By this all corn from abroad was excluded, except when the price was eighty shillings per quarter. By this law it was decreed that the people who fought the battles of the world, and who would bear the bulk of the weight of taxation created by these wars, were never, so long as this law continued, to eat corn at less than four pounds per quarter. This was, in fact, not only a prohibition of cheap bread, but a prohibition of the sale of the labours of the people to foreign nations to the same extent. It was an enactment to destroy the manufacturing interest for the imagined benefit of land-owners; and it was done on this plea, as stated by Mr. Western, one of the leading advocates of the Bill—"That, if there is a small deficiency of supply, the price will rise in a ratio far beyond any proportion of such deficiency: the effect, indeed, is almost incalculable. So, likewise, in a surplus of supply beyond demand, the price will fall in a ratio exceeding almost tenfold the amount of such surplus." The avowed object, therefore, was to prevent the manufacturing population from reaping the benefit of that Continental peace which they had purchased at such a cost, and consequently to repress the growth of their trade to the same degree. Mr. Tooke, in his "History of Prices," confirms this view of the matter, asserting that "the price of corn in this country has risen from one hundred to two hundred per cent., and upwards, when the utmost computed deficiency of the crops has not been more than between one-sixth and one-third below an average, and when that deficiency has been relieved by foreign supplies." Mr. Western candidly showed that, to the farmer, years of deficiency were the most profitable, from this principle of enormous rise from a small cause; that if the produce of an acre of wheat in a good year is thirty-three bushels at six shillings, the amount realised would be only nine pounds eighteen shillings; but, if the produce were reduced by an unfavourable season one-sixth, and the price raised from six shillings to twelve shillings, the produce of twenty-seven and a half bushels would realise sixteen pounds ten shillings, the difference being profit!
• A HARD JOURNEY.
• *** Mémoire a Duchesneau, 15 Mai, 1678; Le Roy a
• [14] The combination of religious enthusiasm, however extravagant and visionary, with a talent for business, is not very rare. Nearly all the founders of monastic Orders are examples of it.
• * On the Onondaga mission, the authorities are Marie de
• Another French fleet, under Admiral Willaumez, left Brest at the same time with that of Lessigues, bound for the Cape of Good Hope, to assist the Dutch troops in defending it. The British, however, having taken it before his arrival, he went cruising about and picking up such stray British merchantmen as he could meet with between the continents of Africa and South America. He then stood away for the West Indies, hoping to be able to destroy the British shipping in the ports of Barbadoes. Failing in that, he made for Martinique, which was still in the possession of the French. Willaumez had but six sail of the line, and the English admirals, Sir John Borlase Warren, who had the same number and a frigate, and Sir Richard Strachan, who had seven sail of the line and two frigates, were in eager quest of him. Meanwhile, Willaumez was attacked by a terrible tempest, and then chased by Strachan in the Chesapeake. Of his six ships of the line he took home only two, and was obliged to burn the British merchantmen that he had taken.
• CHAPTER XXXIV.
• Queylus, for a time, seemed to accept the situation, and tacitly admit the claim of Laval as his ecclesiastical superior; but, stimulated by a letter from the Archbishop of Rouen, he soon threw himself into an attitude of opposition, ** in which the popularity which his generosity to the poor had won for him gave him an advantage very annoying to his adversary. The quarrel, it will be seen, was three-sided,—Gallican against ultramontane, Sulpitian against Jesuit, Montreal against Quebec. To Montreal the recalcitrant abbé, after a brief visit to Quebec, had again retired; but even here, girt with his Sulpitian brethren and compassed with
• THE TREATY OF TILSIT. (See p. 544.)
• Scarcely had Lord Exmouth reached home when he was ordered forth again to avenge this outrage, and he sailed from Plymouth on the 28th of July, 1816, with a fleet of twenty-five large and small ships. At Gibraltar he was joined by the Dutch Admiral Van Cappellan with five frigates and a sloop, to which were added a number of British gunboats. On the 27th of August Lord Exmouth sailed right into the formidable harbour of Algiers, and dispatched a messenger to the Dey, demanding instant and ample recompense for the outrage; the delivery of all Christian slaves in the kingdom of Algiers; the repayment of the money received by the Dey for the liberation of Sicilian and Sardinian slaves; the liberation of the British consul—who had been imprisoned—and of two boats' crews detained; and peace between Algiers and Holland. The messenger landed at eleven o'clock, and two hours were given the Dey to prepare his answer. The messenger remained till half-past two o'clock, and no answer arriving, he came off, and Lord Exmouth gave instant orders for the bombardment. The attack was terrible. The firing from the fleet, which was vigorously returned from the batteries in the town and on the mole, continued till nine in the evening. Then most of the Algerine batteries were knocked literally to pieces, but the firing did not cease till about eleven. No sooner was the assault over than a land wind arose and carried the fleet out of the harbour, so that the vessels were all out of gunshot by two o'clock in the morning. A wonderful spectacle then presented itself to the eyes of the spectators in the fleet. Nine Algerine frigates, a number of gunboats, the storehouses within the mole, and much of the town were in one huge blaze, and by this they could see that the batteries remained mere heaps of ruins. The next morning Lord Exmouth sent in a letter to[123] the Dey with the offer of the previous day, saying, "If you receive this offer as you ought, you will fire three guns." They were fired. The Dey made apologies, and signed fresh treaties of peace and amity, which were not of long endurance. But within three days one thousand and eighty-three Christian slaves arrived from the interior, and were received on board and conveyed to their respective countries.
• DUEL BETWEEN THE "GUERRIèRE" AND THE "CONSTITUTION." (See p. 36.)
• * Mémoire de Dumesnil, 1671.
• La Hontan, came over with the troops; but on the whole a community more free from positive heterodoxy perhaps never existed on earth. This exemption cost no bloodshed. What it did cost we may better judge hereafter.
• Next came the declaration of war by the King of Prussia, which Buonaparte styled a treachery; but, on the contrary, the King of Prussia had only preserved faith towards his oppressor and insulter too long. Not only all Prussia, but all Germany was on fire to throw off the detested yoke of the oppressor, and Frederick William would have been a traitor to his people and to common sense to have hesitated. Yet he proposed terms of a mutual settlement. To place himself in a position of independent treaty, he suddenly left Berlin on the 22nd of January, and made his way to Breslau, where he was out of the reach of French arms, and in certainty of the arrival, at no very distant date, of Russian ones. He invited, however, the French ambassador to follow him, and he there proposed an armistice, on the conditions that the French should evacuate Dantzic and all the other Prussian fortresses on the Oder, and retire behind the Elbe, on which the Czar had promised that he would stop the march of his army beyond the Vistula. But Buonaparte treated the proposition with contempt; he was determined to give up nothing—to recover everything.
• The answer came in the following summer: "Monsieur le Comte de Frontenac," wrote Louis XIV., "I am surprised to learn all the new troubles and dissensions that have occurred in my country of New France, more especially since I have clearly and strongly given you to understand that your sole care should be to maintain harmony and peace among all my subjects dwelling therein; but what surprises me still more is that in nearly all the disputes which you have caused you have advanced claims which have very little foundation. My edicts, declarations, and ordinances had so plainly made known to you my will, that I have great cause of astonishment that you, whose duty it is to see them faithfully executed, have yourself set up pretensions entirely opposed to them. You have wished to be styled chief and president on the records of the Supreme Council, which is contrary 50 to my edict concerning that council; and I am the more surprised at this demand, since I am very sure that you are the only man in my kingdom who, being honored with the title of governor and lieutenant-general, would care to be styled chief and president of such a council as that of Quebec."
• [166] Tonty, Mémoire. The order was sent by two Frenchmen, whom La Salle met on Lake Michigan.
• CHAPTER XX.
• * La Hontan, Nouveaux Voyages, I. 11 (1709). In some of the
• Fénelon had a relative and friend in the person of the Abbé d'Urfé, his copartner in the work of the missions. D'Urfé, anxious to conjure down the rising storm, went to Quebec to seek an interview with Frontenac; but, according to his own account, he was very ill received, and threatened with a prison. On another occasion, the count showed him a letter in which D'Urfé was charged with having used abusive language concerning him. Warm words ensued, till Frontenac, grasping his cane, led the abbé to the door and dismissed him, berating him from the top of the stairs in tones so angry that the sentinel below spread the report that he had turned his visitor out of doors. [7]
• his seigniory of Beauport. Before 1663, when the king took
• *** “Il ne laisse pas d’être de très grande conséquence de
• ** See the act in Observations de Sir L. H. Lafontaine,
• ** Juchereau, Histoire de l'H?tel-Dieu, 149.
• and sketches from life the following traits of Canadian manners. The language is chat of the old English translation. “The men here (at Montreal) are extremely civil, and take their hats off to every person indifferently whom they meet in the streets. The women in general are handsome; they are well bred and virtuous, with an innocent and becoming freedom. They dress out very fine on Sundays, and though on the other days they do not take much pains with the other parts of their dress, yet they are very fond of adorning their heads, the hair of which is always curled and powdered and ornamented with glittering bodkins and aigrettes. They are not averse to taking part in all the business of housekeeping, and I have with pleasure seen the daughters of the better sort of people, and of the governor (of Montreal) himself, not too finely dressed, and going into kitchens and cellars to look that every thing be done as it ought. What I have mentioned above of their dressing their heads too assiduously is the case with all the ladies throughout Canada. Their hair is always curled even when they are at home in a dirty jacket, and short coarse petticoat that does not reach to the middle of their legs. On those days when they pay or receive visits they dress so gayly that one is almost induced to think their parents possess the greatest honors in the state. They are no less attentive to have the newest fashions, and they laugh at each other when they are not dressed to each other’s fancy. One of the first questions they propose to a stranger is, whether he is married; the next, how he likes the ladies of the country, and whether he thinks them handsomer than those of his own country; and the third, whether he will take one home with him. The behavior of the ladies seemed to me somewhat too free at Quebec, and of a more becoming modesty at Montreal. Those of Quebec are not very industrious. The young ladies, especially those of a higher rank, get up at seven and dress till nine, drinking their coffee at the same time. When they are dressed, they place themselves near a window that opens into the street, take up some needlework and sew a stitch now and then, but turn their eyes into the street most of the time. When a young fellow comes in, whether they are acquainted with him or not, they immediately lay aside their work, sit down by him, and begin to chat, laugh, joke, and invent double-entendres, and this is reckoned being very witty. In this manner they frequently pass the whole day, leaving their mothers to do the business of the house. They are likewise cheerful and content, and nobody can say that they want either wit or charms. Their fault is that they think too well of themselves. However, the daughters of people of all ranks without exception go to market and carry home what they have bought. The girls at Montreal are very much displeased that those at Quebec get husbands sooner than they. The reason of this is that many young gentlemen who come over from France with the ships are captivated by the ladies at Quebec and marry them; but, as these gentlemen seldom go up to Montreal, the girls there are not often so happy as those of the former place." *
• Within a few days after the first passing of this Act, that is, in the first week of March, a body of weavers—said by the Government to amount to ten thousand men, but by a more competent authority, Samuel Bamford, the author of the "Life of a Radical," not to have exceeded four or five thousand—met in St. Peter's Field, at Manchester, and commenced a march southward. The intention was to proceed to London, to present to the Prince Regent, in person, a petition describing their distress. Bamford had been consulted, and had condemned the project as wild, and likely to bring down nothing but trouble on the petitioners. He believed that they were instigated by spies sent out by Government in order to find an opportunity of justifying their arbitrary measures. Suspicious persons had been trying him. But the poor, deluded people assembled, "many of them," says Bamford, "having blankets, rugs, or large coats rolled up, and tied knapsack-like on their backs. Some had papers, supposed to be petitions, rolled up, and some had stout walking-sticks." From their blankets, they afterwards acquired the name of Blanketeers. The magistrates appeared and read the Riot Act, and dispersed the multitude by soldiers and constables; but three or four hundred fled in the direction of their intended route, and continued their march, pursued by a body of yeomanry. By the time that they reached Macclesfield, at nine o'clock at night, they amounted to only one hundred and eighty; yet many of them persisted in proceeding, but they continually melted away, from hunger and from the misery of lying out in the fields on March nights. By the time that they reached Leek they were reduced to twenty, and six only were known to pass over the bridge at Ashbourne.
• VIEW IN OLD PARIS: THE PORTE AU BLé, FROM THE END OF THE OLD CATTLE MARKET TO THE PONT NOTRE DAME. (From a Print by De l'Espinasse in 1782.)
• We return now to the American campaign. Sir Henry Clinton, at the close of the year 1779, proceeded to carry into effect his plan of removing the war to the Southern States. The climate there favoured the project of a winter campaign, and, on the day after Christmas Day, Sir Henry embarked five thousand men on board the fleet of Admiral Arbuthnot. But the weather at sea at this season proved very tempestuous, and his ships were driven about for seven weeks. Many of his transports were lost, some of them were taken by the enemy; he lost nearly all the horses of the cavalry and artillery, and one vessel carrying the heavy ordnance foundered at sea. It was the 11th of February, 1780, when he landed on St. John's Island, about thirty miles from Charleston. He then planned the investment of Charleston with Admiral Arbuthnot; but he was not on good terms with that officer, and this threw great impediments in the way of prompt action. It was the 1st of April before they could break ground before the city. Once begun, however, the siege was prosecuted with vigour. Lord Cornwallis was sent to scour the country, and so completely did he effect this, that Lincoln was compelled to offer terms of surrender. These were considered too favourable to the Americans, and the siege continued till the 11th of May, when the English were doing such damage to the town, and the inhabitants suffering so much, that they threatened to throw open the gates if Lincoln did not surrender. In this dilemma, Lincoln offered to accept the terms proposed by Clinton before, and the British general assented to his proposal. On the 12th of May the Americans grounded their arms. The news of this blow, which laid the whole south open to the English, carried consternation throughout the States; and, arriving in England at the close of the Gordon riots, seemed to restore the spirits of the British.
• [15] Registre de Conseil Supérieur, 1681.
• A NEW ALARM.
• Pape, 28 Jan., 1664; Louis XIV. au Duc de Créquy,
• When France was heaving with the throes that prepared the Revolution; when new hopes, new dreams, new thoughts,—good and evil, false and true,—tossed the troubled waters of French society, Canada caught something of its social corruption, but not the faintest impulsion of its roused mental life. The torrent surged on its way; while, in the deep nook beside it, the sticks and dry leaves floated their usual round, and the unruffled pool slept in the placidity of intellectual torpor. ***
• CHAPTER XXII.
• In Ireland the effervescence assumed the shape of resistance to commercial injustice. It was, indeed, impossible to condemn too strongly the injustice which that country had endured for ages, and in nothing more than in the flagrant restrictions heaped upon its commerce and manufactures in favour of English interests. The Irish now seized on the opportunity while America was waging war against the very same treatment to imitate the American policy. They formed associations in Dublin, Cork, Kilkenny, and other[259] places, for the non-importation of British goods which could be manufactured in Ireland, till England and Ireland were placed on an equal footing in all that related to manufactures and commerce. Ministers, who had turned a deaf ear for years, and almost for ages, to such complaints, were now alarmed, especially as there was a rumour of French invasion, which might be so materially aided by disaffection in Ireland. They therefore made a pecuniary grant to relieve the commercial distress in Ireland, and passed two Acts for the encouragement of the growth of tobacco and hemp, and the manufacture of linen in that island. These concessions, however, were not deemed sufficient, and the people formed themselves into Volunteer Associations, appointing their own officers, and defraying the cost of their own equipments. This was done under the plea of the danger of invasion; but Government knew very well that American agents had been very busy sowing discontent in Ireland, and they saw too much resemblance in these things to the proceedings on the other side of the Atlantic not to view them with alarm. The Marquis of Rockingham, who had been well instructed in the real grievances of Ireland by Burke, moved in the House of Lords, on the 11th of May, for the production of all papers necessary to enable the House to come to a full understanding of the trade of Ireland and of mercantile restrictions on it with a view to doing impartial justice to that kingdom. Lord Gower promised that these should be ready for production next Session.
• [See larger version]
• [See larger version]
• In April De Crillon arrived, and was followed by the Spanish and French troops from Minorca. From eighteen to twenty thousand men were added to the army already encamped before the place, and the most able engineers were engaged from almost all countries of Europe, at extravagant salaries, and great rewards were offered for inventions which might demolish the formidable works of the English on the rock. Nearly forty thousand troops were now congregated against the old fortress. One hundred and seventy pieces of heavy artillery were directed against it, and immense stores of ammunition were accumulated for this final and triumphant achievement. On the other hand, General Elliot had now repaired and strengthened his defences more than ever. His garrison was augmented to seven thousand men, including a marine brigade; eighty pieces of cannon frowned from the walls, and the bulk of his men were of the best and most seasoned kind.
• 1684.
• [4] Garnier's devotion to the mission was absolute. He took little or no interest in the news from France, which, at intervals of from one to three years, found its way to the Huron towns. His companion Bressani says, that he would walk thirty or forty miles in the hottest summer day, to baptize some dying Indian, when the country was infested by the enemy. On similar errands, he would sometimes pass the night alone in the forest in the depth of winter. He was anxious to fall into the hands of the Iroquois, that he might preach the Faith to them even out of the midst of the fire. In one of his unpublished letters he writes, "Praised be our Lord, who punishes me for my sins by depriving me of this crown" (the crown of martyrdom). After the death of Brébeuf and Lalemant, he writes to his brother:—
• A SCENE OF HAVOC.
• [Pg 213]
• But the great glory of this session was not the exposure of Davison and his fellow thieves, but the stop put to the operations of a much larger class of rascals. The death of Fox had been a sad blow to Wilberforce and the abolitionists, who had calculated on his carrying the prohibition of the slave trade; but Lord Grenville and his Cabinet seemed to have made up their minds to have the fame of achieving the grand object of so many years' exertion for the suppression of the African slave trade. Wilberforce, to his inconceivable joy, discovered that Spencer Perceval, the leader of the Opposition, and his party were willing to co-operate for this purpose. The king and royal family alone remained as adverse to the abolition of slavery as they were to the emancipation of the Catholics. The abolitionists, however, had so imbued the country with the sense of the barbarity and iniquity of the traffic, that royal prejudice could no longer swamp the measure, nor aristocratic apathy delay it. Lord Grenville brought in a Bill for the purpose into[532] the Peers on the 2nd of January, 1807: the 12th was fixed for the second reading. Before this took place, counsel was heard at the bar of the House against the measure, who repeated all the terrible prognostics of ruin to the West Indies and to Britain from the abolition, with which the planters and proprietors of the West Indies, the merchants and slave captains of Liverpool and Bristol, had so often endeavoured to alarm the nation. The emptiness of these bugbears had, however, been now too fully exposed to the people by the lectures, speeches, and pamphlets of the Abolition Society, and Wilberforce had all along merely to use the arguments in Parliament with which they had abundantly furnished him. Lord Grenville now introduced the second reading by an elaborate speech, in which he condensed and summed up these arguments. He was warmly supported by the Duke of Gloucester—a liberal exception to his family—by Lords King, Selkirk, Rosslyn, Northesk, Holland, Suffolk, Moira, and the Bishops of Durham, London, and others. The Dukes of Clarence and Sussex as zealously opposed him, as well as Lords Sidmouth, Eldon, Ellenborough, Hawkesbury, St. Vincent, and many others. The second reading was carried, after a debate which continued till five o'clock in the morning, by one hundred against thirty-six. The third reading was also carried with equal ease, and the Bill was brought down to the Commons on the 10th of February. Lord Howick proposed its reading in an eloquent speech, and it was opposed, with the usual prediction of ruin, by Mr. George Hibbert, Captain Herbert, and General Gascoyne, who said the nation was carried away by sentimental cant, the result of an enormous agitation by the Quakers and Saints. The first reading, however, passed without a division, and the second on the 24th of February, by two hundred and eighty-three against sixteen. The House gave three cheers. Seeing the large majority, and that the Bill was safe, Lord Grenville recommended Wilberforce to strengthen it by inserting the penalties, which he did; but they left a great advantage to the slave merchants by allowing them to clear out their vessels from Great Britain by the 1st of May, and gave them time to deliver their human cargoes in the West Indies till the 1st of January, 1808—a liberty which was sure to create a great sending out of vessels for the last occasion, and a fearful crowding of them. However, the accursed trade was now doomed, as far as British merchants could go, though it was soon found that it was not so easy to suppress it. When it was seen that the Bill must pass, Lords Eldon, Hawkesbury, and Castlereagh, who had hitherto opposed it, declared themselves in favour of it. It was carried in both Houses by large majorities, and received the royal sanction on the 25th of March. So easily was the Bill passed, at last, that Lord Percy, the day after it had left the Commons, moved in that House for leave to bring in a Bill for the gradual emancipation of the slaves; but this being deemed premature, and calculated to injure the operation of the Bill for the abolition of the trade, and to create dangerous excitement in the West Indies, the motion was discouraged, and so was dropped.
• MONEY AND MEANS.
• Talon had recommended this plan as being in accordance with the example of the Romans. “The practice of that politic and martial people,” he wrote, “may, in my opinion, be wisely adopted in a country a thousand leagues distant from its monarch. And as the peace and harmony of peoples depend above all things on their fidelity to their sovereign, our first kings, better statesmen than is commonly supposed, introduced into newly conquered countries men of war, of approved trust, in order at once to hold the inhabitants to their duty within, and repel the enemy from without.” *
• With rekindled hope, the travellers pursued their journey, leaving their canoes, and making their way overland towards the fort on the St. Joseph.
• Iroquois Ambition ? Its Victims ? The Fate of the Neutrals ? The Fate of the Eries ? The War with the Andastes ? Supremacy of the Iroquois
• Sir Arthur knew that at least one hundred thousand French were on the march to take him at once in flank and front; that Soult was advancing from Salamanca, Mortier from Valladolid; and, besides—which he did not know—Ney was en route from Astorga. He must, therefore, retreat at once or fight, and the enemy saved him the trouble of deciding. King Joseph, afraid of Sir Robert Wilson being joined by General Venegas, who had shown himself on the road towards Aranjuez, and of then falling on Madrid, ordered Victor to attack Wellesley at once, without waiting for any further reinforcements. Accordingly, Sir Arthur was attacked by Victor in front of Talavera. He had placed Cuesta and his Spaniards on his right, abutting on the Tagus, and protected by old enclosure walls and olive gardens; and his own troops on the left, on the open plain. The attack began on the evening of the 27th of July, on the outposts, which gradually fell back, and the battle was renewed the next day. The position of the Spaniards being found unapproachable, the whole fury of the French fell on the British, and the contest was kept up till it was pitch dark.[577] About midnight there was a tremendous firing on the Spanish side, and Sir Arthur rode there to ascertain the cause. No cause was visible, but the Spaniards were flying in great haste, and it was with difficulty that he and Cuesta could stop the rout. Next day the British line was attacked on all points by the troops of both Victor and Sebastiani, but they were repelled, and driven down the hills at the point of the bayonet. At one time the British centre was driven in, but it was re-established by the 48th, while the 23rd Dragoons, by a reckless charge, paralysed a whole division of the French army. In the words of Sir Arthur, the British everywhere maintained their positions gloriously, and gave the French a terrible beating. Out of the fifty thousand pitched against the less than twenty thousand British—for the Spanish were scarcely engaged at all—they lost in killed and wounded seven thousand men. General Lapisse was killed, and many prisoners were taken, besides seventeen pieces of artillery, with tumbrils and ammunition complete. The British lost eight hundred and fifty-seven killed, and had three thousand nine hundred and thirteen wounded. Major-General Mackenzie and Brigadier-General Langworth were killed.
• The council or court had its attorney-general, who heard complaints and brought them before the tribunal if he thought necessary; its secretary, who kept its registers, and its huissiers or attendant officers. It sat once a week; and, though
• Buonaparte had not a sufficient French force in Germany under Davoust and Oudinot, but he called on the Confederacy of the Rhine to furnish their stipulated quotas to fight for the subjugation of their common fatherland. Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, and the smaller States were summoned to this unholy work. His numbers, after all, were far inferior to those of the enemy, and, besides the renegade Germans, consisted of a medley of other tributary nations—Italians, Poles, Dutch, Belgians, and others. It is amazing how, in all his later wars, he used the nations he had conquered to put down the rest. Even in his fatal campaign in Russia—yet to come—a vast part of his army consisted of the troops of these subjugated nations.
• ** See The Jesuits in North America.
• apprenticed laborers.
• But in the complete transfer of the trade to Montreal, he sees insuperable difficulties, and he proceeds to suggest, as the last and best resort, that garrisons and officers should be withdrawn, and licenses abolished; that discreet and virtuous persons should be chosen to take charge of all the trade of the upper country; that these persons should be in perfect sympathy and correspondence with the Jesuits; and that the trade should be carried on at the missions of the Jesuits and in their presence. *
• In England Parliament met on the 31st of October, and Lord North now moved, in a Committee of Supply, for forty-five thousand seamen for the service of the following year; and in a warm debate, in which Mr. Luttrell made a severe charge of maladministration at the Admiralty, and of the most shameful corruptions and peculations in that department and in the Commissariat, he called for the production of the necessary papers to enable him to substantiate these charges.
• [See larger version]
• In declaring to the world the achievement which he had so long concealed and so explicitly denied, the worthy missionary found himself in serious embarrassment. In his first book, he had stated that on the twelfth of March he left the mouth of the Illinois on his way northward, and that on the eleventh of April he was captured by the Sioux near the mouth of the Wisconsin, five hundred miles above. This would give him only a month to make his alleged canoe-voyage from the Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico, and again upward to the place of his capture,—a distance of three thousand two hundred and sixty miles. With his means of transportation, three months would have been insufficient.[202] He saw the difficulty; but, on the other hand, he saw that he could not greatly change either date without confusing the parts of his narrative which preceded and which followed. In this perplexity he chose a middle course, which only involved him in additional contradictions. Having, as he affirms, gone down to the Gulf and returned to the mouth of the Illinois, he set out thence to explore the river above; and he assigns the twenty-fourth of April as the date of this departure. This gives him forty-three days for [Pg 246] his voyage to the mouth of the river and back. Looking further, we find that having left the Illinois on the twenty-fourth he paddled his canoe two hundred leagues northward, and was then captured by the Sioux on the twelfth of the same month. In short, he ensnares himself in a hopeless confusion of dates.[203]
• The country was sheeted in snow, and the party journeyed on snow-shoes; but when they reached the open prairies, the white expanse glared in the sun with so dazzling a brightness that La Salle and several of the men became snow-blind. They stopped and encamped under the edge of a forest; and here La Salle remained in darkness for three days, suffering extreme pain. Meanwhile, he sent forward La [Pg 287] Forest and most of the men, keeping with him his old attendant Hunaut. Going out in quest of pine-leaves,—a decoction of which was supposed to be useful in cases of snow-blindness,—this man discovered the fresh tracks of Indians, followed them, and found a camp of Outagamies, or Foxes, from the neighborhood of Green Bay. From them he heard welcome news. They told him that Tonty was safe among the Pottawattamies, and that Hennepin had passed through their country on his return from among the Sioux.[224]
• Some of the most eminent land-owners were clear-sighted and disinterested enough to oppose these views with all their power. The Dukes of Buckinghamshire and Devonshire, the Lords Carlisle, Spencer, Grey, Grenville, Wellesley, and many members of the Commons, voted and protested energetically against them; and the additional restrictions were not carried. But enough had been done to originate the most frightful[120] sufferings and convulsions. We shall see these agitations every remaining year of this reign. The Prince Regent, in his opening speech, in 1816, declared "manufactures and commerce to be in a flourishing condition." But Mr. Brougham at once exposed this fallacy. He admitted that there had been an active manufacturing and an unusual amount of exportation in expectation of the ports of the world being thrown open by the peace; but he declared that the people of the Continent were too much exhausted by the war to be able to purchase, and that the bulk of these exported goods would have to be sold at a ruinous reduction—at almost nominal prices; and then would immediately follow a stoppage of mills, a vast population thrown out of employment, and bread and all provisions made exorbitantly dear when there was the least power to purchase. All this was speedily realised. British goods were soon selling in Holland and the north of Europe for less than their cost price in London and Manchester. Abundant harvests defeated in some degree the expectations of the agriculturists, and thus both farmers and manufacturers were ruined together; for, the check being given to commerce, the manufacturing population could purchase at no price, and, in spite of the harvest, the price of wheat was still one hundred and three shillings per quarter. Many farmers, as well as manufacturers, failed; country banks were broken, and paper-money was reduced in value twenty-five per cent.; and a circumstance greatly augmenting the public distress was the reduction of its issues by the Bank of England from thirty-one millions to twenty-six millions.
• of a very mixed character, says that it would have been far
• "They had cooked some meat, and when it was supper-time they distributed it as they saw fit, saying that formerly their share had been served out to them, but that it was they who would serve it out in future. They, no doubt, wanted me to say something that would give them a chance to make a noise; but I managed always to keep my mouth closed. When night came and it was time to stand guard, they were in perplexity, as they could not do it alone; therefore they said to M. Cavelier, Father Anastase, me, and the others who were not in the plot with them, that all we had to do was to stand [Pg 438] guard as usual; that there was no use in thinking about what had happened,—that what was done was done; that they had been driven to it by despair, and that they were sorry for it, and meant no more harm to anybody. M. Cavelier took up the word, and told them that when they killed M. de la Salle they killed themselves, for there was nobody but him who could get us out of this country. At last, after a good deal of talk on both sides, they gave us our arms. So we stood guard; during which, M. Cavelier told me how they had come to the camp, entered his hut like so many madmen, and seized everything in it."
• Roi,
• One of the most curious monuments of La Salle's time is a long memoir, written by a person who made his acquaintance at Paris in the summer of 1678, when, as we shall soon see, he had returned to France in prosecution of his plans. The writer knew the Sulpitian Galinée,[75] who, as he says, had a very high opinion of La Salle; and he was also in close relations with the discoverer's patron, the Prince de Conti.[76] He says that he had ten or twelve interviews with La Salle; and, becoming interested in him and in that which he communicated, he wrote down the substance of his conversation. The paper is divided into two [Pg 107] parts: the first, called "Mémoire sur Mr. de la Salle," is devoted to the state of affairs in Canada, and chiefly to the Jesuits; the second, entitled "Histoire de Mr. de la Salle," is an account of the discoverer's life, or as much of it as the writer had learned from him.[77] Both parts bear throughout the internal evidence of being what they profess to be; but they embody the statements of a man of intense partisan feeling, transmitted through the mind of another person in sympathy with him, and evidently sharing his prepossessions. In one respect, however, the paper is of unquestionable historical value; for it gives us a vivid and not an exaggerated picture of the bitter strife of parties which then raged in Canada, and which was destined to tax to the utmost the vast energy and fortitude of La Salle. At times, the memoir is fully sustained by contemporary evidence; but often, again, it rests on its own unsupported authority. I give an abstract of its statements as I find them.
• Buonaparte, seeing that nothing was to be expected from the Chambers—for even the Peers adopted the resolutions of the Representatives—who had already demanded his abdication—assumed the air of the despotic emperor, and demanded of Carnot that he should issue orders for a levy of three hundred thousand men, and should find supplies. Carnot said both propositions were impossible. Napoleon then summoned, on the night of the 21st, a general council, consisting of the late Ministers, the Presidents, and Vice-Presidents of the two Chambers, where Regnault and Maret recommended a show of resistance whilst offering terms of peace; but Lafayette said that would only make matters worse. The Allies were victorious, and there was but one course for the Emperor; and Lanjuinais and Constant supported that view. On the 22nd the Chamber of Representatives met early, and again demanded an act of abdication. Napoleon complied, but, as on his former abdication, only in favour of his son. The Chamber thanked him, but took no notice of the clause in favour of Napoleon II. But Lucien Buonaparte[103] and Labédoyère, in violent language, pressed on the House of Peers the recognition of Napoleon II. They persisted in passing it quietly over; but they required Napoleon to issue a proclamation to the army, declaring his abdication, without which the soldiers would not believe it, and, to conciliate them, he complied. Still, fearing lest he should put himself at the head of Grouchy's division, or some other, though small, troublesome force, they insisted that he should retire to Malmaison—so long the favourite abode of the repudiated Josephine, With this, too, he complied, but immediately discovered that he was surrounded by Guards, and was in fact a prisoner. General Becker was appointed to have surveillance over Napoleon; and it was supposed that, as Becker had personal cause of resentment against him, this surveillance would be rigorous. But Becker was a man of honour; he respected the misfortunes of a man who, whatever had been his crimes, had made himself almost master of the world, and he treated him with the utmost courtesy. Orders were issued by the Provisional Government for two frigates to convey Napoleon to the United States, and Becker was to allow of his retirement to Rochefort, in order to his embarkation—to accompany him there, but not to permit his movement in any other direction.
• (Archives Nationales) Lalemant, Rel, 1648, p. 43.
• and Picardy. Nearly all those from Paris were sent by the
• [12] The Record of the Colony of Plymouth, June 5, 1651, contains, however, the entry, "The Court declare themselves not to be willing to aid them (the French) in their design, or to grant them liberty to go through their jurisdiction for the aforesaid purpose" (to attack the Mohawks).
• * On the fur trade the documents consulted are very
• [13] See Palfrey, New England, II. 336.
• [4] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 55, 56.
• [272] On La Forest's mission,—Mémoire pour representer à Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay la nécessité d'envoyer le Sr. de la Forest en diligence à la Nouvelle France; Lettre du Roy à La Barre, 14 Avril, 1684; Ibid., 31 Oct., 1684.
• Immediately after this engagement Blucher was joined by part of the grand army, under the Prince of Würtemberg; he therefore determined to attack Napoleon, and on the 1st of February drew out his forces. Napoleon would have declined the engagement; but he had the deep river Aube in his rear, and only the bridge of Lesmont by which to pass it. He preferred, on this account, to risk the battle, rather than retreat in such circumstances. Blucher attacked at once from the villages of La Rothière, Dienville, and Chaumont. The battle was severely contested for the whole day, the Prince of Würtemberg greatly distinguishing himself in it. In the end Buonaparte was wholly defeated, lost four thousand prisoners and seventy-three guns, and must have been captured himself, had not the Austrians, by surprising slowness, allowed him to escape over the bridge. He then retreated towards Troyes, where he was joined by his Imperial Guard; but his losses had been very heavy. Had Blucher and Schwarzenberg, who had now met, marched on united, they must have been in Paris in a very short time; but, with the German fatality of dividing, they had no sooner experienced the benefit of a powerful union than they called a council at the chateau of Brienne, and agreed to separate again. Blucher, joining to his own the divisions of Yorck and Kleist, proceeded towards Paris by the Marne, and Prince Schwarzenberg followed the course of the Seine.
• The next belt invited the French to feast with the Iroquois. "Our country is full of fish, venison, moose, beaver, and game of every kind. Leave these filthy swine that run about among your houses, feeding on garbage, and come and eat good food with us. The road is open; there is no danger."
• accept no initiative but his own. He must counsel while seeming to receive counsel, and lead while seeming to follow. The new minister bent himself to the task, and the nation reaped the profit. A vast system of reform was set in action amid the outcries of nobles, financiers, churchmen, and all who profited by abuses. The methods of this reform were trenchant and sometimes violent, and its principles were not always in accord with those of modern economic science; but the good that resulted was incalculable. The burdens of the laboring classes were lightened, the public revenues increased, and the wholesale plunder of the public money arrested with a strong hand. Laws were reformed and codified; feudal tyranny, which still subsisted in many quarters, was repressed; agriculture and productive industry of all kinds were encouraged, roads and canals opened; trade stimulated, a commercial marine created, and a powerful navy formed as if by magic. *
• [21] He was peculiarly sensitive as regarded the cardinal Jesuit virtue of obedience; and both Lalemant and Bressani say, that, at the age of sixty and upwards, he was sometimes seen in tears, when he imagined that he had not fulfilled to the utmost the commands of his Superior.
• EARLY UNPUBLISHED MAPS OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE GREAT LAKES.
• There were at this time a hundred and sixty men at Montreal, about fifty of whom had families, or at least wives. They greeted the new-comers with a welcome which, this time, was as sincere as it was warm, and bestirred themselves with alacrity to provide them with shelter for the winter. As for the three nuns from La Flèche, a chamber was hastily made for them over two low rooms which had served as Mademoiselle Mance’s hospital. This chamber was twenty-five feet square, with four cells for the nuns, and a closet for stores and clothing, which for the present was empty, as they had landed in such destitution that they were forced to sell all their scanty equipment to gain the bare necessaries of existence. Little could be hoped from the colonists, who were scarcely less destitute than they. Such was their poverty,—thanks to Dauversiere’s breach of trust,—that when their clothes were worn out, they were unable to replace them, and were forced to patch them with such material as came to hand. Maisonneuve, the governor, and the pious Madame d’Aillebout, being once on a visit to the hospital, amused themselves with trying to guess of what stuff the habits of the nuns had originally been made, and were unable to agree on the point in question. *
• 1657-1665. LAVAL AND MéZY.
• * “Sa Majesté semble prétendre faire la dépense entière pour
• On the evening of the very day that Louis[91] quitted Paris Buonaparte arrived in it. He had slept on the night of the 19th at Fontainebleau, where, in the preceding April, he had signed his abdication. No sooner had the king departed than the Buonapartists, who were all ready for that event, came forth from their hiding-places. Lavalette resumed his position at the post-office, and thus managed to intercept the proclamations of Louis, and to circulate those of Buonaparte. Exelmans took down the white flag from the Tuileries and hoisted the tricolour, and a host of the adherents of the old Imperial Government, hurrying from all quarters, thronged the avenues to the palace, and filled the court of the Carrousel. There were ex-Ministers of Buonaparte, ex-councillors, ex-chamberlains, in imperial costume—in short, every species of officers and courtiers, down to cooks, and butlers, and valets, all crushing forward to re-occupy their places.
• I have related in another place ** how an association of devotees, inspired, as they supposed, from heaven, had undertaken to found a religious colony at Montreal in honor of the Holy Family. The essentials of the proposed establishment were to be a seminary of priests dedicated to the Virgin, a hospital to Saint Joseph, and a school to the Infant Jesus; while a settlement was to be formed around them simply for their defence and maintenance. This pious purpose had in part been accomplished.
• At Wilmington Lord Cornwallis remained about three weeks, uncertain as to his plan of operations. His forces amounted to only about one thousand five hundred men; he therefore determined, at length, to march into Virginia, and join the expedition there. He made his march without encountering any opposition, reaching Presburg on the 20th of May. Thereupon Lord Cornwallis found himself at the head of a united force of seven thousand men. Sir Henry Clinton's effective troops at New York amounted only to ten thousand nine hundred and thirty-one men, and the little detachment under Lord Rawdon only to nine hundred.
• Nor were the fears of Cobbett imaginary. The Ministry at this time were such fanatics in tyranny, that they would have rejoiced to have thus caged the great political lion, and kept him in silence. At this very moment they had pounced upon one who was equally clever in his way, and who had, perhaps, annoyed them still more, but whom they did not so much fear to bring into a court of justice. This was William Hone, who had for some time been making them the laughing-stock of the whole nation by his famous parodies. Hone was a poor bookseller in the Old Bailey, who had spent his life in the quest after curious books, and in the accumulation of more knowledge than wealth. His parodies had first brought him into notice, and it did not appear a very formidable thing for the Government to try a secluded bookworm not even able to fee counsel for his defence. His trial did not come on at the Guildhall till the 18th of December, and then it was evident that the man of satirical fun meant to make a stout fight. The judge, Mr. Justice Abbott, and the Attorney-General, Sir Samuel Shepherd, from their manner of surveying the accused, did not apprehend much difficulty in obtaining a verdict against him. But they very soon discovered their mistake. The charge against Hone was for having published a profane and impious libel upon the Catechism, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, thereby bringing into contempt the Christian religion. The special indictment was for the publication of John Wilkes's catechism. The Attorney-General did not very judiciously commence his charge, for he admitted that he did not believe that Hone meant to ridicule religion, but to produce a telling political squib. This let out the whole gist of the prosecution, though that was very well perceived by most people before; and it was in vain that he went on to argue that the mischief was just the same. Hone opened his own defence with the awkwardness and timidity natural to a man who had passed his life amid books, and not in courts; but he managed to complain of his imprisonment, his harsh treatment, of his poverty in not being able to fee counsel, of the expense of copies of the informations against him, and of the haste, at last, with which he had been[129] called to plead. The judge repeatedly interrupted him, with a mild sort of severity, and the spectators were expecting him to make a short and ineffective defence. Hone, on the contrary, began to show more boldness and pertinacity. He began to open his books, and to read parody after parody of former times. In vain Mr. Justice Abbott and the Attorney-General stopped him, and told him that he was not to be allowed to add to his offence by producing other instances of the crime in other persons. But Hone told them that he was accused of putting parodies on sacred things into his books, and it was out of his books he must defend himself. The poor, pale, threadbare retailer of old books was now warmed into eloquence, and stood in the most unquestionable ascendency on the floor of the court, reading and commenting as though he would go on for ever; and he did go on for six hours. He declared that the editor of Blackwood's Magazine was a parodist—he parodied a chapter of Ezekiel; Martin Luther was a parodist—he parodied the first Psalm; Bishop Latimer was a parodist; so was Dr. Boys, Dean of Canterbury; so was the author of the "Rolliad;" so was Mr. Canning. He proved all that he said by reading passages from the authors, and he concluded by saying that he did not believe that any of these writers meant to ridicule the Scriptures, and that he could not, therefore, see why he should be supposed to do so more than they. Nay, he had done what they never did: as soon as he was aware that his parodies had given offence he suppressed them—and that long ago, not waiting till he was prosecuted. They, in fact, were prosecuting him for what he had voluntarily and long ago suppressed. The Attorney-General, in reply, asserted that it would not save the defendant that he had quoted Martin Luther and Dr. Boys, for he must pronounce them both libellous. The judge charged the jury as if it were their sacred duty to find the defendant guilty; but, after only a quarter of an hour's deliberation, they acquitted him.
• CHAPTER V.
• Such stories might be multiplied; but these will suffice. Nor is it necessary to dwell further on the bloody record of inroads, butcheries, and tortures. We have seen enough to show the nature of the scourge that now fell without mercy on the Indians and the French of Canada. There was no safety but in the imprisonment of palisades and ramparts. A deep dejection sank on the white and red men alike; but the Jesuits would not despair.
• the mass of papers printed at the time when the question of
• *** Ibid., I. 489.
• * Avaugour, Mémoire, Gaspé 4 Ao?t 1663.
• [14] La Barre au Roy, même date.
• run into debt to the company to an equal amount.” * Part of his scanty income was derived from a fishery of eels, on which sundry persons had encroached, to his great detriment. ** “I see no reason,” he adds, “for staying here any longer. When I came to this country, I hoped to enjoy a little repose, but I am doubly deprived of it; on one hand by enemies without, and incessant petty disputes within; and, on the other, by the difficulty I find in subsisting. The profits of the fur trade have been so reduced that all the inhabitants are in the greatest poverty. They are all insolvent, and cannot pay the merchants their advances.”
• Tracy escaped clerical attacks. He was
• Before dawn the weather changed. The air thickened, clouds hid the moon, and a snow-storm set in. The traveller was in utter darkness. He lost the points of the compass, wandered far out on the lake, and when day appeared could see nothing but the snow beneath his feet, and the myriads of falling flakes that encompassed him like a curtain, impervious to the sight. Still he toiled on, winding hither and thither, and at times unwittingly circling 259 back on his own footsteps. At night he dug a hole in the snow under the shore of an island, and lay down, without fire, food, or blanket.
• [23] There appears no doubt that La Barre brought this upon himself. His successor, Denonville, writes that the Iroquois declared that, in plundering the canoes, they thought they were executing the orders they had received to plunder La Salle's people. Denonville, Mémoire adressé ou Ministre sur les Affaires de la Nouvelle France, 10 Ao?t, 1688. The Iroquois told Dongan, in 1684, "that they had not don any thing to the French but what Monsr. delaBarr Ordered them, which was that if they mett with any French hunting without his passe to take what they had from them." Dongan to Denonville, 9 Sept., 1687.
• A ferment ensued. Laval’s partisans charged the Sulpitians with Jansenism and opposition to the will of the Pope. A preacher more zealous than the rest denounced them as priests of Antichrist; and as to the bulls in their favor, it was affirmed that Queylus had obtained them by fraud from the Holy Father. Laval at once issued a mandate forbidding him to proceed to Montreal till ships should arrive with instructions from the King. ** At the same time he demanded of the governor that he should interpose the civil power to prevent Queylus from leaving Quebec. *** As Argenson, who wished to act as peacemaker between the belligerent fathers, did not at once take the sharp measures required of him, Laval renewed his demand on the next day, calling on him, in the name of God and the king, to compel Queylus to yield the obedience
• energy of an imperial will. He feared, and with reason, that the want of enterprise and capital among the merchants would prevent the broad and immediate results at which he aimed; and, to secure these results, he established a series of great trading corporations, in which the principles of privilege and exclusion were pushed to their utmost limits. Prominent among them was the Company of the West. The king signed the edict creating it on the 24th of May, 1664. Any person in the kingdom or out of it might become a partner by subscribing, within a certain time, not less than three thousand francs. France was a mere patch on the map, compared to the vast domains of the new association. Western Africa from Cape Verd to the Cape of Good Hope, South America between the Amazon and the Orinoco, Cayenne, the Antilles, and all New France, from Hudson’s Bay to Virginia and Florida were bestowed on it for ever, to be held of the Crown on the simple condition of faith and homage. As, according to the edict, the glory of God was the chief object in view, the company was required to supply its possessions with a sufficient number of priests, and diligently to exclude all teachers of false doctrine. It was empowered to build forts and war-ships, cast cannon, wage war, make peace, establish courts, appoint judges, and otherwise to act as sovereign within its own domains. A monopoly of trade was granted it for forty years. * Sugar from the Antilles, and furs from Canada, were the chief source of expected profit; and Africa was to supply the slaves to raise the sugar. Scarcely was the grand machine set in motion, when its directors betrayed a narrowness and blindness of policy which boded the enterprise no good. Canada was a chief sufferer. Once more, bound hand and foot, she was handed over to a selfish league of merchants; monopoly in trade, monopoly in religion, monopoly in government. Nobody but the company had a right to bring her the necessaries of life; and nobody but the company had a right to exercise the traffic which alone could give her the means of paying for these necessaries. Moreover, the supplies which it brought were insufficient, and the prices which it demanded were exorbitant. It was throttling its wretched victim. The Canadian merchants remonstrated. ** It was clear that, if the colony was to live, the system must be changed; and a change was accordingly ordered. The company gave up its monopoly of the fur trade, but reserved the right to levy a duty of one-fourth of the beaver-skins, and one-tenth of the moose-skins: and it also reserved the entire trade of Tadoussac; that is to say, the trade of all the tribes between the lower St. Lawrence and Hudson’s Bay. It retained besides the exclusive right of transporting furs in its own ships, thus controlling the commerce of Canada, and discouraging, or rather extinguishing, the enterprise of Canadian merchants. On its part, it was required to pay governors, judges, and all the colonial officials out of the duties which it levied. ****
• [14] In respect to the death of Jogues, the best authority is the letter of Labatie, before cited. He was the French interpreter at Fort Orange, and, being near the scene of the murder, took pains to learn the facts. The letter was inclosed in another written to Montmagny by the Dutch Governor, Kieft, which is also before me, together with a MS. account, written from hearsay, by Father Buteux, and a letter of De Quen, cited above. Compare the Relations of 1647 and 1650.
• FOOTNOTES:
• In September, 1791, the Assembly, having completed the Constitution, which was accepted by the king, dissolved. Its place was taken by the National Legislative Assembly, which met on the 1st of October. As the Jacobins had expected, the elections of the Departments had occupied but little attention. The public gaze had been fixed on the acts of the Assembly about to retire, so that a race of new men appeared, which seemed at first to divide itself into two parties—the Coté Droit, or Constitutional party, and the Coté Gauche, or Democratic party; but the latter party soon divided itself into two, the Mountain and the Gironde. It is difficult to discern the distinguishing traits of these two Revolutionary parties. At first they all worked together, clearly for the downfall of the monarchy. Robespierre, Petion, Marat, Danton, were associated with those who afterwards divided themselves into the Gironde, with Condorcet, Brissot, the Rolands, and Vergniaud. Though Robespierre, Petion, and Danton were no longer in the Assembly, they ruled the Jacobin party there from the clubs. It was not till the question of war arose that the split took place. The Jacobins and Girondists were for war, Robespierre was obstinately against it. At first he stood nearly alone, but by degrees, though he did not draw the Jacobins very soon to his views, he drew them speedily away from the Girondists. This party of the Girondists had been growing and forming for some time. It took its rise originally at Bordeaux, the great commercial city of the department of the Gironde. Bordeaux was of Roman origin. It had always displayed a warm love of independence, which its Parliaments had continually kept alive. It had of late years become the chief commercial link between France and the revolutionised United States. It had early, too, become leavened with the new philosophy; it was the birthplace of Montaigne and Montesquieu. The Gironde sent up to the new Assembly twelve deputies, all as yet unknown, but all deeply imbued with the new principles. These, on arriving in Paris, soon found themselves mixed up, at the house of Condorcet and the Rolands, with Robespierre, Danton, Petion, Buzot, Brissot, Carra-Louvet, Thomas Paine, and, in fact, nearly all the thorough Revolutionists. The active centre of the whole party, up to the period of the question of the war against the Emigrants, was Madame Roland, and such she continued to be of the Girondists after their separation into a distinct party, and after that they had become the antagonists of the Mountain or Jacobin party.
• [7] Laval à———, 1674. The letter is a complete summary of the contents of Colbert's recent despatch to Frontenac. Then follows the injunction to secrecy, "estant de très-grande conséquence que l'on ne sache pas que l'on aye rien appris de tout cela, sur quoi néanmoins il est bon que l'on agisse et que l'on me donne tous les advis qui seront nécessaires."
• At the end of August, 1643, a vessel arrived at Villemarie with a reinforcement commanded by Louis d'Ailleboust de Coulonges, a pious gentleman of Champagne, and one of the Associates of Montreal. [6] Some years before, he had asked in wedlock the hand of Barbe de Boulogne; but the young lady had, when a child, in the ardor of her piety, taken a vow of perpetual chastity. By the advice 265 of her Jesuit confessor, she accepted his suit, on condition that she should preserve, to the hour of her death, the state to which Holy Church has always ascribed a peculiar merit. [7] D'Ailleboust married her; and when, soon after, he conceived the purpose of devoting his life to the work of the Faith in Canada, he invited his maiden spouse to go with him. She refused, and forbade him to mention the subject again. Her health was indifferent, and about this time she fell ill. As a last resort, she made a promise to God, that, if He would restore her, she would go to Canada with her husband; and forthwith her maladies ceased. Still her reluctance continued; she hesitated, and then refused again, when an inward light revealed to her that it was her duty to cast her lot in the wilderness. She accordingly embarked with d'Ailleboust, accompanied by her sister, Mademoiselle Philippine de Boulogne, who had caught the contagion of her zeal. The presence of these damsels would, to all appearance, be rather a burden than a profit to the colonists, beset as they then were by Indians, and often in peril of starvation; but the spectacle of their ardor, as disinterested as it was extravagant, would serve to exalt the religious enthusiasm in which alone was the life of Villemarie.
• When last he had passed here, all was solitude; but now the scene was changed. The boundless waste was thronged with life. He beheld that wondrous spectacle, still to be seen at times on the plains of the remotest West, and the memory of which can quicken the pulse and stir the blood after [Pg 205] the lapse of years: far and near, the prairie was alive with buffalo; now like black specks dotting the distant swells; now trampling by in ponderous columns, or filing in long lines, morning, noon, and night, to drink at the river,—wading, plunging, and snorting in the water; climbing the muddy shores, and staring with wild eyes at the passing canoes. It was an opportunity not to be lost. The party landed, and encamped for a hunt. Sometimes they hid under the shelving bank, and shot them as they came to drink; sometimes, flat on their faces, they dragged themselves through the long dead grass, till the savage bulls, guardians of the herd, ceased their grazing, raised their huge heads, and glared through tangled hair at the dangerous intruders. The hunt was successful. In three days the hunters killed twelve buffalo, besides deer, geese, and swans. They cut the meat into thin flakes, and dried it in the sun or in the smoke of their fires. The men were in high spirits,—delighting in the sport, and rejoicing in the prospect of relieving Tonty and his hungry followers with a plentiful supply.
• After mentioning that he is thirty-three or thirty-four years old, and that he has been twelve years in America, the memoir declares that he made the following statements: that the Jesuits are masters at Quebec; that the bishop is their creature, and does nothing but in concert with them;[79] that he is not well inclined towards the Récollets,[80] who have little [Pg 109] credit, but who are protected by Frontenac; that in Canada the Jesuits think everybody an enemy to religion who is an enemy to them; that, though they refused absolution to all who sold brandy to the Indians, they sold it themselves, and that he, La Salle, had himself detected them in it;[81] that the bishop laughs at the orders of the King when they do not agree with the wishes of the Jesuits; that the Jesuits dismissed one of their servants named Robert, because he told of their trade in brandy; that Albanel,[82] in particular, carried on a great fur-trade, and that the Jesuits have built their college in part from the profits of this kind of traffic; that they [Pg 110] admitted that they carried on a trade, but denied that they gained so much by it as was commonly supposed.[83]
• * Denonville au Ministre, 13 Nov.. 1685
• But if the colony was to grow from within, the new settlers must have wives. For some years past, the Sulpitians had sent out young women for the supply of Montreal; and the king, on a larger scale, continued the benevolent work. Girls for the colony were taken from the hospitals of Paris and of Lyons, which were not so much hospitals for the sick as houses of refuge for the poor. Mother Mary writes in 1665 that a hundred had come that summer, and were nearly all provided with husbands, and that two hundred more were to come next year. The case was urgent, for the demand was great. Complaints, however, were soon heard that women from cities made indifferent partners; and peasant girls, healthy, strong, and accustomed to field work, were demanded in their place. Peasant girls were therefore sent, but this was not all. Officers as well as men wanted wives; and Talon asked for a consignment of young ladies. His request was promptly answered. In 1667, he writes: “They send us eighty-four girls from Dieppe and twenty-five from Rochelle; among them are fifteen or twenty of pretty good birth; several of them are really demoiselles, and tolerably well brought up.” They complained of neglect and hardship during the voyage. “I shall do what I can to soothe their discontent,” adds the intendant; “for if they write to their correspondents at home how ill they have been treated it would be an obstacle to your plan of sending us next year a number of select young ladies.” *
• He was even more pleased with the contents of a huge packet of letters that was placed in his hands, bearing the signatures of nuns, priests, soldiers, courtiers, and princesses. A great interest in the mission had been kindled in France. Le Jeune's printed Relations had been read with avidity; and his Jesuit brethren, who, as teachers, preachers, and confessors, had spread themselves through the nation, had successfully fanned the rising flame. The Father Superior finds no words for his joy. "Heaven," he exclaims, "is the conductor of this enterprise. Nature's arms are not long enough to touch so many hearts." [3] He reads how in a single convent, thirteen nuns have devoted themselves by a vow to the work of converting the Indian women and children; how, in the church of Montmartre, a nun lies prostrate day and night before the altar, praying for the mission; [4] how 152 "the Carmelites are all on fire, the Ursulines full of zeal, the sisters of the Visitation have no words to speak their ardor"; [5] how some person unknown, but blessed of Heaven, means to found a school for Huron children; how the Duchesse d'Aiguillon has sent out six workmen to build a hospital for the Indians; how, in every house of the Jesuits, young priests turn eager eyes towards Canada; and how, on the voyage thither, the devils raised a tempest, endeavoring, in vain fury, to drown the invaders of their American domain. [6]
• ** Most of them were moreover retained, after leaving the
• THE CHIEFS REPLY.
• Fortunately, it was the hunting-season of the Iroquois, and most of the Seneca warriors were in the forests south of Lake Erie; yet enough remained to cause serious uneasiness. They loitered sullenly about the place, expressing their displeasure at the proceedings of the French. One of them, pretending [Pg 147] to be drunk, attacked the blacksmith and tried to kill him; but the Frenchman, brandishing a red-hot bar of iron, held him at bay till Hennepin ran to the rescue, when, as he declares, the severity of his rebuke caused the savage to desist.[125] The work of the ship-builders advanced rapidly; and when the Indian visitors beheld the vast ribs of the wooden monster, their jealousy was redoubled. A squaw told the French that they meant to burn the vessel on the stocks. All now stood anxiously on the watch. Cold, hunger, and discontent found imperfect antidotes in Tonty's energy and Hennepin's sermons.
• Thus in the vigor of his manhood, at the age of forty-three, died Robert Cavelier de la Salle, "one of the greatest men," writes Tonty, "of this age;" without question one of the most remarkable explorers whose names live in history. His faithful officer Joutel thus sketches his portrait: "His firmness, his courage, his great knowledge of the arts and sciences, which made him equal to every undertaking, and his untiring energy, which enabled him to surmount every obstacle, would have won at last a glorious success for his grand enterprise, had not all his fine qualities been counterbalanced by a haughtiness of manner which often made him insupportable, and by a harshness towards those under his command which drew upon him an implacable hatred, and was at last the cause of his death."[330]
• The governor-general and the intendant of Canada answered to those of a French province. The governor, excepting in the earliest period of the colony, was a military noble; in most cases bearing a title and sometimes of high rank. The intendant, as in France, was usually drawn from the gens de robe, or legal class. * The mutual relations of the two officers were modified by the circumstances about them. The governor was superior in rank to the intendant; he commanded the troops, conducted relations with foreign colonies and Indian tribes, and took precedence on all occasions of ceremony. Unlike a provincial
• As you approached Montreal, the fortified mill built by the Sulpitians at Point aux Trembles towered above the woods; and soon after the newly built chapel of the Infant Jesus. More settlements followed, till at length the great fortified mill of Montreal rose in sight; then the long row of compact wooden houses, the H?tel Dieu, and the rough masonry of the seminary of St. Sulpice. Beyond the town, the clearings continued at intervals till you reached Lake St. Louis, where young Cavelier de la Salle had laid out his seigniory of La Chine, and abandoned it to begin his hard career of western exploration. Above the island of Montreal,
• Meanwhile, in America military intrigues were on foot against Washington. Amongst these endeavours was one for alienating from him Lafayette. For this purpose an expedition was planned against Canada, and Lafayette, as a Frenchman, was appointed to the command, hoping thus to draw to him the Frenchmen of Canada. Not a word was to be breathed of it to Washington; and Conway and Starke, two of the most malicious members of the cabal, were to take command under Lafayette. On the 24th of January, 1778, Washington received a letter from Gates, the President of the Board of War, commanding him to send one of his best regiments to Albany, on the Hudson, for a particular service, and enclosing another to Lafayette, requiring his immediate attendance on Gates. Gates found, however, that Lafayette was not to be seduced from his attachment to Washington. He would not accept the command, otherwise than as acting in subordination to his Commander-in-Chief; and he should send all his despatches and bulletins to him, at the same time that he furnished copies to Congress. The vain Frenchman verily believed that he was going to restore Canada, not to America, but to the French Crown—a fear which began to haunt Congress after he had set out; but the fear was needless. When Lafayette reached his invading army, instead of two thousand five hundred men, it amounted to about one thousand two hundred, and the militia were nowhere to be heard of. Clothes, provisions, sledges, were all wanting, and, instead of leading his troops, as he was directed, to Lake Champlain, whence he was to proceed to ?le-aux-Noix to blow up the English flotilla, and thence, crossing the Sorel, to descend the St. Lawrence to Montreal, he gave up the expedition with a sigh, and returned to the camp of Washington.
• But these were by no means the total of the royal troubles at this period. The youngest and most beloved of George III.'s sisters, Caroline Matilda, had been married to Christian VII. of Denmark. This young man was little better than an idiot, and the poor princess was married to him at the age of sixteen. The marriage of this young couple, and their ascent to the throne, were nearly simultaneous; and, contrary to the usual custom of a monarch, it was deemed advisable that he should travel. In his tour he fell in with the celebrated Struensee, a young physician of Altona. Christian VII., like all weak monarchs, must have favourites. Struensee speedily became the perfect master of Christian's mind and actions, and on their return to Copenhagen he was raised to the rank of count, and soon after was made Prime Minister. His enemies were of course numerous, and scandal soon connected his name with that of the queen. All this especially favoured the plans of the base queen dowager, who, in league with the hostile nobles, feigned a plot against the king; obtained from him, in his bed at midnight, an order for the arrest of the queen, Struensee, and others. The queen was seized half dressed. Struensee was executed with especial barbarities; but the King of England interfered to save his sister, and to procure the succession to her son. The unhappy young queen, however, was separated for ever from her two children, and conveyed to Zell, in Hanover—the same castle or prison where the unhappy wife of George I. had pined away her life. There she died after a few years, protesting her innocence, though Struensee had confessed his guilt.
• slavery, see a long paper, l'Esclavage en Canada, published
• ** Ibid., Avril, 1661.
• The governor-general and the intendant of Canada answered to those of a French province. The governor, excepting in the earliest period of the colony, was a military noble; in most cases bearing a title and sometimes of high rank. The intendant, as in France, was usually drawn from the gens de robe, or legal class. * The mutual relations of the two officers were modified by the circumstances about them. The governor was superior in rank to the intendant; he commanded the troops, conducted relations with foreign colonies and Indian tribes, and took precedence on all occasions of ceremony. Unlike a provincial
• AMERICAN BILL OF CREDIT (1775).
• **** Edits et Ordonnances, II. 112.
• [1] Vimont, Relation, 1645, 16.
• FOOTNOTES:
• [See larger version]
• On the 22nd of February the English House of Commons resolved itself into a Committee, on the motion of Pitt, to consider these resolutions. Pitt spoke with much freedom of the old restrictive jealousy towards Ireland. He declared that it was a system abominable and impolitic; that to study the benefit of one portion of the empire at the expense of another was not promoting the prosperity of the empire as a whole. He contended that there was nothing in the present proposals to alarm the British manufacturer or trader. Goods, the produce of Europe, might now be imported through Ireland into Britain by authority of the Navigation Act. The present proposition went to allow Ireland to import and then to export the produce of our colonies in Africa and America into Great Britain. Beyond the Cape of Good Hope, or the Straits of Magellan, they could not go, on account of the monopoly granted to the East India Company.
• [23] Vimont, Relation, 1640, 6.
• The Hurons planned a counter-stroke; and three of them, after a journey of twenty days, reached 341 the great town of the Senecas. They entered it at midnight, and found, as usual, no guard; but the doors of the houses were made fast. They cut a hole in the bark side of one of them, crept in, stirred the fading embers to give them light, chose each his man, tomahawked him, scalped him, and escaped in the confusion. [4]
• In the summer of 1647 the Hurons dared not go down to the French settlements, but in the following year they took heart, and resolved at all risks to make the attempt; for the kettles, hatchets, and knives of the traders had become necessaries of life. Two hundred and fifty of their best warriors therefore embarked, under five valiant chiefs. They made the voyage in safety, approached Three Rivers on the seventeenth of July, and, running their canoes ashore among the bulrushes, began to grease their hair, paint their faces, and otherwise adorn themselves, that they might appear after a befitting fashion at the fort. While they were thus engaged, the alarm was sounded. Some of their warriors had discovered a large body of Iroquois, who for several days had been lurking in the forest, unknown to the French garrison, watching their opportunity to strike a blow. The Hurons 374 snatched their arms, and, half-greased and painted, ran to meet them. The Iroquois received them with a volley. They fell flat to avoid the shot, then leaped up with a furious yell, and sent back a shower of arrows and bullets. The Iroquois, who were outnumbered, gave way and fled, excepting a few who for a time made fight with their knives. The Hurons pursued. Many prisoners were taken, and many dead left on the field. [1] The rout of the enemy was complete; and when their trade was ended, the Hurons returned home in triumph, decorated with the laurels and the scalps of victory. As it proved, it would have been well, had they remained there to defend their families and firesides.
• The Allies now advanced in rapid march. They put to flight the divisions of Mortier and Marmont, whom Buonaparte had posted to give them a check. These divisions lost eight thousand men, besides a vast quantity of guns, baggage, and ammunition. A similar fate awaited a body of[81] ten thousand National Guards. At Meaux Mortier and Marmont blew up a great powder-magazine as Blucher approached, and then retired beneath the walls of Paris. The Allies, in three days, had marched seventy miles. On the 28th of March they were in full view of Paris, and had driven Marmont and Mortier close under its walls. The north-east side of Paris, on which they were approaching, was the only one then fortified. A ridge of hills along that side, including the heights of Belleville, Romainville, and Montmartre, was defended by an old wall, and there the French authorities had placed the defenders of the city—the shattered forces of the two retreating marshals, bodies of the National Guard, and youths from the Polytechnic schools, many of them mere boys of from twelve to sixteen years old, some of whom served the guns on the batteries. The whole of the forces left to defend the great and wealthy city of Paris amounted to between thirty and forty thousand men.
• This change took place in 1645. It was followed, in 1647, by the establishment of a Council, composed of the Governor-General, the Superior of the Jesuits, and the Governor of Montreal, who were invested with absolute powers, legislative, judicial, and executive. The Governor-General had an appointment of twenty-five thousand livres, besides the privilege of bringing over seventy tons of freight, yearly, in the Company's ships. Out of this he was required to pay the soldiers, repair the forts, and supply arms and munitions. Ten thousand livres and thirty tons of freight, with similar conditions, were assigned to the Governor of Montreal. 332 Under these circumstances, one cannot wonder that the colony was but indifferently defended against the Iroquois, and that the King had to send soldiers to save it from destruction. In the next year, at the instance of Maisonneuve, another change was made. A specified sum was set apart for purposes of defence, and the salaries of the Governors were proportionably reduced. The Governor-General, Montmagny, though he seems to have done better than could reasonably have been expected, was removed; and, as Maisonneuve declined the office, d'Ailleboust, another Montrealist, was appointed to it. This movement, indeed, had been accomplished by the interest of the Montreal party; for already there was no slight jealousy between Quebec and her rival.
• From the young priest Chefdeville, Joutel learned the particulars of the disaster. Water had failed on board the "Belle"; a boat's crew of five men had gone in quest of it; the wind rose, their boat was swamped, and they were all drowned. Those who remained had now no means of going ashore; but if they had no water, they had wine and brandy in abundance, and Teissier, the master of the vessel, was drunk every day. After a while they left their moorings, and tried to reach the fort; but they were few, weak, and unskilful. A violent north wind drove them on a sand-bar. Some of them were drowned in trying to reach land on a raft. Others were more successful; and, after a long delay, they found a stranded canoe, in which they made their way to St. Louis, bringing with them some of La Salle's papers and baggage saved from the wreck.
• Britain had seen her Continental Allies fall away one by one. The time was now approaching when some good allies might have been very useful to herself, if such people were ever to be found. We have seen that, during the American Revolution, the rebellious colonists found admirable allies in the Irish. They had no difficulty in exciting disturbances amongst that ardent Celtic race, and thus greatly to augment our difficulties. No sooner did the French commence the work of revolution than the Irish became transported with admiration of their doings. Not all the bloodshed and horrors of that wild drama could abate their delight in them, and their desire to invite them over to liberate Ireland, as they had liberated Belgium. These views found expression in the north of Ireland, especially in Belfast and other places, where the population was Presbyterian and to a certain extent Republican. The Roman Catholics were inert, and disposed to wait patiently. Ever since the American revolt the necessity of conciliating the Irish had been impressed on the British Government, and many important concessions had been granted them. They had not yet obtained Catholic emancipation, but the public mind was ripening for it, and the chief difficulty was the opposition of the extreme Protestant party in the Irish Parliament. Whatever were the evils which England had inflicted on Ireland, they were nothing compared with those which French fraternity would have perpetrated. But the United Irishmen, as the revolutionaries called themselves, could see nothing of this, not even after all the world had witnessed the French mode of liberating Belgium, and French waggons, guarded by soldiers, were day after day, and month after month, bearing over the Alps the priceless chefs-d'?uvre of the arts from ravaged Italy. In the spring of 1798 the preparations of the French Directory for the invasion of Ireland were too open and notorious to be overlooked by anybody.
• NOTE.—Dumesnil’s principal memorial, preserved in the archives of the Marine and Colonies, is entitled Mémoire concernant les Affaires du Canada, qui montre et fait voir que sous prétexte de la Gloire de Dieu, d’Instruction des Sauvages, de servir le Roy et de faire la nouvelle Colonie, il a été pris et diverti trois millions de livres ou environ. It forms in the copy before me thirty-eight pages of manuscript, and bears no address; but seems meant for Colbert, or the council of state. There is a second memorial, which is little else than an abridgment of the first. A third, bearing the address Au Roy et a nos Seigneurs du Conseil (d’Etat), and signed Peronne Dumesnil, is a petition for the payment of 10,132 livres due to him by the company for his services in Canada, “ou il a perdu son fils assassiné par les comptables du dit pays, qui n’ont voulu rendre compte au dit suppliant, Intendant, et ont pillé sa maison, ses meubles et papiers le 20 du mois de Septembre dernier, dont il y a acte.”
• The priests rose before dawn, and spent the time till sunrise in their private devotions. Then the bell of their chapel rang, and the Indians came in crowds at the call; for misery had softened their hearts, and nearly all on the island were now Christian. There was a mass, followed by a prayer and a few words of exhortation; then the hearers dispersed to make room for others. Thus the little chapel was filled ten or twelve times, until all had had their turn. Meanwhile other priests were hearing confessions and giving advice and encouragement in private, according to the needs of each applicant. This lasted till nine o'clock, when all the Indians returned to their village, and the priests presently followed, to give what assistance they could. Their cassocks were worn out, and they 402 were dressed chiefly in skins. [11] They visited the Indian houses, and gave to those whose necessities were most urgent small scraps of hide, severally stamped with a particular mark, and entitling the recipients, on presenting them at the fort, to a few acorns, a small quantity of boiled maize, or a fragment of smoked fish, according to the stamp on the leather ticket of each. Two hours before sunset the bell of the chapel again rang, and the religious exercises of the morning were repeated. [12]
• [209]
• On his return to France, Hennepin got hold of the manuscript, Relation des Découvertes, compiled for the government from La Salle's letters, and, as already observed, made very free use of it in the first edition of his book, printed in 1683. In 1699 he wished to return to Canada; but, in a letter of that year, Louis XIV. orders the governor [Pg 282] to seize him, should he appear, and send him prisoner to Rochefort. This seems to have been in consequence of his renouncing the service of the French crown, and dedicating his edition of 1697 to William III. of England.
• etc., 1677. The rest went to pay civil officers and
• HERRENHAUSEN CASTLE, HANOVER.
• d’infamie.” Lettre du 20 Fev., 1668.
• First, year after year came a riotous invasion of coureurs de bois, and then a garrison followed to crown the mischief. Discipline was very weak at these advanced posts, and, to eke out their pay, the soldiers were allowed to trade; brandy, whether permitted or interdicted, being the chief article of barter. Father Etienne Carheil was driven almost to despair; and he wrote to the intendant, his fast friend and former pupil, the long letter already mentioned. “Our missions,” he says, “are reduced to such extremity that we can no longer maintain them against the infinity of disorder, brutality, violence, injustice, impiety, impurity, insolence, scorn, and insult, which the deplorable and infamous traffic in brandy has spread universally among the Indians of these parts.... In the despair in which we are plunged, nothing remains for us but to abandon them to the brandy sellers as a domain of drunkenness and debauchery.”
• * “Témoin entr’autres l’exemple de la malheureuse
• PRUDHOMME.
• MEN OF WAR OFF PORTSMOUTH.

A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland). registered by 全天彩票重庆计划分析 globel Place, Newyork. QQ