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CANADA had fallen into the hands of the
English before the new company organized by
Cardinal Richelieu was able to enter on the rights and privileges
secured to it by the edict of incorporation, or even so much as to
set foot in the country. Whatever there might be at Quebec in the
way of buildings, fortifications, etc., was the property of the
preceding company, of which one William de Caen was the head. It
seemed advisable, therefore, to Cardinal Richelieu to send William
de Caen, or some one deputed by him, out to Quebec to accept
transfer of the country on behalf of the French king from Louis
Kirke, who had remained in command there.
De Caen named his brother Emery for this
duty, and the latter, provided with all necessary papers and
instructions, set sail from France towards the end of April 1632,
and arrived at Quebec on the 5th of July. An order from King Charles
of England, of which he was bearer, required Kirke to evacuate the
place within eight days. The order was complied with, and the French
resumed possession of Quebec three years, all but a month, after
yielding it up to the English. Mention has
been made of the one genuine settler or
habitant at Quebec, Louis Hebert. He had
died some time before the capitulation; but his widow and her
son-in-law, who had between them some seven acres of land under good
cultivation, had remained in the country during the whole period of
the English occupation. The
Jesuit Relations tell of the joy of the
widow at welcoming her own countrymen again, and particularly of the
delight she manifested when her house was used as a chapel for the
first celebration of mass after the French re-occupation. In the
spring of the following year Champlain, who had been recommended by
the new company as governor, and had received his appointment as
such at the hands of the cardinal, set sail for Canada with three
vessels, carrying in all about two hundred persons, more than half
being intending colonists. The ships brought besides a liberal
supply of stores, the company, in the new-broom stage of its
existence, being desirous of improving on the methods and practices
of its predecessors. Arriving at Quebec on the 23rd of May,
Champlain took over the keys of the place from de Caen. His first
care was to put the fort and other buildings, which were found to be
in a ruinous condition, in proper repair. He next erected a chapel
to replace the one formerly in use which had been destroyed; and, at
the earnest request of the Huron Indians, he established a fort at
Three Rivers to assist in protecting them against the incursions of
the implacable Iroquois.
De Caen had brought out one or two Jesuit
fathers with him, and others came with Champlain. Why the Rdcollets
did not seize the first opportunity of returning to Canada is not
very clear. In the year 1635
they had made arrangements for returning, but were requested by the
intendant of the company in France to delay their departure. The
next year they were plainly informed that the cardinal did not wish
them to go to Canada. They were thus shut out from a mission-field
which they had been the first to occupy, and it is not surprising
that they felt considerably aggrieved, nor that they were disposed
to attribute their exclusion to the machinations of the Jesuit
order. The responsibility in the matter seems to have rested with
the cardinal. It was he who sent out the Jesuit fathers; and not im-.
probably he thought that there would be less friction and more
progress if the field of New France were entrusted to a single order
of ecclesiastics than if it were divided between two.
The laborious, useful, and heroic life of
Champlain was now drawing to a-close. One of the last subjects that
engaged his attention was the sale of liquor by traders and
colonists to the Indians, a practice against which he issued the
most stringent prohibitions, but which, as we shall have further
occasion to see, proved a very difficult one to control. In the
summer of 1635
he took advantage of the presence at Quebec of a large number of
Hurons from the upper country to summon them and the French
residents to a general assembly, in order that he might have an
opportunity of urging upon them the duty and advantage of espousing
the religion professed by the French. If their friendship with the
French, he said, was to be maintained and strengthened, they must
embrace the faith of the latter; and in that case God, who was
all-powerful, would bless and protect them, and give them the
victory over their enemies. They would also learn the arts of
civilization, and in every way enjoy great happiness and prosperity.
What impression this discourse made is not stated. In point of fact
the Jesuits, who devoted themselves specially to mission work
amongst the Hurons, had eventually a considerable measure of success
in converting them to Christianity; but the unhappy tribe, instead
of triumphing in war, became a more and more helpless prey to their
heathen enemies, and, in about fifteen years from this date, were
almost obliterated from the face of the earth.
Not long after the convoking of this assembly
Champlain was smitten with paralysis; and on Christmas Day, 1635, he
died in the sixty-ninth year of his age.
His funeral sermon was preached by the Superior of the Jesuits,
Father Le Jeune, and he was buried with all due honour in—as the
Jesuit narrative tells us—a "sepulcre
particulier"; but a careless posterity
soon forgot even the place of his interment, and to-day the question
as to where he was laid is a matter of antiquarian debate. The
contingency of his death had been provided for by the company, who
had placed in the hands of Father Le Jeune, a sealed letter, giving
authority to a M. de Chateaufort to act as interim governor. The
following summer M. de Montmagny came out from France as second
governor of Canada. He appears to have been a man of firm and
upright character, but the position to which he succeeded was an
extremely difficult and critical one. The Jesuits were as yet having
very limited success in the conversion of the native tribes, and
were even incurring a dangerous amount of suspicion and hostility.
They were accused of witchcraft; and it began to be commonly said
amongst the savages that baptism was a sure precursor of death.
There was truth in the allegation just to this extent, that the
fathers, for the most part, were only allowed to baptize those who
were already in a dying condition, particularly children. The
confusion between
post hoc and
propter hoc
is so common among the civilized and instructed, that we cannot be
surprised if Hurons and Algonquins were not proof against it. The
Iroquois at the same time were becoming more and more daring in
their attacks, while the resources of the colony for repelling them
were sadly inadequate. The Company of the Hundred Associates had
made a fair beginning in the matter of sending out colonists and
supplies—forty-five new settlers came out with Montmagny—but in a
few years their capital began to run short, and it became a question
whether the magnificent powers and privileges they possessed
represented a very profitable business arrangement. The consequence
was that, just as before under successive trading companies, the
interests both of colonization and of defence were neglected.
But, if the company was lapsing into inertness,
other agencies, not of a commercial character, were at work laying
the foundations of institutions destined to exert a most important
and lasting influence on the future life of the colony. The year in
which Champlain died witnessed the establishment at Quebec by the
Jesuit, M. dc Rohault, son of the Marquis de Gamache, of a college
for boys. Four years later, in 1639,
a vessel arrived from France bearing two ladies, of note, Madame de
la Peltrie and Madame Guyard, M&re de l'lncarnation, whose mission
was to establish a school for girls, white and Indian, and whose
names are illustrious as the founders of the Ursuline Convent. On
the same vessel were a number of nuns sent out by the Duchess
d'Aiguil-lon to perform hospital duties : this was the origin of the
Hotel Dieu. In the year 1641
M. de Maisonneuve, a pious- layman,
conducted to Canada a small band of trusty followers whose
destination was the Island of Montreal, where it was proposed to
form a strictly Christian colony. With M. de Maisonneuve was a pious
lady, Mdlle. Mance, who three years later became the founder of the
Hotel Dieu at Montreal, funds for the purpose having been supplied
by a rich benefactress in France, Madame de Bullion. Looking forward
nine years, that is to say to 1653, we find the admirable Sister
Margaret Bourgeoys establishing at Montreal the Congregation de
Notre Dame for the education of girls. As Garneau well says, " the
love of learning and charity gave birth in Canada to all the great
establishments destined' for public instruction and the alleviation
of human suffering."
The question may naturally be asked how it
happened that Canada, at this very early stage of its history,
attracted so much attention as a field for missionary and
educational effort. An explanation is to be found in the fact that
the Jesuits, from the time when they first entered on their work in
this country, made a practice, under instructions from the head of
their order, of writing year by year a narrative of their doings,
which they despatched to France, and which was there published and
circulated amongst those who were interested in religious work.
These narratives constituted the celebrated
Relations des Jesuitesy
which form the chief source of information regarding
the history of Canada for a period of over forty years. Of these
interesting annals, forty volumes of which in all were published,
Parkman has said : " The closest examination has left me no doubt
that these missionaries wrote in perfect good faith, and that the
Relations hold a high place as authentic
and trustworthy historical documents." On the other hand the latest
historian of the Jesuits in New France, the Rev. Father Rochemonteix,
while also asserting the substantial accuracy of the
Relations, acknowledges that " they do
not reflect the complete physiognomy of New France; they only show
one side of it, the most attractive, the most consoling, namely, the
progress of Christianity, its toils and heroic struggles, and the
valiant achievements of the colonists. The rest is intentionally
left in the shade, passed over in silence. The other side of the
physiognomy is omitted, or nearly so. What we have is history, but
incomplete history."1 It was from these narratives, so
carefully and skilfully edited for
purposes of edification, that the impulse proceeded which moved
pious souls to contribute, in some cases their labours, in others
their wealth, to the advancement of the cause of religion in the
wilds of Canada. The fathers told of their difficulties and
discouragements ; but they told also of the many signs vouchsafed
that Heaven was interested in their self-sacrificing efforts.
Sometimes they made direct appeals for assistance.
A Jesuit school for boys had been
established, as already mentioned, as early as 1635. A few years
later Father Le Jeune writes in the
Relations: "Is there no charitable and
virtuous lady who will come to this country to gather up the blood
of Christ by teaching His word to the little Indian girls?" The call
was answered in the establishment of the Ursuline Convent. It is not
easy, in these days of swift, safe, and luxurious travel, to imagine
what it was in the earlier part of the seventeenth century for women
of delicate nurture to leave friends and home and civilized
surroundings, and, braving the Atlantic storms in small,
ill-equipped and comfortless vessels, to set their faces towards a
continent lost in the distant west, amid whose forests a handful of
pioneers were doubtfully holding their ground against the scowling
hordes of savagery. The historian, Parkman, devotes two chapters of
his Jesuits
in North America to an account of these
enterprises, and of the holy women whose names are inseparably
connected with them. In Madame Guyard,
M&re de l'lncarnation, who became Superior of the convent, he
recognizes a very true woman, full of tender feeling, yet endowed
with practical abilities of the first order. Of Margaret Bourgeoys,
founder of the Congregation de Notre Dame at Montreal, he speaks
with equal enthusiasm. "Her portrait," he says, "has come down to
us; and her face is a mirror of frankness, loyalty, and womanly
tenderness. Her qualities were those of good sense,
conscientiousness, and a warm heart. Her religion was of the
affections, and was manifested in an absorbing devotion to duty." He
recognizes "in the martial figure of Maisonneuve, and the fair form
of this gentle nun, the true heroes of Montreal."
Maisonneuve was the true type of the Christian
warrior. An association of religious persons at Paris, of whom M.
Jean Olier, founder of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, and M. Royer de
la Dauversi&re were chief, had obtained from the Company of New
France a grant of the greater portion of the Island of Montreal, and
a considerable block of land to the east thereof on the north shore
of the river St. Lawrence. To effect this it had been necessary to
pay a considerable sum of money to extinguish a prior claim of one
M. de Lauson, an officer of the company, to the same territory.
Marvellous stories are told of the supernatural communications
received by MM. Olier and Dauversi&re,
by which the duty was laid upon them of sending a colony for
purposes of evangelization to the Island of Montreal, of the
existence of which, it is averred, they had no previous knowledge.
However this may have been—natural means of knowledge, it may be
observed, were available in the
Relations of the Jesuits—an association
was formed under the title of the Associates of Montreal; money was
liberally subscribed; the island was purchased; and the members of
the projected colony were brought together. A "Greatheart" was
needed to conduct the little band; and Maisonneuve, who was home
from the wars of the Low Countries, hearing of the holy enterprise,
placed his sword and his life at the service of the association. In
the month of May
1641 two
small vessels sailed from La Rochelle, one bearing M. de Maisonneuve
and twenty-five men, the other Mdlle. Mance, a Jesuit priest, and
twelve other men. Both arrived safely at Quebec in the month of
August. Governor Montmagny wished to keep what he regarded as a
valuable reinforcement at Quebec; but Maisonneuve insisted on
carrying out his mission. He went up to Montreal accordingly before
the navigation closed, in company with the governor, to take formal
possession of the island, but returned to winter in Quebec. In the
spring he took his whole party up the river, arriving at Montreal on
the 18th of May. Madame de la Peltrie leaving her own work at Quebec
accompanied him, only to return, however, after a short stay. An
altar was erected on the riverside, and mass was celebrated by the
Jesuit father, Vincent, who afterwards delivered an address, in
which he said he doubted not that the grain of mustard seed they
were then sowing was designed by Providence to become a mighty tree.
The prophecy has been amply fulfilled, but many
anxious years had to pass before the destiny of the tree was at all
assured. The position of Montreal was far more precarious than that
of Quebec, as it was so much more accessible to the sworn enemies of
the colony, the Iroquois. For twenty-four years Maisonneuve held the
post of military governor, edifying all by his piety, and inspiring
confidence in all by his bravery and vigilance. The story of his
trials and of his prowess, is it not told, with a rich blending of
supernatural elements, in the naive record of Dollier de Casson, and
the more comprehensive and systematic, but equally naive, history of
the learned and unfailingly interesting Abbe Faillon? And yet—such
is the irony of human events—when a very pious governor, the Marquis
de Tracy, came out in 1665 as the king's lieutenant-general for all
his North American possessions, one of his first acts, inspired, it
is said, by the council at Quebec, was to dismiss this veteran
warrior as being unfit for his position. Making no demur, attempting
no self-justification, but bowing to the stroke, which he regarded
as an intimation of the will of Providence,
the brave Maisonneuve retired quietly to France, where he spent the
remainder of his days.
After a service of twelve years as governor M.
de Montmagny was relieved in 1648,
and replaced by M. d'Ailleboust, who had previously exercised
judicial functions at Montreal in close association with M. de
Maisonneuve, whom he resembled in the exalted and ascetic character
of his piety. The name of Montmagny had been translated by the
Indians into "Onontio," signifying "Great Mountain"; and henceforth
all French governors were, in Indian parlance, "Great Mountains." M.
d'Ailleboust retained office only three years. During his
administration, as during that of his predecessor, the Iroquois were
incessant in their depredations, which they would sometimes carry on
under the very palisades of Montreal. They succeeded during this
period in all but exterminating the Hurons, their traditional foes
and now allies of the French. One or two treaties were made with the
aggressive savages, and once or twice they were repelled with loss;
but the treaties were not to be depended on, nor were the defeats
such as to give them serious check. One event which marked the
latter part of M. de Montmagny's administration must not be
overlooked. The Company of New France, or of the Hundred Associates,
had, as we have seen, begun operations upon the retrocession of the
colony by England in 1632.
According to their charter their work was to be one of colonization
as well as of trading; but ten years later the
total French population of Canada, Montreal
included, did not exceed two hundred souls. The country, instead of
being developed, was being strangled, the company having absolute
control, not only of the fur trade, but of its commerce generally,
which it hampered in every possible way. Meantime the company itself
was losing money. Negotiations were therefore entered into between
the inhabitants, represented by M. de Repentigny, who went to France
for the purpose, and the officers of the company. The result being
that, in the month of January 1645, a treaty, as it was called, was
made between the company on the one hand, and the inhabitants,
through their delegate, on the other, by which the former, while
retaining all their sovereign proprietary and feudal rights, with
power of nominating the governor and the judges, threw open to the
latter, not individually but as a community, the fur trade of Canada
on condition that they should assume all expenses of civil
administration and military defence, pay the salaries of the clergy,
bring into the country every year twenty new colonists, and finally
hand over to the company annually one thousand pounds weight of
assorted beaver skins. The inhabitants were, by this arrangement,
which received the royal sanction on the 6th March 1645, formed into
a corporation, afterwards called the "New
Company," to distinguish it from the Company of
New France or the "Old
Company." It
was understood that the New
Company would elect its own managers;
while the Old Company reserved the right to keep certain officials
of its own in the country to watch over its interests, throwing the
cost of their maintenance, however, on the inhabitants in their
corporate capacity.
This arrangement was received at the time with
some satisfaction by the colonists, but in reality it was a most
illiberal one, under which it was impossible for the country to
thrive. Its immediate effect was to send nearly all the men'of the
settlement into the woods, and to turn the wilder and more daring
spirits into
coureurs de hois, a class of men who
will figure largely in our subsequent narrative. Two years later we
find the inhabitants complaining to the king that the new scheme was
working very badly, and giving rise to serious " abuses and
malversations." The king did not know very well what to do about it;
but by the advice of certain of his ministers he decided to place
the government of the colony on a slightly wider basis, with just
the least particle in it of a representative element. To this end he
created a council which was to consist of the governor, the
ex-governor, if he were in the country, the superior of the Jesuits,
pending the appointment of a bishop, and two inhabitants to be
selected by the council, or three if the ex-governor were not
residing in the country. In addition, the three settlements of
Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers could each elect a "syndic," to
hold office for three years, and to have a deliberative voice in the
council, but no vote.
The effect of this measure, which seems to have
been adopted without consulting the Company of New France, was to
give the council full control of the fur trade of the country. That
trade had to bear all the expenses of government, as well as provide
for the toll to be paid to the Old Company; and it rested with the
council to fix the proportion which the inhabitants should
contribute out of the gross proceeds of the furs they either bought
from the Indians or procured by the chase. If they bought from the
Indians they would have to pay for them with goods purchased at the
general stores, which again were controlled by the council or its
nominees; and it was a constant matter of complaint that the prices
of these goods were so high that it was impossible to trade with the
Indians on any favourable terms; the latter, as a rule, having sense
enough to put up their prices accordingly. A more burdensome system,
or one more liable to abuse, could not easily be imagined.
In 1651,
M. de Lauson was sent to replace M. d'Ailleboust. The question at
this time was seriously debated whether the colony would not have to
be abandoned. The settlement at Montreal was in imminent danger of
extinction. Maisonneuve saw clearly that, with the scanty force he
had, it was only a matter of time when the place would be at the
mercy of the foe. He therefore sailed in this year for France,
determined, if he could not obtain reinforcements, to return to
Canada and bring all his people back to France. The position of
matters at Quebec was little better. M£re de l'lncarnation writes:
"The Iroquois have made such ravages in this part of the country
that for a time we thought we should all have to return to France."
Maisonneuve succeeded in his mission; but he was two years absent
from the country, and meantime anxiety both at Quebec and at
Montreal was at the highest pitch. He arrived in the month of
September 1653,
bringing with him over one hundred soldiers
carefully chosen and well equipped, furnished, not by the government
or the Hundred Associates, who were tolerably indifferent to the
fate of Montreal, but by the company which had sent him out in the
first place. The governor was anxious to keep the whole force at
Quebec; and Maisonneuve had to exercise considerable firmness in
order to be permitted to take them all with him to Montreal. It was
in the vessel which brought out this detachment that Margaret
Bourgeoys, whose name has already been mentioned, came to Canada.
She was struck on her arrival by the desperately poverty-stricken
look of the country. "There were at the time in the Upper Town" (of
Quebec), she says, "only five or six houses, and in the Lower Town
only the storehouse of the Jesuits and that of the Montreal people.
The hospital nuns were dressed in grey. The poverty on all sides was
something pitiable." The Quebec Ursulines were desirous that Sister
Bourgeoys should join their community, and afterwards perhaps assist
them in establishing a branch of their convent in Montreal; but the
future foundress of the Congregation de Notre Dame knew her own
mind. Her purpose in coming to Canada was to establish a school for
girls at Montreal, and to Montreal she would go.
The weakness of the colony was painfully
exhibited about this time in its dealings with the Iroquois. The
principal remnant of the Huron nation, whose original settlements
occupied the country between the Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe, had
taken refuge from their cruel enemies in the Island of Orleans just
below Quebec. Even here, they were not left in peace. In the month
of February 1654
a number of Iroquois came down to Quebec ostensibly to negotiate for
peace, but secretly nourishing deadly designs against the
unfortunate Hurons. What they proposed was that those who were
settled on the Island of Orleans should leave their habitations
there, go to the Iroquois country, and incorporate themselves, as a
portion of their nation had already done, with the Iroquois
confederacy. They also asked that a French colony, including a
certain number of priests—black robes," as they called them—should
be planted in their territory. Although these propositions were
believed to mask the most murderous intentions, it was considered
imprudent to reject them, as the colony was in no condition to
withstand the general attack which it was feared would in that case
ensue. After some delay, therefore, a colony
consisting of over fifty French left Quebec in
the early summer of 1656, the understanding being that the Hurons
would follow later.
The Iroquois nation or confederacy comprised,
as is generally known, five separate tribes, occupying the central
and north-western portion of what is now the state of New York, and
known —to mention them in geographical order from east to west—as
Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. There was a keen
competition between the Mohawks and the Onondagas, both for the
French colony and for the possession of the remnant of the Hurons.
The colony was sent to the Onondagas; and the Mohawks in a spirit of
revenge made a descent on the Island of Orleans, killed a number of
Hurons, and carried over eighty into captivity. In their retreat
they, also committed various depredations under the very walls of
Quebec—in so deplorable a condition of helplessness was even the
citadel of French power in Canada. Two years later the French colony
established among the Onondagas made its escape from impending
massacre in a manner little short of miraculous; but meantime, in
defiance and contempt of French authority, numbers of unfortunate
Hurons had been slaughtered or carried into captivity.
M. de Lauson, the governor, does not seem to
have been a man of any great force of character. Moreover he was now
over seventy years of age, and, considering the helpless condition
in which he was left—practically
abandoned by the Old Company and very feebly supported by the New—it
is scarcely surprising that he should have anticipated the
conclusion of his term of office, and returned to France in the
summer of 1656.
His son, M.
de Charny-Lauson, replaced him for a year, when he too sailed for
France without awaiting the arrival of his successor,
M. d Argenson. At his request
M. d'Ailleboust consented to act as
interim governor.
To the credit of the ecclesiastics it must be
said that, whoever despaired of the situation in Canada, they never
vdid. At the very time when the fortunes of the colony
were at the lowest ebb, and the secular chiefs were debating whether
it would not be necessary to retire, bag and baggage, the subject
which chiefly occupied the minds of the clergy was the organization
and government of the church. M. de Maisonneuve had brought out with
him four Sulpician priests to minister to the needs of the
inhabitants of Montreal, and one of them, M. de Queylus, was the
bearer of letters from the Archbishop of Rouen, to whose diocese New
France was attached, creating him vicar-general for the whole
colony. Availing himself of the powers so conferred, M. de Queylus
assumed the direction of the church in Canada; and when some signs
of reluctance to recognize his authority manifested themselves in
Quebec, he went to that city, took personal charge of the parish,
and enforced at least an outward show of submission. The Sulpicians
had hoped that M. de Queylus would be made bishop ; but the Jesuits,
who for many years had been in exclusive charge of the religious
interests of the colony, were considered to have the best right to
make the nomination. They chose, with characteristic wisdom, a man
who was destined to fill a most important place in the history of
Canada, Francis Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, Abbe de Montigny. The
negotiations for the appointment of the new prelate were of a very
perplexed and protracted character, and it was not till the summer
of 1659 that
he arrived in Quebec, and then not as bishop of Quebec, but as
vicar-apostolic, with the title of Bishop of Petraea
in partibus. Laval was a man of great
piety, and inflexible determination; and for a time there was
friction between him and M. de Queylus, who, in his capacity as
vicar-general of the Archbishop of Rouen, was disposed to claim an
independent position for himself. Laval cut the controversy short by
persuading the governor to ship M. de Queylus off to France; and,
when he returned the following year, to ship him tack again. This
time the Sulpician had to remain at home for several years; and the
descendant of the Montmorencys achieved the first of a long series
of victories over opposing forces.
In mentioning these incidents, however, we have
run ahead by two or three years of the strict sequence of events.
Argenson, the new governor, arrived on the 11th July
1658. He had hardly been twenty-four
hours at his post before the Iroquois gave him a hint what to expect
by making a raid in the immediate neighbourhood of Quebec. In the
following year the whole country, but particularly Quebec, was
thrown into trepidation over the news that an army composed of
twelve hundred warriors, gathered from the five Iroquois nations,
was advancing with fixed determination to wipe out all the French
settlements. It would be needless to repeat here, even if the limits
of a very cursory narrative permitted it, the glorious feat of arms
by which this great danger was turned aside from the colony. The
story of our Canadian Thermopylae is familiar to every school-boy
and school-girl in Canada. Suffice it to say that the constancy of
Dollard and the handful of companions who perished with him in
defending a position they had hastily fortified on the river Ottawa,
directly in the path of the invaders, so disheartened the latter
that they relinquished their enterprise. When so few could hold so
many at bay, what might not be expected when attack should be made
on the fortified posts of Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec? The
abandonment, however, of their larger design did not involve any
discontinuance of their accustomed mode of warfare. We hear of
horrible butcheries committed on settlers in the neighbourhood of
Montreal and even of Quebec; it seemed as if the colony could never
get rest from its tormentors. The new governor was a man of courage
and ability, but he lacked the means of effectually guarding against
these treacherous attacks, while the
destitute condition in which he found the colony filled him with
discouragement. Whether general starvation or massacre was the more
imminent danger was sometimes a grave question. Other difficulties
arose. Argenson and Laval, the civil and religious heads of the
state, found themselves at variance on points of ceremony and
precedence; and the bishop, whose self-confidence was unbounded,
undertook to give the governor certain doubtless well-meant
admonitions, which the latter did not take in good part. The
governor's health may, or may not, have been good, but he alleged
that he was suffering from physical infirmities, and asked for his
recall. He left for France in September 1661, his successor, Baron
Dubois d'Avaugour, having arrived a few weeks previously. A remark
which he made respecting the head of the Canadian church, in a
letter written a year before his departure, may perhaps be put on
record: " I can say with truth that his zeal on many occasions bears
close resemblance to an extraordinary attachment to his own
opinions, and a strong desire to encroach on the rights and duties
of others."
The Baron d'Avaugour only remained two years in
the country. When he arrived an earnest effort was being made by the
clergy, headed by the bishop, to have the law against selling liquor
to the Indians strictly enforced. The law was not popular in the
country, and Avaugour thought it altogether too severe; still he
allowed it to take effect in the case of two men who had been
sentenced to death, and of one who had been condemned to be publicly
whipped. Shortly afterwards a woman was imprisoned for a similar
offence, and the Jesuit father, Lalemant, having pleaded for a
relaxation of the law in her case, Avaugour, glad of a pretext to do
away with it altogether, said that if the woman was not to be
punished, no one should be. The result was that liquor began to be
sold to the "natives almost without restraint, and with effects
which one of the ecclesiastics said he had no ink black enough to
describe Doubtless they were bad enough. The bishop fulminated from
his episcopal throne against the practice, and launched
excommunications right and left, but with little effect. He then
decided on going to France and laying the whole matter before the
government. He left in the summer of 1662; and it was while he was
absent, that is to say in February of the following year, that an
earthquake occurred of which the most extraordinary descriptions
have come down to us. The only moderate account is that given by
Avaugour himself, who says in a despatch: "On the 5th of February we
had an earthquake, which continued during half a quarter of an hour,
and was sufficiently strong to extort from us a good act of
contrition. It was repeated from time to time during nine days, and
was perceptible until the last of the month, but steadily
diminishing." This was all an unimaginative mind like that of
the baron could make of it, but not so with
minds of another order. One pious soul saw four demons tugging at
the four corners of the sky, and threatening universal ruin, which
they would have effected had not a higher spirit appeared on the
scene. We read that the air was filled with howlings as of lost
spirits, and flashings of strange, unearthly lights, not to speak of
a little detail of blazing serpents flying abroad on wings of fire.
But the marvels that took place in the aerial regions were
surpassed, if possible, by those that were witnessed on the solid
earth. To take only one example out of many: some sailors coming
from Gaspe, as P&re Charlevoix relates, saw a mountain "skipping
like a ram," after which it spun round several times, and finally
sank out of sight. Houses swayed to and fro till their walls nearly
touched the street, and yet righted themselves in the end. Quebec
and Montreal, which, even at this early period, did not pull well
together, were somewhat at variance concerning the significance of
the phenomenon. At Montreal the favourite theory was that the devil
was enraged •to find God so well served in the colony; at Quebec the
humbler view prevailed that the earthquake was a solemn warning to
the people to abandon their evil ways, and be obedient to the
teachings of the clergy. Considering that, despite the prohibitions
of the clergy, the liquor traffic was just then at its height, the
admonition could not have come more opportunely.
Laval, whose reputation for piety gave him
great influence, the Abbd Faillon tells us, at the not altogether
puritanical court of Louis XIV, was completely successful in his
mission. Not only was the uncomplying Avaugour recalled, but the
bishop himself was requested to nominate a successor. If the bishop
had consulted the men by whom he had himself been chosen, he would
likely have got good advice; but he followed his own judgment
entirely and made a terrible blunder, as he did in a still more
important matter some years later. His choice fell on a M. de Mdzy,
recommended to him by the possession of an exalted and almost
hysterical type of piety; and the two embarking on the same vessel
arrived at Quebec on the 15th September 1663.
It would be taking a very one-sided and
radically unjust view of Laval's character to consider him simply as
a man of ability with a strong propensity to autocratic rule. A man
of ability he was, and his temper was unbending; but that, from
first to last, he took the deepest and most unselfish interest in
the welfare of the Canadian people, and also of the Indian tribes,
is not open to a moment's question; nor can it be denied that his
views on the whole were broad and statesmanlike. It was when he was
in France, in 1662, that he arranged for the establishment of that
historic institution, the Quebec Seminary, the higher development of
which is seen in the Laval University of to-day. A few years after
his return he established the Lesser Seminary (Petit Sdminaire), as
a school where boys could get a sound education under religious
auspices, and whence the more promising among them might be drafted
into the Grand Seminaire with a view to their preparation for the
priesthood. Memorable also were the services rendered by him in the
organization of a parochial system for Canada, which before his
advent had been treated almost wholly as a mission field.
In February of the year 1663, the Company of
New France, whose affairs had been going from bad to worse, made a
voluntary surrender of all their rights and privileges to the king,
leaving it to his discretion to make them such compensation as might
be just for the capital they had sunk in their not very
well-directed efforts. The king accepted the surrender, and, as a
means of providing for the better administration of justice in the
colony, and also the due control of its finances, he created by
royal edict a Sovereign Council, which was to consist of the
governor, the bishop, or other senior ecclesiastic, and five
councillors chosen by them jointly. A year later he proceeded to
charter a completely new company—as if the regime of companies had
not been sufficiently tried—under the name of the West India
Company. To it the entire trade of all the French possessions in
America and on the west coast of Africa was transferred. The new
company was virtually the creation of the great administrator,
Colbert; and it may be assumed that he
trusted to his own vigorous oversight and control to make it a
success. He hoped, in fact, to succeed where a Richelieu had failed;
experience had yet to teach him that no administrative ability,
however eminent, can obtain prosperity from a system of close
monopoly.
It was not long before Laval and his pocket
governor (as he had hoped Mdzy would be) found themselves at daggers
drawn. The quarrel was of so trifling a character that its details
need not detain us; suffice it to say, that Laval represented the
case to the court and procured his nominee's dismissal. The
unfortunate man, however, whose weak mind was assailed with the most
distressing spiritual fears, when he found himself under the ban of
the church, accomplished a hasty reconciliation with the offended
powers, and died, desperately penitent, before his successor reached
Canada.
The West India Company was empowered by its
charter to nominate the governor of Canada, but had voluntarily
ceded that power to the king. The latter, under the inspiration
probably of Colbert, was now taking a great interest in Canada. He
was not going to leave it any longer at the mercy of the Iroquois,
if a thousand or more good French soldiers could avail for its
protection. As lieutenant-general over all his possessions in
America, he appointed a brave old soldier of much distinction, the
Marquis de Tracy; as governor of Canada in particular, M. de Courcelles;
and as intendant—a new office—M. Jean Baptiste Talon. The
Carignan-Sali&res Regiment, about twelve hundred strong, had been
detailed for service in Canada, and was sent out in detachments,
which arrived at intervals during the summer; Tracy himself with
four companies reaching Quebec in June. Many of the men were landed
sick of fever; twenty had died on shipboard in the St. Lawrence.
Mere lTn-carnation, in one of her letters, attributes the malady to
their having opened the portholes when they got into the river, and
let in the fresh air too suddenly. In these days one is apt to
conjecture that it was the confined air, not the fresh air, that did
the mischief, and that the portholes might with advantage have been
opened earlier.
Tracy was eager to move against the enemy, but,
as he was obliged to await the arrival of the rest of his troops, he
improved the interval by erecting forts on the line of his intended
march, one at the mouth of the river Richelieu, known at that time
as the Iroquois River, a second at Chambly, some forty miles up the
stream, and two others at points still higher up. While this work
was in progress Courcelles, the governor, Talon, the intendant, and
the remainder of the troops reached 'Quebec (September 1665).
Courcelles was even more eager for war than his superior officer;
and as it was too late when the forts were finished, and the health
of the troops had been sufficiently restored, to attempt a summer
campaign, he obtained the consent of the marquis to organize a
mid-winter one. Old inhabitants, who knew something of the rigour of
the climate and the difficulties to be encountered on the march,
tried to dissuade him from his purpose, but in vain. With a fatuity,
of which military history furnishes, too many examples, Courcelles
despised all such counsels of prudence. He started with five hundred
men on the 10th of January, marching on the frozen St. Lawrence. The
cold was fearful, and the expedition had proceeded but a short
distance when the sufferings of the men became^ almost unendurable.
At Three Rivers a number had to be left behind who had been disabled
by frost-bites. Some reinforcements having been obtained at that
point, the little army again set forth. Two hundred men out of the
whole force were Canadians, and these naturally proved the fittest
for the undertaking; nor did their superior quality fail to impress
Courcelles. At last the expedition reached the Mohawk country, but
the enemy were not there; they had gone off on some warlike
adventure of their own. There was some burning of deserted cabins;
but the position of the invading force began to be a precarious one,
for the winter was now merging into spring, and there was danger
that if the ice melted in the streams, their retreat would be cut
off. The Mohawks were already hovering in their rear. By the time
they reached the nearest of their forts they had lost sixty men by
cold and hunger. The only thing that can be said in favour of the
expedition is that it greatly impressed the minds of the Iroquois,
as proving that the French had now the means of turning the tables
on them and carrying the war into their own country.
The Iroquois showed some disposition to
negotiate for peace ; but nothing came of it, and in September a
larger expedition set out, commanded by Tracy himself, with
Courcelles as second in command. This time they not only reached the
Iroquois country, but, the savages having fled in panic, they were
able at their ease to destroy a number of fortified villages and
large quantities of food that had been laid up for the winter. The
Iroquois were deeply impressed by these vigorous proceedings. They
saw that a great change had come over the situation and resources of
the French colony, when, instead of submitting helplessly to attack,
they could equip two expeditions in one year to seek them out in
their own habitations. They hastened, therefore, to renew their
propositions of peace, and, as this time they were clearly in
earnest, Tracy concluded a peace with them which held good for
several years. The colony now had a rest, and the beneficial effects
of it were soon evident. Two years later the Jesuit annalist writes
: " It is beautiful now to see nearly all the banks of our river St.
Lawrence occupied by new settlements, stretching along more than
eighty leagues, making navigation not only more agreeable by the
sight of houses dotting the riverside, but also more convenient
through an increase in the number of resting-places." A charming
picture is here given in very simple words.
We have already had occasion to mention
incidentally the dismissal by Tracy of Maisonneuve. Whatever the
motive of this harsh act may have been,its consequences were most
unhappy. Maisonneuve was a man of incorruptible integrity. His
successor, Francois Marie Perrot, was a man of good family and fine
appearance, who enjoyed considerable protection at court and needed
it all, for he had simply the instincts of a dishonest trader, and
used his office for the sole purpose of personal gain. Tracy's
connection with Canada was brief, for he was recalled in the year
following that in which he made his campaign against the Iroquois,
and the government of the country was left in the hands of
Courcelles and Talon ; the former, as governor, representing the
king in a military, political, and high administrative capacity;
while the latter, as intendant, was entrusted with all that
concerned the finances of the colony and its industrial and
commercial development. The two heads of the state seem to have
worked together at first, and for a considerable time, with
commendable harmony. The governor was a judicious and capable
administrator; the intendant, a man of wide views, of singular
discretion, and of indefatigable industry. The Abbe Gosselin, in his
Life of Laval, says that Talon "troubled
himself little about the moral condition of the colony so long as he
saw its commerce and industry flourishing "; and again that "he was
never well disposed to the clergy, whose influence he feared,
dreading that they might become too rich." It is probably the case
that he was not very sympathetic with the ecclesiastical powers of
the day, but he certainly did apply himself to promote the material
prosperity of the colony. Amongst other things he caused three
vessels to be built which were despatched to the West Indies with
cargoes of dried fish, staves, and lumber; and also established a
brewery at Quebec, in the hope of abating the consumption of
imported spirits. If-he did not achieve a larger measure
of success, it was because little was possible under a system of
combined monopoly and paternalism. His reports to the home
government speak of the country as prosperous. In 1670 he writes
that the money granted by the king for the encouragement of
families, and the different industries established, have had such a
good effect, that now no one dares to beg, unless perhaps some
unprotected child too young to work, or some man too old to work or
incapacitated by accident or disease.
A census of the country taken by the intendant
in the year 1666 showed a total population of 3418. The estimated
number of men capable of bearing arms being 1344. The old Company of
the Hundred Associates was, by the terms of its contract to have
brought 4000 settlers to .the colony in fifteen years, dating from
1633; but Talon's figures proved that, in more than twice fifteen
years, the whole population still fell considerably short of that
number. The population of Quebec at this time was 555, of Montreal
584, and of Three Rivers 461. The seigniory of Beauprd below Quebec
had 678 inhabitants and the Island of Orleans 471. The French
government had for some years been showing much zeal in sending out
settlers to Canada, and it was chiefly owing to its efforts that the
population had increased to the extent indicated by the census. The
total number of state-directed immigrants from 1664 to the close of
the year 1671 is estimated at over 2500—a most substantial addition
to the strength of the colony. The Sulpicians must also be credited
with some useful activity in the cause of colonization. Their
settlers were of course directed to Montreal, and, as the figures
above quoted show, the population of that place already exceeded
that of Quebec.
The patent granted to the Company of New
France, or of the Hundred Associates, had made them lords of the
whole territory of Canada, with power to concede seigniories therein
of varying degrees of extent, importance and dignity. A few
seigniories were established by that company; but, as we have seen,
the country under its management was practically at a stand-still.
All the rights which it had in the disposition of the land were
transferred to the West India Company; and under Talon's regime the
creation of seigniories proceeded much
more rapidly, owing mainly to the fact that there were suitable
applicants for them in the officers of the regiments which the king
had sent out. The last few weeks he spent in the country were mainly
occupied in this way. In one month he issued sixty patents.1
This was entirely in accordance with the intentions of the French
government, which had promised lands to any of the officers or
soldiers of the Carignan Regiment who might elect to settle in the
country. A large number accepted the proposition ; and to provide
wives for the excess of men existing in the colony the government
was assiduous in sending out marriageable girls, on the whole very
carefully selected, who as a rule were snapped up immediately on
arrival by wistful bachelors or disconsolate widowers. If any were
slow in finding partners owing to lack of visible attractions, they
were bonused in money and household goods, which usually had the
effect desired. Bounties were moreover paid throughout the colony
for early and fruitful marriages; and the administrators were
instructed to see that special respect was paid to the fathers of
large families, and particularly to those who, having large
families, had succeeded in marrying off their boys and girls at an
early age. Contrariwise, fathers whose children showed backwardness
in entering on matrimony were to be the objects of official
displeasure. Parkman expresses the truth with his
usual picturesque force when he says that,"
throughout the length and breadth of Canada, Hymen, if not Cupid,
was whipped into a frenzy of activity." A gratifying success
attended these practical measures. By the year 1671 the total
population had increased to six thousand. There were in that year
seven hundred baptisms; and the bishop, from doubtless reliable
sources of information, was able to promise the governor eleven
hundred for the next year. Unfortunately infant mortality was in
those days extremely high ; or the population would indeed have been
increasing by leaps and bounds.
It is a matter of regret that the early
historians of Canada feel themselves obliged to record a decline in
the morals of the country, dating from the arrival of the king's
troops in 1665. Up to that time, we are told, the inhabitants—those
in the Montreal district at least—had lived in a condition of
pristine simplicity and innocence, recalling that of the early
Christians. No one locked his house by day or night, the crime of
theft being unknown. The ordinances of the church were strictly
observed by the whole population ; but, if on occasion any one
failed in his duty, punishment promptly followed. For example, a man
on the Island of Orleans, having eaten meat on a Friday, was fined
twenty-five francs, half of which went to the parish church, and
threatened with corporal punishment if he repeated the offence.
"Here," observes the Abbe Faillon with quiet enthusiasm, "we see the
true destination of the secular power."
But—ages of gold have a tendency to vanish
away, and the Astraea of the French colony took her sad flight
shortly after the Carignan-Sali&res Regiment arrived. These men had
the pleasure-loving ways of soldiers, and war had not trained them
to a very strict regard for personal rights or clerical admonitions.
A ball was given at Quebec —the first ever held in the country—on
the 4th February 1667. The clergy held their breath, not knowing
what might follow. Many abuses, it would seem, followed : morals
began to be relaxed; thefts became sufficiently common to bring
bolts and locks into requisition; a Seneca chief was cruelly
murdered by three soldiers; and shortly afterwards six Indians were
massacred in their sleep by some settlers near Montreal. The object
of the latter crime was to obtain possession of a large quantity of
furs which the Indians had brought down to sell. That peace with the
natives was gravely imperilled by these atrocious deeds may readily
be imagined. It took all the firmness and tact of the governor to
avoid an outbreak. The three soldiers were shot by his orders in the
presence of a number of Indians. The other criminals seem to have
escaped punishment by flight.
The last important act of Courcelles was to
undertake a journey up the St. Lawrence as far as the outlet of Lake
Ontario. The object of this adventure was to impress upon the more
distant Iroquois tribes, who had boasted that they were out of reach
of the French arms, that such was not
the case. The idea which these savages had was that the only route
by which the French could penetrate into their country was by way of
the river Richelieu and Lake Champlain, in which case they would
have first to pass through the "buffer" territory of the eastern
Iroquois tribes. The rapids of the St. Lawrence, they thought, would
effectually bar approach by way of Lake Ontario. To demonstrate
their error, Courcelles gave orders for the construction of a
flat-boat of two or three tons burden, which could be rowed in
smooth water, and dragged up difficult places on the rapids. When
this craft was ready, he manned it with a crew of eight men ; and,
taking also thirteen bark canoes, he ascended the river successfully
with a party of over fifty men, including the governor of Montreal
and other leading officials. The Iroquois (Cayugas and Senecas) took
due note of the feat and revised their opinions accordingly.
In the following year both Courcelles and Talon
were recalled at their own request. There had been friction between
them for some time, and they seem to have thought that it would be
best for the king's service that they should both retire. Whatever
the causes of difference may have been, they did not squabble in
public like some of their successors. The services of both were
highly appreciated by the French government, and the departure of
both from Canada was very generally and sincerely regretted. |
