 Chapter 5, Part 1 of the Conquest of New France, by George Rong. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5, Part 1, The Great West. In days before the railway had made possible a bulky commerce by overland routes, rivers furnished the chief means of access to inland regions. The fame of the Ganges, the Euphrates, the Nile, and the Danube shows the part which great rivers have played in history. Of North America's four greatest river systems, the two in the far north have become known in time so recent that their place in history is not yet determined. One of them, the Mackenzie, a mighty stream some two thousand miles long, flows into the Arctic Ocean through what remains chiefly a wilderness. The waters of the other, the Saskatchewan discharge into Hudson Bay more than a thousand miles from their source flowing through rich prairie land which is still but scantily peopled. On the Saskatchewan, as on the remaining two systems, the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, the French were the pioneers, though today the regions drained by these four rivers are dominated by the rival race. The story which we now follow is one of romantic enterprise in which the honors are with France. More perhaps by accident than by design had the French been the first to settle on the St. Lawrence. Fishing vessels had hovered round the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence four years before. In 1535, the French sailor Jacques Cartier advanced up the river as far as the foot of the torrential rapids where now stands the city of Montreal. Cartier was seeking a route to the Far East. He had believed that this impressive waterway drained the plains of China and that around the next bend he might find the busy life of an oriental city. The time came when it was known that a great sea lay between America and Asia and the mystery of the pathway to this sea originated the pioneers of the St. Lawrence. Canada was a colony, a trading post, a mission, the favourite field of Jesuit activity but it was also the land which offered by way of the St. Lawrence a route leading illimitably westward to the Far East. One other route rivaled the St. Lawrence and that was the Mississippi. The two rivers are essentially different in their approaches and in type. The St. Lawrence opens directly towards Europe and of all American rivers lies nearest to the seafaring peoples of Europe. Since it flows cheaply in a rocky bed its cores change as little, its waters are clear and they become icy cold as they approach the sea and mingle with the tide which flows into the great gulf of St. Lawrence from the Arctic regions. The Mississippi on the other hand is a turbid, warm stream flowing through soft lands. Its shifting channel is divided at its mouth by deltas created from the vast quantity of soil which the river carries in its current. On the low lying forest clad northern shore of the gulf of Mexico it was not easy to find the mouth of the Mississippi by approaching it from the sea. The voyage there from France was long and difficult and moreover Spain claimed the lands bordering on the gulf of Mexico and declared herself ready to drive out all intruders. Nature it is clear dictated that if France was to build up her power in the interior of the new world it was the valley of the St. Lawrence which she should first occupy. Time has shown the riches of the lands drained by the St. Lawrence on no other river system in the world is there now such a multitude of great cities. The modern traveler who advances by this route to the sources of the river beyond the Great Lakes surveys wonders ever more impressive before his view appear in succession Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Duluth and many other cities and towns with millions in population and an aggregate of well so vast as to stagger the imagination. Step by step had the French advance from Quebec to the interior. Champlain was on Lake Huron in 1615 and there the Jesuits soon had a flourishing mission to the Huron Indians. They had only to follow the shore of Lake Huron to come to the St. Mary's River bearing towards the sea the chilly waters of Lake Superior. On this river a much frequented fishing ground of the natives they founded the mission of Saint Marie du Sault farther to the south on the narrow opening connecting Lake Huron and Lake Michigan grew up the post known as Michelet-McConnac. It was then inevitable that explorers and missionaries should press on into both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. By the time that Fronten Yacht came first to Canada in 1672 the French had a post called Saint Esprit on the south shore of Lake Superior near its western end and they had also passed westward from Lake Michigan and found a post on both the Illinois and the Wisconsin rivers which flow into the Mississippi. France had placed on record or claimed to the whole of the Great West on our June morning in 1671 there had been a striking scene at Saint-Marie du Sault. The French had summoned a great throng of Indians to the spot there with impressive ceremony Saint-Luson, an officer from Canada has set up a cedar post on which it was a plate engraved with the royal arms and proclaimed Louis the 14th Lord of all the Indian tribes and of all the lands, rivers and lakes discovered and to be discovered in the region stretching from the Atlantic to that of the mysterious sea beyond the spreading lands of the west. Henceforth at their peril would the natives disobey the French king or other states encroach upon these his lands. A Jesuit priest followed Saint-Luson with a description to the savages of their new lord, the king of France who was master of all the other rulers of the world. At his word the earth trembled he could set earth and sea on fire by the blades of his cannon. The priest knew the temper of his savage audience and told of the king's warriors covered with the blood of his enemies of the rivers of blood which flowed from their wounds of the king's countless prisoners of his riches and his power so great that all the world obeyed him. The savages gave delighted shouts at the strange ceremony but of its real meaning they knew nothing what they understood was that the French seemed to be good friends who brought them muskets, hatchets, cloth and especially the love but destructive fire-water which the savage pallet ever craved. The mystery of the great lakes once saw there still remained that of the western sea. The Saint Lawrence flowed eastward another river must therefore be found flowing westward the French were eager listeners when the savages talked of a mighty river in the west flowing to the sea. They meant as we now suppose the Mississippi. There are vague stories of Frenchmen on the Mississippi at an earlier date but however this may be it is certain that in the summer of 1673 Louis Joliet the son of a wagon maker of Quebec and Jacques Marquette the Jesuit priest reached and descended the great river from the mouth of the Wisconsin to a point far past the mouth of the Ohio. France thus planted herself on the Mississippi though there her occupation was less complete and through than it was on the Saint Lawrence distance was an obstacle it was a far cry from Quebec by land and from France the voyage by sea through the Gulf of Mexico was hardly less difficult. To explore La Salle tried both routes in 1681 to 1682 he set out from Montreal, reached the Mississippi over land and descended to his mouth. Two years later he sailed from France with four ships bound for the mouth of the river there to establish a colony but before achieving his aim he was murdered in a treacherous attack led by his own countrymen. It was Pierre Lemoyne Cyr de Beauville who first made good France's claim to the Mississippi. He reached the river by sea in 1699 and descended to a point some 80 miles beyond the present city of New Orleans. Farther east on Biloxi Bay he built Fort Moirpa and planted his first colony. Spain disliked this intrusion but Spain soon to be herself ruled as France then was by a bourbon king did not prove irreconcilable and slowly France built up a colony in the south. It was in 1718 that Iber Villiers' brother Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne Cyr de Beauville founded New Orleans destined to become in time one of the great cities of North America its beginnings were not propitious the historian Charlotte Voix describes it as being in 1721 a low-lying, malaria place infested by snakes and alligators and consisting of a hundred wretched hovels in spite of this dreary outlook it was still true that France planted at the mouth of the Mississippi controlled the greatest waterway in the world. Soon she had scattered settlements stretching northward to the Ohio and the Missouri, the one river reaching eastward almost to the waters of the St. Lawrence system the other flowing out of the western plains from its source in the Rocky Mountains the old mystery however remained for the Mississippi float into the Gulf of Mexico the planting waters already well known the route to the western sea was still to be found it was easy enough for France to record a sweeping claim to the west but to make good this claim she needed a chain of posts which should also be forts linking the Mississippi with the St. Lawrence and strong enough to impress the Indians whose country she had invaded at first she had reached the interior by way of the Ottawa River and Lake Huron the location was secure enough through her posts on the upper lakes the route farther south by Lake Ontario and Lake Erie was more difficult the Iroquois menaced Na Agua and long refused to let France have a footing there to protect her pathway to Lake Erie and the Ohio Valley it was not until 1720 a period comparatively late that the French managed to have a fort at the mouth of the Na Agua on the Detroit River the next strategic point on the way westward they were established earlier just after Fontainegac died in 1698 Lamothe, Cadillac urged that there should be built on this river or fort in town which might be made the center of all the trading interests west of Lake Erie and the folly he urged of going still farther or field among the Indians and teaching them the French language and French modes of thought leave the Indians to live their own type of life to hunt into fish to have valuable furs to exchange encourage them to come to the French at Detroit and see that they go nowhere else by not allowing any other post in the western country Cadillac was himself a keen if secret participant in the profits of the fur trade and hoped to be placed in command at Detroit and there to become independent of control from Quebec Detroit was founded in 1701 and though for a long time it did not thrive the fact that on that site has grown up one of the great industrial cities of modern times shows that Cadillac had read a right the meaning of the geography of North America when France was secure at not Agra and it destroyed two problems to remain unsolved one was that of occupying the valley of the Ohio the waters of which flow westward almost from the south shore of Lake Erie until they empty into the vaster flood of the Mississippi here there was a line in the path which claimed this region as naturally the hinterland of the colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania what happened on the Ohio we shall see in a later chapter the other great problem to be followed here was to explore the regions which lay beyond the Mississippi these spread into a remote unknown and explored by the white men and might ultimately lead to the western sea we might have supposed that France's farther adventure into the west would have been the Mississippi up its great tributary the Missouri which flows eastward from the eternal snows of the Rocky Mountains always however the uncertain temper of the many Indian tribes in this region made the advance difficult the tribes inhabiting the west bank of the Mississippi were especially restless and savage the Sioux in particular made life perilous for the French at their posts near the mouth of the Missouri it does happen that the white men motor west by way of regions farther north it became easy enough to coast along the north and the south shore of Lake Superior easy enough to find rivers which fed the great system of the St. Lawrence or of the Mississippi these however would not solve the mystery a river flowing westward was still to be sought thus both in pursuit of the fur trade an inquest of the western sea the French advanced westward from Lake Superior where now stands the city of Fort William where it flows into Lake Superior the little stream called still by its Indian name of the French had long maintained a trading post from which they made adventurous journeys northward and westward the rugged region still farther north had already been explored at least in outline there lay the great inland sea known as Hudson Bay French and English had long disputed for its mastery by 1670 the English had found trade to Hudson Bay so promising that they then created the Hudson Bay Company which remains one of the great trading corporations of the world with the English on Hudson Bay New France was between English on the north and English on the south and did not like it on Hudson Bay the English showed the same characteristics which they had shown in New England they were not stirred by vivid imaginings of what might be found westward beyond the low lying coast of the great inland sea they came for trade planted themselves at the mouths of the chief rivers unpacked their goods and waited for the natives to come to barter with them for many years the natives came since they must have the knives hatchets and firearms of Europe to share this profitable trade the French now going overland to the north from Quebec now sailing into Hudson Bay by the straits attacked the English and on those dreary waters long before the great west was known there had been many a naval battle many a hand-to-hand fight for forts and their rich prize of furs the chief French hero in the struggle was that son of Charles Le Moigne of Montréal Pierre Le Moigne Dibet Vieille who ended his days in the task of founding the French colony of Louisiana he was perhaps the most notable of all the adventurous leaders whom New France produced he was first on Hudson Bay in the late summer of 1686 in a party of about 100 men led by the Chevalier de Troyes who had marched overland from Quebec through the wilderness the English on the bay with a charter from King Charles II the friend of the French and in a time of profound peace under his successor thought themselves secure they now had however a rude awakening in the dead of night the Frenchman fell upon Fort Hayes captured its days garrison and looted the place the same Faber fell all the other English posts on the bay Eba Vieille gained a rich store furs as his share of the plunder and returned with it to Quebec in 1687 just at this time when La Salle that other pioneer France was struck down in the distant south by a murderer's hand Eba Vieille was above all else a sailor the easiest route to Hudson Bay was by way of the sea more than once after his first experience he led to the bay a naval expedition his exploits are still remembered with pride in French naval annals in 1697 he sailed the pelican through the ice flows of Hudson Straits he was attacked by three English merchant men with 120 guns against his 44 one of the English ships escaped one Eba Vieille sank with all on board one he captured that autumn the hearty corsair was in France with a great booty from the furs which the English had laboriously gathered the triumph on Hudson Bay was short lived their exploits their brilliant and daring were more of the nature of raids than attempts to settle and explore they did no more than the English to ascend the Nelson or other rivers to find what lay beyond and in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht as we have already seen they gave up all claim to Hudson Bay and yielded that region to the English Pierre Gaultier de Varene Syr de la Voron Drie was a member of the Canadian noblesse a son of the governor of three rivers on the St. Lawrence he was born in 1685 and had taken part in the border warfare of the days of Queen Anne he was a member of the raiding party led against New England by Hurtel de Rue Vieille in 1704 and may have been one of those who burst in on the little town of Deerfield Massachusetts and either butchered or carried off as prisoners most of the inhabitants shortly afterwards we find him a participant in the warfare of a less ignoble type in 1706 he went to France and became an ensign in a regiment of grenadiers those were the days when Marlborough was hammering and destroying the armies of Louis XIV La Voron Drie took part in the last of the series of great battles the bloody conflict at Mal Plaqué in 1709 he received a bullet wound through the body was left for dead on the field fell into the hands of the enemy and for 15 months was a captain on his release he was too poor to maintain himself as an officer in France and soon returned to Canada where he served as an officer in a colonial regiment until the piece of 1713 then the ambitious young man recently married with a growing family and slight resources had to work out a career suited to his genius his genius was that of an explorer his task which fully occupied his alert mind was that of finding the long dreamed of passage to the western sea the venture certainly offered fascinations no young a fellow townsman of La Voron Drie at three rivers have brought back from the distant lake of the woods in 1716 a glowing account told to him by the natives of walled cities of ships and cannon and of white bearded men who lived far the west in 1720 the Jesuit Charlevoix already familiar with Canada came out from France went to the Mississippi country and reported that an attempt to find the path to the western sea might be made either by way of the Missouri or farther north through the country of the Sioux west of Lake Superior both routes involved going among war-like native tribes engaged in the incessant and bloody struggles with each other not unlikely to turn on the white intruder memorial after memorial to the French court for assistance resulted at last in serious effort but effort handicapped because the court thought that a monopoly of the fur trade was the only inducement required to promote the work of discovery Le Voron Drie was more eager to reach the western sea than he was to trade to outward seeming however he became just a fur trader and a successful one we find him in 1726 at the trading post of Nippegaw not far from the lake of that name near the north shore of Lake Superior from this point it was not very difficult to reach the shore of one great sea Hudson Bay but that was not the western sea which fired his imagination incessantly he questioned the savages with whom he traded about what lay in the unknown west Ezio was kindled anew by the talk of an Indian named Oka Gok this man said that he himself had been on a great lake lying west of Lake Superior that out of it flowed a river westward that he had paddled down this river until he came to water which as Le Voron Drie understood rose and felt like the tide farther to the actual mouth of the river the savage had not gone for fear of enemies but he had been told that it emptied into a great body of salt water upon the shores of which lived many people we may be sure that Le Voron Drie read into the words of the savage the meaning which he himself desired and that in reality the Indian was describing only the waters which flow into Lake Winnipeg Le Voron Drie was all eagerness soon we find him back at Quebec stirring by his own enthusiasm the zeal of the Marquis de Beau Harnois the governor of Canada and begging for help to pay and equip 100 men for the great enterprise in the west the governor did what he could but was unable to move the French court to give money the sole help offered was a monopoly of the fur trade in the region to be explored a doubtful gift sent angered all the traders excluded from the monopoly Le Voron Drie however was able by promising to hand over most of the profits to persuade merchants in Montreal to equip him with the necessary men and merchandise there followed a period of high hopes and of heartbreaking failure in 1731 Le Voron Drie set out for the west with three sons a nephew, a Jesuit priest, the Indian Oca Gac as guy a party numbering in all about 50 he intended to build trading posts as he went westward and to make the last post always a base from which to advance still farther to Columbus his men not only disliked the hard work which was inevitable but were haunted by superstitious fears of malignant fiends and the unknown land who were ready to punish the invaders of their secrets the route lay across the rough country beyond Lake Superior there were many long portages over which men must carry the provisions and heavy stores for trade at length the party reached Rainy Lake and out of Rainy Lake the waters flowed westward the country seemed delightful the trading were abundant and it was not hard to secure a rich store of furs on the shore of the lake in a charming meadow surrounded by oak trees Le Voron Drie built a trading post on waters flowing to the west naming it Fort Saint Pierre the Voyageur could now travel westward with the current it is certain that other Frenchmen have preceded them in that region but this is the first voyage of discovery of which we have any details escorted by an imposing array of 50 canoes of Indians Le Voron Drie floated down Rainy River to the lake of the woods and here on a beautiful peninsula jutting out into the lake he built another post Fort Saint Charles it must have seemed imposing to the natives on walls 100 square were four bastions and a watch tower evidence of the perennial need of alertness and strength in the Indian country there were a chapel houses for the commandant and the priest a powder magazine a storehouse buildings Le Voron Drie cleared some land and planted wheat and was thus the pioneer in the mighty wheat production of the west fishing game were abundant and the outlook was smiling by this time the second winter of Le Voron Drie as the ventures journey was near but even the cold of that hard region could not chill his eagerness he himself waited at Fort Saint Charles but his eldest son Jean Baptiste set out to explore it still farther we may follow with interest and Indian guides as they file on snowshoes along the surface of the frozen river or over the deep snow of the silent forest on ever on to the west they are the first white men of whom we have certain knowledge to press beyond the lake of the woods into that great northwest so full of meaning for the future the going was laborious and the distances seem long from their return they reported that they had gone 150 leagues though in truth the distance was only 150 miles then at last they stood on the shores of the vast body of water ice bound and forbidding as it lay in the grip of winter it opened out illimitably westward but it was not the western sea for his waters were fresh the shallow waters of Lake Winnipeg empty not into the western sea but into the Atlantic by way of Hudson Bay its shores then were deserted and desolate and even to this day they are but scantily people in that wild land there was no hint of the populace east of which Lot Varro-Andrea had dreamed at the mouth of the Winnipeg river where it enters Lake Winnipeg Lot Varro-Andrea built fort Moropah named after the French minister who was in charge of the colonies and who was influential at court the name no doubt expresses some clinging hope which Lot Varro-Andrea still cherished of obtaining help from the king already he was hard pressed for resources where were the means to come from for this costly work of building forts from time to time he sent eastward canoes laden with furs which after along a difficult journey reached Montreal the traders to whom the furs were consigned sold them and kept the money as their own on account of their outlay Lot Varro-Andrea in the far interior could not pay his men and would soon be without goods to trade with the Indians after having repeatedly begged for help but in vain he made a rapid journey to Montreal and implored the governor to aid an enterprise which might change the outlook of the whole world the governor was willing but without the consent of France could not give help by promising the traders who were now partners in his monopoly profits of 100% on their outlay Lot Varro-Andrea had last secured what he needed his canoes were laid with goods and soon brawny arms were driving once again the graceful craft westward he had offered a new hostage to fortune by arranging that his fourth son a lot of 18 should follow him in the next year Lot Varro-Andrea pressed on eagerly in advance of the heavy laden canoes grim news met him soon after he reached Fort Saint-Charles on the lake of the woods his nephew Lot Gérard-Mauréa a born leader of men who was at the most advanced station Fort Moropas on Lake Minnipec had broken down from exposure anxiety and overwork and had been laid in a lonely grave in the wilderness nearly all power near work as a record of tragedy and its gloom lies heavy on the career of Lot Varro-Andrea a little later came another sorrow-laden disaster Lot Varro-Andrea sent his eldest son Jean back to Rainy Lake to herd the canoes from Montreal which were bringing needed food the party landed on a peninsula at the discharge of Rainy Lake into Rainy River fell into an ambush of Sioux Indians and were butchered to a man this incident reveals the chief cause of the slow progress and discovery in the great west the temper of the savages was always uncertain there's no sign that Lot Varro-Andrea wavered in his great hope even when he realized that the Winnipeg River was not the river flowing westward which he saw we know now that the northern regions of the American continent east of the Rocky Mountains are tilted towards the east and the north and that in all its vast spaces there are no great river which flows to the west Lot Varro-Andrea however ignorant of this dictative nature longed to paddle with the stream towards the west the Red River flows from the south into Lake Winnipeg at a point near the mouth of the Winnipeg River up the Red River went Lot Varro-Andrea and found a tributary the Asanina Boine flowing into it from the west at the point of Juncture where has grown up the city of Winnipeg he built a tiny fort called Fort Rouge a name still preserved in a suburb of the modern Winnipeg the explorers went southward to the Red River and then went westward on the Asanina Boine river only to find the waters persistently flowing against them and no definite news of other waters leading to the western sea on the Asanina Boine near the site of the present town of Portage La Prairie in Manitoba Lot Varro-Andrea built Fort La Ra its name is evident still perhaps of hopes for aid through the Queen if not through the king of France in 1737 Lot Varro-Andrea made once more the long journey to Montreal his 14 canoes laden with furs were an earnest of the riches of the wonderful west and so pleased as Montreal partners that again they fitted him out with adequate supplies in the summer of 1738 we find him at Fort La Reine rich for the moment in goods with which to trade keen and competent as a trader and having great influence with the natives all through the west he found Indians who went to trade with the English on Hudson Bay and he constantly urged them not to take the long journey but to depend upon the French they went to their own country it was a policy well fitted to cause searching of heart among the English traders who seemed so secure in their snug quarters on the seashore waiting for the Indians to come to them Lot Varro-Andrea had now a fresh plan for penetrating farther on his Zelloring quest he'd heard of a river to the south to be reached by a journey over land it was a new thing for him to abandon canoes and march on foot but this he now did and with winter approaching on October 16 1738 when the autumn winds were already chill there was a striking little parade at Fort La Reine the drummer beat the garrison to arms what with soldiers brought from Canada the voyageur who had paddled the great canoes and the Indians who dogged always the steps of the French traders there was a muster at the fort of some scores of men Lot Varro-Andrea reviewed the whole company and from them chose for his expedition 20 soldiers and voyageur 20 Ascena-Bowin Indians as companions for himself he took François and Pierre two of his three surviving sons and two traders who were at the fort we can picture the little company setting out on the 18th of October on foot with some semblance of military order by a well-beaten trail leading across the high land which separates the Red River country from the regions to the southwest Lot Varro-Andrea had heard much about people the Mandans dwelling in well-ordered villages on the banks of a great river and cultivating the soil instead of living the wandering life of hunters such wonders of Medan culture had been reported to Lot Varro-Andrea that he half expected to find them white men with a civilization equal to that of Europe the river was in reality not an unknown stream as Lot Varro-Andrea hoped but the Missouri river already frequented by the French in its lower stretches whereas waters joined those of the Mississippi it was a long march over the prairie Lot Varro-Andrea found that he could not hurry his Indian guides they insisted on delays during days of glorious autumn weather when it would have been wise to press on and avoid the winter cold on the windswept prairie they went out of their way to visit a village of their own as in that Boeing tribe and when they resumed their journey this whole village followed them the prairie Indians had a more developed sense of order and discipline than the tribes of the forest Lot Varro-Andrea admired the military regularity of the savages on the march they divided the company of more than 600 into three columns in front scouts to look out for an enemy and also for herds of Buffalo in the center well protected the old and the lame all those incapable of fighting and for a rearguard strong fighting men when Buffalo were seen the most active of the fighters rushed to the front to aid in hemming in the game women and dogs carried the baggage the men count descending to bear only their weapons until cold December had come to the party reached the chief Mandan village it was in some sense imposing for the Indian lodges were arranged neatly in streets and squares and the surrounding palisade was strong and well built around the fort was a ditch 15 feet deep and of equal width which made the village impregnable in Indian warfare after saluting the village with three volleys of muskfire Lot Varro-Andrea marched in with great ceremony under the French flag only to discover that the Mandans were particularly unlike the Asana Boines and other Indians of the west whom he already knew the men went about naked and the women nearly so they were skilled in dressing leather they were also cunning traitors for they duped Lot Varro-Andrea's friends the Asana Boines and cheated them out of their muskets ammunition, cattle and knives great eaters were the Mandans they cultivated abundant crops and stored them in cave cellars every day they brought their visitors to the territory of their own handicraft there was incredible feasting which Lot Varro-Andrea avoided for which his sons enjoyed the Mandan language he could not understand and close questioning as to the route to the western sea was thus impossible he learned enough to discredit the big tales of white men and armor and people towns with which his lying eyes had regaled him in the end he decided for the time being to return to Fort Lorin and to leave two of his followers to learn the Mandan language in the future they might act as interpreters when he left the Mandan village on the 13th of December he was already ill and it is a wonder that he did not perish from the cold on the wintry journey across hill and prairie in all my life I have never he says endured such misery from illness and fatigue as on that journey on the 11th of February he was back at Fort Lorin worn out and broken in health but still undaunted and resolved never to abandon his search abandoned it he never did end of chapter five part one chapter five part two of the conquest of New France by George wrong this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter five part two we find him in Montreal in 1740 involved in what he had always held in horror a lawsuit brought against him by some impatient creditor the report had gone abroad that he was amassing great wealth when as he said all that he had accumulated was a debt of 40,000 Lever in the autumn of 1741 he was back at Fort Lahore where he welcomed his son Pierre from a fruitless journey to the Mandans the most famous of all the efforts of the family was now on foot on April 29, 1742 a new expedition started from Fort Lorin led by La Valandrie as two sons Pierre and Francois they knew the nature of the task before them its perils as well as its hopes they took with them no imposing company as their father had done but only two men the party of four two feeble to fight their way had to trust to the peaceful disposition of the natives when they started the prairie was turning from brown to green and the rivers were still swollen from the spring fall in three weeks they reached a Mandan village on the upper Missouri and were well received it was after mid-summer when they set out again and pressed on westward with a trend to the south the country was bare and at least they saw no human being they had Mandan guides who promised to take them to the next tribe the handsome men Bozum as the brothers call them a tribe much feared by the Mandans the travelers were now mounted for the horse brought first to America by the Spaniards had run wild on the western plains where the European himself had not yet penetrated and had become an indispensable aid to certain of the native tribes deer and buffalo were in abundance and they had no lack of food when they reached the tribe of Bozum the Mandan guides fled homeward summer passed into bleak autumn with chill winds and long nights by the end of October they were among the horse Indians who they had been told could guide them to the sea these however now said that only the Bo Indians father could do this winter was near when they were among these Indians probably a tribe of the Sioux whom they found excitedly preparing for a raid on their neighbors farther west the snakes they were going they said towards the mountains and there the Frenchman could look out on the great sea so the story goes on the brothers advanced ever westward and the land became more rugged for they were now climbing upward and the prairie country had last on January 1, 1743 they saw what both cheered and discouraged them in the distance were mountains about them was the prairie with game in abundance it was a great host with which the brothers traveled for there were 2,000 warriors with their families who made night vocal with songs and yells on the 12th of January nearly two weeks later we then advanced the warriors the La Valandrias reached the foot of the mountains well wooded with timber of every kind a very high was it the Rocky mountains which they saw had they reached that last mighty barrier of snow capped peaks rugged valleys and torrential streams beyond which lay the sea that they had done so was long assumed and many conjectures have been offered as to the point in the Rockies near they made their last camp their further progress was checked by an unexpected crisis one day they came upon an encampment of the dreaded snake Indians which had been abandoned in great haste this the bow Indians thought could only mean that the snakes had hurriedly left their camp in order to slip in behind the advanced guard of the bows and massacred the women and children left in the rear the snake seized the bows and they turned homeward in wild confusion their chief could not restrain them I was very much disappointed writes one of the brothers that I could not climb the mountains those mountains from which he had been told that he might view the western sea there was nothing for it but to turn back through snow drifts over the bleak prairie the progress was slow for the snow was sometimes two feet deep on the first of March the brothers and two old friends at their village and then headed for home by the 20th they were encamped with a friendly tribe on the banks of the Missouri here to assert that Louis the 15th was lord of all that country they built on an eminence up here in the middle of stones and in it they buried a tablet of lead with an inscription which recorded the name of Louis the 15th their king and of the Marquis de Beauhar Noir and the date of the visit truth is sometimes stranger than fiction 170 years later on February 16, 1913 a school girl strolling with some companions on a Sunday afternoon near the high school in the town of Pierre South Dakota stumbled upon a projecting corner of this tablet which was in an excellent state of preservation thus we know exactly where the brothers of our Andrea were on April 2, 1743 when they bade farewell to their Indian friends and set out on horseback for Fort La Rache spring had turned to summer before the brothers reached their destination on July 2, 1743 they relieved the anxiety of their waiting father after an absence of 15 months moving slowly as they did could they have traveled from the distant Rockies from the Rockies in January when they turned back it seems doubtful and in spite of the long cherished belief that the brothers reached the foothills of the Rocky Mountains it may be that they had not penetrated beyond the barrier which we know as the Black Hills the chance discovery of a forgotten plate by school children may in truth prove that as late as in 1750 the Rocky Mountains had not yet been seen by white men the first vision of that mighty range was obtained much farther north in Canada after 1743 the French seem to have made no further efforts to reach the western sea by way of the Missouri if in reality the brothers had not gone beyond the Black Hills in South Dakota and their most important work appears to have been done within what is now Canada as discovers of the South Saskatchewan the city river which carries too far distant Hudson Bay the waters melted on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains it was by this route up the South Saskatchewan that 50 years later was solved the tough and haunting problem of going over the mountains to the Pacific Ocean Lavara Andrea now ascended the Saskatchewan for some 300 miles to the forks where divides into two great branches he was going deeper into debt but he hoped always for help from the king it is pathetic to see today on the map of that part of western Canada which he and his sons explored a town a lake and a county called Dauphin in honor of the heir to the throne of France no doubt Lavara Andrea had the thought that someday he might plead with the Dauphin when he had become king for help in his great task before the year 1749 he ended Lavara Andrea who had returned to Montreal was in his grave his sons, partners in his work expected to be charged with the task to which the king in 1749 had a new appointed their father of continuing the work of discovery in the west François for a time ill wrote in 1750 from Montreal to La Jean-Quiet the governor at Quebec that he hoped to take up the plans of his father the governor's reply was that he had appointed another officer Le Jardin de Saint-Pierre to lead in the search for the western sea François hurried to Quebec the governor met him with a bland face and seemed friendly François urged that he and his brothers claimed no preeminence and that they were ready to serve under the orders of Saint-Pierre the governor was hesitant but at last told François frankly that the new leader desired to help either from him or from his brothers François was dismayed in his brothers were in debt already he had sent on stores and men to the west and the men were likely to starve if not followed by provisions his chief property was in the west in the form of goods which would be plundered without his guardianship to tide over the immediate future he sold the one small piece of land in Montreal which he had inherited through this slight sop to his urgent creditors Saint-Pierre strong in his right of monopoly insisted that the brothers should not even return to the west François urged that to go was a matter of life and death in some way he secured lead to set out with one laden canoe when Saint-Pierre found that François had gone he claimed damages for the intrusion on his monopoly and secured in order to pursue François bringing him back he caught him at the meeting between the two men at that place involved explanations face to face with an injured man Saint-Pierre admitted that he had been in the wrong paid through François many compliments and regretted that he had not joined hands with the brothers the mission done was however irreparable François crippled by opposition could not carry on his trade with success at the end he returned to Montreal a ruined man overwhelmed with debt he wrote to the French court a noble appeal for relief I remain without friends and without patrimony a simple ensign of the second grade my older brother has only the same rank as myself my younger brother is only a junior cadet this is the result of all that my father my brothers and myself have done there are in the hands of your lordship resources of compensation I venture to appeal to you for relief to find ourselves excluded from the west would mean to be cruelly robbed of our heritage to realize for ourselves all that is bitter and to see others secure all that is sweet the appeal fell on deaf ears the brothers sank into obscurity during Mont-Talm's campaigns from 1756 to 1759 Pierre and François seemed to have been engaged in military service François was killed in the Siege of Quebec in 1759 after the final surrender of Canada the August ship laden for the most part with refugees returning to France was wrecked on the St. Lawrence among those on board who perished was Pierre de la Varendrie he died amid the howling of the tempest and the cries of drowning men tragedy unrelenting had pursued him to the end Le jardure de Saint-Pierre the choice of the Marquis de la Jean-Quiet to take up the search for the Western Sea in succession to the Elder la Varendrie himself went only as far as Fort Lawrence it was a subordinate the Chevalier de Niverville whom he sent farther west to find the great mountains and if possible the sea the winter of 1750 to 1551 had set in before Niverville was ready he started apparently from Fort Mauripas on snowshoes his party dragging their supplies on toboggans before they reached Pasquoia on the Saskatchewan the modern La Pa they had nearly perished of hunger and were able to save their lives only by catching a few fish through the ice Niverville was ill he sent forward 10 men by canoe up the Saskatchewan 1759-1751 they had reached the Rockies they built a good fort which they named Fort La Jean-Quiet and stored it with a considerable quantity of provisions if it seems likely the brothers La Varendrie saw only the Black Hills these 10 or none men were the discoverers of the Rocky Mountains Saint-Pierre braced himself to set out for the distant gold but he was easily discouraged Niverville he said was ill and his friends were at war among themselves some of them were plotting what Saint-Pierre calls treason to the French and their periphery to surpass anything in his life long experience the hostile influence of the English he thought all pervasive obviously these are excuses he did not like the task and he turned back as it was he tells a dramatic story of how Indians crowded into Fort La Varendre in a threatening manner and how he saved the fort in himself to the magazine with a lighted torch knocking open a barrel of powder and threatening to blow up everything and everybody if the savages did not withdraw at once he was eager to leave the country in 1752 he handed over the command to Saint-Luc de La Corne and in August of that year having experienced much wretchedness on his journeys he was safely back in Montreal the founding of Fort La Jean-Quiet was no doubt a great feat where the fort stood we do not know it may have been on the north Saskatchewan near Edmonton or on the south branch of the river near Calgary in any case it was a far-flung outpost of France the English had always been more prosaic than the French the traders on Hudson Bay worked indeed under a monopoly not less rigorous than that which Canada imposed without doubt many an Englishman on the Bay was haunted by the hope and desire to reach the western sea but the servants of the company knew with that to buy and sell at a profit was their chief aim they had been on the whole content to wait for trade to come to them by 1740 the Indians who made the long journey to the bay by the intricate waters which carried to the sea the flood of the Saskatchewan and Lake Winnipeg were showing to the English articles supplied by the French at points far inland it thus became evident that the French were tapping the traffic near its source and cutting off the stream which had long flowed to Hudson Bay in June 1754 Anthony Henry a young man in the service of the company left York factory on Hudson Bay to find out what the French were doing we have a slight but carefully written diary of Henry's journey he does not fail to note that in the summer weather life was made almost intolerable by the mosquitoes traveling by canoe he reached the Saskatchewan river and tells how on the 22nd of July he came to a French house it was Fort Pasquoya when Henry paddled up to the river bank to Frenchman met him and in a very gentile manner invited him into their house with all courtesy they asked him he says if he had any letter from his master and where and on what design he was going inland his answer was that he had been sent to view the country and that he intended to return to Hudson Bay in the spring the Frenchman were sorry that their own master who was apparently the well-known Canadian leader Saint-Luc de la Corne the successor of Saint-Pierre had gone to Montreal with furs and added their regrets that they must detain Henry until this leader's return at this Henry's Indians granted and said that the French dared not do so next day Henry took breakfast and dinner at the fort gave two feet of tobacco at that time it was sold in long coils to his host and in return received some moose flesh the confidence of his Indian guides that the French would not dare to detain him was justified next day Henry paddled on up the river and advanced more than 20 miles camping at night by the largest birch trees I have yet seen Henry wished to see the country thoroughly and to come and to touch with the natives the best way to do this and to obtain food was to leave the river and go boldly over land he accordingly left his canoes behind and advanced on foot the party was starving on a Sunday in July he walked 26 miles and says neither bird nor beast to be seen so that we have nothing to eat the next day he traveled 24 miles on an empty stomach and then to his delight found a supply of ripe strawberries the size of black currants and the finest I ever eat the next day his Indians killed two moose he then met natives who when he asked them to go to Hudson Bay to trade replied that they could obtain all they needed from the French posts the tact and skill of the French were such that as Henry admits reluctantly enough the Indians were already strongly attached to them day after day Henry journeyed on over the rolling prairie in the warm summer days he came to the south branch of the Saskatchewan near the point where now stands Saskatoon and crossed the river on the 21st of August then on to the west eager to take part in the hunting of the buffalo Henry is almost certainly the first Englishman to see this region in the end he reached the mountains he makes no mention of having seen or heard anything of Fort La Jean Kier built three years earlier he had aims different from those of La Varendria and other French explorers not the Western Sea what he thinks for trade was he seeking his great aim was to reach the tribe called later the Blackfeet Indians who were mighty hunters of the buffalo Henry was alive through the impressions of nature the intense heat of August was followed in September by glorious weather with the night school and the mosquitoes no longer troublesome the climate was bracing he complains only from time to time of swollen feet and we did not wonder since his daily march occasionally went beyond 25 miles sometimes for days he saw no living creature at other times wildlife was prolific they were moose in great abundance bears including the dreaded grizzly one of which killed an Indian at his company and badly mutilated another beaver wild horses and above all the buffalo saw many herds of buffalo grazing like English cattle he says on the 13th of September and the next day goes buffalo hunting guns and ammunition were costly is Indians who used only bows and arrows on this day killed seven fine sport says Henry often the Indians took only the tongue leaving the carcass for the wolves who naturally abounded in such advantageous conditions it is not easy now to imagine the part played by the buffalo in the life of the prairie as Henry advanced the herds were so dense as sometimes to retard his progress other writers tell of the vast numbers of these creatures Alexander Henry the younger writing on April 1, 1801 says that in a river swollen by spring floods ground buffalo floated past his camp in one continuous line for two days and two nights in prairie fires thousands were blinded and would go tumbling down banks into streams or lie down to die one morning the bellowing of buffaloes awakened Henry and he looked out to see the prairie black that was the point of the compass as far as the eye could reach and every animal was in motion daily as Henry advanced he saw smoke in the distance and his Indians told him that it came from the camp of the black feet he reached them on Monday the 14th of October when four miles away he was stopped by mounted scouts who asked whether he came as a friend or as an enemy he was taken to the camp of 210 pitched into rows and was led by a message between the tents to the big tent of the chief of whom he had heard much not a word was spoken the chief sat on a white buffalo skin pipes were passed round and each person was presented with boiled buffalo flesh when talk began Henry told the chief that his great leader had sent him to invite them to come to trade at Hudson Bay whereas people would get powder shot guns cloth beads and other things but it was far away and his people knew nothing of paddling such strangers to great waters were they that they would not even eat fish they despised Henry's tobacco what they smoked was dried horse tongue in the end Henry was dismissed in order to make his camp a quarter of a mile away from that of the black feet it was close by the present site of Calgary and apparently in full view on clear days of the white peaks of the rocky mountains that Henry visited he lingered in the far western country through the greater part of the winter on a portion of his return journey he used a horse when the spring thaw came once more he took to the water in canoes he complains of the idleness of his Indian companions who would remain in their huts all day and never stir to lay up a store of food even when game was abundant conjuring dancing to the hideous pounding of drums feasting and smoking were their amusements on his way back Henry revisited the French post on the Saskatchewan the leader no doubt, Saint-Luc de la Corne had returned from Montreal and now had with him nine men the master says Henry invited me in to set with him and was very kind he is dressed very genteel he showed Henry his stock of furs a brave parcel the admiring rival thought Henry admits the superiority of the French as traitors they talk several languages to perfection the language of us in every shape in the west as in the east France was recognized as a formidable rival of England for the mastery of North America when Henry was making his peaceful visit to the French fort in 1755 the crisis of the struggle had just been reached in that year the battle line from Arcadia to the Ohio and then Mississippi was already forming and the fate of France's eager efforts to hold the west was soon to be decided if Britain should conquer on the St. Lawrence she will conquer also on the Saskatchewan and on the Mississippi conquer she did and thus it happened that it was Britain's sons who took up the later burdens of the discoverer in the summer of 1789 just at the time when the great revolution was beginning in France Alexander Mackenzie a Scotch trader from Montreal starting from Lake Athabasca north of the farthest point and advancing still onward into an unknown region to find a river which might lead to the sea this river he found we know it now as the Mackenzie for two weeks he and his Indians and Voyageur paddled with the current down this mighty stream and on July 14 1789 the day of the fall of the Bastille he saw whales spouting in arctic waters the real goal which Mackenzie saw there on Dria a western and not a northern ocean three years later after months of preparation he attempted the great feat of crossing the Rocky Mountains to the sea after nine months of rugged travel across mountain streams and gorges in peril daily from hostile savages on July 22 1793 he reached the shore of the Pacific Ocean the first white man to go by land over the width of the continent from sea to sea it was thus a Scotchman who achieved that of which La Veron Dria had so long dreamed and with no aid from the state but with only the resources of a trading company ten years later when France sold to the United States the last remaining territory of Louisiana the American government equipped an expedition under Lewis and Clark to cross the Rocky Mountains by way of the Missouri the route from which the La Veron Dria and the brothers had been obliged to turn back the party began the ascent of the Missouri on May 14 1804 and arrived in the Mandan country in the late autumn here they spent the winter of 1804-105 not until November 15 1805 had they completed the hard journey across the Rocky Mountains and reached the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Ocean little did La Veron Dria in his eager search for the western sea to be encountered and the hardships to be endured by those who were destined in later days to realize his dream End of Chapter 5 Part 2 Chapter 6 of the Conquest of New France by George Rong this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 6 The Valley of the Ohio almost at the moment in 1749 when British ships were lying at anchor in Halifax Harbour and sending to shore hundreds of boatloads of dazed and expectant settlers for the new colony there had set out from Montreal in the interests of France an expedition with design so far reaching that we wonder still at the issues involved in efforts which seemed so petty the purpose of France was now to make good her claim to the whole vast west it was a picturesque company which pushed its canoes from the shore at La Chine on the 15th of June six days before the British squadron reached Halifax there was a procession of 23 great birch bark canoes well filled for in them were more than 200 men at least 10 in each canoe together with the necessary impedimenta for a long journey there were 20 soldiers in uniform 180 Canadians skilled in paddling and in carrying canoes and freight over the portages a band of Indians and 14 officers with Saint Laurent at their head the acting governor of Canada at this time was a dwarf in physique but a giant in intellect the brilliant naval officer the Marquis de la Calisthenia destined later to inflict upon the English in the Mediterranean the naval defeat which caused the execution of Admiral Bing as a coward this remarkable man Sir Frontenac on a scale suited to world politics saw that the peace of 1748 settled nothing that in the balance now was the whole future of North America and that victory would be to the alert and the strong he chose Saint Laurent the most capable of the hearty young Canadian no-bless whom he had at hand a man accustomed to the life of the forest sent with him this large party to assert against the English the writer France to the valley of the Ohio the English were now to be shut out definitely from advancing westward and to be confined to the strip of territory lying between the Atlantic coast and the Allegheny mountains a little more than that strip 50 miles wide talked about in Quebec as the maximum concession of France but still not very much according to the ideas of the English and even this not secure if France should ever grow strong enough to crowd them out at no time do we find more vivid the contrast in type between the two nations before a concrete fact the British take action when they gave up Louis Bird they built Halifax their traders have pressed the higher country not directed under any grandiose idea of empire but simply as individuals to trade and reap for themselves what profit they could when they were checked and menaced by the French they saw that something must be done how they did it we shall see presently it was the weakness of the English colonies that they could not unite to work out a great plan if Virginia took steps to advance forward Pennsylvania was jealous last lands which she desired should go to a rival colony France on the other hand had complete unity of design Celeron spoke in the name of the king of France and he spoke in terms uncompromising enough the Ohio said the king of France through his agent belongs to me it is a French river the lands bordering upon it are my lands the English intruders are foreign robbers and not one of them is to be left in the western country I will not endure the English on my land the Indians dwelling in that region are my children scattered over the vast region about the great lakes were a good many French at the lower end of Lake Ontario stood Fort Frontignac a menace to the colony of New York as the dwellers in the British post of Oswego on the opposite shore of the lake well new we have already seen that the French held a fort at Niagara guarding the route leading farther west to Lake Erie and to regions beyond Lake Erie by way of the Ohio or the upper lakes to the Mississippi near the mouth of the Mississippi New Orleans was now becoming a considerable town with a governor independent of the governor at Quebec along the Mississippi at strategic points stretching north would be on the mouth of the Missouri were a few French settlements ragged enough and without shiftless population of fur traders and farmers but adequate to assert Francis possession of that mighty highway the weak point in Francis position was in her connection of the Mississippi with the St. Lawrence by way of the Ohio this was the place of danger for here English rivalry was strongest and it was to cure this weakness that Celeron was now sent forth Celeron moved toile assembly over the portage which led past the great cataract of Niagara and launched his canoes on Lake Erie from its south shore during seven days of heartbreaking labor the party dragged the canoes and supplies through dense forest and over steep hills until they reached the Chautauqua Lake the waters of which flow into the Allegheny River and by it to the Ohio for many weary days they went with the current stopping at Indian villages treating with the savages who were sometimes odd and sometimes menacing they warned the Indians to have no dealings with the scheming English who would infallibly prove to be robbers and asserted as boldly Celeron dared the lordship of the king of France and his love for his forest children Celeron realized that he was on an historic mission at several points on the Ohio with great ceremony he buried leaden plates as La Barondrilla had done a few years earlier in the far west bearing an inscription declaring that in the name of the king of France he took possession of the country on trees over these memorials of lead he nailed the arms of France stamped on sheets of tin since that day at least three of the plates have been found Celeron's expedition went well enough he advanced as far west on the Ohio as the mouth of the great Miami river then up that river and by difficult portages back to Lake Erie it was a remarkable journey but in the late autumn he was back again in Montreal not sure that he had achieved much the natives of the country were he thought hostile to France and devoted to the English who had long traded with them this opinion was in true veronias for when the time of testing came the Indians of the west fought on the side of France Montcom had many hundreds of them under his banner the expedition meant the definite and final throwing down France with all due ceremony she had declared that the Ohio country was hers and that there she would allow no English to dwell Le Jardin de Saint-Pierre could hardly have known when he left the hard region of the Saskatchewan in 1752 that a year later he would be sent to protect another set of outposts of France in the west in 1753 we find him in command of the French forces that the Ohio country had been sent to Detroit if Saint-Pierre had played his part feebly on the Saskatchewan he was now made for a brief period one of the central figures in the opening act of a world drama it is with a touch of emotion that we see on the stage as the opponent of this not great Frenchman the momentous figure of George Washington the fight for North America is rapidly approaching its final phase in the struggle which we know as the Seven Years War during 40 years commissioners of the two nations have been trying to reach some agreement as to boundaries each side however made impossible demands France claimed all the lands trained by the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes and by the Mississippi and its tributaries a claim which if made good would have carried her into the very heart of the colony of New York given her also the mastery of the Ohio and the regions beyond Britain claimed all the lands ever occupied by the Iroquois Indians who had been recognized as British subjects by the Treaty of Utrecht as those Indians had over run regions north of the St. Lawrence the British thus would become masters of a good part of Canada neither side was prepared for reasonable compromise so that the sword was to be the final Arbiter events moved rapidly towards war in 1753 Duquesne the new governor of Canada sent more than a thousand men to build Fort Le Beurre on upper waters flowing to the Ohio and with an easy reach of support by way of Lake Erie in the next year the French were swarming in the Ohio Valley stirring up the Indians against the English and confident of their success. They jeered at the divisions among the English and believed their own unity so strong that they could master the colonies one by one the two colonies most affected were Pennsylvania and Virginia, either of them quite ready to see its own citizens advance into the Ohio country and possess the land but neither of them willing to unite with the other ineffective military action to protect the frontier it is at this crisis that there appears for the first time in history George Washington of Virginia in December 1753 in the dead of winter he made a long, toilsome journey from Virginia to the north through snow and rain by difficult forest trails over two ranges of mountains across streams sometimes frozen sometimes dangerous from treacherous thaws on the way he heard gossip from the Indians about the lines of the French they boasted that they would come in numbers like the sands of the seashore that the natives would be no more an obstacle to them than the flies and mosquitoes which indeed they resemble and that not the breath of a fingernail of land belonged to the Indians Washington was told by one of the French that it was their absolute design to take possession of the Ohio and by blank they would it was no matter that the French were outnumbered two to one by the English for the English were dilatory and ineffective in the end Washington arrived at Fort Leber and presented a letter from the lieutenant governor of Virginia pointing out that the British could not permit an armed force from Canada to invade their territory of the Ohio and requiring that the French should leave the country at once Le Jardin de Saint-Pierre to whom this firm demand was delivered an elderly gentleman says Washington with much the air of a soldier gave of course a polite answer in the manner of his nation but he intended he said to remain where he was as long as he had instruction so to do Washington kept his eyes open and made careful observations of the plan of the fort the number of men and also of the canoes which he noted that there were more than two hundred ready and many others building the French tried to entice away his Indians and he says I cannot say that ever in my life I suffered so much anxiety on the journey back he nearly perished when he fell into an ice cold stream and was obliged to spend the night on a tidily island in frozen clothing he brought comfort as cold to the waiting din witty the French meanwhile were always a little ahead of the English in their planning early in April 1754 a French force of five or six hundred men from Canada which had set out while Quebec was still in the icy grip of winter reached the upper waters of the Ohio they attacked and destroyed a fort which the English have begun at the forks where it now stands Pittsburgh and in its place began a formidable one called Fort Duquesne after the governor of Canada in vain was Washington sent with a few hundred men to take possession of this fort and to assert the claim of the English to the land he fell in with a French scouting party under young Goulang de Jouement Villa killed its leader and nine others and took more than a score of prisoners wore fair bloody enough in a time of supposed peace but the French were now on the Ohio in greater numbers than the English at a spot known as the great Meadows where Washington had hastily thrown up defenses which he called for necessity he was forced to surrender but was allowed to lead his force back to Virginia defeated in the first military adventure of his career the French took the view that his killing of the young officer Jouement Villa was assassination since no state of war existed and raised a fierce clamor that Washington was a murderer a strange contrast to his relations with France in the years to come what astonishes us in regard to these events is that Britain and France long remained nominally at peace well they were carrying on active hostilities in America and sending from Europe armies to fight there were various reasons for this hesitation about plunging formally into war each side wished to delay until sure of its alliances in Europe during the war ending in 1748 France had fought with Frederick of Prussia against Austria and Britain had been Austria's ally the war had been chiefly a land war but France had been beaten on the sea now Britain and Prussia were drawing together and if France fought them it must be with Austria as an ally such an alliance offered France but slight advantage Austria and inland power could not help France against an adversary whose strength was on the sea she could not aid the designs of France in America or in India where the capable French leader dupler was in a fair way to build up a mighty oriental empire nor had France anything to gain in Europe from an Austrian alliance the shoe was on the other foot the supreme passion of Maria Teresa who ruled Austria was to recover the province of Silesia which had been seized in 1740 by Prussia and held held to this day Austria could do little for France but France could do much for Austria so Austria worked for this alliance it is a story of intrigue usually in France the king carried on negotiations with foreign countries only through his ministers the real interest of France now the astute Austrian statesman Kaunitz went past the ministers of Louis the 15th to Louis himself this was the heyday of Madame de Pompadour the king's mistress Maria Teresa condescended to intrigue with this woman whom in her heart she despised there is still much mystery in the affair the king was flattered into thinking that personally he was swaying the affairs of Europe and took delight in deceiving his ministers and working behind their backs while events in America were making war between France and Britain inevitable France was being tied to an ally who could give her a little aid she must spend herself to fight Austria's battles on the land while a real interest required that she should build up her fleet to fight on the sea the great adversary across the English Channel the destiny of North America might indeed have been other than it is a France strong on the sea able to bring across to America great forces might have held at any rate her place on the Saint Lawrence and occupied the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi we can hardly doubt that the English colonies united by a common deadly peril could have held against France most of the Atlantic coast but she might well have divided with them North America and today the lands north of the Ohio and westward beyond the Ohio to the Pacific Ocean might have been French the two nations on the brink of war in 1754 were playing for mighty stakes and victory was to the power which had control of the sea France had a great army Britain a great fleet in this contrast lay wrapped the secret of the future of North America as the crisis drew near the vital thought about the future of America was found not in America but in Europe the English colonies were so accustomed to distrust each other that when Virginia grew excited about French designs on the Ohio Pennsylvania or North Carolina was as likely as not to say that it was the French who were in the right and a stupid or excitable or conceited colonial governor who was in the wrong in Paris and London on the other hand there were no illusions about affairs in America in both capitals it was realized that a grim fight was on during the winter of 1754-55 extensive preparations were being made on both sides France equipped an army under Baron de Isco to go to Canada Britain equipped one under General Braddock to go to Virginia each nation asked the other it was sending troops to America and each gave the assurance of benevolent designs but in the spring of 1755 a British fleet under Admiral Boss Cowan put to sea with instructions to capture any French vessels bound for North America at the same time the two armies were on the way across the Atlantic de Isco went to Canada brought it to Virginia each instructed to attack the other side at the same time ambassadors at the two courts gave bland assurances that their only thought was to preserve peace the English colonists showed a political blindness that amounted to imbecility Albany was the central point from which the dangers on all sides might best be surveyed here came together in the summer of 1754 delegates from seven of the colonies to consider the common peril the French were busy in winning the support of the many Indian tribes of the West and the old allies of the English the Iroquois were nervous for their own safety the delegates to Albany tied and bound by instructions from their assemblies had to listen to plain words from the savages the one Englishman who in dealing with the Indians had tacked in skill equal to that of front in Yakovold was an Irishman Sir William Johnson to him the Iroquois made indignant protest that the English were as ready as the French to rob them of their lands if we find a bear in a tree they said someone will spring up to claim that the tree belongs to him and keep us from shooting the bear the French they added are at least men who are prepared to fight you weak and unprepared English are like women and any day the French may turn you out Benjamin Franklin told the delegates that they must unite to meet a common enemy unite however they would not no one of them would surrender to a central body in the authority through which the power of the king over them might be increased the Congress the word is full of omen for the future failed to bring about the much needed union in February 1755 Braddock arrived in Virginia with his army in early in May he was on his march across the mountains with regulars militia and Indians to the number of nearly 1,500 men to attack Fort Duquesne and to rid the Ohio valley of the French he knew little of force warfare with its use of Indian scouts its ambushes its fighting from the cover of trees on the 9th of July on the Monon-Gahila river near Fort Duquesne in a struggle in the forest against French and Indians he was defeated and killed George Washington was in the fight and had to report to den Witte the dismal record of what had happened the frontier was aflame and nearly all the Indians of the rest seeing the rising star went over to the French the power of France was for the time supreme in the heart of the continent at that moment even far away in the lone land about the Saskatchewan the English trader Henry had to admit that the French knew better than the English how to attract the support of the savage tribes meanwhile Diazco had arrived at Quebec in the colony of New York Sir William Johnson the rough and cheery Irishman much loved of the Iroquois was gathering forces to attack Canada early in July 1755 Johnson had more than 3,000 provincial troops at Albany a mock be horde of embattled farmers most of them with no uniforms dressed in their own homespun carrying their own muskets electing their own officers soldiers point of view a rival rather than an army to meet this force and destroy it if he could Diazco took to the French fort at Crown Point on Lake Champlain and salvaged from there to Ticonderoga at the head of this lake some 3,500 men including his French regulars some Canadians and Indians Johnson's force lay at Fort George later Fort William Henry the most southerly point on Lake George the names given by Johnson himself show how the doll Hanoverian kings and their offspring were held in honour by the Irish diplomat who was looking for favours at court the two armies met on the shores of Lake George early in September and there was an all day fight each side lost some 200 men among those who perished on the French side was De Sampierre who had escaped all the perils of the Western wilderness to meet his fate in this border struggle the honours of the day seemed to have been with Johnson for the French were driven off and Diazco himself badly wounded was taken prisoner that Johnson had great difficulty in keeping his savages from burning alive and then boiling and eating Diazco and smoking his flesh in their pipes in revenge for some of their sheaves killed in the fight shows what an alliance with Indians meant there was small gain to the English from Johnson's success it was too cautious to advance towards Canada and as winter came on he broke up his camp and sent his men to their homes the colonies had no permanent military equipment each autumn their forces were dissolved to be reorganized again in the following spring a lame method of waging war for three years longer in the valley of the Ohio as elsewhere the star of France remained in the Ascendant it began to decline only when farther east on the Atlantic superior forces sent out from England were able to check the French during the summer of 1758 while Wolfe and Baskawen were pounding the walls of Louisburg 7000 troops led by General Forbes Colonel George Washington and Colonel Henry Bouquet pushed their way through the walls beyond the Alleghenies and took possession of the Ohio the French destroyed Fort Duquesne and fled on the 25th of November the English occupied the place and named it Pittsburgh in honor of their great war minister end of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of the Conquest of New France by George Wrong this Libravox recording is in the public domain Chapter 7 the expulsion of the Acadians we have now to turn back over a number of years to see what has been happening in Acadia that oldest and most easterly part of New France which in 1710 fell into British hands since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 the Acadians had been nominally British subjects but the Frenchman hardly less than the Jew is difficult of absorption by other racial types we have already noted the natural aim of France to recover what she had lost and her use of the priests to hold the Acadians to her interests the Acadians were secure in the free exercise of their religion they had no secular leaders and few of any clergy of their own they were led chiefly by priests subjects of France who the working in British glory owned no allegiance to Great Britain and were directed by the Bishop of Quebec for 40 years the question of the Acadians remained unsettled under the Treaty of 1713 the Acadians might leave the country if they remained a year they must become British subjects when however in 1715 two years after the conclusion of the treaty they were required to take the oath of allegiance to the new king George I they declared that they could not do so since they were about to move to Cape Breton when George II came to the throne in 1727 the oath was again demanded still however the Acadians were between two fires their Indian neighbors influenced by the French threatened them with massacre if they took the oath while the British declared that they would forfeit their farms if they refused the truth is that the British did not wish to press the alternative to drive out the Acadians would be to strengthen the neighboring French colony of Cape Breton to force on them the oath might even cause a rising which would overwhelm the few English in Nova Scotia so the tradition never formally accepted by the British the Acadians owed obedience to George II they would be neutral in case of war with France a common name for them used by the British themselves was that of the neutral French in time of peace the Acadians could be left to themselves when however war broke out between Britain and France the question of loyalty became acute such war there was in 1744 without doubt some Acadians then helped the French but it was as they protested only under compulsion and as far as they could they seemed to have refused to aid either side the British mother threats that subjects of their king who would not fight for him had no right to a protection under British law even then feeling was so high that there was talk of driving the Acadians from their farms and setting them adrift and these poor people trembled for their own fate when the British victors at Louisbourg in 1745 removed the French population to France assurances came from the British government however that there was no thought of molesting the Acadians with the order as you were the dominant thought of the treaty in 1748 the highly organized and efficient champions of French policy took every step to ensure that in the next struggle the interests of France should prevail peace had no sooner been signed than their side was working in Nova Scotia on the old policy the French priests taught that eternal perdition awaited the Catholic Acadians who should accept the demands of heretic English the Indians continued their savage threats blood is thicker than water and no doubt the natural sympathies of the Acadians were with the French but the British were now formidable for them the founding of Halifax in 1749 had made all the difference they too had a menacing fortress at the door of the Acadians and their tone grew sterner the Acadians were told that if by October 15, 1749 they had not taken an unconditional oath of allegiance to George II they should forfeit their rights and their property the treasured farms on which they and their ancestors had toiled the Acadians were in acute distress if they yielded to the English not only would their bodies be destroyed by the savage Micmac Indians but their immortal souls they feared would be in danger the Abe Le Lutre was the parish priest of the Acadian village of Beaubassin on St. Nectar Bay and also missionary to the Micmac Indians whose chief village lay in British territory not many miles from Halifax British officials of the time denounced him as a determined fanatic who did not stop short of murder as in most men there was in Le Lutre a mingling of qualities he was arrogant domineering and intent on his own plans he hated the English and their heresy and he preached to his people against them with frantic invective he incited his Indians to bloodshed but he also knew pity the custom of the Indians was to consider prisoners taken by them as their property and on one occasion Le Lutre himself paid ransom to the Indians for thirty-seven English captives and returned them to Halifax it is certain that the French government counted upon the influence of French priests to aid its political designs my masters god and the king was a phrase of the solpicean father pk working at this time on the St. Lawrence Le Lutre could have echoed the words he was an ardent politician and France supplied him with both money and arms to induce the Indians to attack the English the savages haunted the outskirts of Halifax waylating sculpt unhappy settlers and in due course were paid from Louisbourg according to the number of sculpts which they produced the deliberate intention was to make new English settlements impossible in Nova Scotia and so to discourage the English that they should abandon Halifax all this intrigue occurred in 1749 and the years following the treaty of peace if the English suffered so did the Akkadians the Lutre told them that if once they became British subjects they would lose and find their religions suppressed Akkadians who took the oath would he said be denied the sacraments of the church he would also turn loose on the offenders the murderous savages whom he controlled if pressed by the English the Akkadians rather than yield must abandon their lands and remove into French territory at this point arises the question as to what were the limits of this French territory in yielding Akkadia in 1713 France had not defined its boundaries the English claimed that it included the whole region stretching northeastward to the Gulf of St. Lawrence from the frontier of New England the French however said that Akkadia meant only the peninsula of Nova Scotia ending at the isthmus between Baye Vert and the Baye of Signecta and for years a Canadian force stood there on guard daring the British to put a foot on the north side of the little river Misse-Gouache which the French said was the international boundary there was much excitement among the Akkadians in 1750 when an English force landed on the isthmus and proceeded to throw up defenses on the south side of the river this outpost which in due time became Fort Lawrence was placed on what even the French admitted to be British territory forthwith on a hill two or three miles away on the other side of the supposed boundary the French built Fort Beau-Séjour the Loutois was on the spot blustering and menacing he told his Akkadian parishioners of the little village of Beau-Bassin near Fort Lawrence that rather than accept English rule they must now abandon their lands and seek the protection of the French at Fort Beau-Séjour with his own hands he set fire to the village church the houses of the Akkadians were also burned a whole district was laid waste by fire women and children suffered fearful tribations but what did such things matter in view of the high politics of the priests and of France during four or five years the hostile forts confronted each other in time of peace there was war the French made Beau-Séjour a solid fort for it still stands little altered though it has been abandoned for a century and a half it was chiefly the Akkadians nominal British subjects who built these thick walls the arrogant Big Macs that the British should hand over to them the best half of Nova Scotia and they emphasized their demand by treachery and massacre one day a man in the uniform of a French officer followed by a small party approached Fort Lawrence waving a white flag Captain Howe with a small force went out to meet him as this party advanced Indians concealed behind a dyke fired and killed Howe and eight or ten others such ruses were well fitted to cause among the English a resolve to enforce severe measures the fire burned slowly but in the end it flamed up in a cruel and relentless temper French policy too showed no pity the governor of Canada and the colonial minister in France were alike insistent that the English should be given no peace and cared nothing for the sufferings of the unhappy Akkadians between the upper and the nether millstone at last in 1755 the English accomplished something decisive they sent an army to Fort Lawrence attacked Fort Beaux Seizure forced its timid commander to surrender master the whole surrounding country and obliged Le Loutre himself to fly to Quebec there he embarked for France the English captured him on the sea however and the relentless and cruel priest spent many years in an English prison his later years when he reached France do him some credit by that time the Akkadians had been driven from their homes there were nearly a thousand exiles in England the Le Loutre tried to befriend these helpless people and obtained homes for some of them in the parish of Belle Aumeille in France in the meantime the price of Le Loutre was intrigued and of the outrages of the French and their Indian allies was now to be paid by the unhappy Akkadians during the spring and summer of 1755 the British decided that the question of allegiance should be settled at once and that the Akkadians must take the oath there was need of urgency the army at Fort Lawrence which had captured Fort was largely composed of men from New England and these would wish to return to their homes for the winter if the Akkadians remained and were hostile the country thus occupied at laborious cost might quickly revert to the French already many Akkadians had fought on the side of the French and some of them disguised as Indians had joined in savage outrage a French fleet and a French army were reported as likely to arrive before the winter in fact France's naval power with its base at Louisbourg was still stronger than that of Britain with its base at Halifax when the Akkadians were told in plain terms that they must take the oath of allegiance they firmly declined to do so without certain limitations involving guarantees that they should not be arrayed against France the governor at Halifax Major Charles Lawrence was a stern, relentless man without pity and his mind was made up surely Governor of Massachusetts was in touch with Lawrence the Akkadians should be deported if they would not take the oath this step however the government at London never ordered on the contrary as late as on August 13, 1755 Lawrence was counseled to act with caution, prudence and tact in dealing with the Akkadians who are called even in this official letter meanwhile without direct warrant from London Lawrence and his counsel at Halifax had taken action his reasoning was that of a direct soldier the Akkadians would not take the full oath of British citizenship very well quite obviously they could not be trusted already they had acted in a traitorous way prolonged war with France was imminent the Akkadians who might be allied with the savages could attack British posts they must be removed to replace them British settlers could in time be brought into the country the thing was done in the summer and autumn of 1755 Colonel Robert Moncton a regular officer son of an Irish peer who always showed an ineffable superiority to provincial officers serving under him he was placed in charge of the work he ordered the male inhabitants of the neighborhood of Beau-Séjour to meet him there on the 10th of August only about one third of them came some four hundred he told them that the government at Halifax now declared them rebels their lands and all other goods were forfeited they themselves were to be kept in prison not yet however was made known to them the decision of the best traders of whom the province must be rid no attempt was made anywhere to distinguish royal from disloyal Akkadians Lawrence gave orders to the military officers to clear the country of all Akkadians to get them by any necessary means on board the transports which would carry them away and to burn their houses and crops so that those not caught might perish or be forced to surrender during the coming winter the harvest had just been reaped or was ripening when the stern work was done at Grand Prey at Pisaquid now Windsor at Annapolis there were harrowing scenes in command of the work at Grand Prey was Colonel Winslow an officer from Massachusetts some of whose relatives twenty five years later were to be driven because of their loyalty to the British king from their own homes in Boston to this very land of Akkadia Winslow issued a summons in French to all the male inhabitants down to lads of ten to come to the church at Grand Prey on Friday the 5th of September to learn the orders he had to communicate those who did not appear were to forfeit their goods no doubt many Akkadians did not understand the summons few of them could read and it hardly mattered to them that church door was posted upside down some 400 anxious peasants appeared Winslow read to them a proclamation to the effect of their houses and lands were forfeited and that they themselves and their families were to be deported five vessels from Boston lay at Grand Prey in time more ships arrived but till October had come before Winslow was finally ready by this time the Akkadians realized what was to happen the men were joined by their families as far as possible the people of the same village were kept together they were forced to march to the transports a sorrow laden company women carrying babes in their arms old and decrepit people born in carts young and strong men dragging what belongings they could gather Winslow's task as he says lay heavy on his heart and hands it hurts me to hear their weeping and wailing by the first of November he had embarked 1500 unhappy people his last ship load he sent off on the 13th of December the suffering from cold must have been terrible in all from Grand Prey and other places more than 6000 Akkadians were deported they were scattered in the English colonies from Maine to Georgia and in both France and England many died many helpless their new surroundings sank into decrepit pauperism some reached people of their own blood in the French colony of Louisiana and in Canada a good many returned from their exile in the colonies to their former home after the Seven Years War had ended today their descendants form an appreciable part of the population of Nova Scotia New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island the cruel act did one thing effectively it made Nova Scotia safe for the British cause in the attack that was about to be directed against Canada End of Chapter 7