 Chapter 1 of the Conquest of New France. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Conquest of New France by George Rohn. Chapter 1. The Conflict Opens, Frontagnac and Phipps. Many centuries of European history had been marked by war almost ceaseless between France and England when these two states first confronted each other in America. The Conflict for the New World was but the continuation of an age-long antagonism in the old, intensified now by the savagery of the wilderness and by new dreams of empire. There was another potent cause of strife which had not existed in the earlier days when during the 14th and 15th centuries the antagonists had fought through the interminable Hundred Years War. They had been of the same religious faith. Since then, however, England had become Protestant while France had remained Catholic. When the rivals first met on the shores of the New World, colonial America was still very young. It was in 1607 that the English occupied Virginia at the same time the French were securing a foothold in Arcadia, now Nova Scotia. Six years had barely passed when the English captain, Argyll, sailed to the north from Virginia and destroyed the rising French settlements. Sixteen years after this another English force attacked and captured Quebec. Presently these conquests were restored. France remained in possession of the St. Lawrence and in virtual possession of Arcadia. The English colonies holding a great stretch of the Antarctic seaboard increased in number and power. New France also grew stronger. The steady hostility of the rivals never wavered. There was indeed little open warfare as long as the two crowns remained at peace. From 1660 to 1688 the Stuart rulers of England remained subservient to their cousin the Bourbon King of France and at one with him in religious faith. But after the fall of the Stuart's France bitterly denounced the new King William of Orange as both a heretic and a usurper and attacked the English in America with a savage fury unknown in Europe. From 1690 to 1760 the combatants fought with little more than pauses for renewed preparation and the conflict ended only when France yielded to England the mastery of her empire in America. It is the story of this struggle covering a period of 70 years which is told in the following pages. The career of Louis de Bode Comte de Frontignac who was governor of Canada from 1672 to 1682 and again from 1689 to his death in 1698 reveals both the merits and the defects of the colonizing genius of France. Frontignac was a man of noble birth whose life had been spent in court and camp. The story of his family so far as it is known is a story of attendance upon the royal house of France. His father and uncles had been playmates of the young Dauphin afterwards Louis XIII. The thoughts familiar to Frontignac and his youth remained with him through life and when he went to rule at Quebec the very spirit that dominated the court at Versailles crossed the sea with him. A man is known by the things he loves. The things with Frontignac most highly cherished were marks of royal favor, the ceremony due to his own rank, the right to command. He was an egoist supremely interested in himself. He was poor but at his country's seat in France near Blois. He kept open house in the style of a great noble. Always he bore himself as one to whom much was due. His guests were expected to admire his and different horses as the finest to be seen, his gardens as the most beautiful, his clothes as of the most effective cut and finish, the plate on his table as of the best workmanship and the food as having superior flavor. He scolded his equals as if they were naughty children. Yet there was genius in this showy court figure in 1669 when the Venetian Republic had asked France to lend her an efficient soldier to lead against the rampant Turk, the great Marshal Thorene had chosen Frontignac for the task. Creed which Frontignac was to rescue the Turk indeed had taken, but it is said at the fearful cost of 180,000 men. Three years later Frontignac had been sent to Canada to war with the savage Iroquois and to hold in check the aggressive designs of the English. He had been recalled in 1682 after ten years of service, chiefly on account of his arbitrary temper. He had quarreled with the bishop. He had bullied the intendant until at one time that harried official had barricaded his house and armed his servants. He had told the Jesuit missionaries that they thought more of selling beaver skins than of saving souls. He had insulted those about him, salt, threatened, foamed at the mouth and rage, revealed a childish vanity in regard to his dignity and a hunger insatiable for marks of honour from the King, more grateful he once said than anything else to a heart shaped to the right pattern. France however now required a Quebeca man who could do the needed man's tasks. The real worth of Frontignac had been tested and so in 1689 when England had driven from her shores her Catholic King and when France's colony across the sea seemed to be in grave danger from the Iroquois allies of the English Frontignac was sent again to Quebec to subdue these savages and if he could to destroy in America the power of the age-long enemy of his country. Perched high above the St. Lawrence on a noble site where now is a public terrace and a great hotel stood the château Saint-Louis, the scene of Frontignac's rule as head of the colony no other spot in the world commanded such a highway linking the inland waters with the sea. The French had always an eye for points of strategic value and in holding Quebec they hoped to possess the pivot on which the destinies of North America should turn. For a long time it seemed indeed as if this glowing vision might become a reality the imperial ideas which were working at Quebec were based upon the substantial realities of trade. The instinct for business was hardly less strong in these keen adventurers than the instinct for empire. In promise of trade the interior of North America was rich. Today its vast agriculture and its wealth and minerals have brought rewards beyond the dreams of two hundred years ago. The wealth however sought by the leaders of that time came from furs. In those wastes of river, lake and forest were the richest preserves in the world for fur-bearing animals. This vast wilderness was not an unoccupied land. In those wild regions, well many savage tribes some of the natives were by no means without political capacity. On the contrary they were long clever enough to pit English against French to their own advantage as the real sovereigns in North America. One of them whose fluent oratory had won for him the name of Bigmouth told the Governor of Canada in 1688 that his people held their lands from the Great Spirit that they yielded no lordship to either the English or the French that they well understood the weakness of the French and were quite able to destroy them but that they wished to be friends with both French and English who brought to them the advantages of trade. In sagacity of council and dignity of carriage some of these Indians so bore themselves that to trained observers they seemed not unequal to the diplomats of Europe. They were however weak before the superior knowledge of the white men in all their long centuries in America they had learned nothing of the use of iron. Their sharpest tool had been made of chipped obsidian or of hammered copper. Their most potent weapons had been the stone hatchet or axe and the bow and arrow. It does happen that when steel and gunpowder reached America the natives soon came to despise their primitive implements more and more they crave the supplies from Europe which multiplied in a hundred ways their strength in the conflict with nature and with man. To the Indian tribes trade with the French or English soon became a vital necessity from the far north west for a thousand miles to the bleak shores of Hudson Bay to the Mississippi to the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Hudson they came each year on laborious journeys patling their canoes and carrying them over portages to barter furs for the things which they must have and which the white man alone could supply. The Iroquois the ablest and most resolute of the native tribes held the lands bordering on Lake Ontario which commanded the approaches from both the Hudson and the St. Lawrence by the Great Lakes to the spacious regions of the west. The five tribes known as the Iroquois had shown marked political talent by forming themselves into a Confederacy. From the time of Champlain the founder of Quebec there had been trouble between the French and the Iroquois in spite of this bad beginning the French had later done their best to make friends with the powerful Confederacy. They have sent to them devoted missionaries many of whom met the martyr's reward of torture and massacre but the opposing influence of the English with whom the Iroquois chiefly traded proved too strong. With the Iroquois hostile it was too dangerous for the French to travel inland by way of Lake Ontario they had it is true a shorter and indeed a better route farther north by way of the Arabois river and Lake Nipissing to Lake Huron in time however the Iroquois made even this route unsafe. Their power was far reaching and their ambition limitless they aimed to be masters of North America like all virile but backward peoples they believed themselves superior to every other race. Their orators declared that the fate of the world was to turn on their policy. On Fontainegac's return to Canada he had a stormy inheritance in confronting the Iroquois they had real grievances against France then and via Fontainegac's predecessor had met their treachery by treachery of his own. Louis XIV had found that these lusty savages made excellent galley slaves and had ordered Donalville to secure a supply in Canada. In consequence the Frenchmen seized even friendly Iroquois and sent them overseas to France. The savages in retaliation exacted a fearful vengeance in the butchery of French colonists. The bloodiest story in the annals of Canada is the massacre at La Chine a village a few miles above Montreal on the night of August 4, 1689 1400 Iroquois burst in on the village and a wild orgy of massacre followed. All Canada was in a panic some weeks later Fontainegac arrived at Quebec and took command. To the old soldier now in his 70th year his hard task was not uncongenial he had fought the savage Iroquois before and the no less savage Turk. He belonged to that school of military action which knows no scruple in its methods and he was prepared to make war with all the frightfulness practiced by the savages themselves. His resolute blustering demeanor was well fitted to impress the red men of the forest for an imperious eye will sometimes cow and Indian as well as a lion and Fontainegac's mean was imperious in his life in court and camp he had learned how to command. The English in New York had professed to be brothers to the Iroquois and had called them by that name this title of equality however Fontainegac would not yield kings speak of my people Fontainegac spoke to the Indians not as his brothers but as his children and as children of the great king whom he served he was their father their protector the disposer and controller he had the power to preserve the power who loved and cared for those putting their trust in him he could unbend to play with their children and give presents to their squads at times he seemed patient, gentle and forgiving at times too he swaggered and boasted in terms which the event did not always justify. La Porturie a cultivated Frenchman in Canada during Fontainegac's regime describes an amazing scene at Montreal which seems to show that or not he had qualities which made him the real brother of the savages in 1690 Huron another Indian allies of the French had come from the far interior to trade and also to consider the eternal question of checking the Iroquois at the council which began with grave decorum a Huron orator begged the French to make no terms with the Iroquois Fontainegac answered in the high tone which he could so well assume he would fight them until they should humbly crave peace he would make with them no treaty accepting concert with his Indian allies whom he would never fail in fatherly care to impress the council by the reality of his oneness with the Indians Fontainegac now seized a tomahawk and brandished it in the air shouting at the same time the Indian war song the whole assembly French and Indians joined in a wild orgy of war passion and the old man of 70 the court of Louis XIV led in the war dance yield with the Indians their savage war whoops dance round the circle of the council and showed himself in spirit a brother of the wildest of them this was good diplomacy the savages swore to make war to the end under his lead many a frontier outrage many a village attacked in the dead of night and burned amidst bloody massacre of its few toil worn settlers was to be the result of that strange mingling warped with wild America Fontainegac's task was to make war on the English and their Iroquois allies he had before him the king's instructions as to the means for effecting this the king aimed at nothing less than the conquest of the English colonies in America in 1664 the English by a sudden blow in time of peace had captured New Netherland the Dutch colony on the Hudson which then became New York now a quarter of a century later France thought to strike a similar blow against the English and Louis XIV was resolved that the conquest should be thorough going the Dutch power had fallen before a meager naval force the English now would have to face one much more formidable two French ships were to cross the sea and to lie in wait near New York meanwhile from Canada 1600 armed men a thousand of them French regular troops were to advance by land into the heart the French colony seized Albany and all the boats there available and to send by the Hudson to New York the warships hovering off the coast would then enter New York harbor at the same time that the land force has made their attack the village for it was hardly more than this contained as the French believed only some 200 houses and 400 fighting men and it was thought that a month was suffice to complete this whole work of conquest once victors the French were to take the property but that of Catholics was to be confiscated Catholics whether English or Dutch were to be left undisturbed if not too numerous if they would take the oath of allegiance to Louis XIV and show some promise of keeping it rich Protestants were to be held for ransom all the other inhabitants except those whom the French might find useful for their own purposes were to be driven out of the colony homeless wanderers to be scattered far so that they could not combine to recover with New York taken to England would be so weakened that in time it too would fall such was the plan of conquest which came from the brilliant chambers at Versailles New York did not fall the expedition so carefully planned came to nothing Frontenac had never shown much faith in the enterprise Equibac on his arrival in the autumn of 1689 he was planning something less ideally perfect but certain to produce results the scarred old courtier intended so to terrorize the English that they should make no aggressive advance to encourage the French to believe themselves superior to their rivals and above all to prove to the Indian tribes that prudence dictated alliance with the French and not with the English Frontenac wrote a tale of blood there were three war parties one set out from Montreal against New York and one from three rivers and one from Quebec against the frontier settlements of New Hampshire and Maine to describe one is to describe all a band of 160 Frenchmen with nearly as many Indians gathers in Montreal in midwinter the ground is deep with snow and they troop on snow shoes across the white wastes dragging on sleds the needed supplies they march up the Rochelle-U river and over their frozen surface of late Champlain as they advance with caution into the colony of New York they suffer terribly now from bitter cold now from thaws which make the soft trail almost impassable on a February night their scouts tell them that they are near connectivity on the English frontier there are young members of the Canadian no-bless in the party in the dead of night they creep up to the pale which surrounds the village the signal is given and the village is awakened by the terrible war whoop doors are smashed by axes and hatchets and women and children are killed as they lie in bed or kneel shrieking for mercy houses are set on fire and living human beings are thrown into the flames to finish their dread work and art retreating along the forest paths dragging with them a few miserable captives in this winter of 1689 to 90 rating parties also came back from the borders of New Hampshire and of Maine with news of similar exploits and Quebec and Montreal glowed with the joy of victory far away an answering attack was soon on foot Sir William Phipps of Massachusetts the son of a poor settler had made his first advance in life by taking up the trade of carpenter in Boston only when grown up had he learned to read and write he married a rich wife and ease of circumstances freed his mind for great designs some 50 years before he was thus relieved of material cares a Spanish galleon carrying vast wealth have been wrecked in the West Indies Phipps now planned to raise the ship and get the money for this enterprise he obtained support in England and set out on his exacting adventure on the voyage his crew mutiny armed with cutlasses they told Phipps that he must turn, parric, or perish but he attacked the leader with his fists and triumphed by sheer strength of body and will a second mutiny he also quelled and then took his ship to Jamaica where he got rid of its worthless crew his enterprise had apparently failed but the second Duke of Albemarle and other powerful men believed in him and helped him to make another trial this time he succeeded in finding the wreck on the coast of Hispaniola with the possession of his cargo of precious metals and jewels treasured to the value of 300,000 pounds sterling of the spoil Phipps himself received 16,000 pounds a great fortune for New Englander in those days he was also knighted for his services and in the end was named by William and Mary the first royal governor of Massachusetts Massachusetts whose people had been thoroughly aroused by the French incursions resolved to retaliate by striking at the heart of Canada and to take Quebec so William Phipps though not yet made governor would lead the expedition the first blow fell in Arcadia Phipps sailed up the bay of Fundy and on May 11, 1690 landed a force before Port Royal the French governor surrendered on terms the conquest was intended to be final and the people were offered their lives and property on the condition of taking the oath to be loyal subjects of William and Mary this many of them did and were left unmolested by the bloodless victory but Phipps the Puritan crusader was something of a pirate he plundered private property and was himself accused of taking not merely the silver forks and spoons of the captive governor but even his wigs, shirts, carters and night caps the Boston Puritans joyfully pillaged the church at Port Royal and overturned the high altar in the images the booty was considerable and by the end of May Phipps a prosperous hero was back in Boston and he was a monk or candidate by the middle of August Phipps had set out on the long sea voyage to Quebec with 2200 men a great force for a colonial enterprise of that time and in all some 40 ships the voyage occupied more than two months apparently the hearty carpenter sailor able enough to carry through a difficult undertaking with a single ship lacked the organizing skill to manage a great expedition he performed however the feat of navigating safely with his fleet the treacherous waters of the lower St. Lawrence on the morning of October 16 1690 watches at Quebec saw the fleet concerning which they had already been warned rounding the head of the island of Orléans and sailing into the broad basin breathless spectators countered the ships there were 34 in sight a few large vessels some mere fishing craft it was a spectacle well calculated to excite and alarm the good people of Quebec they might however take comfort in the knowledge that their great Frontenac was present to defend them a few days earlier he had been in Montreal but when there had come the startling news of the approach of the enemy ships he had hurried down the river and had been received with shouts of joy by the anxious populace the situation was one well suited to Frontenac's genius for the dramatic when a boat under a flag of truce put out from the English ships Frontenac hurried four canoes to meet it the English envoy was placed blindfolded in one of these canoes and was paddled to the shore here two soldiers took him by the arms and let him over many obstacles up the steep ascent to the château Saint Louis he could see nothing but could hear the beating of drums the blowing of trumpets the jeers and shouting of a great multitude in a town which seemed to be full of soldiers and to have its streets heavily barricaded when the bandage was taken from his eyes he found himself in a great room of the château before him stood Frontenac in brilliant uniform surrounded by the most glittering array of officers which Quebec could muster the astonished envoy presented a letter from Phipps it was a curt demand in the name of King William of England for the unconditional surrender of all forts and castles in Canada of Frontenac himself and all his forces and supplies on such conditions Phipps would show mercy as a Christian should Frontenac must answer within an hour when the letter had been read the envoy took a watch from his pocket and pointed out the time to Frontenac his reply must be given about eleven loud mutterings greeted the insulting message one officer cried out that Phipps was a pirate and that his messenger should be hanged Frontenac knew well how to deal with such a situation he threw the letter in the envoy's face and turned his back upon him the unhappy man who understood French heard the governor give orders that a gibbet should be erected on which he was to be hanged when the bishop and the attendant pleaded for mercy Frontenac seemed to yield he would not take he said an hour to reply but the bishop would answer at once he knew no such person as King William James though in exile was the true king of England and the good friend of the king of France there would be no surrender to a pirate after this outburst the envoy asked if he might have the answer in writing no thundered Frontenac I will answer only from the mouths of my cannon and with my musketeer Phipps could not take Quebec and carrying out his plans he was slow and dilatory nature aided his flow the weather was bad and boats grounded unexpectedly in a falling tide Phipps landed a force on the north side of the basin at Beauport but was held in check by French and Indian skirmishing parties he sailed his ships up close to Quebec and bombarded the stronghold but then as now ships were impotent against well-served land defenses soon Phipps was short of ammunition the second time he made a landing in order to attack Quebec from the valley of the St. Charles but French regulars fought with militia to give off his forces Phipps held a meeting with his officers for prayer heaven however denied success to his arms if he could not take Quebec it was time to be gone for in the late autumn the dangers of the St. Lawrence are great he lay before Quebec for just a week and on the 23rd of October sailed away it was late in November when his battered fleet began to straggle into Boston the ways the grout had not proved as simple as they had seemed to the Puritan faith for the stronghold of Satan had not fallen out of the attacks of the Lord's people there were searchings of heart recriminations and financial distress in Boston for seven years more the war endured Fontaniac's victory over Phipps at Quebec was not victory over the Iroquois or victory over the colony of New York in 1691 this colony sent Peter Scholar without force against Canada by way of Lake Champlain Scholar penetrated almost to Montreal gained some indecisive success suffering to the unhappy Canadian settlers Fontaniac made his last great stroke in July 1696 when he led more than 2,000 men through the primeval forest to destroy the villages of the Anandaga and the Oneida tribes of the Iroquois on the journey from the south shore of Lake Ontario the old man of 75 was unable to walk over the rough portages and 50 Indians shouting songs of joy carried his great canoe on their shoulders when the soldiers left the canoes forward to the fight they bore Fontaniac and an easy chair he did not destroy his enemy for many of the Indians fled but he burned their chief village and taught them a new respect for the power of the French he was the last great effort of the old warrior in the next year 1697 was concluded the piece of Rizwick and in 1698 Fontaniac died in his 79th year a Horry champion of France's imperial designs the piece of Rizwick was an decisive ending of an indecisive war it was indeed one of those bad treaties which invite renewed war the struggle had achieved little but to deepen the conviction of each side that it must make itself stronger for the next fight each gave back most of what it had gained the piece however did not leave matters quite as there had been the position of William was stronger than before for France had treated with him and now recognized him as king of England moreover France had the two always victorious with generals who had not known defeat they really defeated when she could not longer advance end of chapter one chapter two of the conquest of new France by George wrong this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter two Quebec and Boston at the end of the 17th century it must have seemed a far cry from Bersailles to Quebec the ocean was crossed only by small sailing vessels haunted by both tempest and pestilence the one likely to prolong the voyage by many weeks the other to involve the sacrifice of scores of lives through scurvy and other maladies yet remote as the colony seemed Quebec was the child of Versailles protected and nourished by Louis XIV and directed by him in its by nudist affairs the king spent laborious hours over papers relating to the cherished colony across the sea he sent wise counsel to his officials in Canada and with type full patients rebuked their faults he did everything for the colonists gave them not merely land but muskets farm implements even chickens pigs and sometimes wives the defect of his government was that it tended to be too paternal the vital needs of a colony struggling with the problems of barbarism could hardly be read correctly and provided for at Bersailles colonies like men are strong only when they learn to take care of themselves the English colonies present a vivid contrast London did not direct and control Boston in London the will indeed was not wanting for the Stuart kings Charles II and James II were not less despotic in spirit than Louis XIV but while in France there was a vast organism which moved only as the king willed in England power was more widely distributed it may be claimed with truth that English national liberties are a growth from the local freedom which has existed from time immemorial when British colonists left the motherland to found a new society their first instinct was to create institutions which involve local control the solemn covenant by which in 1620 the Warren company of the Mayflower after a long and painful voyage pledged themselves to create a self-governing society was the inevitable expression of the English political spirit do what it would London could never control Boston as Versailles controlled Quebec the English colonists kept his eyes fixed on his own fortunes from the state he expected little from himself everything he had no great sense of unity with neighboring colonists under the same crown only when he realized some peril to his interests some menace which would master him if he did not fight for the future to war like energy French leaders on the other hand were thinking of world politics the voyager the Italian sailor who had been sent out by France as the first of France in 1524 and who had sailed along a great stretch of the Atlantic coast was deemed by Frenchman a sufficient title to the whole of North America they flouted England's claim based upon the voyages of the United States nearly 30 years earlier Spain indeed might claim Florida but the English had no real right to any footing in the new world as late as in 1720 when the fortunes of France were already on the wane in the new world Father Bobet a priest of the congregation of missions presented to the French court a document which sets forth in uncompromising terms the rights of France to all the land between the 30th 50th parallels of latitude true he says others occupy much of this territory but France must drive out intruders and in particular the English Boston rightly belongs to France and so also New York and Philadelphia the only regions to which England has any just claim are Acadia, Newfoundland and Hudson Bay ceded by France under the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 this week session all true Frenchman regret and England must hand the territories back she owes France compensation for her long occupation of lands not really hers if she makes immediate restitution the king of France generous and kind will forgo some of his rights and allow England to retain a strip some 50 miles wide extending from Maine to Florida France has the right to the whole career in the mind of the Reverend Memorialist no doubt there was the conviction that England would soon lose the meager strip 50 miles wide which France might yield these dreams of power had a certain substance it seems to us now that from the first the French were dreaming of the impossible we know what has happened and after the event it is an easy task to measure political forces the ambitions of France were not easy fancies more than once she has seemed on the point of mastering the nations of the rest just before the year 1690 she had a great opportunity in England in 1660 the fall of the system created by Oliver Cromwell brought back to the English throne the house of Stuart for centuries the ally and usually the pupil of France Stuart Kings of Scotland allied with France had fought the Tudor Kings of England and the French fortune had been the pensioners of France Charles II the Stuart alien in religion to the convictions of his people looked to Catholic France to give him security on his throne before the first half of the reign of Louis XIV had ended it was the boast of the French that the king of England was vassal to their king that the states of continental Europe had become mere pawns in the game of their grand monarch of the world as was really worth mastering in 1679 the Canadian attendant do Chanel writing from Quebec to complain of the despotic conduct of the governor Frantagnac paid a tribute to the king our master of whom the whole world stands in awe who has just given law to all Europe to mend the success by the greatness of their own ruler it seemed no impossible task to overthrow a few English colonies in America of whose king their own was the patron and the pay master the world of high politics has never been conspicuous for its knowledge of human nature a strong blow from a strong arm would it was believed both at Versailles and Quebec shattered forever a weak rival and give France the prize of North America offices in Canada talk loftily of the ease with which France might master all the English colonies the Canadians said were a brave and warlike people trained to endure hardship while the English colonists were undisciplined ignorant of war and cowardly the link between them and the motherland said these observers could be easily broken for the colonies were longing to be free there is no doubt that France could put into the field armies vastly greater than those of England had the French been able to cross the channel march on London and destroy English power at its root the story of civilization in a great part of North America might well have been different and we should perhaps find now on the banks of the Hudson what we find on the banks of the St. Lawrence villages dominated by great churches and convents with inhabitants Catholic to a man speaking the language and preserving the traditions of France the strip of inviolate sea between Calais and Dover made impossible however an assault on London sea power kept secure not only England but English effort in America and in the end defeated France England had defenses other than her great strength on the sea in spite of the docility towards France shown by the English king Charles II himself had French in blood and at heart devoted to the triumph of the Catholic faith the English people would tolerate no policies likely to make England subservient to France this was forbidden by age long tradition the struggle had become one of religion as well as of race a fight for a century and a half with the Roman Catholic church had made England sternly fanatically Protestant in their suspicion of the system which France accepted Englishmen had sent a king to the scaffold had overthrown the monarchy and had created a military republic this republic indeed had fallen but the distrust of the aims of the Roman Catholic church remained intense and burst into passionate fury the moment and understanding of the aims of France gained currency there are indeed few passages in English history less creditable than the panic fear of Roman Catholic plots which swept the country in the days when Frontagnac at Quebec was working to destroy English and Protestant influence in America in 1678 Titus Oates a clergyman of the church of England who had turned Roman Catholic declared that while in the secrets of his new church he had found on foot a plot to restore Roman Catholic dominance in England by means of the murder of Charles II and of any other crimes necessary for that purpose Oates said that he had left the church and returned to his former faith because of the terrible character of the conspiracy which he had discovered his story was not even plausible he was known to be a man of vicious life moreover Catholic plotters would hardly murder a king that was at heart devoted to Catholic policy England however was in a nervous state of mind Charles II was known to be intriguing with France and a cruel fury surged through the nation for a share in the supposed plots a score of people among them one of the great nobles of England the venerable and innocent Earl of Stafford were condemned to death and executed whatever Charles II himself might have thought he was obliged for his own safety to acquiesce for persecution Catholic France was not less malignant than Protestant England though cruel severity had long been shown to Protestants they seemed to be secure under the law of France in certain limited rights and in a restricted toleration in 1685 however Louis XIV revoked the edict of Nance by which Henry IV a century earlier had guaranteed this toleration all over France there had already burst out terrible persecution Louis XIV brought a fiery climax unhappy heretics who would not accept Roman Catholic doctrine found life intolerable tens of thousands escaped from France in spite of a law which though it exiled the Protestant ministers for bad other Protestants to leave the country stories of plots were made the excuse to seize the property of Protestants regiments of soldiers charged with the task of boast of many enforced conversions quartered on Protestant household the life of the inmates of burden until they abandoned their religion among the means used were torture before a slow fire the tearing off of the fingernails the driving of the whole families naked into the streets and the forbidding of anyone to give them shelter the violation of women and the crowding of the heretics in loathsome prisons by such means it took a regiment of soldiers in Rouen only a few days to convert to the old faith some 600 families Protestant ministers caught in France to the gallows for life the persecutions which followed the revocation of the edict of Nance out did even Titus Oates Charles the second died in 1685 in the scene at his deathbed encouraged in England suspicions of Catholic policy and in France hope that this policy was near its climax of success though indolent and disalute Charles yet possessed striking mental capacity and insight he knew well that to preserve his throne he must remain outwardly a Protestant and must also respect the liberties of the English nation he cherished however the Roman Catholic faith and the despotic ideals of his Bourbon mother on his deathbed he avowed his real belief with great precautions for secrecy he was received into the Roman Catholic church and comforted with the constellations which it offers to the dying while this secret was suspected by the English people one further fact was perfectly clear their new king James the second was a zealous Roman Catholic who would use all his influence to bring England back to the Roman communion suspicion of the king's designs soon became certainty and after four years of bitter conflict with James the inevitable happened the Roman Catholic Stuart King was driven from his throne and his daughter Mary and her Protestant husband William of Orange became the sovereigns of England by choice of the English Parliament again had the struggle between Roman Catholic Boston brought revolution in England and the politics of Europe dominated America the revolution in London was followed by revolution in Boston and New York the authority of James the second was repudiated his chief agent in New England Sir Edmund and Ross was seized and imprisoned and William and Mary reigned over the English colonies in America as they reigned over the motherland to the loyal Catholics of France the English who had driven out a Catholic king the ancient line were guilty of the double sin of heresy and of treason to the Jesuit enthusiast in Canada not only were they infidel devils in human shape upon whose plans must rest the curse of God they were also rebels republican successors of the accursed Cromwell who had sent an anointed king to the block it would be a holy thing to destroy this lawless power which ruled from London the Puritans of Boston were in turn not less convinced was the cause of God and that Satan enthroned in the French dominance at Quebec must soon fall the smaller the pit the fierce of the rats passions raged in the petty colonial capitals morbidly and even in London and Paris this intensity of religious differences embittered the struggle for the mastery of the new continent the English colonies had 20 white men to one in Canada yet Canada was long able to wage war on something like equal terms she had the supreme advantage of a single control there was no trouble at Quebec about getting a reluctant legislator to vote money for war purposes no semblance of an elected legislature existed and the money for war came not from Canadians but from the capacious if now usually depleted coffers of the French court at Versailles in the English colonies the legislatures preferred of all political struggles one about money for war the representative of the king at least one of the English colonies Pennsylvania believing that evil is best conquered by non-resistance was resolutely against war for any reason good or bad other colonies often raised the more sorted objection that they were too poor to help in war the colonial legislatures indeed with their eternal demand for the privileges and rights which the British House of Commons had won in the long centuries of its history constitute the most reliable the contrasts with Canada in them were always the sparks of an independent temper the English diarist Evelyn wrote in 1671 that New England was in a peevish and touchy humor colonists who go out to found a new state will always demand rights like those which they have enjoyed at home it was unthinkable that men of Boston who themselves or whose party in England had fought against a despotic king had sent him to the block and driven his son from the throne with anything short of controlling the taxes which they paid making the laws which they obeyed and carrying on their affairs in their own way when obliged to accept a governor from England they were resolved as far as possible to remain his pay master in a majority of the colonies they insisted that the salary of the governor should be voted each year by their representatives in order that they might be always to use against him the cogent logic of financial need on questions of this country. In fact, New England and Quebec had nothing to say to the king and France and to him alone went all demands for pay and honors if in such things the people of Canada had no remote voice they were still as well off as Frenchmen in France New England was a copy of old England and New France a copy of old France there was as yet no peevish and touchy humor at either Quebec or Versailles for war then was any of the English colonies the French were largely explorers and hunters familiar with hardship and danger and led by men with a love of adventure the English on the other hand were chiefly traders and farmers who disliked and dreaded the horrors of war there was not to be found in all the English colonies a family of the type of the Canadian family of Lemoine Charles Lemoine of Montreal a member of the Canadian noblesse had ten sons every one of whom showed the spirit of the adventurous soldier they all served in the time of Frontagnac the most famous of them, Pierre Lemoine D'Berville shines in varied roles he was a frontier leader who made his name a terror in the English settlements a sailor who seized and ravaged the English settlements in Newfoundland who led a French squadron to the remote and shore waters of Hudson Bay and captured there the English strongholds of the fur trade and a leader in the more peaceful task in the south of the Mississippi the colony of Louisiana Canada had the advantage over the English colonies in bold pioneers of this type Canada was never doubtful of the English peril or divided in the desire to destroy it nearly always a soldier or a naval officer ruled in the Chateau Saint Louis at Quebec with eyes alert to sea and arms ready to avert military danger England sometimes sent to her colonies in America governors who were disreputable and inefficient, needy hangers on too well known at home to make it wise there to give them office but thought good enough for the colonies it would not have been easy to find a governor less fitted to maintain the dignity and culture of high office than Sir William Phipps governor of Massachusetts in the time of Frontignac Phipps however though a rough brawler was reasonably efficient but Lord Cornbury who became Earl of Clarendon owed his appointment as governor of New Jersey in New York in 1701 only to his necessities and to the desire of his powerful connections to provide for him Queen Anne was his cousin he was a profligate, feeble in mind but arrogant in spirit with no burden of honesty and a great burden of debt and he made no change in his scandalous mode of life when he represented his sovereign at New York there were other governors only slightly better Canada had none as bad her vice was as a rule kept up the dignity of their office and respected the decencies of life in English colonies, governors eked out their incomes by charging heavy fees for official acts and anyone who refused to pay such fees was not likely to secure attention to his business in Canada the population was too scanty and the opportunity too limited to furnish happy hunting grounds of this kind the governors however badly paid as they were must live and in the case of Montignac repair fortunes shattered a court to do so they were likely to have some concealed interest in the fur trade this was forbidden by the court but was almost a universal practice some of the governors carried trading to great lengths and aroused the bitter hostility of rival trading interests the fur trade was easily controlled as a government monopoly and it was unfair that a needy governor should share its profits but after all such a quarrel was only between this better a trading governor than one who plundered the people or who by drunken prophecy discredited his office while all Canada was devoted to the Roman Catholic Church the diversity of religious beliefs in the English colonies was a marked feature of social life in Virginia by law of the colony the Church of England was the established church in Massachusetts founded by stern Puritans the public services of the Church of England were long prohibited in Pennsylvania there was dominant the sector called Quakers who would have no ecclesiastical organization and believed that religion was purely a matter for the individual soul Boston jeered at the superstitions of Quebec such as the belief of the missionaries that a drop of water with the murmured words of baptism transformed a dying Indian child from an outcast savage into an angel of light Quebec might however deride Boston with equal justice so we in Phipps believed that indignant and invisible devils have made a special invasion of Massachusetts dragging people from their houses pushing them into fire and water and carrying them through the air for miles over trees and hills these devils it was thought to visible form of which the favorite was that of a black cat which is what thought to be able to pass through keyholes and to exercise charms which would destroy their victims while Phipps and Fontenac were struggling for the master of Canada a fever ran through New England about these perils of witchcraft when in 1692 Phipps became governor of Massachusetts he named a special court to try accused persons the court considered hundreds of cases and condemned and hanged 19 persons for holy imaginary crimes whatever the faults of the rule of the priestic were back they never equal this in brutality or surpassed it in blind superstition in New England we find bitter religious persecution in Canada there was none the door was completely closed to Protestants and the family within were all of one mind there was no one to persecute the old contrast between French and English ideals still endures at Quebec there was an early zeal for education in 1638 the year in which Harvard College was organized a college and a school for training the French youth and the natives were founded at Quebec in the next year the Ursuline nuns established at Quebec the convent which through all the intervening years has continued its important work of educating girls in zeal for education Quebec was therefore not behind Boston but the spirit was different Quebec believed that safety lay in control by the church and this control it still maintains Massachusetts came in time to believe that safety lay in freeing education from any spiritual authority today LaValle University at Quebec and Harvard University at Cambridge represent the outcome of these differing modes of thought other forces were working to produce essentially different types the printing press Quebec did not know and down to the final overthrow of the French power in 1763 no newspaper or book was issued in Canada Massachusetts on the other hand had a printing press as early as in 1638 and soon books were being printed in the colony of course in the spirit of the time there was a strict censorship but by 1722 this had come to an end and after that the newspaper unknown in Canada was busy and free in its task of helping to mow the thought of the English colonies in America end of chapter 2 chapter 3 of the conquest of new France by George wrong this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter 3 France loses Acadia the peace of Rizwick in 1697 had settled nothing finally France was still strong enough to aim at the mastery of Europe and America England was torn by internal faction and would not prepare to face her menacing enemy always the English have disliked a great standing army now despite the entreaties of a king who knew the real danger they reduced the army to the pitiable number of 7,000 men Louis XIV grew ever more confident in 1700 he was able to put his own grandson on the throne of Spain and to dominate Europe from the straits of Gibraltar to the Netherlands another event showing his resolve soon startled the world in 1701 died James II the dethroned king of England and Louis went out of his way to insult the English people William III was king by the will of parliament Louis had recognized him as such yet on the death of James Louis declared that James's son was now the true king of England this impudent defiance meant and Louis intended that it should mean war England had invited it by making her forces weak William III died in 1702 and the war went on under his successor Queen Anne thus it happened that once more war parties began to prowl on the Canadian frontier and women and children in remote clearings in the forest shivered at the prospect of the savage scourge the English colonies suffered terribly everywhere France was aggressive the war-like Iroquois were now so alarmed by the French menace that to secure protection they ceded their territory to Queen Anne and became British subjects a humiliating step indeed for a people who had once thought themselves the most important in all the world by 1703 the butchery on the frontier was a terrible operation the Jesuit historian Charvois with complacent exaggeration says that in that year alone 300 men were killed on the New England frontier by the Abenaki Indians incited by the French the numbers slain were in fact fewer and the slain were not always men but sometimes old women and young babies the policy of France was to make the war so ruthless that a gulf of hatred should keep their Indian allies from ever making friends and resuming trade with the English whose hatchets, blankets and other supplies were, as the French well knew better and cheaper than their own the French hoped to seize Boston to destroy its industries and sink its ships then to advance beyond Boston and deal out to other places the same fate the rivalry of New England was to be ended by making that region a desert the first fury of the war raged on the frontier of Maine which was an outpost of Massachusetts on an August day in 1703 the people of the rugged little settlement of wells were at their usual tasks when they heard gunshots and war whoops Indians had crept up to attack the place they set the village on fire and killed or carried off to score prisoners chiefly women and children the village of Deerfield on the northwest and frontier of Massachusetts consisted of a wooden meeting house and a number of rough cabins which lodged the two or three hundred inhabitants on a February where eight night in 1704 savages led by a young member of the Canadian no-bless Hartel de Rueville approached the village suddenly on snow shoes waited on the outskirts during the dead of night and then just before dawn burst in upon the sleeping people the work was done quickly within an hour after dawn the place had been plundered and set on fire forty or fifty dead bodies of men and women and children lay in the village and 111 miserable prisoners were following their captors on snow shoes through the forest each prisoner well knowing that by the way meant to have his head split by a tomahawk and the scalp torn off when on the first night one of them slipped away Ruvia told the others that should a further escape occur he would burn alive all those remaining in his hands the minister of the church at Deerfield the Reverend John Williams was a captive together with his wife and five children the wife by the way was killed by a stroke of a tomahawk and the body flying on the snow the children were taken from their father and scattered among different bands after a tramp of 200 miles through the wilderness to the outlying Canadian settlements the minister in the end reached Quebec every effort was made even by his Indian guard to make him accept the Roman Catholic faith but the stern puritan was obdurate his daughter Eunice on the other hand caught young became a Catholic so devoted that later she would not return to New England lest the contact with Protestants should injure her faith she married Indian and became to all outward appearance a squaw Williams himself lived to resume his career in New England and to write the story of the raid at Deerfield it may be that there were men in New England and New York capable of similar barbarities it is true that the savage allies of the English went at their worst new no restraint there is nothing in the French raids on a scale as great as that of the murderous raid by the Iroquois on the French village of Lachine but the Puritans of New England while they were ready to hew down savages did not like and rarely took part in the massacre of Europeans as the outrageous went on year after year the temper of New England towards the savages grew more ruthless the general court the legislature of Massachusetts offered 40 pounds for every Indian scalp brought in Indians like wolves were vermin to be destroyed the anger of New England was further kindled by what was happening on the sea privateers from Point Royal in Acadia attack New England commerce and New England fishermen and made unsafe the approaches to Boston this was to touch a commercial community on its most tender spot and a deep resolve was formed that Canada should be conquered and the menace ended once for all it was only an occasional spirit in Massachusetts who made comprehensive political plans one of these was Samuel Vetch a man somewhat different from the usual type of New England leader for he was not of English but of Scottish origin of the Covenant or strain Vetch himself an adventurous and had taken the leading part in the ill-fated Scottish attempt to found on the ifs must of Panama a colony which in easy touch with both the Pacific and the Atlantic should carry on a gigantic commerce between the East and the West the colony failed chiefly perhaps because Spain would not have this intrusion into territory which she claimed tropical disease and the dis union and incompetence of the colonists themselves were Spain's in the destruction after this Vetch had found his way to Boston where he soon became prominent in 1707 Scotland and England were united under one parliament and the active mind of Vetch was occupied with something greater than a Scottish colony at Panama Queen Anne Vetch was resolved should be so empress of the vast North American continent Massachusetts was ready for just such a cry the general court took up eagerly the plan of Vetch the scheme required help from England and the other colonies to England Vetch went in 1708 Marlborough had just won the great victory of Oudenaard it was good the English ministry thought to hit France wherever she raised her head in the spring of 1709 Vetch returned to Boston with promises of powerful help at once for an attack on Canada and with the victory won he himself should be the first British governor of Canada New York was to help with 900 men other remote colonies were to aid on a smaller scale these contingents were to attack Canada by way of Lake Champlain 1200 men from New England were to join the regulars from England and go against quibbeck by way of the sea and master Canada once for all the plan was similar to the one which Amherst and Wolfe carried to success exactly 50 years later and without Wolfe in command it might now have succeeded the troops from England were to be at Boston before the end of May 1709 the colonial forces gathered New Jersey and Pennsylvania refused indeed to send any soldiers but New York and the other colonies concerned did their full share by the early summer Colonel Francis Nicholson with some lay fully equipped in camp on Wood Creek near Lake Champlain ready to descend on Montreal as soon as news came of the arrival of the British fleet at Boston for the attack on quibbeck on the shores of Boston Harbor lay another colonial army large for the time the levies from New England which were to sail to quibbeck officers had come out from England to drill these hardy men and as soldiers they were giving a good account of themselves watched fasted and prayed and watched again for the fleet from England summer came and then autumn and still the fleet did not arrive far away in the crowded camp on Wood Creek pestilence broke out and as time wore on this army slowly melted away either by death or withdrawal at last on October 11 1709 word came from the British Ministry dated the 27th of July two months after the promised fleet was to arrive in Boston but it had been sent instead to Portugal in spite of this disappointment the resolution endured to conquer Canada New York joined New England in sending deputations to London to ask again for help for Mohawk chiefs went with Peter Schuyler from New York and were the wonder of the day in London it is something to have a plan talked about Mal Plague the last of Marlborough's great victories have been won in the autumn of 1709 and the thought of a new enterprise was popular Nicholson who had been sent from Boston urged that the first step should be to take Port Royal what the colonies required for this expedition was the aid of four frigates and 500 soldiers who should reach Boston by March the help arrived though not in March but in July 1710 Boston was filled with enthusiasm for the enterprise the legislature made military service compulsory quartered soldiers in private houses without consent of the owners impressed sailors and all together was quite arbitrary and high handed the people however would bear almost anything if only they could crush Port Royal the den of privateers who seized many new England vessels on the 18th of September to the great joy of Boston the frigates and the transport sailed away to the command of the troops and vets as adjutant general what we know today as Digby Basin on the east side of the Bay of Fundy is a great harbor land locked but for a narrow entrance about a mile wide through this gut as it is called the tide rushes in a torrential and dangerous stream but soon loses its violence in the spacious and quiet harbor here the French have made their first enduring colony in America on the shores of the beautiful Basin the Fleur de Lis have been raised over a French fort as early as 1605 a lovely valley opens from the head of the Basin to the interior it is now known as the Annapolis Valley a fertile region dotted by the homesteads of a happy and contented people these people however are not French in race nor do they live under a French government when on the 24th of September 1710 the fleet from Boston entered the Basin and in doing so lost the ship and more than a score of men through the destructive current the decisive moment had come for all that region fate had decreed that the land should not remain French but should become English Port Royal was at that time a typical French community of the new world the village consisted of some poor houses made of logs or planks a wooden church and lying apart a fort defended by earthworks subracas was a brave French officer he ruled the little community with a despotism tempered only by indignant protest to the king from those whom he ruled when his views and theirs did not coincide the peasants in the village counted for nothing connected with the small garrison there were ladies and gentlemen who had no light opinion of their own importance and were so peppery that subracas wished he had a madhouse and wished to confine some of them he thought well of the country it produced he said everything that France produced except olives the fertile land promised abundance of grain and there was an inexhaustible supply of timber there were many excellent harbors had he a million livre he would he said invested gladly in the country and be certain of a good return his enthusiasm had produced however no answering enthusiasm at their side for there the interest support royal were miserably neglected yet it was a thorn in the flesh of the English in 1708 private tears from port royal had destroyed no less than 35 English vessels chiefly from Boston and had carried to the Fort 470 prisoners even in winter months French ships would flit out of port royal and bring in richly laden prizes can we wonder at Boston's deep resolve that now at last the past should end it was an imposing force which sailed into the basin the four frigates and 30 transports carried an army far greater than super cost had thought possible the English landed some 1400 men super cost had less than 300 within a few days when the English began to throw shells into the town he asked for terms on the 16th of October the little garrison neglected by France and left ragged and half starved marched out with drums beating and colors flying the English drawn up before the gate showed the usual honors to a brave foe the French flag was hauled down and in its place floated that of Britain Port Royal was renamed Annapolis and Betch was made its governor three times before had the English come to Port Royal as conquerors and then gone away but now they were to remain ever since that October day when autumn was coloring the abundant as waved over Annapolis because the flag waved there it was destined to wave over all Acadia or Nova Scotia and with Acadia in time went Canada a partial victory however such as the taking of Port Royal was not enough for the aroused spirit of the English they and their allies had beaten Louis the 14th on the battlefields of Europe and had so worn out France that clouds and darkness were about the last days of the Grand Monarch now nearing his end in America his agents were still drawing out papers outlining grandiose designs for mastering the continent and for proving that England's empire was near its fall but Europe knew that France in the long war had been beaten the right way to smite France in America was to rely upon England's naval power to master the great highway of the St. Lawrence to isolate Canada and to strangle one by one the French settlements beginning with Quebec there was malignant intrigue at the court of Queen Anne one favorite the Duchess of Marlborough had just been disgraced and another Mrs. Masham had been taken on by the weak and stupid Queen the conquest of Canada if it could be achieved without the aid of Marlborough would help in his much desired overthrow petty motives were unhappily at the root of the great scheme who better to lead such an expedition than the brother of the new favorite whose success might discredit the husband of the old one accordingly general Jack Hill brother of Mrs. Masham was appointed to the chief military command and an admiral either too little known but of good habits and quick wit Sir Havin and Walker was to lead the fleet the expedition against Quebec was on a scale adequate for the time Britain dispatched seven regiments of regulars numbering in all 5,500 men and there were besides in the fleet some thousands sailors and marines never before had the English sent to North America a force so great on June 24, 1711 Admiral Walker arrived at Boston with his great array Boston was impressed but Boston was also a little hurt for the British leaders were very lofty and superior in their tone towards colonials and gave orders as if Boston were a provincial city of England which must learn respect and obedience to his majesty's officers with the queen's royal power and authority more than 70 ships led by nine men of war sailed from Boston for the attack on Canada on board were nearly 12,000 men compared with this imposing fleet that of Phipps 21 years earlier seems feeble Phipps had set out too late this fleet was in good time for it sailed on the 30th of July that always competent was in command of the colonial military forces but never had any chance to show his medal for it during the voyage the seamen were in control the Admiral had left England with secret instructions he had not been informed of the task before him and for it he was hardly prepared there were no competent pilots to correct his ignorance now that he knew where he was going he was anxious about the dangers of the northern waters the St. Loris river he believed froze solidly to the bottom in winter and he feared that the ice would crush the lands of his ships as he had provisions for only eight or nine weeks his men might starve his mind was filled as he himself says with melancholy and dismal horror at the prospect of seamen and soldiers warned of skeletons by hunger drawing lots to decide who should die first amidst the adamantine frost and mountains of snow of bleak and barren Canada the Gulf and river St. Loris spelled death to an incompetent sailor the fogs and numerous shoals and islands make skillful seamen ship necessary it is a long journey from Boston to Quebec by water for three weeks however all went well on the 22nd of August Walker was out of sight of land in the Gulf where it is about 70 miles wide above the island of Anticosti a strong east wind with thick fog is dreaded in those waters even now and on the evening of that day a storm of this kind blew up Walker lost his bearings when in fact he was near the north shore he thought he was not far from the south shore at half past ten at night pattern captain of the Edgar Walker's flagship came to tell him that land was in sight Walker assumed that it was the south shore and gave a fatal order for the fleet to turn and head north of change which turned them straight towards cliffs and breakers he then went to bed soon one of the military officers rushed to his cabin and begged him to come on deck as the ships were among breakers Walker who was an irascible man resented the intrusion and remained in bed a second time the officer appeared and said the fleet would be lost if the admiral did not act why it was left for a military rather than a naval officer to rouse the admiral in such a crisis we do not know perhaps the sailors were afraid of the great man Walker appeared on deck in dressing gown and slippers and in the moonlight there could be seen breaking surf to lured a French pilot captured in the Gulf had taken pains to give what he could of alarming information he now declared that the ships were off the north shore Walker turned his own ship sharply and succeeded in beating out into deep water and safety for the fleet the night was terrible some ships dropped anchor which held for happily the storm abated fog guns and lights as signals of distress availed little to the ships in difficulty aid British transports laden with troops and two ships carrying supplies were dashed to pieces on the rocks the shrieks of drowning men could be heard in the darkness the scene was the rocky isle ozerf and adjacent reefs off the north shore about 700 soldiers including 29 officers and in addition perhaps 200 sailors were lost on that awful night the disaster was not overwhelming and Walker might have gone on and captured Quebec he had not lost a single warship and he had still some 11,000 men General Hill might have stiffened the back of the forlorn admiral but Hill himself was no better Vetch spoke for going on he knew the Saint Lawrence waters for he had been at Quebec and had actually charted a part of the river and was more familiar with it he believed then were the Canadians themselves what pilots there were to go on was impossible and the helpless captains of the ships were of opinion that with the warning of such a disaster they could not disregard this council though the character of the English is such that usually a reverse serves to stiffen their backs in this case it was not so a council of war yielded to the panic of the hour and the great fleet turned homeward soon it was gathered in what is now Sydney harbour in Cape Breton from here the new England ships went home and Walker sailed for England at spithead the Edgar the flagship blew up and all on board perished Walker was on shore at the time so far was he from being disgraced that he was given a new command later when the Whigs came in he was dismissed from the service lest it seems in blame for the disaster than for his Tory opinions it is not an unusual irony of life that Vetch the one holy efficient leader in the expedition to his days in a debtor's prison Quebec had shivered before a menace the greatest in its history through the long months of the summer of 1711 there had been prayer and fasting to avert the danger apparently trading ships had deserted the lower St. Lawrence in alarm for no word had arrived at Quebec of the approach of Walker's fleet nor had the great disaster been witnessed by any onlookers the island where it occurred was then up to the middle of October nearly two months after the disaster the watchers at Quebec feared that they might see any day a British fleet rounding the head of the island of Orleans on the 19th of October the first news of the disaster arrived and then it was easy for Quebec to believe that God had struck the English wretches with a terrible vengeance 3,000 men it was said had reached land and then perished misverbally many bodies had been found naked and in attitudes of despair thousands had perished in the water vessel loads of spoil had been gathered rich plate beautiful swords magnificent clothing gold silver jewels the truth seems to be that some weeks after the disaster the evidences of the wrecks were discovered even to this day ships are battered to pieces in those rock strewn waters and no one survives to tell the story some fishermen landing on the island had found human bodies dead horses and other animals and the halls of seven ships they had gathered some wreckage and that was the whole story Quebec sang from attacks by sea there had now been two escapes which showed God's love for Canada in the little church of Notre Dame de Victoire concentrated at that time to the memory of the deliverance from Phyps and Walker daily prayers are still poured out for the well-being of Canada God had been a present help on land as well as on the sea Nicholson with more than 10,000 men had been waiting at his camp near Lake Champlain to descend on Montreal as soon as Walker reached Quebec when he received the news of the disaster he broke up his force and retired for the moment Canada was safe from the threatened invasion in spite of this apparent deliverance the long war now near its end brought a destructive blow to French power in America though France still possessed vigor and resources which her enemies were apt to underrate the war had gone against her in Europe her finest armies had been destroyed by moral borough her taxation was crushing her credit was ruined her people were suffering for lack of food the allies had begun to think that there was no humiliation which they might not put upon France Louis XIV they said must give up Alsace which with Lorraine he had taken some years earlier and he must help to drive his own grandson from the Spanish throne this exorbitant demand stirred the pride not only of Louis but of the French nation and the allies found that they could not trample France under their feet the Treaty of Utrecht concluded in 1713 shows that each side was too strong as yet to be crushed in dismissing Marlboro Great Britain had lost one of her chief assets his name had become a terror to France to this day both in France and in French Canada is sung the popular Diddy, Monsieur Malbruc Amour a song of delight at a report that Marlboro was dead when in place of Marlboro leaders of the type of General Hill were appointed to high command France could not be finally beaten the Treaty of Utrecht was the outcome of war weariness it marks however a double check to Louis XIV he could not master Europe and he could not master America France now ceded to Britain her claim to Arcadia Newfoundland and Hudson Bay she regarded this however as only a temporary setback and was soon getting great designs far surpassing the narrower vision of the English colonies it was with a rye face however that France yielded Acadia to retain it she offered to give up all rights and the Newfoundland fisheries the nursery of her Marine Britain would not yield Acadia dreading chiefly perhaps the wrath of New England which had conquered Port Royal Britain however compromised on the question of boundaries in a way so dangerous that the United States finally no great issues in America she took Acadia according to its ancient limits but no one knew these limits they were to be defined by a joint commission of the two nations which after 40 years reached no agreement the island of Cape Breton and the adjoining Il Saint Jean now Prince Edward Island remained to France though Britain secured sovereignty over Newfoundland France retained extensive rights in the Newfoundland fisheries the treaty left between Canada and the English colonies while it yielded Hudson Bay to Britain it settled nothing as to frontiers in the wilderness which stretched beyond the Great Lakes into the far West and which had vast wealth in furs End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of the Conquest of New France by George Wrong this lever box recording is in the public domain Chapter 4 Louisbourg and Boston for 30 years England and France now remained at peace and England had many reasons for desiring peace to continue and the last of the Stuart rulers died in 1714 the new king George the first Elector of Hanover was a German and a German unchangeable for he was already in 1854 with little knowledge of England and none of the English and with an undying love for the dear despotic ways easily followed in a small German principality he and his successor George II were thinking eternally of German rather than of English problems and with German interests chiefly regarded it was well that England should make a friend it was well too that under a new dynasty with its title disputed England should not encourage France to continue the friendly policy of Louis XIV towards James the deposed Stuart pretender England had just made a new determined and arrogant enemy by forcing upon Spain the deep humiliation of ceding Gibraltar which had been taken in 1704 by Admiral Rook with Allied forces the proudest monarchy in Europe was compelled to see a spot of its own sacred territory held permanently by a rival nation Gibraltar Spain was determined to recover its loss drove her into the arms of the enemies of England and remains to this day a grievance which on occasion Spanish politicians know well how to make useful Great Britain was now under the direction of a leader whose policy was peace a nation is happy when a born statesman with a truly liberal mind and a genuine love of his country comes to the front in its affairs such a man was Sir Robert Walpole he was a Whigsquire a plain country gentleman with enough of culture to love good pictures and the ancient classics but delighting chiefly in sports and agriculture hard drinking and politics when only 27 he was already a leader among the Whigs at 32 he was secretary for war and before he was 40 he had become prime minister opposed which he really created and was the first Englishman to hold friendship with France marked a new phase of British policy Walpole's baffled enemies said that he was bribed by France his shrewd insight kept France lukewarm in its support of the steward rising in 1715 which he punished with great severity but it was as a master finance that he was strongest while continental nations were wasting men and money Walpole gloried in saving English lives and English gold he found new and fruitful modes of taxation but when urged to tax the colonies he preferred as he said to leave that to a bolder man it is a pity that anyone was ever found bold enough to do it Walpole's policy endured for a quarter of a century he abandoned it only after a bitter struggle in which he was attacked as sacrificing the national honor for the sake of peace Spain was an easy mark for those who wished to arouse the warlike spirit she still persecuted and burned heretics a great cause of offense in Protestant Britain and she was rigorous in excluding foreigners from trading with her colonies to be the one exception in this policy of exclusion was their privilege enjoyed by Britain when the fortunes of Spain were low in 1713 she had been forced not merely to see Gibraltar but also to give to the British the monopoly of supplying the Spanish colonies with Negro slaves and the right to send one ship a year to trade at Porto Bello in South America it seems a sufficiently ignoble bargain for a great nation to exact the monopoly of carrying and selling cargos of black men and the right to send a single ship yearly to a Spanish colony we can hardly imagine grave diplomats of our day haggling over such terms but the 18th century was not the 20th from the treaty the British expected amazing results the South Sea Company was formed to carry on a vast trade with South America one ship a year could of course carry little but the ships laden with Negroes could smuggle into the colonies merchandise and the one trading ship and was reloaded fraudulently from lighter so that its cargo was multiplied many fold out of the belief in huge profits from this trade with its exaggerated visions of profit grew in 1720 the famous South Sea bubble which inaugurated a period of frantic speculation in England worthless shares in companies formed for a trade in the South Seas sold at a thousand percent of their face value it is a form of madness to which human greed is ever liable wall poles financial insight condemned from the first the wild outburst and his common sense during the crisis helped to stem the tide of disaster the South Sea bubble burst partly because Spain stood sternly on her own rights and punished British smugglers during many years the tension between the two nations grew no doubt Spanish officials were harsh tales were repeated in England of their brutalities to British sailors who fell into their hands in 1739 the story of a certain captain Jenkins that his ear had been cut off by Spanish captors and thrown in his face with an insulting message to his government brought matters to climax events in other parts of Europe soon made the war general when in 1740 the young king of Prussia Frederick II came to the throne his first act was to march an army into Silesia to this province he had he said in the mail line a better claim than that of the woman Maria Teresa who had just inherited the Austrian crown Frederick conquered Silesia and held it in 1744 he was allied with Spain and France while Britain allied herself with Austria and thus Britain and France were again at war in America both sides had long seen that the war was inevitable never had French opinion been more arrogant in asserting France's right to North America than after the Treaty of Utrecht at the dinner table of the governor in Quebec there was incessant talk of Britain's in capacity of the sheer luck by which France had blundered into the occupation of great areas while in truth she was weak through lack of union and organization a natural antipathy it was said existed between her colonies and herself she was a monarchy while they were really independent republics France on the other hand had grown stronger since the last war in 1713 she had retained the island of Cape Bataille and now she had made it a new place through British power Boston which had breathed more freely after the fall of Port Royal in 1710 soon had renewed cause for alarm in regard to its shipping on the southern coast of Cape Bataille there was a spacious harbor with a narrow entrance easily fortified and here France began to build the fortress of Louisbourg it was planned on the most approved military principles of the time through its strength the boastful talk went France should master North America the King sent out cannon undertook to build a hospital to furnish chaplains for the service of the church to help education and so on above all he sent to Louisbourg soldiers reports of these wonderful things reached the English colonies and caused fears and misgivings New England believed that Louisbourg reflected the pomp and wealth of the French Empire the fortress was in truth slow in building and never more than a rather desolate outpost of France it contained in all about 4,000 people during the 30 years of the long truce it became so strong that it was without arrival on the Atlantic coast the excellent harbor was a haven for the fishermen of adjacent waters and a base for French privateers who were a terror of the Atlantic on the military side Louisbourg seemed a success but the French failed in their effort to colonize the island of Cape Breton on which the fortress stood today this island has great iron and other industries there are coal mines near Louisbourg and its harbor long deserted after the fall of the power of France has now an extensive commerce the island was indeed fabulously rich in coals and minerals to use these things however was to be the task of a new age of industry the colonist of the 18th century a merchant a farmer or a fur trader thought that Cape Breton was bleak and infertile and refused to settle there Louisbourg remained a compact fortress with a good harbor free from ice during most of the year but too much haunted by fog it looked out on not much travel sea but it remained set in the wilderness even if Louisbourg made up for the loss of port royal this did not however console France for the session of Acadia the fixed idea of those who shaped the policy of Canada was to recover Acadia and meanwhile to keep its French settlers loyal to France the Acadians were not a promising people with whom to work in Acadia or Nova Scotia as the English called it these backward people had slowly gathered during a hundred years and had remained remote and neglected they had cleared farms built primitive houses planted orchards and reared cattle in 1713 their number did not exceed two or three thousand but already they were showing the amazing fertility of the French race in America they were prosperous but ignorant almost none of them could read after the session of their land to Britain in 1713 they had been guaranteed by a treaty free exercise of their religion and they were Catholics to a man it seems as if history need hardly mention of people so feeble and obscure circumstances however made the role of the Acadians important their position was unique the treaty of Utrecht gave them the right to leave Acadia within a year taking with them their personal effects to this Queen Anne added the just privilege of selling their lands and houses themselves however nor their new British masters were desirous that they should leave the Acadians were content in their old homes and the British did not wish them to help in building up the neighboring French stronghold on Cape Breton it thus happened that the French officials could induce few of the Acadians to migrate and the English troubled them little having been resolute in acquiring Nova Scotia Britain proceeded straight way to neglect it she brought in few settlers she kept there less than 200 soldiers and even to these she paid so little attention that sometimes they had no uniforms the Acadians prospered multiplied and quarreled as to the boundaries of their lands they rendered no military service paid no taxes and have their country to themselves as completely as if there had been no British conquest they rarely saw a British official if they asked the British governor at the time to settle for them some vex question of rights or ownership he did so and they did not even pay a fee this is not however the whole story England's neglect of the colony was France's opportunity perhaps the French court did not follow closely what was going on in Acadia the successive French governors of Canada at Quebec were however alert and their policy was to incite the Abinacian Indians on the English settlements and to keep the Acadians an active factor in the support of French plans the nature of French intrigue is best seen in the career of Sebastian Raoul he was a highly educated Jesuit priest it was long a tradition among the Jesuits to send some of their best men as missionaries among the Indians Raoul spent nearly the whole of his life with the Abinakis at the mission station of Norwich Walk on the Canabec river he knew the language and the customs of the Indians attended their councils and dominated them by his influence he was a model missionary earnest and scholarly but the Jesuit of that age was prone to be half spiritual half political intrigue there is no doubt that the Indians had a genuine fear that the English with danger from France apparently removed by the Treaty of Utrecht would press claims to lands about the Canabec river in what is now the state of Maine and that they would ignore the claims of the Indians and drive them out the governor at Quebec helped to arouse the savages against the arrogant intruders English border Ruffians stir the Indians by their drunken outrageous and gave them real cause for anger the savages knew only one way of expressing political unrest they began murdering women and children in raids on lonely log caverns on the frontier in 1721 Massachusetts began a war on them which dragged on for years Raoul inspired from Quebec was believed to control the Indians and indeed boasted that he did so at last the English struck at the heart of the trouble in 1724 some 200 determined men made a silent advance through the force to the mission village of Norwich Walk where Raoul lived and Raoul died fighting the assailants of French Jesuits such as he would have worked among diplomats and at the luxurious courts of kings in America he worked among savages under the hard conditions of frontier life the methods and the aims in both cases were the same by subtle and secret influence so to mold the actions of men that French should be exalted in power in their high politics the French sometimes overreach themselves to seize points of advantage to intrigue for influence are not created they must be supported by such practical efforts as will assure an economic reserve adequate in the hour of testing France failed partly because she did not know how to lay sound industrial foundations which should give substance to the brilliant planning of her leaders to French influence of this kind the English opposed forces that were the outcome of their national character and institutions the French and had cheaper and better goods with the exception perhaps the French gunpowder and the French brandy which the Indians preferred to English rum though the English were less alert and less brilliant than the French the work that they did was more enduring their settlements encroached ever more and more upon the forest they found until the good lands traded and saved and gradually built up populist communities the British colonies had 20 times the population of Canada the tide of their power crept in slowly but it moved with a relentless force that has subsequently made nearly the whole of North America English in speech and modes of thought when in 1744 open war between the two nations came at last in Europe each prepared to spring at the other in America and France sprang first in Nova Scotia on the narrow straight which separates the mainland from the island of Cape Breton the British had a weak little fishing settlement called Kansow suddenly in May 1744 when the British at Kansow had heard nothing of war to arm vessels from Louisbourg with 6 or 700 soldiers and sailors appeared before the poor little place and demanded its surrender to this the 80 British defenders agreed on the condition that they should be sent to Boston which as yet had not heard of the war taken to Louisbourg where they kept their eyes open but the French continued in their offensive the one vital place held by the British in Nova Scotia was Annapolis at that time so neglected that the sandy ramparts had crumbled into the ditch supposed to protect them and cows from the neighboring fields walked up the slope and looked down into the fort it was du vivier the captor of Kansow who attacked Annapolis it hoped much for help from the Indians and the Arcadians but though both seemed eager both failed him in action Paul Massarine who defended Annapolis was of Huguenot blood which stimulated him to fight the better against the Catholic French Boston sent him help for that little capital was deeply moved and so Annapolis did not fall though it was harassed during the whole summer of 1744 and New England in a fever at the New Perils of War prepared a mighty stroke against the French this expedition was to undertake nothing less than the capture of Louis Bourg itself the colonial troops have been so often reminded of their inferiority to regular troops as fighting forces that with provincial docility they had almost come to accept the estimate it was well enough for them to fight irregular French and Indian bands but to attack a fortress defended by a French garrison was something that only a few bold spirits among them could imagine such a spirit however was William Vaughan a main trader deeply involved in the fishing industry and confronted with ruin from hostile Louis Bourg surely the governor of Massachusetts a man of eager ambition took up the proposal and worked out an elaborate plan the prisoners who had been captured at Cancel by the French and in turn that Louis Bourg now arrived at Boston and told of bad conditions in the fortress in January 1745 surely caused a session of the general court the little parliament of Massachusetts and having taken the unusual step of pledging the members to secrecy he unfolded his plan but it proved too bold for the prudent legislators and they voted it down meanwhile the England trade was suffering from shits which used Louis Bourg as a base that linked public opinion was aroused and when surely again called the general court a bear majority endorsed his plan soon thereafter New England was aflame appeals for help were sent to England and it is said even to Jamaica surely counted on aid from our British squadron under Commodore Peter Warren in American waters but at first Warren had no instructions to help such a plan this disappointment did not keep New England from going on alone in the end Warren received instructions to give the necessary substantial aid and he established a strict blockade which played a vital part in the siege of the French in this hour of deadly peril Louis Bourg was in not quite happy case some of the French officers who would otherwise have starved on their low pay were taking part in illicit trade and were neglecting their duties just after Christmas in 1744 there had been a mutiny over a petty question of butter and bacon here as in all French colonies there were cliques with the suspicions and bitterness which they involved the governor though brave enough was a man of poor judgment in a position that required both tact and talent the English did not make the mistake of delaying their preparations they were indeed so prompt that they arrived at Cannes so early in April and had to wait for the ice to break up in Cabarrou Bay near Louis Bourg where they intended to land here on April 30 the great fleet appeared a watcher in Louis Bourg counted 96 ships standing offshore with little opposition from the French the amazing army landed at Freshwater Cove then began an astonishing siege the commander of the new England forces William Paperel was a main trader who dealt in a little of everything fish, groceries, lumber, ships, land the innocent of military signs he was firm and tactful a British officer with strict military ideas could not perhaps have led that strange army with success Paperel knew that good fighting material he knew how to handle it in his army of some 4,000 men there was probably not one officer with a regular training few of his force had proper equipment but nearly all his men were handy on a ship as well as on land in Louis Bourg were about 2,000 defenders of whom only 5 or 600 were French regulars these professional soldiers watched with contempt not untouched with apprehension the breaches of military precedent in the operations of the besiegers men, harnessed like horses, dragged guns through morasses into position exposed themselves recklessly and showed the skill initiative and resolution which we have now come to consider the dominant qualities of the Yankee in time Warren arrived with a British squadron and then the French were puzzled anew they could not understand the relations between the fleet and the army which seemed to them to belong to different nations the New Englanders appeared to be under a governor who was something like an independent monarch he had drawn up elaborate plans for his army comical in their apparent disregard of the realities of war naming the hour when the force should land unobserved before Louis Bourg instructing PEPRO to surprise that place while everyone was asleep and so on kindly Providence was expected even to give continuous good weather the English appeared to have enlisted heaven in their interest set a despairing resident of the town so long as the expedition lasted they had the most beautiful weather in the world there were no storms the winds were favorable fog so common on the back coast did not creep in and the sky was clear among the French the opinion prevailed that the English columnists were ferocious pirates plotting eternally to destroy the power of France their liberty however it was well understood have made them strong and now they quickly became formidable soldiers their shooting bat at first was in the end superb sometimes in their excess of zeal they overcharged their cannons so that the guns burst but they managed to hit practically every house in Louis Bourg and since most of the houses were of wood there was constant danger of fire some of the French fought well even children of 10 and 12 helped to carry ammunition the government du chambon tried to keep up the spirits of the garrison by absurd exaggeration of British losses he was relying much on help from France but only a single ship reached port on May 19 1745 the besieged saw approaching Louis Bourg a great French ship of war the vigilant long looked for carrying 64 guns and 560 men a northwest wind was blowing which would have brought her quickly into the harbor the British fleet was two and a half leagues away to lewd the great ship thinking herself secure did not even stop to communicate with Louis Bourg but wantonly gave chase to a small British privateer which he encountered near the shore by a skill for maneuvering the smaller ship led the French frigate out to sea again and then the British squadron came up from 5 o'clock to 10 in the evening anxious men and Louis Bourg watched the fight and saw it last the vigilance surrender after losing 80 men this disaster broke the spirit of the defenders who were already short of ammunition when they knew that the British were preparing for a combined assault by land and sea they made terms and surrendered on the 17th of June after the siege had lasted for seven weeks the garrison marched out with the honors of war to be transported to France together with such of the civilian population as wished to go the British squadron then sailed into the harbor papereaux strange army ragged and more worn after the long siege entered the town by the south gate they had fought as crusaders for them catholic Louis Bourg was a stronghold of Satan would feel the great English evangelist then in New England had given them a motto Neodesperandum Christo do say there is a story that one of the English chaplains old parsimidia man of about 70 had brought with him from Boston an axe and was soon found using it to you down the altar and images in the church at Louis Bourg if the story is true it does something to explain the belief of the French in the savagery of their opponents who would so treat things which their enemies held to be most sacred the French had met this fanaticism with a savagery equally intense and directed not against things but against the flesh of men an inhabitant of Louis Bourg during the siege describes the dauntless bravery of the Indian allies of the French during the siege full of hatred for the English whose ferocity they abhor they destroy France he does not have even a word of censure for the savages who tortured and killed in cold blood a party of some 20 English who had been induced to surrender on promise of life the French declared that not they but the savages were responsible for such barbarities and the English retorted that the French must control their allies feeling on such things was naturally bitter on both sides and did much to decide that the war between the two nations should be to the death the fall of Louis Bourg brought great exaltation to the English colonies it was a unique event the first prolonged and successful siege that has yet taken place north of Mexico an odd chance of war had decreed that untrained soldiers should win a success so prodigious New England it is true had incurred a heavy expenditure and her men having done so much naturally imagined that they had done everything and talked as if the siege was wholly their triumph they were of course greatly aided by the fleet under war and the achievement was a joint triumph of army and navy New England alone however had the credit of conceiving and of arousing others to carry out a brilliant exploit victory inspires to further victory the British exaltant after Louis Bourg were resolved to make an end of French power in America the land as Canada cried Governor Shirley to the general court of Massachusetts and the response of the members was the voting of men and money on a scale that involved the bankruptcy of the Commonwealth other colonies too were eager for a cause which had won a success so dazzling and some 8,000 men were promised for an attack on Canada proud and valiant Massachusetts contributing nearly one half of the total number the old plan was to be followed New York was to lead in an attack by way of Lake Champlain New England was to collect its forces at Louis Bourg here a British fleet should come carrying 8 battalions of British regulars and with one in command the whole armada should proceed to Quebec nothing came of this elaborate scheme neither the promised troops nor the fleet arrived from England British ministers broke faith with the colonists in the adventure with quite too light a heart stories went abroad of disorder and dissension in Louis Bourg under the English and of the weakness of the place disease broke out hundreds of new England soldiers died and their bones now lie in graves unmarked and forgotten on the seashore by the deserted fortress at almost any time still their bones washed down by the waves may be picked up on the beach there were silent mutterings of discontent at Louis Bourg soldiers grumbled over grievances which were sometimes fantastic rumor had been persistent in creating a legend that vast wealth the accumulated plunder brought in by French privateers was stored in the town from this source of rich reward and booty was expected by the soldiers in fact when Louis Bourg was taken all looting was forbidden and the soldiers would put on guard over houses which they had hoped to rob for the soldiers there were no prizes Louis Bourg was poor the sailors on the other hand were fortunate as a decoy warren kept the French flag flying over the harbor and French ships sailed in one of them with a vast treasure of gold and silver coin and ingots from Peru valued at 600,000 pounds one other prize was valued at 200,000 pounds and a third at 140,000 pounds warren's own share of prize money amounted to 60,000 pounds while paparal the unrewarded leader of the assistive service piled up a personal debt of 10,000 pounds quarrels occurred between soldiers and sailors and in these the new englanders soon proved by no means the cowards which complacent superiority in England considered them rather as an enlightened Britain said if they had pickaxe and spade they would dig a way to hell itself and storm that stronghold behind all difficulties was the question whether having taking Louis Bourg the British could continue to hold it France answered with a resolute no to retake it she fitted out a great fleet nearly half her navy gathered under the Duke d'Alvier and put to sea on June 20, 1746 if in the previous summer God had helped the English with good weather by a similar proof his face now appeared turned a second time against the French in the great array there were more than 60 ships which were together at now Halis bags harbour and to be joined there by four great ships of work from the west indies everything went wrong on the voyage across the Atlantic there was a prolonged calm followed by a heavy squall several ships struck by lightning a magazine on the Mars blew up killing 10 and wounding 21 men pestilence broke out as a crowning misfortune the fleet was scattered by a terrific storm after great delay don't be his ship reached Chabucto than a wild and lonely spot the expected fleet from the West Indies had indeed come but had gone since the ships from France long overdue had not arrived don't be it died suddenly some set of apoplexy others of poison self-administer more ships arrived full of sick men and shorter provisions do Stuart now who succeeded on via in chief command in despair at the outlook killed himself with his own sword after the experience of only a day or two in his post la Jean Pierre a competent officer afterwards governor of Canada then let the expedition the pestilence still raised and from two to three thousand men died one day a Boston's loop boldly entered Chabucto harbour to find out what was going on it is a wonder that the British did not descend upon the stricken French and destroy them in October la Jean Pierre having pulled his force together plan to win the small success of taking anapolis but again storm scattered his ships at the end of October he finally decided to return to France but they were more heavy storms and one French crew was so near starvation that only a chance meeting with the Portuguese ship kept them from killing and eating five English prisoners only a battered remnant of the fleet eventually reached home ports the disaster did not crush France in May of the next spring 1747 a new fleet under la Jean Pierre set out to retake Louisbourg near the coast of Europe however animals Hanson and Warren met and completely destroyed it taking prisoner la Jean Pierre himself this disaster affected what was really the most important result of the war it made the British fleet definitely superior to the French during the struggle England had produced a new Drake who attacked Spain in the spirit of the sea dogs of Elizabeth Hanson had gone in 1740 into the Pacific where he seized and plundered Spanish ships as Drake had done nearly two centuries earlier and in 1744 when he had been given up for lost he completed the great exploit of sailing around the world and bringing home rich booty such feats went far to give Britain that command of the sea on which her colonial empire was to depend the issue of the war hung more on events that occurred in Europe than in America and France have made gains as well as suffered losses it was on the sea that she had sustained her chief defeats in India she had gained by taking the English factory at Madras and in the low country she was still aggressive indeed during the war England had been more hostile to Spain than to France she had not taken very seriously her support of the colonies and her attack on Louisbourg and she had failed them utterly in their designs on Canada it is true that in Europe England had grave problems to solve Austria with which she was allied desired her to fight until Frederick of Prussia should give up the province of Silesia seized by him in 1740 in his quarrel England had no vital interest France had occupied the Austrian Netherlands and had refused to hand back to Austria this territory unless she received Cape Breton in return Britain might have kept Cape Breton if she would have allowed France to keep Belgium this in loyalty to Austria she would not do accordingly peace was made at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 on the agreement that each side should restore to the other its conquest not merely in Europe but also in America and Asia thus it happened that the British flag went up again at Madras while it came down at Louisbourg Boston was of course angry at the terms of the treaty what sacrifices had Massachusetts not made the least of them was the great burden of debt which she had found that her sons had borne what peperol called almost incredible hardships they had landed cannon on a lee shore when the great waves pounded to pieces their boats and women waiting breast high were crushed by the weight of iron harness two and three hundred to a gun they had dragged the pieces one after the other over rocks and through bargain slime and had then served them in the open under the fire of the enemy it was brought in sheep in Louisbourg the graves of nearly a thousand of them lay on the bleak point outside the wall what they had gained by this sacrifice must now be abandoned a spirit of discontent with the mother country went abroad and after this sacrifice of colonial interest never wholly died out it is not without interest to note in passing that gridly the engineer who drew the plan of the defenses of Louisbourg thirty years later drew those of bunker hill to protect men of the English race against England everyone knew that the piece of 1748 was only a truce and Britain began promptly new defenses into the spacious harbour of Djibouto which three years earlier had been the scene of the SARS-Dom V's fleet that sailed in June 1749 a considerable British squadron bent on a momentous errand it carried some thousands of settlers that were Cornwalls a governor clothed with adequate authority and a force sufficient for the defense of the new foundation Cornwalls was delighted with the prospect all the officers agreed the harbour is the finest they had ever seen this of Halifax harbour with the great Bedford basin opening beyond it spacious enough to contain the fleets of the world the country is one continuous wood no clear spot to be seen or heard of Dom V's fleet cleared no ground they encamped their men on the beach the garrison was withdrawn from Louisbourg and arrived at Halifax with a vast quantity of stores a town was marked out lots were drawn for sight and everyone knew where he might build his house they were prodigious digging, chopping, hammering I shall be able to get them all houses before winter, wrote Cornwallis cheerly firm military discipline indeed did wonders before winter came a town had been created and with the town of Fortress which from that time has remained the chief naval and military stronghold of Great Britain in North America at Louisbourg some 200 miles farther east on the coast, France could re-establish her military strength but now Louisbourg had a rival and each was resolved to yield nothing to the other the founding of Halifax was in truth a symbol of the renewal of the struggle for a continent End of Chapter 4