had no want of fuel and pure water. But experience, bitter as it had been, did not yield to them the fruit of practical wisdom. They referred their sufferings to the climate, but took too little pains to protect themselves against its rugged power. Their dwellings, hastily thrown together, were cold and damp, arising from the green, unseasoned wood of which they were doubtless in part constructed, and from the standing rainwater with which their foundations were at all times inundated, which was neither diverted by embankments nor drawn away by drainage. The dreaded _mal de la terre_, or scurvy, as might have been anticipated, made its appearance in the early part of the season, causing the death of twelve out of the forty-five comprising their whole number, while others were prostrated by this painful, repulsive, and depressing disease.
The purpose of making further discoveries on the southern coast, warmly cherished by Champlain, and entering fully into the plans of De Monts, had not been forgotten. Three times during the early part of the summer they had equipped their barque, made up their party, and left Port Royal for this undertaking, and as many times had been driven back by the violence of the winds and the waves.
In the mean time, the supplies which had been promised and expected from France had not arrived. This naturally gave to Pont Gravé, the lieutenant, great anxiety, as without them it was clearly inexpedient to venture upon another winter in the wilds of La Cadie. It had been stipulated by De Monts, the patentee, that if succors did not arrive before the middle of July, Pont Gravé should make arrangements for the return of the colony by the fishing vessels to be found at the Grand Banks. Accordingly, on the 17th of that month, Pont Gravé set sail with the little colony in two barques, and proceeded towards Cape Breton, to seek a passage home. But De Monts had not been remiss in his duty. He had, after many difficulties and delays, despatched a vessel of a hundred and fifty tons, called the “Jonas,” with fifty men and ample provisions for the approaching winter. While Pont Gravé with his two barques and his retreating colony had run into Yarmouth Bay for repairs, the “Jonas” passed him unobserved, and anchored in the basin before the deserted settlement of Port Royal. An advice-boat had, however, been wisely despatched by the “Jonas” to reconnoitre the inlets along the shore, which fortunately intercepted the departing colony near Cape Sable, and, elated with fresh news from home, they joyfully returned to the quarters they had so recently abandoned.
In addition to a considerable number of artisans and laborers for the colony, the “Jonas” had brought out Sieur De Poutrincourt, to remain as lieutenant of La Cadie, and likewise Marc Lescarbot, a young attorney of Paris, who had already made some scholarly attainments, and who subsequently distinguished himself as an author, especially by the publication of a history of New France.
De Poutrincourt immediately addressed himself to putting all things in order at Port Royal, where it was obviously expedient for the colony to remain, at least for the winter. As soon as the “Jonas” had been unladen, Pont Gravé and most of those who had shared his recent hardships, departed in her for the shores of France. When the tenements had been cleansed, refitted, and refurnished, and their provisions had been safely stored, De Poutrincourt, by way of experiment, to test the character of the climate and the capability of the soil, despatched a squad of gardeners and farmers five miles up the river, to the grounds now occupied by the village of Annapolis, [51] where the soil was open, clear of forest trees, and easy of cultivation. They planted a great variety of seeds, wheat, rye, hemp, flax, and of garden esculents, which grew with extraordinary luxuriance, but, as the season was too late for any of them to ripen, the experiment failed either as a test of the soil or the climate.
On a former visit in 1604, De Poutrincourt had conceived a great admiration for Annapolis basin, its protected situation, its fine scenery, and its rich soil. He had a strong desire to bring his family there and make it his permanent abode. With this design, he had requested and received from De Monts a personal grant of this region, which had also been confirmed to him [52] by Henry IV. But De Monts wished to plant his La Cadian colony in a milder and more genial climate. He had therefore enjoined upon De Poutrincourt, as his lieutenant, on leaving France, to continue the explorations for the selection of a site still farther to the south. Accordingly, on the 5th of September, 1606, De Poutrincourt left Annapolis Basin, which the French called Port Royal, in a barque of eighteen tons, to fulfil this injunction.
It was Champlain’s opinion that they ought to sail directly for Nauset harbor, on Cape Cod, and commence their explorations where their search had terminated the preceding year, and thus advance into a new region, which had not already been surveyed. But other counsels prevailed, and a large part of the time which could be spared for this investigation was exhausted before they reached the harbor of Nauset. They made a brief visit to the island of St. Croix, in which De Monts had wintered in 1604-5, touched also at Saco, where the Indians had already completed their harvest, and the grapes at Bacchus Island were ripe and luscious. Thence sailing directly to Cape Anne, where, finding no safe roadstead, they passed round to Gloucester harbor, which they found spacious, well protected, with good depth of water, and which, for its great excellence and attractive scenery, they named _Beauport_, or the beautiful harbor. Here they remained several days. It was a native settlement, comprising two hundred savages, who were cultivators of the soil, which was prolific in corn, beans, melons, pumpkins, tobacco, and grapes. The harbor was environed with fine forest trees, as hickory, oak, ash, cypress, and sassafras. Within the town there were several patches of cultivated land, which the Indians were gradually augmenting by felling the trees, burning the wood, and after a few years, aided by the natural process of decay, eradicating the stumps. The French were kindly received and entertained with generous hospitality. Grapes just gathered from the vines, and squashes of several varieties, the trailing bean still well known in New England, and the Jerusalem artichoke crisp from the unexhausted soil, were presented as offerings of welcome to their guests. While these gifts were doubtless tokens of a genuine friendliness so far as the savages were capable of that virtue, the lurking spirit of deceit and treachery which had been inherited and fostered by their habits and mode of life, could not be restrained.
The French barque was lying at anchor a short distance northeast of Ten Pound Island. Its boat was undergoing repairs on a peninsula near by, now known as Rocky Neck, and the sailors were washing their linen just at the point where the peninsula is united to the mainland. While Champlain was walking on this causeway, he observed about fifty savages, completely armed, cautiously screening themselves behind a clump of bushes on the edge of Smith’s Cove. As soon as they were aware that they were seen, they came forth, concealing their weapons as much as possible, and began to dance in token of a friendly greeting. But when they discovered De Poutrincourt in the wood near by, who had approached unobserved, with eight armed musketeers to disperse them in case of an attack, they immediately took to flight, and, scattering in all directions, made no further hostile demonstrations. [53] This serio-comic incident did not interfere with the interchange of friendly offices between the two parties, and when the voyagers were about to leave, the savages urged them with great earnestness to remain longer, assuring them that two thousand of their friends would pay them a visit the very next day. This invitation was, however, not heeded. In Champlain’s opinion it was a _ruse_ contrived only to furnish a fresh opportunity to attack and overpower them.
On the 30th of September, they left the harbor of Gloucester, and, during the following night, sailing in a southerly direction, passing Brant Point, they found themselves in the lower part of Cape Cod Bay. When the sun rose, a low, sandy shore stretched before them. Sending their boat forward to a place where the shore seemed more elevated, they found deeper water and a harbor, into which they entered in five or six fathoms. They were welcomed by three Indian canoes. They found oysters in such quantities in this bay, and of such excellent quality, that they named it _Le Port aux Huistres_, [54] or Oyster Harbor. After a few hours, they weighed anchor, and directing their course north, a quarter northeast, with a favoring wind, soon doubled Cape Cod. The next day, the 2d of October, they arrived off Nauset. De Poutrincourt, Champlain, and others entered the harbor in a small boat, where they were greeted by a hundred and fifty savages with singing and dancing, according to their usual custom. After a brief visit, they returned to the barque and continued their course along the sandy shore. When near the heel of the cape, off Chatham, they found themselves imperilled among breakers and sand-banks, so dangerous as to render it inexpedient to attempt to land, even with a small boat. The savages were observing them from the shore, and soon manned a canoe, and came to them with singing and demonstrations of joy. From them, they learned that lower down a harbor would be found, where their barque might ride in safety. Proceeding, therefore, in the same direction, after many difficulties, they succeeded in rounding the peninsula of Monomoy, and finally, in the gray of the evening, cast anchor in the offing near Chatham, now known as Old Stage Harbor. The next day they entered, passing between Harding’s Beach Point and Morris Island, in two fathoms of water, and anchored in Stage Harbor. This harbor is about a mile long and half a mile wide, and at its western extremity is connected by tide-water with Oyster Pond, and with Mill Cove on the east by Mitchell’s River. Mooring their barque between these two arms of the harbor, towards the westerly end, the explorers remained there about three weeks. It was the centre of an Indian settlement, containing five or six hundred persons. Although it was now well into October, the natives of both sexes were entirely naked, with the exception of a slight band about the loins. They subsisted upon fish and the products of the soil. Indian corn was their staple. It was secured in the autumn in bags made of braided grass, and buried in the sand-banks, and withdrawn as it was needed during the winter. The savages were of fine figure and of olive complexion. They adorned themselves with an embroidery skilfully interwoven with feathers and beads, and dressed their hair in a variety of braids, like those at Saco. Their dwellings were conical in shape, covered with thatch of rushes and corn-husks, and surrounded by cultivated fields. Each cabin contained one or two beds, a kind of matting, two or three inches in thickness, spread upon a platform on which was a layer of elastic staves, and the whole raised a foot from the ground. On these they secured refreshing repose. Their chiefs neither exercised nor claimed any superior authority, except in time of war. At all other times and in all other matters complete equality reigned throughout the tribe.
The stay at Chatham was necessarily prolonged in baking bread to serve the remainder of the voyage, and in repairing their barque, whose rudder had been badly shattered in the rough passage round the cape. For these purposes, a bakery and a forge were set up on shore, and a tent pitched for the convenience and protection of the workmen. While these works were in progress, De Poutrincourt, Champlain, and others made frequent excursions into the interior, always with a guard of armed men, sometimes making a circuit of twelve or fifteen miles. The explorers were fascinated with all they saw. The aroma of the autumnal forest and the balmy air of October stimulated their senses. The nut-trees were loaded with ripe fruit, and the rich clusters of grapes were hanging temptingly upon the vines. Wild game was plentiful and delicious. The fish of the bay were sweet, delicate, and of many varieties. Nature, unaided by art, had thus supplied so many human wants that Champlain gravely put upon record his opinion that this would be a most excellent place in which to lay the foundations of a commonwealth, if the harbor were deeper and better protected at its mouth.
After the voyagers had been in Chatham eight or nine days, the Indians, tempted by the implements which they saw about the forge and bakery, conceived the idea of taking forcible possession of them, in order to appropriate them to their own use. As a preparation for this, and particularly to put themselves in a favorable condition in case of an attack or reprisal, they were seen removing their women, children, and effects into the forests, and even taking down their cabins. De Poutrincourt, observing this, gave orders to the workmen to pass their nights no longer on shore, but to go on board the barque to assure their personal safety. This command, however, was not obeyed. The next morning, at break of day, four hundred savages, creeping softly over a hill in the rear, surrounded the tent, and poured such a volley of arrows upon the defenceless workmen that escape was impossible. Three of them were killed upon the spot; a fourth was mortally and a fifth badly wounded. The alarm was given by the sentinel on the barque. De Poutrincourt, Champlain, and the rest, aroused from their slumbers, rushed half-clad into the ship’s boat, and hastened to the rescue. As soon as they touched the shore, the savages, fleet as the greyhound, escaped to the wood. Pursuit, under the circumstances, was not to be made; and, if it had been, would have ended in their utter destruction. Freed from immediate danger, they collected the dead and gave them Christian burial near the foot of a cross, which had been erected the day before. While the service of prayer and song was offered, the savages in the distance mocked them with derisive attitudes and hideous howls. Three hours after the French had retired to their barque, the miscreants returned, tore down the cross, disinterred the dead, and carried off the garments in which they had been laid to rest. They were immediately driven off by the French, the cross was restored to its place, and the dead reinterred.
Before leaving Chatham, some anxiety was felt in regard to their safety in leaving the harbor, as the little barque had scarcely been able to weather the rough seas of Monomoy on their inward voyage. A boat had been sent out in search of a safer and a better roadway, which, creeping along by the shore sixteen or eighteen miles, returned, announcing three fathoms of water, and neither bars nor reefs. On the 16th of October they gave their canvas to the breeze, and sailed out of Stage Harbor, which they had named _Port Fortuné_, [55] an appellation probably suggested by their narrow escape in entering and by the bloody tragedy to which we have just referred. Having gone eighteen or twenty miles, they sighted the island of Martha’s Vineyard lying low in the distance before them, which they called _La Soupçonneuse_, the suspicious one, as they had several times been in doubt whether it were not a part of the mainland. A contrary wind forced them to return to their anchorage in Stage Harbor. On the 20th they set out again, and continued their course in a southwesterly direction until they reached the entrance of Vineyard Sound. The rapid current of tide water flowing from Buzzard’s Bay into the sound through the rocky channel between Nonamesset and Wood’s Holl, they took to be a river coming from the mainland, and named it _Rivière de Champlain_.
This point, in front of Wood’s Holl, is the southern limit of the French explorations on the coast of New England, reached by them on the 20th of October, 1606.
Encountering a strong wind, approaching a gale, they were again forced to return to Stage Harbor, where they lingered two or three days, awaiting favoring winds for their return to the colony at the bay of Annapolis.
We regret to add that, while they were thus detained, under the very shadow of the cross they had recently erected, the emblem of a faith that teaches love and forgiveness, they decoyed, under the guise of friendship, several of the poor savages into their power, and inhumanly butchered them in cold blood. This deed was perpetrated on the base principle of _lex talionis_, and yet they did not know, much less were they able to prove, that their victims were guilty or took any part in the late affray. No form of trial was observed, no witnesses testified, and no judge adjudicated. It was a simple murder, for which we are sure any Christian’s cheek would mantle with shame who should offer for it any defence or apology.
When this piece of barbarity had been completed, the little French barque made its final exit from Stage Harbor, passed successfully round the shoals of Monomoy, and anchored near Nauset, where they remained a day or two, leaving on the 28th of October, and sailing directly to Isle Haute in Penobscot Bay. They made brief stops at some of the islands at the mouth of the St. Croix, and at the Grand Manan, and arrived at Annapolis Basin on the 14th of November, after an exceedingly rough passage and many hair-breadth escapes.
ENDNOTES:
50. On Lescarbot’s map of 1609, this elevation is denominated _Mont de la Roque_. _Vide_ also Vol. II. note 180.
51. Lescarbot locates Poutrincourt’s fort on the same spot which he called _Manefort_, the site of the present village of Annapolis.
52. “Doncques l’an 1607, tous les François estans reuenus (ainsi qu’a esté dict) le Sieur de Potrincourt présenta à feu d’immortelle memorie Henry le Grand la donnation à luy faicte par le sieur de Monts, requérant humblement Sa Majesté de la ratifier. Le Roy eut pour agréable la dicte Requeste,” &c. _Relations des Jésuites_, 1611, Quebec ed., Vol. I. p. 25. _Vide_ Vol. II. of this work, p 37.
53. This scene is well represented on Champlain’s map of _Beauport_ or Gloucester Harbor. _Vide_ Vol. II. p. 114.
54. _Le Port aux Huistres_, Barnstable Harbor. _Vide_ Vol. II. Note 208.
55. _Port Fortuné_ In giving this name there was doubtless an allusion to the goddess FORTUNA of the ancients, whose office it was to dispense riches and poverty, pleasures and pains, blessings and calamities They had experienced good and evil at her fickle hand. They had entered the harbor in peril and fear, but nevertheless in safety. They had suffered by the attack of the savages, but fortunately had escaped utter annihilation, which they might well have feared. It had been to them eminently the port of hazard or chance. _Vide_ Vol. II Note 231 _La Soupçonneuse_. _Vide_ Vol. II, Note 227.
CHAPTER V.
RECEPTION OK THE EXPLORERS AT ANNAPOLIS BASIN.–A DREARY WINTER RELIEVED BY THE ORDER OF BON TEMPS.–NEWS FROM FRANCE.–BIRTH OF A PRINCE.–RUIN OF DE MONTS’S COMPANY–TWO EXCURSIONS AND DEPARTURE FOR FRANCE.–CHAMPLAIN’S EXPLORATIONS COMPARED.–DE MONTS’S NEW CHARTER FOR ONE YEAR AND CHAMPLAIN’S RETURN IN 1608 TO NEW FRANCE AND THE FOUNDING OF QUEBEC.–CONSPIRACY OF DU VAL AND HIS EXECUTION.
With the voyage which we have described in the last chapter, Champlain terminated his explorations on the coast of New England. He never afterward stepped upon her soil. But he has left us, nevertheless, an invaluable record of the character, manners, and customs of the aborigines as he saw them all along from the eastern borders of Maine to the Vineyard Sound, and carefully studied them during the period of three consecutive years. Of the value of these explorations we need not here speak at length. We shall refer to them again in the sequel.
The return of the explorers was hailed with joy by the colonists at Annapolis Basin. To give _éclat_ to the occasion, Lescarbot composed a poem in French, which he recited at the head of a procession which marched with gay representations to the water’s edge, to receive their returning friends. Over the gateway of the quadrangle formed by their dwellings, dignified by them as their fort, were the arms of France, wreathed in laurel, together with the motto of the king.–
DVO PROTEGIT VNVS.
Under this, the arms of De Monts were displayed, overlaid with evergreen, and bearing the following inscription:–
DABIT DEVS HIS QVOQVE FINEM.
Then came the arms of Poutrincourt, crowned also with garlands, and inscribed:–
IN VIA VIRTVTI NVLLA EST VIA.
When the excitement of the return had passed, the little settlement subsided into its usual routine. The leisure of the winter was devoted to various objects bearing upon the future prosperity of the colony. Among others, a corn mill was erected at a fall on Allen River, four or five miles from the settlement, a little east of the present site of Annapolis. A road was commenced through the forest leading from Lower Granville towards the mouth of the bay. Two small barques were built, to be in readiness in anticipation of a failure to receive succors the next summer, and new buildings were erected for the accommodation of a larger number of colonists. Still, there was much unoccupied time, and, shut out as they were from the usual associations of civilized life, it was hardly possible that the winter should not seem long and dreary, especially to the gentlemen.
To break up the monotony and add variety to the dull routine of their life, Champlain contrived what he called L’ORDRE DE BON TEMPS, or The Rule of Mirth, which was introduced and carried out with spirit and success. The fifteen gentlemen who sat at the table of De Poutrincourt, the governor, comprising the whole number of the order, took turns in performing the duties of steward and caterer, each holding the office for a single day. With a laudable ambition, the Grand Master for the time being laid the forest and the sea under contribution, and the table was constantly furnished with the most delicate and well seasoned game, and the sweetest as well as the choicest varieties of fish. The frequent change of office and the ingenuity displayed, offered at every repast, either in the viands or mode of cooking, something new and tempting to the appetite. At each meal, a ceremony becoming the dignity of the order was strictly observed. At a given signal, the whole company marched into the dining-hall, the Grand Master at the head, with his napkin over his shoulder, his staff of office in his hand, and the glittering collar of the order about his neck, while the other members bore each in his hand a dish loaded and smoking with some part of the delicious repast. A ceremony of a somewhat similar character was observed at the bringing in of the fruit. At the close of the day, when the last meal had been served, and grace had been said, the master formally completed his official duty by placing the collar of the order upon the neck of his successor, at the same time presenting to him a cup of wine, in which the two drank to each other’s health and happiness. These ceremonies were generally witnessed by thirty or forty savages, men, women, boys, and girls, who gazed in respectful admiration, not to say awe, upon this exhibition of European civilization. When Membertou, [56] the venerable chief of the tribe, or other sagamores were present, they were invited to a seat at the table, while bread was gratuitously distributed to the rest.
When the winter had passed, which proved to be an exceedingly mild one, all was astir in the little colony. The preparation of the soil, both in the gardens and in the larger fields, for the spring sowing, created an agreeable excitement and healthy activity.
On the 24th May, in the midst of these agricultural enterprises, a boat arrived in the bay, in charge of a young man from St. Malo, named Chevalier, who had come out in command of the “Jonas,” which he had left at Canseau engaged in fishing for the purpose of making up a return cargo of that commodity. Chevalier brought two items of intelligence of great interest to the colonists, but differing widely in their character. The one was the birth of a French prince, the Duke of Orleans; the other, that the company of De Monts had been broken up, his monopoly of the fur-trade withdrawn, and his colony ordered to return to France. The birth of a prince demanded expressions of joy, and the event was loyally celebrated by bonfires and a _Te Deum_. It was, however, giving a song when they would gladly have hung their harps upon the willows.
While the scheme of De Monts’s colonial enterprise was defective, containing in itself a principle which must sooner or later work its ruin, the disappointment occasioned by its sudden termination was none the less painful and humiliating. The monopoly on which it was based could only be maintained by a degree of severity and apparent injustice, which always creates enemies and engenders strife. The seizure and confiscation of several ships with their valuable cargoes on the shores of Nova Scotia, had awakened a personal hostility in influential circles in France, and the sufferers were able, in turn, to strike back a damaging blow upon the author of their losses. They easily and perhaps justly represented that the monopoly of the fur-trade secured to De Monts was sapping the national commerce and diverting to personal emolument revenues that properly belonged to the state. To an impoverished sovereign with an empty treasury this appeal was irresistible. The sacredness of the king’s commission and the loss to the patentee of the property already embarked in the enterprise had no weight in the royal scales. De Monts’s privilege was revoked, with the tantalizing salvo of six thousand livres in remuneration, to be collected at his own expense from unproductive sources.
Under these circumstances, no money for the payment of the workmen or provisions for the coming winter had been sent out, and De Poutrincourt, with great reluctance, proceeded to break up the establishment The goods and utensils, as well as specimens of the grain which they had raised, were to be carefully packed and sent round to the harbor of Canseau, to be shipped by the “Jonas,” together with the whole body of the colonists, as soon as she should have received her cargo of fish.
While these preparations were in progress, two excursions were made; one towards the west, and another northeasterly towards the head of the Bay of Fundy. Lescarbot accompanied the former, passing several days at St. John and the island of St. Croix, which was the westerly limit of his explorations and personal knowledge of the American coast. The other excursion was conducted by De Poutrincourt, accompanied by Champlain, the object of which was to search for ores of the precious metals, a species of wealth earnestly coveted and overvalued at the court of France. They sailed along the northern shores of Nova Scotia, entered Mines Channel, and anchored off Cape Fendu, now Anglicised into the uneuphonious name of Cape Split. De Poutrincourt landed on this headland, and ascended a steep and lofty summit which is not less than four hundred feet in height. Moss several feet in thickness, the growth of centuries, had gathered upon it, and, when he stood upon the pinnacle, it yielded and trembled like gelatine under his feet. He found himself in a critical situation. From this giddy and unstable height he had neither the skill or courage to return. After much anxiety, he was at length rescued by some of his more nimble sailors, who managed to put a hawser over the summit, by means of which he safely descended. They named it _Cap de Poutrincourt_.
They proceeded as far as the head of the Basin of Mines, but their search for mineral wealth was fruitless, beyond a few meagre specimens of copper. Their labors were chiefly rewarded by the discovery of a moss-covered cross in the last stages of decay, the relic of fishermen, or other Christian mariners, who had, years before, been upon the coast.
The exploring parties having returned to Port Royal, to their settlement in what is now known as Annapolis Basin, the bulk of the colonists departed in three barques for Canseau, on the 30th of July, while De Poutrincourt and Champlain, with a complement of sailors, remained some days longer, that they might take with them specimens of wheat still in the field and not yet entirely ripe.
On the 11th of August they likewise bade adieu to Port Royal amid the tears of the assembled savages, with whom they had lived in friendship, and who were disappointed and grieved at their departure. In passing round the peninsula of Nova Scotia in their little shallop, it was necessary to keep close in upon the shore, which enabled Champlain, who had not before been upon the coast east of La Hève, to make a careful survey from that point to Canseau, the results of which are fully stated in his notes, and delineated on his map of 1613.
On the 3d of September, the “Jonas,” bearing away the little French colony, sailed out of the harbor of Canseau, and, directing its course towards the shores of France, arrived at Saint Malo on the 1st of October, 1607.
Champlain’s explorations on what may be strictly called the Atlantic coast of North America were now completed. He had landed at La Hève in Nova Scotia on the 8th of May, 1604, and had consequently been in the country three years and nearly four months. During this period he had carefully examined the whole shore from Canseau, the eastern limit of Nova Scotia, to the Vineyard Sound on the southern boundaries of Massachusetts. This was the most ample, accurate, and careful survey of this region which was made during the whole period from the discovery of the continent in 1497 down to the establishment of the English colony at Plymouth in 1620. A numerous train of navigators had passed along the coast of New England: Sebastian Cabot, Estévan Gomez, Jean Alfonse, André Thevet, John Hawkins, Bartholomew Gosnold, Martin Pring, George Weymouth, Henry Hudson, John Smith, and the rest, but the knowledge of the coast which we obtain from them is exceedingly meagre and unsatisfactory, especially as compared with that contained in the full, specific, and detailed descriptions, maps, and drawings left us by this distinguished pioneer in the study and illustration of the geography of the New England coast. [57]
The winter of 1607-8 Champlain passed in France, where he was pleasantly occupied in social recreations which were especially agreeable to him after an absence of more than three years, and in recounting to eager listeners his experiences in the New World. He took an early opportunity to lay before Monsieur de Monts the results of the explorations which he had made in La Cadie since the departure of the latter from Annapolis Basin in the autumn of 1605, illustrating his narrative by maps and drawings which he had prepared of the bays and harbors on the coast of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and New England.
While most men would have been disheartened by the opposition which he encountered, the mind of De Monts was, nevertheless, rekindled by the recitals of Champlain with fresh zeal in the enterprise which he had undertaken. The vision of building up a vast territorial establishment, contemplated by his charter of 1604, with his own personal aggrandizement and that of his family, had undoubtedly vanished. But he clung, nevertheless, with extraordinary tenacity to his original purpose of planting a colony in the New World. This he resolved to do in the face of many obstacles, and notwithstanding the withdrawment of the royal protection and bounty. The generous heart of Henry IV. was by no means insensible to the merits of his faithful subject, and, on his solicitation, he granted to him letters-patent for the exclusive right of trade in America, but for the space only of a single year. With this small boon from the royal hand, De Monts hastened to fit out two vessels for the expedition. One was to be commanded by Pont Gravé, who was to devote his undivided attention to trade with the Indians for furs and peltry; the other was to convey men and material for a colonial plantation.
Champlain, whose energy, zeal, and prudence had impressed themselves upon the mind of De Monts, was appointed lieutenant of the expedition, and intrusted with the civil administration, having a sufficient number of men for all needed defence against savage intruders, Basque fisher men, or interloping fur-traders.
On the 13th of April, 1608, Champlain left the port of Honfleur, and arrived at the harbor of Tadoussac on the 3d of June. Here he found Pont Gravé, who had preceded him by a few days in the voyage, in trouble with a Basque fur-trader. The latter had persisted in carrying on his traffic, notwithstanding the royal commission to the contrary, and had succeeded in disabling Pont Gravé, who had but little power of resistance, killing one of his men, seriously wounding Pont Gravé himself, as well as several others, and had forcibly taken possession of his whole armament.
When Champlain had made full inquiries into all the circumstances, he saw clearly that the difficulty must be compromised; that the exercise of force in overcoming the intruding Basque would effectually break up his plans for the year, and bring utter and final ruin upon his undertaking. He wisely decided to pocket the insult, and let justice slumber for the present. He consequently required the Basque, who began to see more clearly the illegality of his course, to enter into a written agreement with Pont Gravé that neither should interfere with the other while they remained in the country, and that they should leave their differences to be settled in the courts on their return to France.
Having thus poured oil upon the troubled waters, Champlain proceeded to carry out his plans for the location and establishment of his colony. The difficult navigation of the St. Lawrence above Tadoussac was well known to him. The dangers of its numberless rocks, sand-bars, and fluctuating channels had been made familiar to him by the voyage of 1603. He determined, therefore, to leave his vessel in the harbor of Tadoussac, and construct a small barque of twelve or fourteen tons, in which to ascend the river and fix upon a place of settlement.
While the work was in progress, Champlain reconnoitred the neighborhood, collecting much geographical information from the Indians relating to Lake St. John and a traditionary salt sea far to the north, exploring the Saguenay for some distance, of which he has given us a description so accurate and so carefully drawn that it needs little revision after the lapse of two hundred and seventy years.
On the last of June, the barque was completed, and Champlain, with a complement of men and material, took his departure. As he glided along in his little craft, he was exhilarated by the fragrance of the atmosphere, the bright coloring of the foliage, the bold, picturesque scenery that constantly revealed itself on both sides of the river. The lofty mountains, the expanding valleys, the luxuriant forests, the bold headlands, the enchanting little bays and inlets, and the numerous tributaries bursting into the broad waters of the St. Lawrence, were all carefully examined and noted in his journal. The expedition seemed more like a holiday excursion than the grave prelude to the founding of a city to be renowned in the history of the continent.
On the fourth day, they approached the site of the present city of Quebec. The expanse of the river had hitherto been from eight to thirteen miles. Here a lofty headland, approaching from the interior, advances upon the river and forces it into a narrow channel of three-fourths of a mile in width. The river St. Charles, a small stream flowing from the northwest, uniting here with the St. Lawrence, forms a basin below the promontory, spreading out two miles in one direction and four in another. The rocky headland, jutting out upon the river, rises up nearly perpendicularly, and to a height of three hundred and forty-five feet, commanding from its summit a view of water, forest and mountain of surpassing grandeur and beauty. A narrow belt of fertile land formed by the crumbling _débris_ of ages, stretches along between the water’s edge and the base of the precipice, and was then covered with a luxurious growth of nut-trees. The magnificent basin below, the protecting wall of the headland in the rear, the deep water of the river in front, rendered this spot peculiarly attractive. Here on this narrow plateau, Champlain resolved to place his settlement, and forthwith began the work of felling trees, excavating cellars, and constructing houses.
On the 3d day of July, 1608, Champlain laid the foundation of Quebec. The name which he gave to it had been applied to it by the savages long before. It is derived from the Algonquin word _quebio_, or _quebec_, signifying a _narrowing_, and was descriptive of the form which the river takes at that place, to which we have already referred.
A few days after their arrival, an event occurred of exciting interest to Champlain and his little colony. One of their number, Jean du Val, an abandoned wretch, who possessed a large share of that strange magnetic power which some men have over the minds of others, had so skilfully practised upon the credulity of his comrades that he had drawn them all into a scheme which, aside from its atrocity, was weak and ill-contrived at every point It was nothing less than a plan to assassinate Champlain, seize the property belonging to the expedition, and sell it to the Basque fur-traders at Tadoussac, under the hallucination that they should be enriched by the pillage. They had even entered into a solemn compact, and whoever revealed the secret was to be visited by instant death. Their purpose was to seize Champlain in an unguarded moment and strangle him, or to shoot him in the confusion of a false alarm to be raised in the night by themselves. But before the plan was fully ripe for execution, a barque unexpectedly arrived from Tadoussac with an instalment of utensils and provisions for the colony. One of the men, Antoine Natel, who had entered into the conspiracy with reluctance, and had been restrained from a disclosure by fear, summoned courage to reveal the plot to the pilot of the boat, first securing from him the assurance that he should be shielded from the vengeance of his fellow-conspirators. The secret was forthwith made known to Champlain, who, by a stroke of finesse, placed himself beyond danger before he slept. At his suggestion, the four leading spirits of the plot were invited by one of the sailors to a social repast on the barque, at which two bottles of wine which he pretended had been given him at Tadoussac were to be uncorked. In the midst of the festivities, the “four worthy heads of the conspiracy,” as Champlain satirically calls them, were suddenly clapped into irons. It was now late in the evening, but Champlain nevertheless summoned all the rest of the men into his presence, and offered them a full pardon, on condition that they would disclose the whole scheme and the motives which had induced them to engage in it. This they were eager to do, as they now began to comprehend the dangerous compact into which they had entered, and the peril which threatened their own lives. These preliminary investigations rendered it obvious to Champlain that grave consequences must follow, and he therefore proceeded with great caution.
The next day, he took the depositions of the pardoned men, carefully reducing them to writing. He then departed for Tadoussac, taking the four conspirators with him. On consultation, he decided to leave them there, where they could be more safely guarded until. Pont Gravé and the principal men of the expedition could return with them to Quebec, where he proposed to give them a more public and formal trial. This was accordingly done. The prisoners were duly confronted with the witnesses. They denied nothing, but freely admitted their guilt. With the advice and concurrence of Pont Gravé, the pilot, surgeon, mate, boatswain, and others, Champlain condemned the four conspirators to be hung; three of them, however, to be sent home for a confirmation or revision of their sentence by the authorities in France, while the sentence of Jean Du Val, the arch-plotter of the malicious scheme, was duly executed in their presence, with all the solemn forms and ceremonies usual on such occasions. Agreeably to a custom of that period, the ghastly head of Du Val was elevated on the highest pinnacle of the fort at Quebec, looking down and uttering its silent warning to the busy colonists below; the grim Signal to all beholders, that “the way of the transgressor is hard.”
The catastrophe, had not the plot been nipped in the bud, would have been sure to take place. The final purpose of the conspirators might not have been realized; it must have been defeated at a later stage; but the hand of Du Val, prompted by a malignant nature, was nerved to strike a fatal blow, and the life of Champlain would have been sacrificed at the opening of the tragic scene.
The punishment of Du Val, in its character and degree, was not only agreeable to the civil policy of the age, but was necessary for the protection of life and the maintenance of order and discipline in the colony. A conspiracy on land, under the present circumstances, was as dangerous as a mutiny at sea; and the calm, careful, and dignified procedure of Champlain in firmly visiting upon the criminal a severe though merited punishment, reveals the wisdom, prudence, and humanity which were prominent elements in his mental and moral constitution.
ENDNOTES:
56. _Membertou_. See Pierre Biard’s account of his death in 1611. _Relations des Jésuites_. Quebec ed, Vol. I. p. 32.
57. Had the distinguished navigators who early visited the coasts of North America illustrated their narratives by drawings and maps, it would have added greatly to their value. Capt. John Smith’s map, though necessarily indefinite and general, is indispensable to the satisfactory study of his still more indefinite “Description of New England.” It is, perhaps, a sufficient apology for the vagueness of Smith’s statements, and therefore it ought to be borne in mind, that his work was originally written, probably, from memory, at least for the most part, while he was a prisoner on board a French man-of-war in 1615. This may be inferred from the following statement of Smith himself. In speaking of the movement of the French fleet, he says: “Still we spent our time about the Iles neere _Fyall_: where to keepe my perplexed thoughts from too much meditation of my miserable estate, I writ this discourse” _Vide Description of New England_ by Capt. John Smith, London, 1616.
While the descriptions of our coast left by Champlain are invaluable to the historian and cannot well be overestimated, the process of making these surveys, with his profound love of such explorations and adventures, must have given him great personal satisfaction and enjoyment It would be difficult to find any region of similar extent that could offer, on a summer’s excursion, so much beauty to his eager and critical eye as this. The following description of the Gulf of Maine, which comprehends the major part of the field surveyed by Champlain, that lying between the headlands of Cape Sable and Cape Cod, gives an excellent idea of the infinite variety and the unexpected and marvellous beauties that are ever revealing themselves to the voyager as he passes along our coast.–
“This shoreland is also remarkable, being so battered and frayed by sea and storm, and worn perhaps by arctic currents and glacier beds, that its natural front of some 250 miles is multiplied to an extent of not less than 2,500 miles of salt-water line; while at an average distance of about three miles from the mainland, stretches a chain of outposts consisting of more than three hundred islands, fragments of the main, striking in their diversity on the west; low, wooded and grassy to the water’s edge, and rising eastward through bolder types to the crowns and cliffs of Mount Desert and Quoddy Head, an advancing series from beauty to sublimity: and behind all these are deep basins and broad river-mouths, affording convenient and spacious harbors, in many of which the navies of nations might safely ride at anchor…. Especially attractive was the region between the Piscataqua and Penobscot in its marvellous beauty of shore and sea, of island and inlet, of bay and river and harbor, surpassing any other equally extensive portion of the Atlantic coast, and compared by travellers earliest and latest, with the famed archipelago of the Aegean.” _Vide Maine, Her Place in History_, by Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL D, President of Bowdoin College, Augusta, 1877, pp. 4-5.
CHAPTER VI.
ERECTION OF BUILDINGS AT QUEBEC.–THE SCURVY AND THE STARVING SAVAGES.– DISCOVERY OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN, AND THE BATTLE AT TICONDEROGA.–CRUELTIES INFLICTED ON PRISONERS OF WAR, AND THE FESTIVAL AFTER VICTORY.– CHAMPLAIN’S RETURN TO FRANCE AND HIS INTERVIEW WITH HENRY IV.–VOYAGE TO NEW FRANCE AND PLANS OF DISCOVERY.–BATTLE WITH THE IROQUOIS NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE RICHELIEU.–REPAIR OF BUILDINGS AT QUEBEC.–NEWS OF THE ASSASSINATION OF HENRY IV.–CHAMPLAIN’S RETURN TO FRANCE AND HIS CONTRACT OF MARRIAGE.–VOYAGE TO QUEBEC IN 1611.
On the 18th of September, 1608, Pont Gravé, having obtained his cargo of furs and peltry, sailed for France.
The autumn was fully occupied by Champlain and his little band of colonists in completing the buildings and in making such other provisions as were needed against the rigors of the approaching winter. From the forest trees beams were hewed into shape with the axe, boards and plank were cut from the green wood with the saw, walls were reared from the rough stones gathered at the base of the cliff, and plots of land were cleared near the settlement, where wheat and rye were sown and grapevines planted, which successfully tested the good qualities of the soil and climate.
Three lodging-houses were erected on the northwest angle formed by the junction of the present streets St. Peter and Sous le Fort, near or on the site of the Church of Notre Dame. Adjoining, was a store-house. The whole was, surrounded by a moat fifteen feet wide and six feet deep, thus giving the settlement the character of a fort; a wise precaution against a sudden attack of the treacherous savages. [58]
At length the sunny days of autumn were gone, and the winter, with its fierce winds and its penetrating frosts and deep banks of snow, was upon them. Little occupation could be furnished for the twenty-eight men that composed the colony. Their idleness soon brought a despondency that hung like a pall upon their spirits. In February, disease made its approach. It had not been expected. Every defence within their knowledge had been provided against it. Their houses were closely sealed and warm; their clothing was abundant; their food nutritious and plenty. But a diet too exclusively of salt meat had, notwithstanding, in the opinion of Champlain, and we may add the want, probably, of exercise and the presence of bad air, induced the _mal de la terre_ or scurvy, and it made fearful havoc with his men. Twenty, five out of each seven of their whole number, had been carried to their graves before the middle of April, and half of the remaining eight had been attacked by the loathsome scourge.
While the mind of Champlain was oppressed by the suffering and death that were at all times present in their abode, his sympathies were still further taxed by the condition of the savages, who gathered in great numbers about the settlement, in the most abject misery and in the last stages of starvation. As Champlain could only furnish them, from his limited stores, temporary and partial relief, it was the more painful to see them slowly dragging their feeble frames about in the snow, gathering up and devouring with avidity discarded meat in which the process of decomposition was far advanced, and which was already too potent with the stench of decay to be approached by his men.
Beyond the ravages of disease [59] and the starving Indians, Champlain adds nothing more to complete the gloomy picture of his first winter in Quebec. The gales of wind that swept round the wall of precipice that protected them in the rear, the drifts of snow that were piled up in fresh instalments with every storm about their dwelling, the biting frost, more piercing and benumbing than they had ever experienced before, the unceasing groans of the sick within, the semi-weekly procession bearing one after another of their diminishing numbers to the grave, the mystery that hung over the disease, and the impotency of all remedies, we know were prominent features in the picture. But the imagination seeks in vain for more than a single circumstance that could throw upon it a beam of modifying and softening light, and that was the presence of the brave Champlain, who bore all without a murmur, and, we may be sure, without a throb of unmanly fear or a sensation of cowardly discontent.
But the winter, as all winters do, at length melted reluctantly away, and the spring came with its verdure, and its new life. The spirits of the little remnant of a colony began to revive. Eight of the twenty-eight with which the winter began were still surviving. Four had escaped attack, and four were rejoicing convalescents.
On the 5th of June, news came that Pont Gravé had arrived from France, and was then at Tadoussac, whither Champlain immediately repaired to confer with him, and particularly to make arrangements at the earliest possible moment for an exploring expedition into the interior, an undertaking which De Monts had enjoined upon him, and which was not only agreeable to his own wishes, but was a kind of enterprise which had been a passion with him from his youth.
In anticipation of a tour of exploration during the approaching summer, Champlain had already ascertained from the Indians that, lying far to the southwest, was an extensive lake, famous among the savages, containing many fair islands, and surrounded by a beautiful and productive country. Having expressed a desire to visit this region, the Indians readily offered to act as guides, provided, nevertheless, that he would aid them in a warlike raid upon their enemies, the Iroquois, the tribe known to us as the Mohawks, whose, homes were beyond the lake in question. Champlain without hesitation acceded to the condition exacted, but with little appreciation, as we confidently believe, of the bitter consequences that were destined to follow the alliance thus inaugurated; from which, in after years, it was inexpedient, if not impossible, to recede.
Having fitted out a shallop, Champlain left Quebec on his tour of exploration on the 18th of June, 1609, with eleven men, together with a party of Montagnais, a tribe of Indians who, in their hunting and fishing excursions, roamed over an indefinite region on the north side of the St. Lawrence, but whose headquarters were at Tadoussac. After ascending the St Lawrence about sixty miles, he came upon an encampment of two hundred or three hundred savages, Hurons [60] and Algonquins, the former dwelling on the borders of the lake of the same name, the latter on the upper waters of the Ottawa. They had learned something of the French from a son of one of their chiefs, who had been at Quebec the preceding autumn, and were now on their way to enter into an alliance with the French against the Iroquois. After formal negotiations and a return to Quebec to visit the French settlement and witness the effect of their firearms, of which they had heard and which greatly excited their curiosity, and after the usual ceremonies of feasting and dancing, the whole party proceeded up the river until they reached the mouth of the Richelieu. Here they remained two days, as guests of the Indians, feasting upon fish, venison, and water-fowl.
While these festivities were in progress, a disagreement arose among the savages, and the bulk of them, including the women, returned to their homes. Sixty warriors, however, some from each of the three allied tribes, proceeded up the Richelieu with Champlain. At the Falls of Chambly, finding it impossible for the shallop to pass them, he directed the pilot to return with it to Quebec, leaving only two men from the crew to accompany him on the remainder of the expedition. From this point, Champlain and his two brave companions entrusted themselves to the birch canoe of the savages. For a short distance, the canoes, twenty-four in all, were transported by land. The fall and rapids, extending as far as St. John, were at length passed. They then proceeded up the river, and, entering the lake which now bears the name of Champlain, crept along the western bank, advancing after the first few days only in the night, hiding themselves during the day in the thickets on the shore to avoid the observation of their enemies, whom they were now liable at any moment to meet.
On the evening of the 29th of July, at about ten o’clock, when the allies were gliding noiselessly along in restrained silence, as they approached the little cape that juts out into the lake at Ticonderoga, near where Fort Carillon was afterwards erected by the French, and where its ruins are still to be seen, [61] they discovered a flotilla of heavy canoes, of oaken bark, containing not far from two hundred Iroquois warriors, armed and impatient for conflict. A furor and frenzy as of so many enraged tigers instantly seized both parties. Champlain and his allies withdrew a short distance, an arrow’s range from the shore, fastening their canoes by poles to keep them together, while the Iroquois hastened to the water’s edge, drew up their canoes side by side, and began to fell trees and construct a barricade, which they were well able to accomplish with marvellous facility and skill. Two boats were sent out to inquire if the Iroquois desired to fight, to which they replied that they wanted nothing so much, and, as it was now dark, at sunrise the next morning they would give them battle. The whole night was spent by both parties in loud and tumultuous boasting, berating each other in the roundest terms which their savage vocabulary could furnish, insultingly charging each other with cowardice and weakness, and declaring that they would prove the truth of their assertions to their utter ruin the next morning.
When the sun began to gild the distant mountain-tops, the combatants were ready for the fray. Champlain and his two companions, each lying low in separate canoes of the Montagnais, put on, as best they could, the light armor in use at that period, and, taking the short hand-gun, or arquebus, went on shore, concealing themselves as much as possible from the enemy. As soon as all had landed, the two parties hastily approached each other, moving with a firm and determined tread. The allies, who had become fully aware of the deadly character of the hand-gun and were anxious to see an exhibition of its mysterious power, promptly opened their ranks, and Champlain marched forward in front, until he was within thirty paces of the Iroquois. When they saw him, attracted by his pale face and strange armor, they halted and gazed at him in a calm bewilderment for some seconds. Three Iroquois chiefs, tall and athletic, stood in front, and could be easily distinguished by the lofty plumes that waved above their heads. They began at once to make ready for a discharge of arrows. At the same instant, Champlain, perceiving this movement, levelled his piece, which had been loaded with four balls, and two chiefs fell dead, and another savage was mortally wounded by the same shot. At this, the allies raised a shout rivalling thunder in its stunning effect. From both sides the whizzing arrows filled the air. The two French arquebusiers, from their ambuscade in the thicket, immediately attacked in flank, pouring a deadly fire upon the enemy’s right. The explosion of the firearms, altogether new to the Iroquois, the fatal effects that instantly followed, their chiefs lying dead at their feet and others fast falling, threw them into a tumultuous panic. They at once abandoned every thing, arms, provisions, boats, and camp, and without any impediment, the naked savages fled through the forest with the fleetness of the terrified deer. Champlain and his allies pursued them a mile and a half, or to the first fall in the little stream that connects Lake Champlain [62] and Lake George. [63] The victory was complete. The allies gathered at the scene of conflict, danced and sang in triumph, collected and appropriated the abandoned armor, feasted on the provisions left by the Iroquois, and, within three hours, with ten or twelve prisoners, were sailing down the lake on their homeward voyage.
After they had rowed about eight leagues, according to Champlain’s estimate, they encamped for the night. A prevailing characteristic of the savages on the eastern coast, in the early history of America, was the barbarous cruelties which they inflicted upon their prisoners of war. [64] They did not depart from their usual custom in the present instance. Having kindled a fire, they selected a victim, and proceeded to excoriate his back with red-hot burning brands, and to apply live coals to the ends of his fingers, where they would give the most exquisite pain. They tore out his finger-nails, and, with sharp slivers of wood, pierced his wrists and rudely forced out the quivering sinews. They flayed off the skin from the top of his head, [65] and poured upon the bleeding wound a stream of boiling melted gum. Champlain remonstrated in vain. The piteous cries of the poor, tormented victim excited his unavailing compassion, and he turned away in anger and disgust. At length, when these inhuman tortures had been carried as far as they desired, Champlain was permitted, at his earnest request, with a musket-shot to put an end to his sufferings. But this was not the termination of the horrid performance. The dead victim was hacked in pieces, his heart severed into parts, and the surviving prisoners were ordered to eat it. This was too revolting to their nature, degraded as it was; they were forced, however, to take it into their mouths, but they would do no more, and their guard of more compassionate Algonquins allowed them to cast it into the lake.
This exhibition of savage cruelty was not extraordinary, but according to their usual custom. It was equalled, and, if possible, even surpassed, in the treatment of captives generally, and especially of the Jesuit missionaries in after years. [66]
When the party arrived at the Falls of Chambly, the Hurons and Algonquins left the river, in order to reach their homes by a shorter way, transporting their canoes and effects over land to the St. Lawrence near Montreal, while the rest continued their journey down the Richelieu and the St. Lawrence to Tadoussac, where their families were encamped, waiting to join in the usual ceremonies and rejoicings after a great victory.
When the returning warriors approached Tadoussac, they hung aloft on the prow of their canoes the scalped heads of those whom they had slain, decorated with beads which they had begged from the French for this purpose, and with a savage grace presented these ghastly trophies to their wives and daughters, who, laying aside their garments, eagerly swam out to obtain the precious mementoes, which they hung about their necks and bore rejoicing to the shore, where they further testified their satisfaction by dancing and singing.
After a few days, Champlain repaired to Quebec, and early in September decided to return with Pont Gravé to France. All arrangements were speedily made for that purpose. Fifteen men were left to pass the winter at Quebec, in charge of Captain Pierre Chavin of Dieppe. On the 5th of September they sailed from Tadoussac, and, lingering some days at Isle Percé, arrived at Honfleur on the 13th of October, 1609.
Champlain hastened immediately to Fontainebleau, to make a detailed report of his proceedings to Sieur de Monts, who was there in official attendance upon the king. [67] On this occasion he sought an audience also with Henry IV., who had been his friend and patron from the time of his first voyage to Canada in 1603. In addition to the new discoveries and observations which he detailed to him, he exhibited a belt curiously wrought and inlaid with porcupine-quills, the work of the savages, which especially drew forth the king’s admiration. He also presented two specimens of the scarlet tanager, _Pyranga rubra_, a bird of great brilliancy of plumage and peculiar to this continent, and likewise the head of a gar-pike, a fish of singular characteristics, then known only in the waters of Lake Champlain. [68]
At this time De Monts was urgently seeking a renewal of his commission for the monopoly of the fur-trade. In this Champlain was deeply interested. But to this monopoly a powerful opposition arose, and all efforts at renewal proved utterly fruitless. De Monts did not, however, abandon the enterprise on which he had entered. Renewing his engagements with the merchants of Rouen with whom he had already been associated, he resolved to send out in the early spring, as a private enterprise and without any special privileges or monopoly, two vessels with the necessary equipments for strengthening his colony at Quebec and for carrying on trade as usual with the Indians.
Champlain was again appointed lieutenant, charged with the government and management of the colony, with the expectation of passing the next winter at Quebec, while Pont Gravé, as he had been before, was specially entrusted with the commercial department of the expedition.
They embarked at Honfleur, but were detained in the English Channel by bad weather for some days. In the mean time Champlain was taken seriously ill, the vessel needed additional ballast, and returned to port, and they did not finally put to sea till the 8th of April. They arrived at Tadoussac on the 26th of the same month, in the year 1610, and, two days later, sailed for Quebec, where they found the commander, Captain Chavin, and the little colony all in excellent health.
The establishment at Quebec, it is to be remembered, was now a private enterprise. It existed by no chartered rights, it was protected by no exclusive authority. There was consequently little encouragement for its enlargement beyond what was necessary as a base of commercial operations. The limited cares of the colony left, therefore, to Champlain, a larger scope for the exercise of his indomitable desire for exploration and adventure. Explorations could not, however, be carried forward without the concurrence and guidance of the savages by whom he was immediately surrounded. Friendly relations existed between the French and the united tribes of Montagnais, Hurons, and Algonquins, who occupied the northern shores of the St. Lawrence and the great lakes. A burning hatred existed between these tribes and the Iroquois, occupying the southern shores of the same river. A deadly warfare was their chief employment, and every summer each party was engaged either in repelling an invasion or in making one in the territory of the other. Those friendly to Champlain were quite ready to act as pioneers in his explorations and discoveries, but they expected and demanded in return that he should give them active personal assistance in their wars. Influenced, doubtless, by policy, the spirit of the age, and his early education in the civil conflicts of France, Champlain did not hesitate to enter into an alliance and an exchange of services on these terms.
In the preceding year, two journeys into distant regions had been planned for exploration and discovery. One beginning at Three Rivers, was to survey, under the guidance of the Montagnais, the river St. Maurice to its source, and thence, by different channels and portages, reach Lake St. John, returning by the Saguenay, making in the circuit a distance of not less than eight hundred miles. The other plan was to explore, under the direction of the Hurons and Algonquins, the vast country over which they were accustomed to roam, passing up the Ottawa, and reaching in the end the region of the copper mines on Lake Superior, a journey not less than twice the extent of the former.
Neither of these explorations could be undertaken the present year. Their importance, however, to the future progress of colonization in New France is sufficiently obvious. The purpose of making these surveys shows the breadth and wisdom of Champlain’s views, and that hardships or dangers were not permitted to interfere with his patriotic sense of duty.
Soon after his arrival at Quebec, the savages began to assemble to engage in their usual summer’s entertainment of making war upon the Iroquois. Sixty Montagnais, equipped in their rude armor, were hastening to the rendezvous which, by agreement made the year before, was to be at the mouth of the Richelieu. [69] Hither were to come the three allied tribes, and pass together up this river into Lake Champlain, the “gate” or war-path through which these hostile clans were accustomed to make their yearly pilgrimage to meet each other in deadly conflict. Sending forward four barques for trading purposes, Champlain repaired to the mouth of the Richelieu, and landed, in company with the Montagnais, on the Island St. Ignace, on the 19th of June. While preparations were making to receive their Algonquin allies from the region of the Ottawa, news came that they had already arrived, and that they had discovered a hundred Iroquois strongly barricaded in a log fort, which they had hastily thrown together on the brink of the river not far distant, and to capture them the assistance of all parties was needed without delay. Champlain, with four Frenchmen and the sixty Montagnais, left the island in haste, passed over to the mainland, where they left their canoes, and eagerly rushed through the marshy forest a distance of two miles. Burdened with their heavy armor, half consumed by mosquitoes which were so thick that they were scarcely able to breathe, covered with mud and water, they at length stood before the Iroquois fort. [70] It was a structure of logs laid one upon another, braced and held together by posts coupled by withes, and of the usual circular form. It offered a good protection in savage warfare. Even the French arquebus discharged through the crevices did slow execution.
It was obvious to Champlain that, to ensure victory, the fort must be demolished. Huge trees, severed at the base, falling upon it, did not break it down. At length, directed by Champlain, the savages approached under their shields, tore away the supporting posts, and thus made a breach, into which rushed the infuriated besiegers, and in hot haste finished their deadly work. Fifteen of the Iroquois were taken prisoners; a few plunged into the river and were drowned; the rest perished by musket-shots, arrow-wounds, the tomahawk, and the war-club. Of the allied savages three were killed and fifty wounded. Champlain himself did not escape altogether unharmed. An arrow, armed with a sharp point of stone, pierced his ear and neck, which he drew out with his own hand. One of his companions received a similar wound in the arm. The victors scalped the dead as usual, ornamenting the prows of their canoes with the bleeding heads of their enemies, while they severed one of the bodies into quarters, to eat, as they alleged, in revenge.
The canoes of the savages and a French shallop having come to the scene of this battle, all soon embarked and returned to the Island of St. Ignace. Here the allies, joined by eighty Huron warriors who had arrived too late to participate in the conflict, remained three days, celebrating their victory by dancing, singing, and the administration of the usual punishment upon their prisoners of war. This consisted in a variety of exquisite tortures, similar to those inflicted the year before, after the victory on Lake Champlain, horrible and sickening in all their features, and which need not be spread upon these pages. From these tortures Champlain would gladly have snatched the poor wretches, had it been in his power, but in this matter the savages would brook no interference. There was a solitary exception, however, in a fortunate young Iroquois who fell to him in the division of prisoners. He was treated with great kindness, but it did not overcome his excessive fear and distrust, and he soon sought an opportunity and escaped to his home. [71]
When the celebration of the victory had been completed, the Indians departed to their distant abodes. Champlain, however, before their departure, very wisely entered into an agreement that they should receive for the winter a young Frenchman who was anxious to learn their language, and, in return, he was himself to take a young Huron, at their special request, to pass the winter in France. This judicious arrangement, in which Champlain was deeply interested and which he found some difficulty in accomplishing, promised an important future advantage in extending the knowledge of both parties, and in strengthening on the foundation of personal experience their mutual confidence and friendship.
After the departure of the Indians, Champlain returned to Quebec, and proceeded to put the buildings in repair and to see that all necessary arrangements were made for the safety and comfort of the colony during the next winter.
On the 4th of July, Des Marais, in charge of the vessel belonging to De Monts and his company, which had been left behind and had been expected soon to follow, arrived at Quebec, bringing the intelligence that a small revolution had taken place in Brouage, the home of Champlain, that the Protestants had been expelled, and an additional guard of soldiers had been placed in the garrison. Des Marais also brought the startling news that Henry IV. had been assassinated on the 14th of May. Champlain was penetrated by this announcement with the deepest sorrow. He fully saw how great a public calamity had fallen upon his country. France had lost, by an ignominious blow, one of her ablest and wisest sovereigns, who had, by his marvellous power, gradually united and compacted the great interests of the nation, which had been shattered and torn by half a century of civil conflicts and domestic feuds. It was also to him a personal loss. The king had taken a special interest in his undertakings, had been his patron from the time of his first voyage to New France in 1603, had sustained him by an annual pension, and on many occasions had shown by word and deed that he fully appreciated the great value of his explorations in his American domains. It was difficult to see how a loss so great both to his country and himself could be repaired. A cloud of doubt and uncertainty hung over the future. The condition of the company, likewise, under whose auspices he was acting, presented at this time no very encouraging features. The returns from the fur-trade had been small, owing to the loss of the monopoly which the company had formerly enjoyed, and the excessive competition which free-trade had stimulated. Only a limited attention had as yet been given to the cultivation of the soil. Garden vegetables had been placed in cultivation, together with small fields of Indian corn, wheat, rye, and barley. These attempts at agriculture were doubtless experiments, while at the fame time they were useful in supplementing the stores needed for the colony’s consumption.
Champlain’s personal presence was not required at Quebec during the winter, as no active enterprise could be carried forward in that inclement season, and he decided, therefore, to return to France. The little colony now consisted of sixteen men, which he placed in charge, during his absence, of Sieur Du Parc. He accordingly left Tadoussac on the 13th of August, and arrived at Honfleur in France on the 27th of September, 1610.
During the autumn of this year, while residing in Paris, Champlain became attached to Hélène Boullé, the daughter of Nicholas Boullé, secretary of the king’s chamber. She was at that time a mere child, and of too tender years to act for herself, particularly in matters of so great importance as those which relate to marital relations. However, agreeably to a custom not infrequent at that period, a marriage contract [72] was entered into on the 27th of December with her parents, in which, nevertheless, it was stipulated that the nuptials should not take place within at least two years from that date. The dowry of the future bride was fixed at six thousand livres _tournois_, three fourths of which were paid and receipted for by Champlain two days after the signing of the contract. The marriage was afterward consummated, and Helen Boullé, as his wife, accompanied Champlain to Quebec, in 1620, as we shall see in the sequel.
Notwithstanding the discouragements of the preceding year and the small prospect of future success, De Monts and the merchants associated with him still persevered in sending another expedition, and Champlain left Honfleur for New France on the first day of March, 1611. Unfortunately, the voyage had been undertaken too early in the season for these northern waters, and long before they reached the Grand Banks, they encountered ice-floes of the most dangerous character. Huge blocks of crystal, towering two hundred feet above the surface of the water, floated at times near them, and at others they were surrounded and hemmed in by vast fields of ice extending as far as the eye could reach. Amid these ceaseless perils, momentarily expecting to be crushed between the floating islands wheeling to and fro about them, they struggled with the elements for nearly two months, when finally they reached Tadoussac on the 13th of May.
ENDNOTES:
58. The situation of Quebec and an engraved representation of the buildings may be seen by reference to Vol. II. pp. 175, 183.
59. Scurvy, or _mal de la terre_.–_Vide_ Vol. II. note 105.
60. _Hurons_ “The word Huron comes from the French, who seeing these Indians with the hair cut very short, and standing up in a strange fashion, giving them a fearful air, cried out, the first time they saw them, _Quelle hures!_ what boars’ heads! and so got to call them Hurons.”–Charlevoix’s _His. New France_, Shea’s Trans Vol. II. p. 71. _Vide Relations des Jésuites_, Quebec ed. Vol. I. 1639, P 51; also note 321, Vol. II. of this work, for brief notice of the Algonquins and other tribes.
61. For the identification of the site of this battle, see Vol. II p. 223, note 348. It is eminently historical ground. Near it Fort Carrillon was erected by the French in 1756. Here Abercrombie was defeated by Montcalm in 1758. Lord Amherst captured the fort in 1759 Again it was taken from the English by the patriot Ethan Alien in 1775. It was evacuated by St. Clair when environed by Burgoyne in 1777, and now for a complete century it has been visited by the tourist as a ruin memorable for its many historical associations.
62. This lake, discovered and explored by Champlain, is ninety miles in length. Through its centre runs the boundary line between the State of New York and that of Vermont. From its discovery to the present time it has appropriately borne the honored name of Champlain. For its Indian name, _Caniaderiguarunte_, see Vol. II. note 349. According to Mr. Shea the Mohawk name of Lake Champlain is _Caniatagaronte_.–_Vide Shea’s Charlevoix_. Vol. II. p. 18.
Lake Champlain and the Hudson River were both discovered the same year, and were severally named after the distinguished navigators by whom they were explored. Champlain completed his explorations at Ticonderoga, on the 30th of July, 1609, and Hudson reached the highest point made by him on the river, near Albany, on the 22d of September of the same year.–_Vide_ Vol. II. p. 219. Also _The Third Voyage of Master Henry Hudson_, written by Robert Ivet of Lime-house, _Collections of New York His. Society_, Vol. I. p. 140.
63. _Lake George_. The Jesuit Father, Isaac Jogues, having been summoned in 1646 to visit the Mohawks, to attend to the formalities of ratifying a treaty of peace which had been concluded with them, passing by canoe up the Richelieu, through Lake Champlain, and arriving at the end of Lake George on the 29th of May, the eve of Corpus Christi, a festival celebrated by the Roman Church on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, in honor of the Holy Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper, named this lake LAC DU SAINT SACREMENT. The following is from the Jesuit Relation of 1646 by Pere Hierosme Lalemant. Ils arriuèrent la veille du S. Sacrement au bout du lac qui est ioint au grand lac de Champlain. Les Iroquois le nomment Andiatarocté, comme qui diroit, là où le lac se ferme. Le Pere le nomma le lac du S. Sacrement–_Relations des Jésuites_, Quebec ed. Vol. II. 1646, p. 15.
Two important facts are here made perfectly plain; viz. that the original Indian name of the lake was _Andtatarocté_, and that the French named it Lac du Saint Sacrement because they arrived on its shores on the eve of the festival celebrated in honor of the Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper. Notwithstanding this very plain statement, it has been affirmed without any historical foundation whatever, that the original Indian name of this lake was _Horican_, and that the Jesuit missionaries, having selected it for the typical purification of baptism on account of its limpid waters, named it _Lac du Saint Sacrement_. This perversion of history originated in the extraordinary declaration of Mr. James Fenimore Cooper, in his novel entitled “The Last of the Mohicans,” in which these two erroneous statements are given as veritable history. This new discovery by Cooper was heralded by the public journals, scholars were deceived, and the bold imposition was so successful that it was even introduced into a meritorious poem in which the Horican of the ancient tribes and the baptismal waters of the limpid lake are handled with skill and effect. Twenty-five years after the writing of his novel, Mr. Cooper’s conscience began seriously to trouble him, and he publicly confessed, in a preface to “The Last of the Mohicans,” that the name Horican had been first applied to the lake by himself, and without any historical authority. He is silent as to the reason he had assigned for the French name of the lake, which was probably an assumption growing out of his ignorance of its meaning–_Vide The Last of The Mohicans_, by J. Fenimore Cooper, Gregory’s ed., New York, 1864, pp ix-x and 12.
64. “There are certain general customs which mark the California Indians, as, the non-use of torture on prisoners of war,” &c.–_Vide The Tribes of California_, by Stephen Powers, in _Contributions to North American Ethnology_, Vol. III. p. 15. _Tribes of Washington and Oregon_, by George Gibbs, _idem_, Vol. I. p. 192.
65. “It has been erroneously asserted that the practice of scalping did not prevail among the Indians before the advent of Europeans. In 1535, Carrier saw five scalps at Quebec, dried and stretched on hoops. In 1564, Laudonniere saw them among the Indians of Florida. The Algonquins of New England and Nova Scotia were accustomed to cut off and carry away the head, which they afterwards scalped. Those of Canada, it seems, sometimes scalped the dead bodies on the field. The Algonquin practice of carrying off heads as trophies is mentioned by Lalemant, Roger Williams, Lescarbot, and Champlain.”–_Vide Pioneers of France in the New World_, by Francis Parkman, Boston, 1874, p. 322. The practice of the tribes on the Pacific coast is different “In war they do not take scalps, but decapitate the slain and bring in the heads as trophies.”–_Contributions to Am. Ethnology_, by Stephen Powers, Washington, 1877, Vol. III. pp. 21, 221. _Vide_ Vol. I. p. 192. The Yuki are an exception. Vol. III. p. 129.
66. For an account of the sufferings of Brébeuf, Lalemant, and Jogues, see _History of Catholic Missions_, by John Gilmary Shea, pp. 188, 189, 217.
67. He was gentleman in ordinary to the king’s chamber. “Gentil-homme ordinaire de nôstre Chambre.”–_Vide Commission du Roy au Sieur de Monts, Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, par Marc Lescarbot, Paris, 1612, p. 432.
68. Called by the Indians _chaousarou_. For a full account of this crustacean _vide_ Vol. II. note 343.
69. The mouth of the Richelieu was the usual place of meeting. In 1603, the allied tribes were there when Champlain ascended the St Lawrence. They had a fort, which he describes.–_Vide postea_, p 243.
70. Champlain’s description does not enable us to identify the place of this battle with exactness. It will be observed, if we refer to his text, that, leaving the island of St Ignace, and going half a league, crossing the river, they landed, when they were plainly on the mainland near the mouth of the Richelieu. They then went half a league, and finding themselves outrun by their Indian guides and lost, they called to two savages, whom they saw going through the woods, to guide them. Going a _short distance_, they were met by a messenger from the scene of conflict, to urge them to hasten forwards. Then, after going less than an eighth of a league, they were within the sound of the voices of the combatants at the fort These distances are estimated without measurement, and, of course, are inexact: but, putting the distances mentioned altogether, the journey through the woods to the fort was apparently a little more than two miles. Had they followed the course of the river, the distance would probably have been somewhat more: perhaps nearly three miles. Champlain does not positively say that the fort was on the Richelieu, but the whole narrative leaves no doubt that such was the fact. This river was the avenue through which the Iroquois were accustomed to come, and they would naturally encamp here where they could choose their own ground, and where their enemies were sure to approach them. If we refer to Champlain’s illustration of _Fort des Iroquois_, Vol. II. p. 241, we shall observe that the river is pictured as comparatively narrow, which could hardly be a true representation if it were intended for the St. Lawrence. The escaping Iroquois are represented as swimming towards the right, which was probably in the direction of their homes on the south, the natural course of their retreat. The shallop of Des Prairies, who arrived late, is on the left of the fort, at the exact point where he would naturally disembark if he came up the Richelieu from the St. Lawrence. From a study of the whole narrative, together with the map, we infer that the fort was on the western bank of the Richelieu, between two and three miles from its mouth. We are confident that its location cannot be more definitely fixed.
71. For a full account of the Indian treatment of prisoners, _vide antea_, pp. 94,95. Also Vol. II. pp. 224-227, 244-246.
72. _Vide Contrat de mariage de Samuel de Champlain, Oeuvres de Champlain_, Quebec ed. Vol. VI., _Pièces Fustificatives_, p. 33.
Among the early marriages not uncommon at that period, the following are examples. César, the son of Henry IV., was espoused by public ceremonies to the daughter of the Duke de Mercoeur in 1598. The bridegroom was four years old and the bride-elect had just entered her sixth year. The great Condé, by the urgency of his avaricious father, was unwillingly married at the age of twenty, to Claire Clemence de Maillé Brézé, the niece of Cardinal Richelieu, when she was but thirteen years of age.
CHAPTER VII.
THE FUR-TRADE AT MONTREAL.–COMPETITION AT THE RENDEZVOUS.–NO EXPLORATIONS.–CHAMPLAIN RETURNS TO FRANCE.–REORGANIZATION OF THE COMPANY.–COUNT DE SOISSONS, HIS DEATH.–PRINCE DE CONDÉ.–CHAMPLAIN’S RETURN TO NEW FRANCE AND TRADE WITH THE INDIANS.–EXPLORATION AND DE VIGNAN, THE FALSE GUIDE.–INDIAN CEREMONY AT CHAUDIÈRE FALLS.
Champlain lost no time in hastening to Quebec, where he found Du Parc, whom he had left in charge, and the colony in excellent health. The paramount and immediate object which now engaged his attention was to secure for the present season the fur-trade of the Indians. This furnished the chief pecuniary support of De Monts’s company, and was absolutely necessary to its existence. He soon, therefore, took his departure for the Falls of St. Louis, situated a short distance above Montreal, and now better known as La Chine Rapids. In the preceding year, this place had been agreed upon as a rendezvous by the friendly tribes. But, as they had not arrived, Champlain proceeded to make a thorough exploration on both sides of the St. Lawrence, extending his journeys more than twenty miles through the forests and along the shores of the river, for the purpose of selecting a proper site for a trading-house, with doubtless an ultimate purpose of making it a permanent settlement. After a full survey, he finally fixed upon a point of land which he named _La Place Royale_, situated within the present city of Montreal, on the eastern side of the little brook Pierre, where it flows into the St. Lawrence, at Point à Callière. On the banks of this small stream there were found evidences that the land to the extent of sixty acres had at some former period been cleared up and cultivated by the savages, but more recently had been entirely abandoned on account of the wars, as he learned from his Indian guides, in which they were incessantly engaged.
Near the spot which had thus been selected for a future settlement, Champlain discovered a deposit of excellent clay, and, by way of experiment, had a quantity of it manufactured into bricks, of which he made a wall on the brink of the river, to test their power of resisting the frosts and the floods. Gardens were also made and feeds sown, to prove the quality of the soil. A weary month passed slowly away, with scarcely an incident to break the monotony, except the drowning of two Indians, who had unwisely attempted to pass the rapids in a bark canoe overloaded with heron, which they had taken on an island above. In the mean time, Champlain had been followed to his rendezvous by a herd of adventurers from the maritime towns of France, who, stimulated by the freedom of trade, had flocked after him in numbers out of all proportion to the amount of furs which they could hope to obtain from the wandering bands of savages that might chance to visit the St. Lawrence. The river was lined with these voracious cormorants, anxiously watching the coming of the savages, all impatient and eager to secure as large a share as possible of the uncertain and meagre booty for which they had crossed the Atlantic. Fifteen or twenty barques were moored along the shore, all seeking the best opportunity for the display of the worthless trinkets for which they had avariciously hoped to obtain a valuable cargo of furs.
A long line of canoes was at length seen far in the distance. It was a fleet of two hundred Hurons, who had swept down the rapids, and were now approaching slowly and in a dignified and impressive order. On coming near, they set up a simultaneous shout, the token of savage greeting, which made the welkin ring. This salute was answered by a hundred French arquebuses from barque and boat and shore. The unexpected multitude of the French, the newness of the firearms to most of them, filled the savages with dismay. They concealed their fear as well and as long as possible. They deliberately built their cabins on the shore, but soon threw up a barricade, then called a council at midnight, and finally, under pretence of a beaver-hunt, suddenly removed above the rapids, where they knew the French barques could not come. When they were thus in a place of safety, they confessed to Champlain that they had faith in him, which they confirmed by valuable gifts of furs, but none whatever in the grasping herd that had followed him to the rendezvous. The trade, meagre in the aggregate, divided among so many, had proved a loss to all. It was soon completed, and the savages departed to their homes. Subsequently, thirty-eight canoes, with eighty or a hundred Algonquin warriors, came to the rendezvous. They brought, however, but a small quantity of furs, which added little to the lucrative character of the summer’s trade.
The reader will bear in mind that Champlain was not here merely as the superintendent and responsible agent of a trading expedition. This was a subordinate purpose, and the result of circumstances which his principal did not choose, but into which he had been unwillingly forced. It was necessary not to overlook this interest in the present exigency, nevertheless De Monts was sustained by an ulterior purpose of a far higher and nobler character. He still entertained the hope that he should yet secure a royal charter under which his aspirations for colonial enterprise should have full scope, and that his ambition would be finally crowned with the success which he had so long coveted, and for which he had so assiduously labored. Champlain, who had been for many years the geographer of the king, who had carefully reported, as he advanced into unexplored regions, his surveys of the rivers, harbors, and lakes, and had given faithful descriptions of the native inhabitants, knowledge absolutely necessary as a preliminary step in laying the foundation of a French empire in America, did not for a moment lose sight of this ulterior purpose. Amid the commercial operations to which for the time being he was obliged to devote his chief attention, he tried in vain to induce the Indians to conduct an exploring party up the St. Maurice, and thus reach the headwaters of the Saguenay, a journey which had been planned two years before. They had excellent excuses to offer, and the undertaking was necessarily deferred for the present. He, however, obtained much valuable information from them in conversations, in regard to the source of the St. Lawrence, the topography of the country which they inhabited, and even drawings were executed by them to illustrate to him other regions which they had personally visited.
On the 18th of July, Champlain left the rendezvous, and arrived at Quebec on the evening of the next day. Having ordered all necessary repairs at the settlement, and, not unmindful of its adornment, planted rose-bushes about it, and taking specimens of oak timber to exhibit in France, he left for Tadoussac, and finally for France on the 11th of August, and arrived at Rochelle on the 16th of September, 1611.
Immediately on his arrival, Champlain repaired to the city of Pons, in Saintonge, of which De Monts was governor, and laid before him the Situation of his affairs at Quebec. De Monts still clung to the hope of obtaining a royal commission for the exclusive right of trade, but his associates were wholly disheartened by the competition and consequent losses of the last year, and had the sagacity to see that there was no hope of a remedy in the future. They accordingly declined to continue further expenditures. De Monts purchased their interest in the establishment at Quebec, and, notwithstanding the obstacles which had been and were still to be encountered, was brave enough to believe that he could stem the tide unaided and alone. He hastened to Paris to secure the much coveted commission from the king. Important business, however, soon called him in another direction, and the whole matter was placed in the hands of Champlain, with the understanding that important modifications were to be introduced into the constitution and management of the company.
The burden thus unexpectedly laid upon Champlain was not a light one. His experience and personal knowledge led him to appreciate more fully than any one else the difficulties that environed the enterprise of planting a colony in New France. He saw very clearly that a royal commission merely, with whatever exclusive rights it conferred; would in itself be ineffectual and powerless in the present complications. It was obvious to him that the administration must be adapted to the state of affairs that had gradually grown up at Quebec, and that it must be sustained by powerful personal influence.
Champlain proceeded, therefore, to draw up certain rules and regulations which he deemed necessary for the management of the colony and the protection of its interests. The leading characteristics of the plan were, first, an association of which all who desired to carry on trade in New France might become members, sharing equally in its advantages and its burdens, its profits and its losses: and, secondly, that it should be presided over by a viceroy of high position and commanding influence. De Monts, who had thus far been at the head of the undertaking, was a gentleman of great respectability, zeal, and honesty, but his name did not, as society was constituted at that time in France, carry with it any controlling weight with the merchants or others whose views were adverse to his own. He was unable to carry out any plans which involved expense, either for the exploration of the country or for the enlargement and growth of the colony. It was necessary, in the opinion of Champlain, to place at the head of the company a man of such exalted official and social position that his opinions would be listened to with respect and his wishes obeyed with alacrity.
He submitted his plan to De Monts and likewise to President Jeannin, [73] a man venerable with age, distinguished for his wisdom and probity, and at this time having under his control the finances of the kingdom. They both pronounced it excellent and urged its execution.
Having thus obtained the cordial and intelligent assent of the highest authority to his scheme, his next step was to secure a viceroy whose exalted name and standing should conform to the requirements of his plan. This was an object somewhat difficult to attain. It was not easy to find a nobleman who possessed all the qualities desired. After careful consideration, however, the Count de Soissons [74] was thought to unite better than any other the characteristics which the office required. Champlain, therefore, laid before the Count, through a member of the king’s council, a detailed exhibition of his plan and a map of New France executed by himself. He soon after received an intimation from this nobleman of his willingness to accept the office, if he should be appointed. A petition was sent by Champlain to the king and his council, and the appointment was made on the 8th of October, 1612, and on the 15th of the same month the Count issued a commission appointing Champlain his lieutenant.
Before this commission had been published in the ports and the maritime towns of France, as required by law, and before a month had elapsed, unhappily the death of the Count de Soissons suddenly occurred at his Château de Blandy. Henry de Bourbon, the Prince de Condé, [75] was hastily appointed his successor, and a new commission was issued to Champlain on the 22d of November of the same year.
The appointment of this prince carried with it the weight of high position and influence, though hardly the character which would have been most desirable under the circumstances. He was, however, a potent safeguard against the final success, though not indeed of the attempt on the part of enemies, to break up the company, or to interfere with its plans. No sooner had the publication of the commission been undertaken, than the merchants, who had schemes of trade in New France, put forth a powerful opposition. The Parliamentary Court at Rouen even forbade its publication in that city, and the merchants of St. Malo renewed their opposition, which had before been set forth, on the flimsy ground that Jacques Cartier, the discoverer of New France, was a native of their municipality, and therefore they had rights prior and superior to all others.
After much delay and several journeys by Champlain to Rouen, these difficulties were overcome. There was, indeed, no solid ground of opposition, as none were debarred from engaging in the enterprise who were willing to share in the burdens as well as the profits.
These delays prevented the complete organization of the company contemplated by Champlain’s new plan, but it was nevertheless necessary for him to make the voyage to Quebec the present season, in order to keep up the continuity of his operations there, and to renew his friendly relations with the Indians, who had been greatly disappointed at not seeing him the preceding year. Four vessels, therefore, were authorized to sail under the commission of the viceroy, each of which was to furnish four men for the service of Champlain in explorations and in aid of the Indians in their wars, if it should be necessary.
He accordingly left Honfleur in a vessel belonging to his old friend Pont Gravé, on the 6th of March, 1613, and arrived at Tadoussac on the 29th of April. On the 7th of May he reached Quebec, where he found the little colony in excellent condition, the winter having been exceedingly mild, and agreeable, the river not having been frozen in the severest weather. He repaired at once to the trading rendezvous at Montreal, then commonly known as the Falls of St. Louis. He learned from a trading barque that had preceded him, that a small band of Algonquins had already been there on their return from a raid upon the Iroquois. They had, however, departed to their homes to celebrate a feast, at which the torture of two captives whom they had taken from the Iroquois was to form the chief element in the entertainment. A few days later, three Algonquin canoes arrived from the interior with furs, which were purchased by the French. From them they learned that the ill treatment of the previous year, and their disappointment at not having seen Champlain there as they had expected, had led the Indians to abandon the idea of again coming to the rendezvous, and that large numbers of them had gone on their usual summer’s expedition against the Iroquois.
Under these circumstances, Champlain resolved, in making his explorations, to visit personally the Indians who had been accustomed to come to the Falls of St. Louis, to assure them of kind treatment in the future, to renew his alliance with them against their enemies, and, if possible, to induce them to come to the rendezvous, where there was a large quantity of French goods awaiting them.
It will be remembered that an ulterior purpose of the French, in making a settlement in North America, was to enable them better to explore the interior and discover an avenue by water to the Pacific Ocean. This shorter passage to Cathay, or the land of spicery, had been the day-dream of all the great navigators in this direction for more than a hundred years. Whoever should discover it would confer a boon of untold commercial value upon his country, and crown himself with imperishable honor. Champlain had been inspired by this dream from the first day that he set his foot upon the soil of New France. Every indication that pointed in this direction he watched with care and seized upon with avidity. In 1611, a young man in the colony, Nicholas de Vignan, had been allowed, after the trading season had closed, to accompany the Algonquins to their distant homes, and pass the winter with them. This was one of the methods which had before been successfully resorted to for obtaining important information. De Vignan returned to Quebec in the spring of 1612, and the same year to France. Having heard apparently something of Hudson’s discovery and its accompanying disaster, he made it the basis of a story drawn wholly from his own imagination, but which he well knew must make a strong impression upon Champlain and all others interested in new discoveries. He stated that, during his abode with the Indians, he had made an excursion into the forests of the north, and that he had actually discovered a sea of salt water; that the river Ottawa had its source in a lake from which another river flowed into the sea in question; that he had seen on its shores the wreck of an English ship, from which eighty men had been taken and slain by the savages; and that they had among them an English boy, whom they were keeping to present to him.
As was expected, this story made a strong impression upon the mind of Champlain. The priceless object for which he had been in search so many years seemed now within his grasp. The simplicity and directness of the narrative, and the want of any apparent motive for deception, were a strong guaranty of its truth. But, to make assurance doubly sure, Vignan was cross-examined and tested in various ways, and finally, before leaving France, was made to certify to the truth of his statement in the presence of two notaries at Rochelle. Champlain laid the story before the Chancellor de Sillery, the President Jeannin, the old Marshal de Brissac, and others, who assured him that it was a question of so great importance, that he ought at once to test the truth of the narrative by a personal exploration. He resolved, therefore, to make this one of the objects of his summer’s excursion.
With two bark canoes, laden with provisions, arms, and a few trifles as presents for the savages, an Indian guide, four Frenchmen, one of whom was the mendacious Vignan, Champlain left the rendezvous at Montreal on the 27th of May. After getting over the Lachine Rapids, they crossed Lake St. Louis and the Two Mountains, and, passing up the Ottawa, now expanding into a broad lake and again contracting into narrows, whence its pent-up waters swept over precipices and boulders in furious, foaming currents, they at length, after incredible labor, reached the island Allumette, a distance of not less than two hundred and twenty-five miles. In no expedition which Champlain had thus far undertaken had he encountered obstacles so formidable. The falls and rapids in the river were numerous and difficult to pass. Sometimes a portage was impossible on account of the denseness of the forests, in which case they were compelled to drag their canoes by ropes, wading along the edge of the water, or clinging to the precipitous banks of the river as best they could. When a portage could not be avoided, it was necessary to carry their armor, provisions, clothing, and canoes through the forests, over precipices, and sometimes over stretches of territory where some tornado had prostrated the huge pines in tangled confusion, through which a pathway was almost impossible. [76] To lighten their burdens, nearly every thing was abandoned but their canoes. Fish and wild-fowl were an uncertain reliance for food, and sometimes they toiled on for twenty-four hours with scarcely any thing to appease their craving appetites.
Overcome with fatigue and oppressed by hunger, they at length arrived at Allumette Island, the abode of the chief Tessoüat, by whom they were cordially entertained. Nothing but the hope of reaching the north sea could have sustained them amid the perils and sufferings through which they had passed in reaching this inhospitable region. The Indians had chosen this retreat not from choice, but chiefly on account of its great inaccessibility to their enemies. They were astonished to see Champlain and his company, and facetiously suggested that it must be a dream, or that these new-comers had fallen from the clouds. After the usual ceremonies of feasting and smoking, Champlain was permitted to lay before Tessoüat and his chiefs the object of his journey. When he informed them that he was in search of a salt sea far to the north of them, which had been actually seen two years before by one of his companions, he learned to his disappointment and mortification that the whole story of Vignan was a sheer fabrication. The miscreant had indeed passed a winter on the very spot where they then were, but had never been a league further north. The Indians themselves had no knowledge of the north sea, and were highly enraged at the baseness of Vignan’s falsehood, and craved the opportunity of despatching him at once. They jeered at him, calling him a liar, and even the children took up the refrain, vociferating vigorously and heaping maledictions upon his head.
Indignant as he was, Champlain had too much philosophy in his composition to commit an indiscretion at such a moment as this. He accordingly restrained the Savages and his own anger, bore his insult and disappointment with exemplary patience, giving up all hope of seeing the salt sea in this direction, as he humorously added, “except in imagination.”
Before leaving Allumette Island on his return, Champlain invited Tessoüat to send a trading expedition to the Falls of St. Louis, where he would find an ample opportunity for an exchange of commodities. The invitation was readily accepted, and information was at once sent out to the neighboring chiefs, requesting them to join in the enterprise. The savages soon began to assemble, and when Champlain left, he was accompanied by forty canoes well laden with furs; others joined them at different points on the way, and on reaching Montreal the number had swollen to eighty.
An incident occurred on their journey down the river worthy of record. When the fleet of savage fur-traders had arrived at the foot of the Chaudière Falls, not a hundred rods distant from the site of the present city of Ottawa, having completed the portage, they all assembled on the shore, before relaunching their canoes, to engage in a ceremony which they never omitted when passing this spot. A wooden plate of suitable dimensions was passed round, into which each of the savages cast a small piece of tobacco. The plate was then placed on the ground, in the midst of the company, and all danced around it, singing at the same time. An address was then made by one of the chiefs, setting forth the great importance of this time-honored custom, particularly as a safeguard and protection against their enemies. Then, taking the plate, the speaker cast its contents into the boiling cauldron at the base of the falls, the act being accompanied by a loud shout from the assembled multitude. This fall, named the _Chaudière_, or cauldron, by Champlain, formed in fact the limit above which the Iroquois rarely if ever went in hostile pursuit of the Algonquins. The region above was exceedingly difficult of approach, and from which it was still more difficult, in case of an attack, to retreat. But the Iroquois often lingered here in ambush, and fell upon the unsuspecting inhabitants of the upper Ottawa as they came down the river. It was, therefore, a place of great danger; and the Indians, enslaved by their fears and superstitions, did not believe it possible to make a prosperous journey, without observing, as they passed, the ceremonies above described.
On reaching Montreal, three additional ships had arrived from France with a license to carry on trade from the Prince de Condé, the viceroy, making seven in all in port. The trade with the Indians for the furs brought in the eighty canoes, which had come with Champlain to Montreal, was soon despatched. Vignan was pardoned on the solemn promise, a condition offered by himself, that he would make a journey to the north sea and bring back a true report, having made a most humble confession of his offence in the presence of the whole colony and the Indians, who were purposely assembled to receive it. This public and formal administration of reproof was well adapted to produce a powerful effect upon the mind of the culprit, and clearly indicates the moderation and wisdom, so uniformly characteristic of Champlain’s administration.
The business of the season having been completed, Champlain returned to France, arriving at St. Malo on the 26th of August, 1613. Before leaving, however, he arranged to send back with the Algonquins who had come from Isle Allumette two of his young men to pass the winter, for the purpose, as on former occasions, of learning the language and obtaining the information which comes only from an intimate and prolonged association.
ENDNOTES:
73. Pierre Jeannin was born at Autun, in 1540, and died about 1622. He began the practice of law at Dijon, in 1569. Though a Catholic, he always counselled tolerant measures in the treatment of the Protestants. By his influence he prevented the massacre of the Protestants at Dijon in 1572. He was a Councillor, and afterward President, of the Parliament of Dijon. He was the private adviser of the Duke of Mayenne. He united himself with the party of the League in 1589. He negotiated the peace between Mayenne and Henry IV. The king became greatly attached to him, and appointed him a Councillor of State and Superintendent of Finances. He held many offices and did great service to the State. After the death of the king, Marie de Médicis, the regent, continued him as Superintendent of Finances.
74. Count de Soissons, Charles de Bourbon, was born at Nogent-le-Rotrou, in 1556, and died Nov. 1, 1612. He was educated in the Catholic religion. He acted for a time with the party of the League, but, falling in love with Catherine, the sister of Henry IV., better to secure his object he abandoned the League and took a military command under Henry III., and distinguished himself for bravery when the king was besieged in Tours. After the death of the king, he espoused the cause of Henry IV., was made Grand Master of France, and took part in the siege of Paris. He attempted a secret marriage with Catherine, but was thwarted; and the unhappy lovers were compelled, by the Duke of Sully, to renounce their matrimonial intentions. He had been Governor of Dauphiny, and, at the time of his death, was Governor of Normandy, with a pension of 50,000 crowns.
75. Prince de Condé, Henry de Bourbon II., the posthumous son of the first Henry de Bourbon, was born at Saint Jean d’Angely, in 1588. He married, in 1609, Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, the sister of Henry, the Duke de Montmorency, who succeeded him as the Viceroy of New France. To avoid the impertinent gallantries of Henry IV., who had fallen in love with this beautiful Princess, Condé and his wife left France, and did not return till the death of the king. He headed a conspiracy against the Regent, Marie de Médicis, and was thrown into prison on the first of September, 1616, where he remained three years. Influenced by ambition, and more particularly by his avarice, he forced his son Louis, Le Grand Condé, to marry the niece of Cardinal Richelieu, Claire Clémence de Maillé-Brézé. He did much to confer power and influence upon his family, largely through his avarice, which was his chief characteristic. The wit of Voltaire attributes his crowning glory to his having been the father of the great Condé. During the detention of the Prince de Condé in prison, the Mareschal de Thémins was Acting Viceroy of New France, having been appointed by Marie de Médicis, the Queen Regent.–_Vide Voyages du Sieur de Champlain_, Paris, 1632, p. 211.
76. In making the portage from what is now known as Portage du Fort to Muskrat Lake, a distance of about nine miles, Champlain, though less heavily loaded than his companions, carried three French arquebusses, three oars, his cloak, and some small articles, and was at the same time bitterly oppressed by swarms of hungry and insatiable mosquitoes. On the old portage road, traversed by Champlain and his party at this time, in 1613, an astrolabe, inscribed 1603, was found in 1867. The presumptive evidence that this instrument was lost by Champlain is stated in a brochure by Mr. O. H. Marshall.–_Vide Magazine of American History_ for March, 1879.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAMPLAIN OBTAINS MISSIONARIES FOR NEW FRANCE.–MEETS THE INDIANS AT MONTREAL AND ENGAGES IN A WAR AGAINST THE IROQUOIS.–HIS JOURNEY TO THE HURONS, AND WINTER IN THEIR COUNTRY.
During the whole of the year 1614, Champlain remained in France, occupied for the most part in adding new members to his company of associates, and in forming and perfecting such plans as were clearly necessary for the prosperity and success of the colony. His mind was particularly absorbed in devising means for the establishment of the Christian faith in the wilds of America. Hitherto nothing whatever had been done in this direction, if we except the efforts of Poutrincourt on the Atlantic coast, which had already terminated in disaster. [77] No missionary of any sort had had hitherto set his foot upon that part of the soil of New France lying within the Gulf of St. Lawrence. [78] A fresh interest had been awakened in the mind of Champlain. He saw its importance in a new light. He sought counsel and advice from various persons whose wisdom commended them to his attention. Among the rest was Louis Houêl, an intimate friend, who held some office about the person of the king, and who was the chief manager of the salt works at Brouage. This gentleman took a hearty interest in the project, and assured Champlain that it would not be difficult to raise the means of sending out three or four Fathers, and, moreover, that he knew some of the order of the Recollects, belonging to a convent at Brouage, whose zeal he was sure would be equal to the undertaking. On communicating with them, he found them quite ready to engage in the work. Two of them were sent to Paris to obtain authority and encouragement from the proper sources. It happened that about this time the chief dignitaries of the church were in Paris, attending a session of the Estates. The bishops and cardinals were waited upon by Champlain, and their zeal awakened and their co-operation secured in raising the necessary means for sustaining the mission. After the usual negotiations and delays, the object was fully accomplished; fifteen hundred _livres_ were placed in the hands of Champlain for outfit and expenses, and four Recollect friars embarked with him at Honfleur, on the ship “St. Étienne,” on the 24th of April, 1615, viz., Denis Jamay, Jean d’Olbeau, Joseph le Caron, and the lay-brother Pacifique du Plessis. [79]
On their arrival at Quebec, Champlain addressed himself immediately to the preparation of lodgings for the missionaries and the erection of a chapel for the celebration of divine service. The Fathers were impatient to enter the fields of labor severally assigned to them. Joseph le Caron was appointed to visit the Hurons in their distant forest home, concerning which he had little or no information; but he nevertheless entered upon the duty with manly courage and Christian zeal. Jean d’Olbeau assumed the mission to the Montagnais, embracing the region about Tadoussac and the river Saguenay, while Denis Jamay and Pacifique du Plessis took charge of the chapel at Quebec.
At the earliest moment possible Champlain hastened to the rendezvous at Montreal, to meet the Indians who had already reached there on their annual visit for trade. The chiefs were in raptures of delight on seeing their old friend again, and had a grand scheme to propose. They had not forgotten that Champlain had often promised to aid them in their wars. They approached the subject, however, with moderation and diplomatic wisdom. They knew perfectly well that the trade in peltry was greatly desired, in fact that it was indispensable to the French. The substance of what they had to say was this. It had become now, if not impossible, exceedingly hazardous, to bring their furs to market. Their enemies, the Iroquois, like so many prowling wolves, were sure to be on their trail as they came down the Ottawa, and, incumbered with their loaded canoes, the struggle must be unequal, and it was nearly impossible for them ever to be winners. The only solution of the difficulty known to them, or which they cared to consider, as in all Indian warfare, was to annihilate their enemies utterly and wipe out their name for ever. Let this be done, and the fruits of peace would return, their commerce would be safe, prosperous, and greatly augmented.
Such were the reasons presented by the allies. But there were other considerations, likewise, which influenced the mind of Champlain. It was necessary to maintain a close and firm alliance with the Indians in order to extend the French discoveries and domain into new and more distant regions, and on this extension of French influence depended their hope of converting the savages to the Christian faith. The force of these considerations could not be resisted. Champlain decided that, under the circumstances, it was necessary to give them the desired assistance.
A general assembly was called, and the nature and extent of the campaign fully considered. It was to be of vastly greater proportions than any that had hitherto been proposed. The Indians offered to furnish two thousand five hundred and fifty men, but they were to be gathered together from different and distant points. The journey must, therefore, be long and perilous. The objective point, viz., a celebrated Iroquois fort, could not be reached by the only feasible route in a less distance than eight hundred or nine hundred miles, and it would require an absence of three or four months. Preparations for the journey were entered upon at once. Champlain visited Quebec to make arrangements for his long absence. On his return to Montreal, the Indians, impatient of delay, had already departed, and Father Joseph le Caron had gone with them to his distant field of missionary labor among the Hurons.
On the 9th of July, 1615, Champlain embarked, taking with him an interpreter, probably Etienne Brûlé, a French servant, and ten savages, who, with their equipments, were to be accommodated in two canoes. They entered the Rivière des Prairies, which flows into the St. Lawrence some leagues east of Montreal, crossing the Lake of the Two Mountains, passed up the Ottawa, taking the same route which he had traversed some years before, revisiting its long succession of reaches, its placid lakes, impetuous rapids, and magnificent falls, and at length arrived at the point where the river, by an abrupt angle, begins to flow from the northwest. Here, leaving the Ottawa, they entered the Mattawan, passing down this river into Lac du Talon, thence into Lac la Tortue, and by a short portage, into Lake Nipissing. After remaining here two days, entertained generously by the Nipissingian chiefs, they crossed the lake, and, following the channel of French River, entered Lake Huron, or rather the Georgian Bay. They coasted along until they reached the northern limits of the county of Simcoe. Here they disembarked and entered the territory of their old friends and allies, the Hurons.
The domain of this tribe consisted of a peninsula formed by the Georgian Bay, the river Severn, and Lake Simcoe, at the farthest, not more than forty by twenty-five miles in extent, but more generally cultivated by the native population, and of a richer soil than any region hitherto explored north of the St. Lawrence and the lakes. They visited four of their villages and were cordially received and feasted on Indian corn, squashes, and fish, with some variety in the methods of cooking. They then proceeded to Carhagouha, [80] a town fortified with a triple palisade of wood thirty-five feet in height. Here they found the Recollect Father Joseph Le Caron, who, having preceded them but a few days, and not anticipating the visit, was filled with raptures of astonishment and joy. The good Father was intent upon his pious work. On the 12th of August, surrounded by his followers, he formally erected a cross as a symbol of the faith, and on the same day they celebrated the mass and chanted TE DEUM LAUDAMUS for the first time.
Lingering but two days, Champlain and ten of the French, eight of whom had belonged to the Suite of Le Caron, proceeded slowly towards Cahiagué, [81] the rendezvous where the mustering hosts of the savage warriors were to set forth together upon their hostile excursion into the country of the Iroquois. Of the Huron villages visited by them, six are particularly mentioned as fortified by triple palisades of wood. Cahiagué, the capital, encircled two hundred large cabins within its wooden walls. It was situated on the north of Lake Simcoe, ten or twelve miles from this body of water, surrounded by a country rich in corn, squashes, and a great variety of small fruits, with plenty of game and fish. When the warriors had mostly assembled, the motley crowd, bearing their bark canoes, meal, and equipments on their shoulders, moved down in a southwesterly direction till they reached the narrow strait that unites Lake Chouchiching with Lake Simcoe, where the Hurons had a famous fishing wear. Here they remained some time for other more tardy bands to join them. At this point they despatched twelve of the most stalwart savages, with the interpreter, Étienne Brûlé, on a dangerous journey to a distant tribe dwelling on the west of the Five Nations, to urge them to hasten to the fort of the Iroquois, as they had already received word from them that they would join them in this campaign.
Champlain and his allies soon left the fishing wear and coasted along the northeastern shore of Lake Simcoe until they reached its most eastern border, when they made a portage to Sturgeon Lake, thence sweeping down Pigeon and Stony Lakes, through the Otonabee into Rice Lake, the River Trent, the Bay of Quinté, and finally rounding the eastern point of Amherst Island, they were fairly on the waters of Lake Ontario, just as it merges into the great River St. Lawrence, and where the Thousand Islands begin to loom into sight. Here they crossed the extremity of the lake at its outflow into the river, pausing at this important geographical point to take the latitude, which, by his imperfect instruments, Champlain found to be 43 deg. north. [82]
Sailing down to the southern side of the lake, after a distance, by their estimate, of about fourteen leagues, they landed and concealed their canoes in a thicket near the shore. Taking their arms, they proceeded along the lake some ten miles, through a country diversified with meadows, brooks, ponds, and beautiful forests filled with plenty of wild game, when they struck inland, apparently at the mouth of Little Salmon River. Advancing in a southerly direction, along the course of this stream, they crossed Oneida River, an outlet of the lake of the same name. When within about ten miles of the fort which they intended to capture, they met a small party of savages, men, women, and children, bound on a fishing excursion. Although unarmed, nevertheless, according to their custom, they took them all prisoners of war, and began to inflict the usual tortures, but this was dropped on Champlain’s indignant interference. The next day, on the 10th of October, they reached the great fortress of the Iroquois, after a journey of four days from their landing, a distance loosely estimated at from twenty-five to thirty leagues. Here they found the Iroquois in their fields, industriously gathering in their autumnal harvest of corn and squashes. A skirmish ensued, in which several were wounded on both sides.
The fort, a drawing of which has been left us by Champlain, was situated a few miles south of the eastern terminus of Oneida Lake, on a small stream that winds its way in a northwesterly direction, and finally loses itself in the same body of water. This rude military structure was hexagonal in form, one of its sides bordering immediately upon a small pond, while four of the other laterals, two on the right and two on the left were washed by a channel of water flowing along their bases. [83] The side opposite the pond alone had an unobstructed land approach. As an Indian military work, it was of great strength. It was made of the trunks of trees, as large as could be conveniently transported. These were set in the ground, forming four concentric palisades, not more than six inches apart, thirty feet in height, interlaced and bound together near the top, supporting a gallery of double paling extending around the whole enclosure, proof not only against the flint-headed arrows of the Indian, but against the leaden bullets of the French arquebus. Port-holes were opened along the gallery, through which effective service could be done upon assailants by hurling stones and other missiles with which they were well provided. Gutters were laid along between the palisades to conduct water to every part of the fortification for extinguishing fire, in case of need.
It was obvious to Champlain that this fort was a complete protection to the Iroquois, unless an opening could be made in its walls. This could not be easily done by any force which he and his allies had at their command. His only hope was in setting fire to the palisades on the land side. This required the dislodgement of the enemy, who were posted in large numbers on the gallery, and the protection of the men in kindling the fire, and shielding it, when kindled, against the extinguishing torrents which could be poured from the water-spouts and gutters of the fort. He consequently ordered two instruments to be made with which he hoped to overcome these obstacles. One was a wooden tower or frame-work, dignified by Champlain as a _cavalier_, somewhat higher than the palisades, on the top of which was an enclosed platform where three or four sharp-shooters could in security clear the gallery, and thus destroy the effective force of the enemy. The other was a large wooden shield, or _mantelet_, under the protection of which they could in safety approach and kindle a fire at the base of the