America. A history

“He was no common man,” said Mr. Lowell, in his graceful and eloquent panegyric, “who could call forth, and justly call forth, an emotion so universal, an interest so sincere and so human.” And that is no common country which can produce such a man, and give him the opportunity of achieving greatness. Garfield’s career teaches many lessons; but it shows nothing more clearly than the great possibilities which his country opens up to honesty and persevering labour. “The poor lad who at thirteen could not read, dies at fifty the tenant of an office second in dignity to none on earth; and the world mourns his loss as that of a personal relative.”

“The soil out of which such men as he were made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in.”

The peace and naturalness with which Vice-President Arthur at once succeeded to the presidential functions, without shock to the political system and without detriment to the national honour, justifies the pride of the Americans in the stability of their institutions.

FOOTNOTES

THE DOMINION OF CANADA

CHAPTER I

THE DAWN OF CANADIAN HISTORY

The dazzling success which had crowned the efforts of Columbus awakened in Europe an eager desire to make fresh discoveries. Henry VII. of England had consented to equip Columbus for his voyage; but the consent was withheld too long, and given only when it was too late. Lamenting now the great mischance by which the glory and the profit of these marvellous discoveries passed away from him, Henry lost no time in seeking to possess himself of such advantage as Spain had not yet appropriated. There was living then in Bristol a Venetian merchant named John Cabot. This man and his son Sebastian shared their great countryman’s love of maritime adventure. 1496 A.D. Under the patronage of the King, who claimed one-fifth of the gains of their enterprise, they fitted out, at their own charge, a fleet of six ships, and sailed westward into the ocean whose terrors Columbus had so effectually tamed. They struck a northerly course, and reached Newfoundland. 1497 A.D. Still bending northwards, they coasted Labrador, hoping as Columbus did to gain an easy passage to the East. They pierced deeper into the unknown north than any European had done before. But day by day, as they sailed and searched, the cold became more intense; the floating masses of ice became more frequent and more threatening; the wished-for opening which was to conduct them to Cathay did not reveal itself. Cabot, repulsed by unendurable cold, turned and sought the more genial south. He steered his course between the island of Newfoundland and the mainland, and explored with care the gulf afterwards called by the name of St. Lawrence. Still moving southwards, he passed bleak and desolate coasts which to-day are the home of powerful communities, the seat of great and famous cities. He had looked at the vast sea-board which stretches from Labrador to Florida. He had taken no formal possession; his foot had scarcely touched American soil. But when he reported to Henry what he had seen, the King at once claimed the whole as an English possession.

Many years passed before the claim of England was heard of any more. The stormy life of Henry came to its close. His son, around whose throne there surged the disturbing influences of the Reformation, and who was obliged in this anxious time to readjust the ecclesiastical relations of himself and of his people, had no thought to spare for those distant and unknown regions. The fierce Mary was absorbed in the congenial employment of trampling out Protestantism by the slaughter of its followers. The America upon which John Cabot – now an almost forgotten name – had looked fourscore years before, was nearly as much forgotten as its discoverer. But during the more tranquil reign of Elizabeth there began that search for a north-west route to the East which Europe has prosecuted from that time till now with marvellous persistence and intrepidity. 1576 A.D. Martin Frobisher, going forth on this quest, pierced further into the north than any previous explorer had done. He looked again upon the bleak, ice-bound coasts of Labrador and of southern Greenland. 1583 A.D. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, acting under the Queen’s authority, visited Newfoundland, and planted there an inconsiderable and unenduring settlement. Another generation passed before England began to concern herself about the shadowy and well-nigh forgotten claim which she had founded upon the discoveries of John Cabot. It was indeed a shadowy claim; but, even with so slender a basis of right, the power and determination of England proved ultimately sufficient to establish and maintain it against the world. The Pope had long ago bestowed upon the Kings of Spain and Portugal the whole of the New World, with all its “cities and fortifications;” but England gave no heed to the enormous pretension which even France refused to acknowledge.12

Meanwhile, disregarding the dormant claims of England, France had made some progress in establishing herself upon the new continent. She too had in her service a mariner on whose visit to the West a claim was founded. Thirty years after Cabot’s first voyage, John Verazzani – an Italian, like most of the explorers – sailed from North Carolina to Newfoundland; scenting, or believing that he scented, far out at sea the fragrance of southern forests; welcomed by the simple natives of Virginia and Maryland, who had not yet learned to dread the terrible strangers who brought destruction to their race; visiting the Bay of New York, and finding it thronged with the rude and slender canoes of the natives; looking with unpleased eye upon the rugged shores of Massachusetts and Maine, and not turning eastward till he had passed for many miles along the coast of Newfoundland. When Verazzani reported what he had done, France assumed, too hastily as the event proved, that the regions thus explored were rightfully hers.

But her claim obtained a more substantial support than the hasty visit of Verazzani was able to bestow upon it. 1534 A.D. Ten years later, Jacques Cartier, a famous sea-captain, sailed on a bright and warm July day into the gulf which lies between Newfoundland and the mainland. He saw a great river flowing into the gulf with a width of estuary not less than one hundred miles. It was the day of St. Lawrence, and he opened a new prospect of immortality for that saint by giving his name to river and to gulf. He erected a large cross, thirty feet high, on which were imprinted the insignia of France; and thus he took formal possession of the country in the King’s name. He sailed for many days up the river, between silent and pathless forests; past great chasms down which there rolled the waters of tributary streams; under the gloomy shadow of huge precipices; past fertile meadow-lands and sheltered islands where the wild vine flourished. The Indians in their canoes swarmed around the ships, giving the strangers welcome, receiving hospitable entertainment of bread and wine. At length they came where a vast rocky promontory, three hundred feet in height, stretched far into the river. Here the chief had his home; here, on a site worthy to bear the capital of a great State, arose Quebec; here, in later days, England and France fought for supremacy, and it was decided by the sword that the Anglo-Saxon race was to guide the destinies of the American continent.

Cartier learned from the Indians that, much higher up the river, there was a large city, the capital of a great country; and the enterprising Frenchman lost no time in making his way thither. Standing in the midst of fields of Indian corn, he found a circular enclosure, strongly palisaded, within which were fifty large huts, each the abode of several families. This was Hochelaga, in reality the capital of an extensive territory. Hochelaga was soon swept away; and in its place, a century later, Jesuit enthusiasts established a centre of missionary operations under the protection of the Holy Virgin. It too passed away, to be succeeded by the city of Montreal, the seat of government of an Anglo-Saxon nation.

The natives entertained Cartier hospitably, and were displeased that he would not remain longer among them. He returned to Quebec to winter there. Great hardships overtook him. The winter was unusually severe; his men were unprovided with suitable food and clothing. Many died; all were grievously weakened by exposure and insufficient nourishment; and when their condition was at the lowest, Cartier was led to suspect that the natives meditated treachery. So soon as the warmth of spring thawed the frozen river, Cartier sailed for France, lawlessly bearing with him, as a present to the King, the chief and three natives of meaner rank.

The results of Carrier’s visits disappointed France. A country which lies buried under deep snow for half the year had no attractions for men accustomed to the short and ordinarily mild winters of France. The King expected gold and silver mines and precious stones; but Cartier brought home only a few savages and his own diminished and diseased band of followers. There were some, however, to whom the lucrative trade in furs was an object of desire; there were others, in that season of high-wrought religious zeal, who were powerfully moved to bear the Cross among the heathens of the West. Under the influence of these motives, feeble efforts at colonization were from time to time made. The fishermen of Normandy and Brittany resorted to the shores of Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and plied their calling there with success such as had not rewarded their efforts in European waters. The persecuted Calvinists sought to give effect to a proposal made by Admiral Coligny, and find rest from the malignity of their enemies among the forests of Canada. But the French have little aptitude for colonizing. Down far beyond the close of the century France had failed to establish any permanent footing on the American continent. A few mean huts at Quebec, at Montreal, and at two or three other points, were all that remained to represent the efforts and the sufferings of nearly a hundred years. There is evidence that in the year 1629 “a single vessel” was expected to take on board “all the French” in Canada; and the vessels of those days were not large.

CHAPTER II

SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN

The fierce strifes which raged between Catholic and Protestant during the latter half of the sixteenth century engrossed the mind of France to the exclusion of all that concerned her remote and discouraging possession. But while the strong hand of Henry IV. held the reins of government, these strifes were calmed. The hatred remained, ready to break forth when circumstances allowed; but meantime the authority of the King imposed salutary restraint upon the combatants, and the country had rest. During this exceptional quiet the project of founding a New France on the gulf and river of St. Lawrence again received attention.

Among the favourite servants of the King was Samuel de Champlain. This man was a sailor from his youth, which had been passed on the shores of the Bay of Biscay. He had fought for his King on sea and on land. He was brave, resolute, of high ability, of pure and lofty impulses, combining the courage with the gentleness and courtesy of the true knight-errant. In him there survived the passionate love of exploring strange lands which prevailed so widely among the men of a previous generation. He foresaw a great destiny for Canada, and he was eager to preserve for France the neglected but magnificent heritage. Above all, he desired to send the saving light of faith to the red men of the Canadian forests; for although a bigoted Catholic, he was a sincere Christian. “The salvation of one soul,” he was accustomed to say, “is of more value than the conquest of an empire.”

This man was the founder of Canada. During thirty years he toiled incessantly to plant and foster settlements, to send out missionaries, to repel the inroads of the English, to protect the rights of France in the fur-trade and in the fisheries of Newfoundland. The immediate success which attended his labours was inconsiderable. His settlements refused to make progress; the savage tribes for whose souls he cared were extirpated by enemies whose hostility he had helped to incur; the English destroyed ships which were bringing him supplies; they besieged and captured Quebec itself. He died without seeing the greatness of the colony which he loved, but which, nevertheless, owed the beginnings of its greatness to him.

One of the earliest concerns of Champlain was to choose a site for the capital of the French empire in the West. As Cartier had done three-quarters of a century before, he chose the magnificent headland of Quebec. 1608 A.D. At the foot of the rock he erected a square of buildings, enclosing a court, surrounded by a wall and a moat, and defended by a few pieces of cannon. This rude fort became the centre of French influence in Canada during the next hundred and fifty years, till the English relieved France of responsibility and influence on the American continent.

Champlain received cordial welcome from the Huron Indians, who were his neighbours. These savages were overmatched by their ancient enemies the Iroquois, and they besought the Frenchmen to lend them the help of their formidable arms. Champlain consented – moved in part by his love of battle, in part by his desire to explore an unknown country. He and some of his men accompanied his new allies on their march. The Iroquois warriors met them confidently, expecting the customary victory. They were received with a volley of musketry, which stretched some on the ground, and caused panic and flight of the whole force. But Champlain had reason to regret the foreign policy which he had adopted. The Hurons took many prisoners, whom, as their practice was, they proceeded to torture to death. In a subsequent expedition the allies were defeated, and Champlain himself was wounded – circumstances which, for a time, sensibly diminished his authority. And the hostility of the Iroquois, thus unwisely provoked, resulted in the utter destruction of the Hurons, and involved the yet unstable colony in serious jeopardy.

Champlain enjoyed the support of King Henry IV., who listened to his glowing accounts of the country in which he was so profoundly interested, who praised the wisdom of his government, and encouraged him to persevere. But despite of royal favour, his task was a heavy one. There were in his company both Romanists and Calvinists, who bore with them into the forest the discords which then made France miserable. Champlain tells that he has seen a Protestant minister and a curé attempting to settle with blows of the fist their controversial differences. Such occurrences, he points out, were not likely to yield fruit to the glory of God among the infidels whom he desired to convert. At home his prerogatives were the playthings of political parties. To-day he obtained vast powers and rich grants of land; to-morrow some court intrigue swept these all away. There was an “Association of Merchants” who had received a valuable trading monopoly under pledge that they would send out men to colonize and priests to instruct. But the faithless merchants sought only to purchase furs at low prices from the Indians. It was to their advantage that the Indian and the wild creatures which he pursued should continue to occupy the continent, undisturbed by the coming in of strangers. And thus they thwarted to the utmost all Champlain’s efforts. In defiance of authority, they paid in fire-arms and brandy for the furs which were brought to them; and the red men, whose souls Champlain so earnestly desired to save, were being corrupted and destroyed by the greed of his countrymen.

Some years after Champlain’s first expedition, a few Englishmen landed in mid-winter on the coast of Massachusetts, and, without help of kings or nobles, began to grow strong by their own inherent energy and the constant accession to their number of persons dissatisfied at home. It was not so with the French settlements on the St. Lawrence. Champlain was continually returning to France to entreat the King for help; to seek a new patron among the nobles; to compel the merchants to fulfill their compact by sending out a few colonists. No Frenchman was desirous to find a home beyond the sea; all bore in quietness a despotism worse than that from which the more impatient Englishmen had fled. The natural inaptitude of France for the work of colonizing was vividly illustrated in the early history of Canada.

1629 A.D. Near the close of Champlain’s life the capital of the State which he had founded was torn away from him. An English ship, commissioned by Charles I. and commanded by a piratical Scotchman, appeared before the great rock of Quebec, and summoned the city to surrender. Champlain, powerless to resist, yielded to fate and gave up his capital. When the conquerors landed to seek the plunder for which they had come, they found a few old muskets and cannon and fifty poorly-fed men. The growth of twenty years had done no more for Quebec than this.

The loss of Canada caused no regret in France. There were public men who regarded that loss as in reality a gain, and advised that France should make no effort to regain her troublesome dependency. But Champlain urged upon the Government the great value of the fur trade and fisheries; he showed that the difficulties of the settlement were now overcome, and that progress in the future must be more rapid than in the past; he pled that the savages who were beginning to receive the light of the true faith should not be given over to heretics. 1632 A.D. His urgency prevailed; and England, not more solicitous to keep than France was to regain this unappreciated continent, readily consented that it should be restored to its former owners.

Three years afterwards Champlain died. He saw nothing of the greatness for which he had prepared the way. The colonists numbered yet only a few hundreds. The feeble existence of the settlement depended upon the good-will of the Englishmen who were their neighbours on the south, and of the fierce savages who lived in the forests around them. But Champlain was able to estimate, in some measure, the results of the work which he had done. He sustained himself to the end with the hope that the Canada which he loved would one day be prosperous and strong – peopled by good Catholics from France, and by savages rescued from destruction by baptism and the exhibition of the cross.

The Canada of Champlain’s day was a region stretching thirteen hundred miles northward from the frontier line of the New England settlements, and seven hundred miles westward from the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Besides Canada, France possessed Newfoundland and Nova Scotia; and she claimed all the unknown territory to the north, the character and extent of which were veiled from human knowledge by cold so intense that men had not yet dared to encounter it. The great river with its tributaries, and the vast lakes out of which it flows, opened convenient access into the heart of the country, and made commerce easy. On the high lands were dense forests of oak and pine and maple; beech, chestnut, and elm. In the plains were great areas of rich agricultural land capable of supporting a large population, but useless as yet; for the Indians deemed agriculture effeminate, and chose to live mainly by the chase. The climate is severe and the winter long, especially towards the mouth of the St. Lawrence, where at certain seasons the cold becomes greater than the human frame can endure. Everywhere the heat of summer is great, and the transition from the fierce extreme of cold to the warmth of the delightful Canadian spring is sudden. The desolate woods burst into rich green foliage; the valleys clothe themselves as by magic with grass and flowers. The great heat of summer follows with equal suddenness, and the harvest of grain or of fruits ripens as quickly as it sprang.

The cold of the Canadian winter was greatly more influential than the heat of the Canadian summer in fixing the character and pursuits of the savages who occupied the country. In a climate where frost rends asunder rocks and trees, and gives to iron power to burn as if it were red hot, life could not be sustained without a special defence against the intolerable severity. Nature had amply provided for the welfare of the wild creatures which she had called into being. The buffalo and musk ox which wandered over the plains were endowed with masses of shaggy hair which defied the cold even of a Canadian winter. The bear which prepared for himself a resting-place in the hollow trunk of an old tree, where he could sleep out the tedious months of frost, was clothed suitably to his circumstances. The beaver which built his house in the centre of Canadian streams was wrapped in rich, warm, glossy fur. The fox, the wolverine, the squirrel, and many others, enjoyed the same effective protection. The Indians needed the skins of these creatures for clothing, their flesh for food. And thus it came to pass that the French found in Canada only wild things, which walked the forests in coverings of beautiful and valuable fur; and human beings, but one degree higher in intelligence, who lived by slaying them. One of the strongest impulses which drew Europeans to Canada was not her rich soil, nor the timber of her inexhaustible forests, nor her treasures of copper and of iron, but the skins of the beasts which frequented her valleys and her woods.

Numerous tribes of savages inhabited the Canadian wilderness. They ordinarily lived in villages built of logs, and strongly palisaded to resist the attack of enemies. They were robust and enduring, as the climate required; daring in war, friendly and docile in peace. The torture of an enemy was their highest form of enjoyment: when the victim bore his sufferings bravely, the youth of the village ate his heart in order that they might become possessed of his virtues. They had orators, politicians, chiefs skilled to lead in their rude wars. Most of their weapons were of flint. They felled the great pines of their forests with stone axes supplemented by the use of fire. Their canoes were made of the bark of birch or elm. They wore breastplates of twigs. It was their habit to occupy large houses, in some of which as many as twenty families lived together without any separation. Licentiousness was universal and excessive. Their religion was a series of grovelling superstitions. There was not in any Indian language a word to express the idea of God: their heaven was one vast banqueting-hall where men feasted perpetually.

The origin of the American savage awakened at one time much controversy among the learned. Had there been a plurality of creative acts? Had Europeans at some remote period been driven by contrary winds across the great sea? If not, where did the red man arise, and by what means did he reach the continent where white men found him? When these questions were debated, it was not known how closely Asia and America approach each other at the extreme north. A narrow strait divides the two continents, and the Asiatic savage of the far north-east crosses it easily. The red men are Asiatics, who, by a short voyage without terrors to them, reached the north-western coasts of America, and gradually pushed their way over the continent. The great secret which Columbus revealed to Europe had been for ages known to the Asiatic tribes of the extreme north.

CHAPTER III

THE JESUITS IN CANADA

The Reformation had made so large progress in France that at the beginning of the seventeenth century the Protestants were able to regard themselves as forming one-half of the nation. They had accomplished this progress in the face of terrible difficulties. The false maxim prevailed in France, as in other countries, that as there was but one king and one government, there should be but one faith. Vast efforts were made to regain this lost uniformity. The vain pursuit cost France thirty-five years of civil war, and two million French lives. At its close half her towns were in ashes; her industries had perished; her fields were desolated. The law gave no protection to Protestants: a Catholic noble riding with his followers past a Protestant meeting-place occasionally paused to slaughter the little congregation, and then resumed his journey, not doubting that he had done to God and to the State an acceptable service. The Protestants undertook their own armed defence; made laws for themselves; maintained in so far as it was possible a government distinct from that of their persecutors. There were two nations of not extremely unequal strength living on the soil of France, with fierce mutual hatred raging in their hearts, and finding expression in incessant war, assassination, massacre. 1598 A.D. At length these horrors were allayed by the Edict of Nantes, which conceded full liberty of conscience. The Pope cursed this hateful concession; but the strong arm of Henry IV. maintained it. For a time the ferocity of religious strife was mitigated, and the adherents of the new faith enjoyed unwonted calm.