France and England in N America, Part V: Count Frontenac, New France, Louis XIV

348

Registre du Conseil Souverain; Requeste du Sieur de Mareuil, Nov., 1694.

349

Champigny au Ministre, 24 Oct., 1694. Trouble on this matter had begun some time before. Mémoire du Roy pour Frontenac et Champigny, 1694; Le Ministre à l'Évêque, 8 Mai, 1694.

350

La Motte-Cadillac à—–, 28 Sept., 1694; Champigny au Ministre, 27 Oct., 1694.

351

Procès-verbal du Père Hyacinthe Perrault, Commissaire Provincial des Récollets (Archives Nationales); Mémoire touchant le Démeslé entre M. l'Évesque de Québec et le Chevalier de Callières (Ibid.).

352

Mandement ordonnant de fermer l'Église des Récollets, 13 Mai, 1694.

353

"Le Supérieur du dit Couvent estant lié avec le Gouverneur de la dite ville par des interests que tout le monde scait et qu'on n'oseroit exprimer de peur de faire rougir le papier." Extrait du Mandement de l'Évesque de Québec (Archives Nationales). He had before charged Mareuil with language "capable de faire rougir le ciel."

354

"Mr. l'Évesque accuse publiquement le Rev. Père Joseph, supérieur des Récollets de Montréal, d'être l'entremetteur d'une galanterie entre sa sœur et le Gouverneur. Cependant Mr. l'Évesque sait certainement que le Père Joseph est l'un des meilleurs et des plus saints religieux de son ordre. Ce qu'il allègue du prétendu commerce entre le Gouverneur et la Dame de la Naudière (sœur du Père Joseph) est entièrement faux, et il l'a publié avec scandale, sans preuve et contre toute apparence, la ditte Dame ayant toujours eu une conduite irréprochable." Mémoire touchant le Démeslé, etc. Champigny also says that the bishop has brought this charge, and that Callières declares that he has told a falsehood. Champigny au Ministre, 27 Oct., 1694.

355

Frontenac à M. de Lagny, 2 Nov., 1695

356

Arrest qui ordonne que les Procédures faites entre le Sieur Évesque de Québec et les Sieurs Mareuil, Desjordis, etc., seront évoquez au Conseil Privé de Sa Majesté, 3 Juillet, 1695.

357

Le Ministre à Frontenac, 4 Juin, 1695; Ibid., 8 Juin, 1695.

358

Le Ministre à Champigny, 4 Juin, 1695; Ibid., 8 Juin, 1695.

359

Le Ministre à d'Auteuil, 8 Juin, 1695.

360

Le Ministre à Callières, 8 Juin, 1695.

361

La Tour, Vie de Laval, liv. xii.

362

Had an outrage, like that with which Frontenac is here charged, actually taken place, the registers of the council, the letters of the intendant and the attorney-general, and the records of the bishopric of Quebec would not have failed to show it. They show nothing beyond a report that "Tartuffe" was to be played, and a payment of money by the bishop in order to prevent it. We are left to infer that it was prevented accordingly. I have the best authority—that of the superior of the convent (1871), herself a diligent investigator into the history of her community—for stating that neither record nor tradition of the occurrence exists among the Ursulines of Quebec; and I have been unable to learn that any such exists among the nuns of the Hospital (Hôtel-Dieu). The contemporary Récit d'une Religieuse Ursuline speaks of Frontenac with gratitude, as a friend and benefactor, as does also Mother Juchereau, superior of the Hôtel-Dieu.

363

In 1671, 30 garçons and 30 filles were sent by the king to Acadia, at the cost of 6,000 livres. État. de Dépenses, 1671.

364

Grandfontaine, 1670; Chambly, 1673; Marson, 1678; La Vallière, the same year, Marson having died; Perrot, 1684; Meneval, 1687. The last three were commissioned as local governors, in subordination to the governor-general. The others were merely military commandants.

365

The census taken by order of Meules in 1686 gives a total of 885 persons, of whom 592 were at Port Royal, and 127 at Beaubassin. By the census of 1693, the number had reached 1,009.

366

Mémoire du Sieur Bergier, 1685.

367

L'Évêque au Roy, 10 Nov., 1683. For the preceding pages, the authorities are chiefly the correspondence of Grandfontaine, Marson, La Vallière, Meneval, Bergier, Goutins, Perrot, Talon, Frontenac, and other officials. A large collection of Acadian documents, from the archives of Paris, is in my possession. I have also examined the Acadian collections made for the government of Canada and for that of Massachusetts.

368

Meneval, Mémoire, 1688; Denonville, Mémoire, 18 Oct., 1688; Procès-verbal du Pillage de Chedabucto; Relation de la Boullaye, 1688.

369

Frontenac au Ministre, 14 Nov., 1674; Frontenac à Leverett, gouverneur de Baston, 24 Sept., 1674; Frontenac to the Governor and Council of Massachusetts, 25 May, 1675 (see 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 64); Colbert à Frontenac, 15 May, 1675. Frontenac supposed the assailants to be buccaneers. They had, however, a commission from William of Orange. Hutchinson says that the Dutch again took Pentegoet in 1676, but were driven off by ships from Boston, as the English claimed the place for themselves.

370

On its condition in 1670, Estat du Fort et Place de Pentegoet fait en l'année 1670, lorsque les Anglois l'ont rendu. In 1671, fourteen soldiers and eight laborers were settled near the fort. Talon au Ministre, 2 Nov., 1671. In the next year, Talon recommends an envoi de filles for the benefit of Pentegoet. Mémoire sur le Canada, 1672. As late as 1698, we find Acadian officials advising the reconstruction of the fort.

371

Petit in Saint-Vallier, Estat de l'Église, 39 (1856).

372

Saint-Castin à Denonville, 2 Juiliet, 1687.

373

Instruction du Roy au Sieur de Meneval, 5 Avril, 1687.

374

Mémoire du Sieur de Meneval sur l'Acadie, 10 Sept., 1688.

375

Mémoire présenté au Roy d'Angleterre, 1687; Saint-Castin à Denonville, 7 Juillet, 1687; Hutchinson Collection, 562, 563; Andros Tracts, I. 118.

376

Mémoire pour servir d'Instruction au Sieur de Villebon, 1691.

377

"Comme vostre principal objet doit estre de faire la guerre sans relâche aux Anglois, il faut que vostre plus particulière application soit de detourner de tout autre employ les François qui sont avec vous, en leur donnant de vostre part un si bon exemple en cela qu'ils ne soient animez que du désir de chercher à faire du proffit sur les ennemis. Je n'ay aussy rien à vous recommander plus fortement que de mettre en usage tout ce que vous pouvez avoir de capacité et de prudence afin que les Canibas (Abenakis) ne s'employent qu'à la guerre, et que par l'économie de ce que vous avez à leur fournir ils y puissent trouver leur subsistance et plus d'avantage qu'à la chasse." Le Ministre à Villebon, Avril, 1692. Two years before, the king had ordered that the Abenakis should be made to attack the English settlements.

378

Procès-verbal de la Prise de Possession du Port Royal, 27 Sept., 1691.

379

Paroles des Sauvages de la Mission de Pentegoet.

380

The best French account of the capture of York is that of Champigny in a letter to the minister, 5 Oct., 1692. His information came from an Abenaki chief, who was present. The journal of Villebon contains an exaggerated account of the affair, also derived from Indians. Compare the English accounts in Mather, Williamson, and Niles. These writers make the number of slain and captives much less than that given by the French. In the contemporary journal of Rev. John Pike, it is placed at 48 killed and 73 taken.

Two fortified houses of this period are still (1875) standing at York. They are substantial buildings of squared timber, with the upper story projecting over the lower, so as to allow a vertical fire on the heads of assailants. In one of them some of the loopholes for musketry are still left open. They may or may not have been originally enclosed by palisades.

381

Villebon, Journal de ce qui s'est passé à l'Acadie, 1691, 1692.

382

Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Sept., 1692.

383

The ravages committed by the Abenakis in the preceding year among the scattered farms of Maine and New Hampshire are said by Frontenac to have been "impossible to describe." Another French writer says that they burned more than 200 houses.

384

Villebon, Journal de ce qui s'est passé à l'Acadie, 1691, 1692; Mather, Magnalia, II. 613; Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., II. 67; Williamson, History of Maine, I. 631; Bourne, History of Wells, 213; Niles, Indian and French Wars, 229. Williamson, like Sylvanus Davis, calls Portneuf Burneffe or Burniffe. He, and other English writers, call La Brognerie Labocree. The French could not recover his body, on which, according to Niles and others, was found a pouch "stuffed full of relics, pardons, and indulgences." The prisoner Diamond told the captors that there were thirty men in the sloops. They believed him, and were cautious accordingly. There were, in fact, but fourteen. Most of the fighting was on the tenth. On the evening of that day, Convers received a reinforcement of six men. They were a scouting party, whom he had sent a few days before in the direction of Salmon River. Returning, they were attacked, when near the garrison house, by a party of Portneuf's Indians. The sergeant in command instantly shouted, "Captain Convers, send your men round the hill, and we shall catch these dogs." Thinking that Convers had made a sortie, the Indians ran off, and the scouts joined the garrison without loss.

385

"Le 18me (Août) un sauvage anglois fut pris au bas de la rivière de St. Jean. Je le donnai à nos sauvages pour estre brulé, ce qu'ils firent le lendemain. On ne peut rien adjouter aux tourmens qu'ils luy firent souffrir." Villebon, Journal, 1691, 1692.

386

Champigny au Ministre, 4 Nov., 1693.

387

Frontenac au Ministre, 25 Oct., 1693.

388

Lagny, Mémoire sur l'Acadie, 1692; Mémoire sur l'Enlèvement de Saint-Castin; Frontenac au Ministre, 25 Oct., 1693; Relation de ce qui s'est passè de plus remarquable, 1690, 1691 (capture of Nelson); Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Sept., 1692; Champigny au Ministre, 15 Oct., 1692. Champigny here speaks of Nelson as the most audacious of the English, and the most determined on the destruction of the French. Nelson's letter to the authorities of Boston is printed in Hutchinson, I. 338. It does not warn them of an attempt against Pemaquid, of the rebuilding of which he seems not to have heard, but only of a design against the seaboard towns. Compare N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 555. In the same collection is a Memorial on the Northern Colonies, by Nelson, a paper showing much good sense and penetration. After an imprisonment of four and a half years, he was allowed to go to England on parole; a friend in France giving security of 15,000 livres for his return, in case of his failure to procure from the king an order for the fulfilment of the terms of the capitulation of Port Royal. (Le Ministre à Bégon, 13 Jan., 1694.) He did not succeed, and the king forbade him to return. It is characteristic of him that he preferred to disobey the royal order, and thus incur the high displeasure of his sovereign, rather than break his parole and involve his friend in loss. La Hontan calls him a "fort galant homme." There is a portrait of him at Boston, where his descendants are represented by the prominent families of Derby and Borland.

389

For the treaty in full, Mather, Magnalia, II. 625.

390

The state of feeling among the Abenakis is shown in a letter of Thury to Frontenac, 11 Sept., 1694, and in the journal of Villebon for 1693.

391

Estat de Munitions, etc., pour les Sauvages de l'Acadie, 1693.

392

Villebon, Mémoire, Juillet, 1694; Instruction du Sr. de Villebon au Sr. de Villieu.

393

Woodman's garrison house is still standing, having been carefully preserved by his descendants.

394

"Casser des testes à la surprise après s'estre divisés en plusieurs bandes de quatre au cinq, ce qui ne peut manquer de faire un bon effect." Villieu, Relation.

395

"Dans cette assemblée M. de Villieu avec 4 sauvages qu'il avoit amenés de l'Accadie présenta à Monsieur le Comte de Frontenac 13 chevelures angloises." Callières au Ministre, 19 Oct., 1694.

396

The principal authority for the above is the very curious Relation du Voyage fait par le Sieur de Villieu … pour faire la Guerre aux Anglois au printemps de l'an 1694. It is the narrative of Villieu himself, written in the form of a journal, with great detail. He also gives a brief summary in a letter to the minister, 7 Sept. The best English account is that of Belknap, in his History of New Hampshire. Cotton Mather tells the story in his usual unsatisfactory and ridiculous manner. Pike, in his journal, says that ninety-four persons in all were killed or taken. Mather says, "ninety four or a hundred." The Provincial Record of New Hampshire estimates it at eighty. Charlevoix claims two hundred and thirty, and Villieu himself but a hundred and thirty-one. Champigny, Frontenac, and Callières, in their reports to the court, adopt Villieu's statements. Frontenac says that the success was due to the assurances of safety which Phips had given the settlers.

In the Massachusetts archives is a letter to Phips, written just after the attack. The devastation extended six or seven miles. There are also a number of depositions from persons present, giving a horrible picture of the cruelties practised.

The Indian tribes of Acadia.—The name Abenaki is generic, and of very loose application. As employed by the best French writers at the end of the seventeenth century, it may be taken to include the tribes from the Kennebec eastward to the St. John. These again may be sub-divided as follows. First, the Canibas (Kenibas), or tribes of the Kennebec and adjacent waters. These with kindred neighboring tribes on the Saco, the Androscoggin, and the Sheepscot, have been held by some writers to be the Abenakis proper, though some of them, such as the Sokokis or Pequawkets of the Saco, spoke a dialect distinct from the rest. Secondly, the tribes of the Penobscot, called Tarratines by early New England writers, who sometimes, however, give this name a more extended application. Thirdly, the Malicites (Marechites) of the St. Croix and the St. John. These, with the Penobscots or Tarratines, are the Etchemins of early French waiters. All these tribes speak dialects of Algonquin, so nearly related that they understand each other with little difficulty. That eminent Indian philologist, Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull, writes to me: "The Malicite, the Penobscot, and the Kennebec, or Caniba, are dialects of the same language, which may as well be called Abenaki. The first named differs more considerably from the other two than do these from each other. In fact the Caniba and the Penobscot are merely provincial dialects, with no greater difference than is found in two English counties." The case is widely different with the Micmacs, the Souriquois of the French, who occupy portions of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and who speak a language which, though of Algonquin origin, differs as much from the Abenaki dialects as Italian differs from French, and was once described to me by a Malicite (Passamaquoddy) Indian as an unintelligible jargon.

397

"Ce coup est très-avantageux, parcequ'il rompte tous les pour-parlers de paix entre nos sauvages et les Anglois. Les Anglois sont au désespoir de ce qu'ils ont tué jusqu'aux enfants au berceau." Villebon au Ministre, 19 Sept., 1694.

398

The people of Beaubassin had taken an oath of allegiance to England in 1690, and pleaded it as a reason for exemption from plunder; but it appears by French authorities that they had violated it (Observations sur les Depêches touchant l'Acadie, 1695), and their priest Baudoin had led a band of Micmacs to the attack of Wells (Villebon, Journal). When the "Bostonnais" captured Port Royal, they are described by the French as excessively irritated by the recent slaughter at Salmon Falls, yet the only revenge they took was plundering some of the inhabitants.

399

Tibièrge, Mémoire sur l'Acadie, 1695.

400

"Les témoignages qu'on a rendu à Sa Majesté de l'affection et du zêle du Sr. de Thury, missionaire chez les Canibas (Abenakis), pour son service, et particulièrement dans l'engagement où il a mis les Sauvages de recommencer la guerre contre les Anglois, m'oblige de vous prier de luy faire une plus forte part sur les 1,500 livres de gratification que Sa Majesté accorde pour les ecclésiastiques de l'Acadie." Le Ministre à l'Évesque de Québec, 16 Avril, 1695.

"Je suis bien aise de me servir de cette occasion pour vous dire que j'ay esté informé, non seulement de vostre zêle et de vostre application pour vostre mission, et du progrès qu'elle fait pour l'avancement de la religion avec les sauvages, mais encore de vos soins pour les maintenir dans le service de Sa Majesté et pour les encourager aux expeditions de guerre." Le Ministre à Thury, 23 Avril, 1697. The other letter to Thury, written two years before, is of the same tenor.

401

Mather, Magnalia, II. 629. Compare Dummer, Memorial, 1709, in Mass. Hist. Coll., 3 Ser., I., and the same writer's Letter to a Noble Lord concerning the Late Expedition to Canada, 1712. Dr. Charles T. Jackson, the geologist, when engaged in the survey of Maine in 1836, mentions, as an example of the simplicity of the Acadians of Madawaska, that one of them asked him "if Bethlehem, where Christ was born, was not a town in France." First Report on the Geology of Maine, 72. Here, perhaps, is a tradition from early missionary teaching.

402

The famous Ouréhaoué, who had been for years under the influence of the priests, and who, as Charlevoix says, died "un vrai Chrétien," being told on his death-bed how Christ was crucified by the Jews, exclaimed with fervor: "Ah! why was not I there? I would have revenged him: I would have had their scalps." La Potherie, IV. 91. Charlevoix, after his fashion on such occasions, suppresses the revenge and the scalping, and instead makes the dying Christian say, "I would have prevented them from so treating my God."

The savage custom of forcing prisoners to run the gauntlet, and sometimes beating them to death as they did so, was continued at two, if not all, of the mission villages down to the end of the French domination. General Stark of the Revolution, when a young man, was subjected to this kind of torture at St. Francis, but saved himself by snatching a club from one of the savages, and knocking the rest to the right and left as he ran. The practice was common, and must have had the consent of the priests of the mission.

At the Sulpitian mission of the Mountain of Montreal, unlike the rest, the converts were taught to speak French and practise mechanical arts. The absence of such teaching in other missions was the subject of frequent complaint, not only from Frontenac, but from other officers. La Motte-Cadillac writes bitterly on the subject, and contrasts the conduct of the French priests with that of the English ministers, who have taught many Indians to read and write, and reward them for teaching others in turn, which they do, he says, with great success. Mémoire contenant une Description détaillée de l'Acadie, etc., 1693. In fact, Eliot and his co-workers took great pains in this respect. There were at this time thirty Indian churches in New England, according to the Diary of President Stiles, cited by Holmes.

403

Thury à Frontenac, 11 Sept., 1694.

404

Villebon, Journal, 1694-1696.

405

N. Y. Col Docs., IX. 613, 616, 642, 643; La Potherie, III. 258; Calières au Ministre, 25 Oct., 1695; Rev. John Pike to Governor and Council, 7 Jan., 1694 (1695), in Johnston, Hist. of Bristol and Bremen; Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., II. 81, 90.

406

Baudoin, Journal d'un Voyage fait avec M. d'Iberville. Baudoin was an Acadian priest, who accompanied the expedition, which he describes in detail. Relation de ce qui s'est passé, etc., 1695, 1696; Des Goutins au Ministre, 23 Sept., 1696; Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., II. 89; Mather, Magnalia, II. 633. A letter from Chubb, asking to be released from prison, is preserved in the archives of Massachusetts. I have examined the site of the fort, the remains of which are still distinct.

407

Mémoire sur l'Entreprise de Boston, pour M. le Marquis de Nesmond, Versailles, 21 Avril, 1697; Instruction à M. le Marquis de Nesmond, même date; Le Roy à Frontenac, même date; Le Roy à Frontenac et Champigny 27 Avril, 1697; Le Ministre à Nesmond, 28 Avril, 1697; Ibid., 15 Juin, 1697; Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Oct., 1697; Carte de Baston, par le Sr. Franquelin, 1697. This is the map made for the use of the expedition. A fac-simile of it is before me. The conquest of New York had originally formed part of the plan. Lagny au Ministre, 20 Jan., 1695. Even as it was, too much was attempted, and the scheme was fatally complicated by the operations at Newfoundland. Four years before, a projected attack on Quebec by a British fleet, under Admiral Wheeler, had come to nought from analogous causes.

The French spared no pains to gain accurate information as to the strength of the English settlements. Among other reports on this subject there is a curious Mémoire sur les Établissements anglois au delà de Pemaquid, jusqu'a Baston. It was made just after the capture of Pemaquid, with a view to farther operations. Saco is described as a small fort a league above the mouth of the river Saco, with four cannon, but fit only to resist Indians. At Wells, it says, all the settlers have sought refuge in four petits forts, of which the largest holds perhaps 20 men, besides women and children. At York, all the people have gathered into one fort, where there are about 40 men. At Portsmouth there is a fort, of slight account, and about a hundred houses. This neighborhood, no doubt including Kittery, can furnish at most about 300 men. At the Isles of Shoals there are some 280 fishermen, who are absent, except on Sundays. In the same manner, estimates are made for every village and district as far as Boston.