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Old Quebec: The Fortress of New France, a non-fiction book by Gilbert Parker |
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Chapter 11. The Beginning Of The End |
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_ CHAPTER XI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END The growing power of England, on the sea, in America, and in India, was only equalled by the increasing jealousy of the Catholic nations of Europe, and especially of her ancient rival France. The question of the Austrian succession, in which these two conspicuous opposites stood for and against Maria Theresa, supplied a pretext for war; yet it hardly concealed the real purpose of each power to destroy the other; and the battles of Fontenoy, Nollwitz, and Dettingen, though fought in the heart of Europe, were as decisive for an Eastern and a Western empire as was the warfare on the frontiers of India, or the sullen conflict in the Ohio valley. Across the Atlantic, France, as usual, dealt the first blow. With a thousand soldiers from Louisbourg, Du Vivier assailed Annapolis Royal; but neither by investment nor assault could the French overcome the small but indomitable garrison; and at length, after weeks of useless cannonade, the besiegers stole back to their stronghold in Cape Breton. This gallant repulse of a desperate attempt to regain Acadia prompted New England to an expedition against the strong fortress of Louisbourg--the standing menace to peaceful colonial development. Were it but reduced, the English seaboard would be henceforth free from all danger of French attack. Such large considerations fired the English colonists with an enthusiasm which took little thought for the grave dangers attending such an enterprise. Excepting the citadel of Quebec itself, there was no fortress on the American continent to compare in strength with Louisbourg. Built on a narrow rocky cape which projected out into the Atlantic, the ocean girded it on three sides, and on the fourth side a morass made it difficult of approach. A powerful fortification, known as the Island Battery, protected the mouth of the harbour, and the guns of Grand Battery frowned over the inner basin. The French garrison numbered thirteen hundred chosen men. Such was the fortress which Governor Shirley of Massachusetts planned to destroy, and against which the daring Pepperell presently threw the ill-trained levies of New England. One night, when the citadel of Louisbourg was brilliant with festivity, the colonists dancing and all unconscious of danger, a hundred transports from New England entered Gabarus Bay. The citizens would have held it a foolish dream that any attempt could be made to capture Louisbourg, but there, in the early morning of April 30th, 1745, Pepperell's army was disembarking before their eyes, and in the offing Commodore Warren, with four British battleships, stood blockading the harbour. The bells of the martial little town rang madly in alarm, and the booming of cannon at once brought the dismayed citizens to the ramparts. Without loss of time Pepperell began to make his way across the marshes lying between his camp and Louisbourg, erecting batteries as he went to answer the cannonade of the garrison. Each morning saw the intrepid besiegers closer to the walls, having advanced their intrenchments under cover of the darkness. A daring assault had meanwhile carried the grand battery, and from a salient post on Light-house Point Pepperell's guns were soon able to silence the island redoubt at the mouth of the harbour. The battle swayed from side to side as the desperate garrison made a sortie, or the besiegers impetuously rushed to the attack. But even the walls of Louisbourg could not for long withstand that furious and ceaseless cannonade, which shattered the heaviest bastions; and when the gallant fort could hold out no longer, a white flag fluttered from the broken ramparts, and the brave Duchambon, his veteran garrison decimated, marched out with the honours of war. The loss of Louisbourg was the severest blow yet sustained by New France, and without delay a powerful expedition was organised to recapture the fortress and take revenge upon the enemy. No such formidable and menacing armada had ever left the shores of France as now sailed out of Rochelle, under command of the Duc d'Anville. Thirty-nine ships of the line convoyed transports bearing a veteran army westward; and the English colonists trembled for its coming. However, the advance tidings of this terrible flotilla were all that reached the New World; for hardly had D'Anville lost sight of the French coast before two of his ships fell a prey to British gunboats, and a succession of storms scattered the rest in all directions. At length, after weeks of delay, the surviving vessels struggled one by one into the harbour of Chedabucto. In deadly dejection, D'Anville had succumbed to apoplexy; moreover, his successor, the Admiral D'Estournelle, had committed suicide; and the new commander was La Jonquiere, a distinguished naval officer, then on his way to Quebec to assume the office of Governor-General. His sorry fleet notwithstanding, La Jonquiere decided to strike a blow at Annapolis. Thither he shaped his course; but again a violent storm overtook them on the way, and the ships, unable to weather the tempest, steered straight for France once more. Even in the face of these dark disasters France was unwilling to abandon Louisbourg, and in 1747 another powerful naval force under La Jonquiere set out for Acadia. Like its magnificent but hapless predecessor, this fleet had hardly cleared the Bay of Biscay before it came to grief. Falling in with a British squadron under Admiral Anson off Cape Finisterre, it was almost totally destroyed. In other quarters, however, France had received amends from fortune, and in the following year the European powers signed the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louisbourg being restored to France in exchange for the Indian province of Madras, which had passed from English hands during the war. To New England, whose blood and valour had achieved the demolition of the frowning fortress, this restitution was a sorrowful blow. But only ten years were to pass before this menace was removed for ever. La Jonquiere, Governor-designate of Quebec, had been taken prisoner at the naval battle of Finisterre; and, pending his release, the Marquis de la Galissoniere presided over the fortunes, or misfortunes, of New France. The indefiniteness of the western boundary between French and English territory was perhaps the chief source of his perplexity; and to put an end to persistent English encroachments in the valley of the Ohio, Galissoniere sent Celoron de Bienville, a colonial captain, to establish a formal boundary line. This expedition nominally accomplished its purpose; but, judging from the report submitted to the Governor of Quebec, its chief result was a painful revelation. It was shown that, in spite of an expensive chain of fortified posts, the great West was fast slipping from the martial grasp of New France, and passing under the stronger influence of English trade. The huge, unwieldy empire was clearly falling to pieces, and La Jonquiere's arrival in Quebec brought no improvement to the situation. Of high merit as a naval officer, the new Governor had less distinction in morals, and he had frankly come to Canada to mend his fortune. His administration marks the advent of that official robbery which disgraced Quebec and sapped the remaining vitality of the country. Though the country had prospered materially under Vaudreuil, the subsequent war had stopped all progress, and the people were dreaming of empire when they needed bread. To-day, walking down Palace Hill and turning near the bottom into the Rue St. Vallier, you will find yourself close to the site of the ancient intendancy, where the official ruin of New France began. Here it was that Francois Bigot, the evil genius of Quebec, held corrupt sway in the guise of a royal minister. Here stood, in mordant comment, the Palais de Justice, so wickedly profaned by the last of the intendants. Through several fires and two sieges of later generations parts of this ancient structure persisted in surviving. Only a few years ago the heavier timber still hanging together was called "The King's Wood-yard." But nothing now remains of it, and imagination only summons the haunting spirit of this creature of La Pompadour, whose mischievous influence lost Louis XV his colonial empire, and whose infamies sealed the fate of the Bourbons. Francois Bigot arrived at Quebec in 1748, a year in which the fortunes of New France had reached so low an ebb that nothing but the most loyal administration might now save her. Even then a strong honest man might possibly have weathered the storm already lowering over this New World dominion; but, with pitiable perverseness, every trait in Bigot's character helped it on to ruin. In private life vain, selfish, heartless, extravagant to the point of folly; in public life mercenary and venal beyond shame--such were the characteristics of the man whom Louis's favourite chose to be civil administrator at Quebec, where the patriotic faith and labour of a gallant and high-hearted people were rewarded by plunder, mis-rule, and that neglect which gave them at last into the hands of the conqueror. On his arrival, the Intendant speedily surrounded himself by sycophants and knaves who joined him in the reckless pursuit of pleasure, and became ready instruments to further his darker designs. A man of ability, adroitness, and culture, Bigot might have won public favour, but his habits instantly estranged the better people of the colony. The _honnetes gens_, a party which included the great Montcalm, the brave Bougainville, La Corne de St. Luc, M. de Levis, and M. de Saint-Ours, would have nothing to do with him, and he was left in the hands of servile flatterers, ready enough to serve him. Deschenaux, his _fidus Achates_, was a cobbler's son, whom experience alone had educated and fate and unscrupulousness had advanced. Cadet, his commissary-general, was the gross son of a butcher, and had spent his dissatisfied youth in the pasture-fields of Charlesbourg. Hughes Pean was the town major of Quebec, but his chief hold on Bigot lay in the beauty of his wife, the charming Angelique des Meloises. This woman, whose beauty, wit, and _diablerie_ are a subject of popular tradition, possessed a fascination which gave her an influence at the intendancy analogous to that exerted at Versailles by her notorious contemporary, La Pompadour. Ruled by this coterie of dark spirits, Quebec became the scene of a profligacy unparalleled in her history. The Palace, instead of being a hall of justice, was the abode of debauchery and gambling; and the mad revellers, whom a cynical fate had placed at the head of affairs, allowed the ship of state to drift upon the rocks. Even the fine palace within the city gave too little scope for the diversion of the Intendant and his confederates, and, accordingly, a rustic chateau was built near the high hill of Charlesbourg. Here they paused when tired of the chase, and the revels of the mysterious _Maison de la Montagne_ added sad but vivid colouring to the closing decade of French rule. To-day there is an air of pathetic interest about the picturesque ruin of Chateau Bigot. The high walls are covered with ivy, and its graded walks and beds of flowers have disappeared long since. The immense thickness of the walls has enabled "Beaumanoir" to elude destroying Time, but only enough now remains to suggest the hapless revels of a bygone day. These things, however, are of the private sins of Bigot and his _entourage_. Their public malefactions were more flagrant. The Intendant's salary could by no means meet his appalling extravagances, and he therefore robbed the country and the King by falsifying official accounts as they passed through his hands. As Intendant it was his duty to supply the needs of those chains of forts by which France held her vast dominion; but while he shamelessly neglected these outposts, he did not fail to debit the royal treasury for supplies which were never forwarded. In this way he and his intriguing friends enriched themselves. They presently adopted another and more contemptible device. Constant hostility towards the British had deprived the farms of their cultivators, and the supply of wheat was greatly reduced throughout the colony. Every day the land grew more distressed, and it was not difficult to foresee a time of famine. Not far from _Le Palais_ stood a huge building which went by the name of the King's Storehouse, and the Intendant resolved to fill this with wheat. He had an ancient precedent in Egyptian history, but his motive was not that of provident Joseph. Fixing the price of grain by an edict, and imposing penalties on those who refused to sell, his agents went through the country gathering up maize and wheat; and when famine came at length, the starving people flocked to the warehouse in Lower Town, and were compelled to buy back their grain at exorbitant prices. They called this warehouse _La Friponne_--the Cheat--and they cursed the name of Bigot who had so deceived them. The interesting legend of _Le Chien d'Or_ has its origin in the mercenary practices of this last Intendant of Quebec. Among the merchants of the city was one Nicholas Jaquin, _dit_ Philibert, whose warehouse stood at the top of Mountain Hill, on the site of the present Post-Office. Philibert was one of the _honnetes gens_, and he devoted his wealth and energy to a commercial battle with _La Friponne_, determined to supply the people with food at low prices. The enmity between Philibert and the Intendant was common talk, and over his doorway the merchant had hung, beneath the figure of a dog in bas-relief, the following whimsical quatrain:--
* * * * * Meanwhile the walls and bastions of Louisbourg were rising stronger than ever upon their old foundations, and the French Acadians, relying upon the Cape Breton stronghold and the nearer fortress of Beausejour, grew more and more restless beneath the English yoke. By founding Halifax in 1749, England had taken faster hold upon the peninsula, and through every possible means she had endeavoured to secure the true allegiance of her Acadian subjects. In spite of all these efforts, however, Acadia was sown with treason, and when at last disloyalty became intolerable and dangerous, the innocent as well as the guilty must reap the harvest of tears and bitterness. There could only be one end to it all; and however hard the fate, the land of Acadia now ceased to be the home of its makers, who had been goaded and inveigled into covert rebellion and treason.
The 5th of September, 1755, was a day memorable alike to the Acadians and to those whose bitter duty it was to carry out King George's orders for their expulsion from the peninsula. At three o'clock in the afternoon the peasants of Grand Pre, Piziquid, Chipody, and the other parishes assembled in their chapels to listen to a royal proclamation declaring their lands and houses forfeited to the Crown, and themselves condemned to exile. The scenes following this unexpected order wrung the hearts of the rugged soldiers who were sent to execute the sentence. Reluctantly and forbearingly they carried out the royal command, and soon six thousand Acadians, who had persistently refused allegiance to the English in the vain belief that New France would regain the peninsula, found themselves transported to the English colonies farther south. Those who swore allegiance were left undisturbed; while many, escaping both deportation and the oath of subjection, fled to Quebec. These were doomed, however, to misery far greater than that of their comrades who were set down as strangers among the English colonists. Quebec, which had fomented and abetted their treason, now declined to share the burden of their misfortune. The years of Bigot's _regime_ were the lean years of the city, and this influx of a thousand new starvelings was a most unwelcome addition to the population. Yet even the unfavourable circumstances of the time cannot justify the official neglect and the cruel inhospitality with which the miserable exiles were received in the capital of New France. "In vain," says a chronicler, "they asked that the promises they had received should be kept, and they pleaded the sacrifices they had made for France. All was useless. The former necessity for their services had passed away. They were looked upon as a troublesome people, and if they received assistance they were made to feel that it was only granted out of pity. They were almost reduced to die of famine. The little food they obtained, its bad quality, their natural want of cleanliness, their grief, and their idleness caused the death of many. They were forced to eat boiled leather during the greater part of the winter, and to wait for spring in the hope that their condition would be bettered. On this point they were deceived."[24] "To supplement a miserable daily ration of four ounces of bread and horseflesh," says another writer, "they were obliged to seek scraps in the gutters; and those who survived starvation were brought low with a virulent smallpox, which carried off whole families in its loathsome tumbril."
* * * * * In the meantime, a series of events had happened in the Ohio valley which set the New World on fire. Celoron de Bienville had indeed staked out his boundary line, but the new Governor of Quebec, the Marquis Duquesne, saw clearly that a line of bayonets was the only limit which English expansionists would respect. Accordingly, a strong French force marched into the troublesome valley, and established themselves at a new post called Fort Le Boeuf. The report of this incursion was evil news for Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, the most diligent and watchful of the thirteen governors of the English colonies. Having never ceased to regard Lake Erie as a northern boundary of British territory, this latest invasion on the part of the French was to him beyond endurance, and he forthwith despatched the Adjutant-General of the Virginia Militia to deliver England's protest to the French commander. The messenger was a tall handsome youth of twenty-one, and the message was the first important commission of George Washington. In spite of the studied courtesy of his reception by Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, the English envoy saw the hopelessness of his errand, and hastened back to Williamsburg with his report. Dinwiddie thereupon resolved to meet force with force. Although he scarcely persuaded the disunited colonies to take a serious view of the French invasion, he was presently able to send George Washington back again into the Ohio valley at the head of a company of regulars and three hundred soldiers of the Old Dominion. Meanwhile the French had seized an English trading-post at the junction of the Ohio and Monongahela rivers, and named it Fort Duquesne. This post was Washington's immediate objective, and as he approached it his advance-guard met a French reconnoitring party under Jumonville, sent, it is alleged, by the commandant of Fort Duquesne to warn the Virginians off French soil. The precise purpose served by this handful of Frenchmen has never, however, been fully determined. Jumonville's movements are certainly hard to reconcile with the theory of a peaceful mission, and to Major Washington they certainly appeared hostile. In the sharp fight which followed, Jumonville and nine others were killed, while of the remaining twenty-three only one escaped. By the English, the affair was described as a successful skirmish, by the French as the "_Assassinat de Jumonville_"; for all it meant precipitation of the death-struggle for North America. Anticipating the French attack, Washington fell back upon Great Meadows, and the hasty and inadequate intrenchments which he there threw up received the name of Fort Necessity. Here he awaited an assault with a short supply of ammunition and almost no provisions. Nor was his patience long tried; for nine hundred Frenchmen under Coulon de Villiers, brother of the unfortunate Jumonville, were already marching against him through the woods. Wishing to entice them to an immediate attack, Washington had arrayed his men on the open meadow before the fort; but as his opponent declined to be drawn from the cover of the surrounding hills, the Virginians also took shelter in their shallow intrenchments. A blind fusillade now began in torrents of rain and was maintained for nine hours, punctuated by the booming of a few light swivel guns upon the ramparts. At nightfall, however, the French proposed a parley, and having weighed the chances of his little army against such overwhelming numbers, Washington agreed to capitulate. Next day the English marched out of Fort Necessity with beating drums and flying colours; but heart-sick and weary they toiled back over the mountains to Virginia, leaving the valley of the Ohio in the full possession of the enemy. Moreover, the defeat at Fort Necessity was a double blow, for it threw the fickle Indians back into the arms of the French, a consideration of great weight in border warfare. In Europe the rival powers were still maintaining the semblance of peace, while yet secretly abetting the open enmity of their American colonies. The despatch of Major-General Braddock with two regiments of the line, although accounted for by the lips of diplomacy, was, with equally pacific assurances, promptly checkmated by France. Eighteen ships of war, carrying the six battalions of La Reine, Bourgogne, Languedoc, Guienne, Artois, and Bearn, and convoyed by an auxiliary squadron of nine battleships, were hurried off to New France under the joint command of Baron Dieskau and the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the new Governor of Quebec. As in the case of former expeditions on so large a scale, some of the vessels failed to reach their destination, and two frigates fell into the hands of Admiral Boscawen, who had secret orders to intercept this French flotilla. Braddock and his thousand regulars were now regarded as the salvation of the English colonies, whose representatives had at last agreed upon a scheme for defending their frontiers. The English general, it was decided, should destroy Fort Duquesne, Governor Shirley attacking the French fort of Niagara; while Colonel William Johnson, a settler of the Upper Hudson, and chiefly remarkable for his influence with the Mohawks, was to proceed against Crown Point. None of these intentions was fulfilled in its entirety, although Johnson, in the course of his operations in the district of Lake Champlain, was able to inflict a crushing defeat upon the French under Dieskau, and on the scene of his triumph to erect Fort William Henry. The feature of the summer campaign of 1755 was, however, the fate of Braddock and his column. Setting out from Fort Cumberland on the Potomac, the English General made his way north-westward at the head of twenty-two hundred men, four hundred and fifty of these being veteran Virginians under the command of Colonel George Washington. But the overweening Braddock considered these raw colonials to be the least effective of his troops. From the first the progress of this imposing force was painfully slow. "Instead of pushing on with vigour without regarding a little rough road," writes George Washington, "we were halted to level every mole-hill, and compelled to erect bridges over every brook, by which means we were four days in getting twelve miles." Declining colonial advice, Braddock preferred to regulate his motions by the text-book of war; and as he knew nothing of the country through which he made his way, and still less of the tactics of his foe, the sequel was almost inevitable.
The English troops toiled on, and when the defenceless vanguard was well advanced up the pass, Beaujeu gave the signal which sent down a hail of deadly bullets upon them. Still the redcoats held their ground bravely, firing steady volleys against the hidden foe. By this time the main army also had entered the pass, only to be thrown into instant confusion, their solid ranks offering a target to the French sharpshooters. Bewildered by the converging fire, the column huddled together at the bottom of the pass, while the bullets mowed them down pitilessly. The brave but headstrong general exhorted them to preserve the order of their ranks, and when they would have fled in terror, he beat them back into line with his own sword. The Virginians alone knew how to avert a massacre, and spreading out quickly into skirmish order, they took cover behind the trees and rocks to meet their wily foe on even terms. But the brave and stubborn Braddock was blind to so obvious an expedient, and with oaths he ordered the irregulars back into the death-line.
So ended the summer campaign of 1755; and even Johnson's brilliant success at Fort William Henry could not offset the terrible disaster which had befallen British arms in the valley of the Ohio. _ |
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