Francis Parkman

“ The New England soldier, a growth of sectarian hotbeds, fancied that he was doing the work of God. The army was Israel, and the French were Canaanitish idolaters. Red-hot Calvinism, acting through generations, had modified the transplanted Englishman; and the descendant of the Puritans was never so well pleased as when teaching their duty to other people, whether by pen, voice, or bombshells. The ragged artillerymen, battering the walls of papistical Louisbourg, flattered themselves with the notion that they were champions of gospel truth. ”

“ When Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia, heard what was afoot, he wrote to his brother in Boston, “Fortified towns are hard nuts to crack, and your teeth are not accustomed to it; but some seem to think that forts are as easy taken as snuff.” [66] It has been said of Franklin that while he represented some of the New England qualities, he had no part in that enthusiasm of which our own time saw a crowning example when the cannon opened at Fort Sumter, and which pushes to its end without reckoning chances, counting costs, or heeding the scoffs of ill-wishers. ”

“ For gaining the consent of the Five Nations to the building of a French fort at Niagara, Vaudreuil trusted chiefly to his agent among the Senecas, the bold, skilful, and indefatigable Joncaire, who was naturalized among that tribe, the strongest of the confederacy. Governor Hunter of New York sent Peter Schuyler and Philip Livingston to counteract his influence. The Five Nations, who, conscious of declining power, seemed ready at this time to be all things to all men, declared that they would prevent the French from building at Niagara, which, as they said, would “shut them up as in a prison.” ”

“ The colony had been at peace for twenty years, and except some grizzled Indian fighters of the last war, and some survivors of the Carthagena expedition, nobody had seen service. Few knew well what a fortress was, and nobody knew how to attack one. Courage, energy, good sense, and popularity were the best qualities to be hoped for in the leader. Popularity was indispensable, for the soldiers were all to be volunteers, and they would not enlist under a commander whom they did not like. Shirley’s choice was William Pepperrell, a merchant of Kittery. ”

“ The appearance of D’Anville’s fleet caused great excitement among the Acadians, who thought that they were about to pass again under the Crown of France. Fifty of them went on board the French ships at Chibucto to pilot them to the attack of Annapolis, and to their dismay found that no attack was to be made. When Ramesay, with his Canadians and Indians, took post at Chignecto and built a fort at Baye Verte, on the neck of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, the English power in that part of the colony seemed at an end. ”

“ At eight o’clock on the morning of the fourteenth of February the English filed out of the stone house, and with arms shouldered, drums beating, and colors flying, marched between two ranks of the French, and took the road for Annapolis. The English sick and wounded were sent to the settlement of Rivière-aux-Canards, where, protected by a French guard and attended by an English surgeon, they were to remain till able to reach the British fort. ”

“ If we were rid of the French, he continues, England would soon control America, which would make her first among the nations; and he ventures what now seems the modest prediction that in one or two centuries the British colonies would rival France in population. Even now, he is sure that they would raise twenty thousand men to capture Canada, if the King required it of them, and Warren would be an acceptable commander for the naval part of the expedition; “but,” concludes the governor, “I will take no step without orders from his Majesty.” ”

“ The work could be done only at night or in thick fog, the men being completely exposed to the cannon of the town. Thirteen years after, when General Amherst besieged Louisbourg again, he dragged his cannon to the same hill over the same marsh; but having at his command, instead of four thousand militiamen, eleven thousand British regulars, with all appliances and means to boot, he made a road, with prodigious labor, through the mire, and protected it from the French shot by an epaulement, or lateral earthwork. ”

“ The governor and intendant of Canada wrote to the colonial minister: “The inhabitants, with few exceptions, wish to return under the French dominion, and will not hesitate to take up arms as soon as they see themselves free to do so; that is, as soon as we become masters of Port Royal, or they have powder and other munitions of war, and are backed by troops for their protection against the resentment of the English.” ”

“ The raw New England men went their own way, laughed at trenches and zigzags, and persisted in trusting their lives to the night and the fog. Several writers say that the English engineer Bastide tried to teach them discretion; but this could hardly be, for Bastide, whose station was Annapolis, did not reach Louisbourg till the fifth of June, when the batteries were finished, and the siege was nearly ended. ”

“ Hawks called a council of his effective men. Norton prayed for divine aid and guidance, and then they fell to considering the situation. “Had we all been in health, or had there been only those eight of us that were in health, I believe every man would willingly have stood it out to the last. For my part, I should,” writes the manful chaplain. But besides the sick and wounded, there were three women and five children, who, if the fort were taken by assault, would no doubt be butchered by the Indians, but who might be saved by a capitulation. ”

“ One or two examples will show the nature of all.
In the valley of the little river Ashuelot, a New Hampshire affluent of the Connecticut, was a rude border-settlement which later years transformed into a town noted in rural New England for kindly hospitality, culture without pretence, and good-breeding without conventionality. [234] In 1746 the place was in all the rawness and ugliness of a backwoods hamlet. The rough fields, lately won from the virgin forest, showed here and there, among the stumps, a few log-cabins, roofed with slabs of pine, spruce, or hemlock. ”

“ But Massachusetts grew tired of defending lands that had been adjudged to New Hampshire, and as the season drew towards an end, Number Four was left again to its own keeping. The settlers saw no choice but to abandon a place which they were too few to defend, and accordingly withdrew to the older settlements, after burying such of their effects as would bear it, and leaving others to their fate. Six men, a dog, and a cat remained to keep the fort. Towards midwinter the human part of the garrison also withdrew, and the two uncongenial quadrupeds were left alone. ”

“ From La Vérendrye’s time to our own, this name “villages” has always been given to the encampments of the wandering people of the plains. All these nomadic communities joined them, and they moved together southward, till they reached at last the lodges of the long-sought Horse Indians. They found them in the extremity of distress and terror. Their camp resounded with howls and wailings; and not without cause, for the Snakes, or Shoshones,—a formidable people living farther westward,—had lately destroyed most of their tribe. ”

“ In July a report came from Acadia that from forty to fifty thousand men were to attack Canada; and on the first of August a prisoner lately taken at Saratoga declared that there were thirty-two war-ships at Boston ready to sail against Quebec, and that thirteen thousand men were to march at once from Albany against Montreal. “If all these stories are true,” writes the Canadian journalist, “all the English on this continent must be in arms.” ”

“ When the English, proceeds Father Bobé, have restored Port Royal to us, which they are bound to do, though we ceded it by the treaty, a French governor should be at once set over it, with a commission to command as far as Cape Cod, which would include Boston. We should also fortify ourselves, “in a way to stop the English, who have long tried to seize on French America, of which they know the importance, and of which,” he observes with much candor, “they [Pg 48] would make a better use than the French do. ”

“ The troops were re-embarked; five hospital ships were devoted to the sick; the “Parfait,” a fifty-gun ship no longer serviceable, was burned, as were several smaller vessels, and on the fourth of October what was left of the fleet sailed out of Chibucto Harbor and steered for Annapolis, piloted by Acadians. The flag of truce from Louisbourg was compelled for a time to bear them company, and Joseph Foster of Beverly, an exchanged prisoner on board of her, deposed that as the fleet held its way, he saw “a great number of dead persons” dropped into the sea every day. ”

“ The successful defence of the most exposed place on the frontier was welcome news throughout New England, and Commodore Charles Knowles, who was then at Boston, sent Stevens a silver-hilted sword in recognition of his conduct. The settlers of Number Four, who soon returned to their backwoods home, were so well pleased with this compliment to one of their fellows that they gave to the settlement the baptismal name of the Commodore, and the town that has succeeded the hamlet of Number Four is Charlestown to this day. ”

“ Hence Shirley regarded the conversion of the Acadians to Protestantism as a political measure of the first importance, and proposed the establishment of schools in the province to that end. Thus far his recommendations are perfectly legitimate; but when he adds that rewards ought to be given to Acadians who renounce their faith, few will venture to defend him.
Newcastle would trouble himself with none of his schemes, and Acadia was left to drift with the tide, as before. “I shall finish my troubleing your Grace upon the affairs of Nova Scotia with this letter,” writes the persevering Shirley. ”

“ Now, as before, it was a European, and not an American, quarrel that was to set the world on fire. The War of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1744. When Frederic of Prussia seized Silesia and began that bloody conflict, it meant that packs of howling savages would again spread fire and carnage along the New England border.
[Pg 60] News of the declaration of war reached Louisbourg some weeks before it reached Boston, and the French military governor, Duquesnel, thought he saw an opportunity to strike an unexpected blow for the profit of France and his own great honor. ”

“ Mascarene, commandant at that place, being of French descent, was disposed at first to sympathize with the Acadians and treat them with a lenity that to the members of his council seemed neither fitting nor prudent. He wrote to Shirley: “The French inhabitants are certainly in a very perilous situation, those who pretend to be their friends and old masters having let loose a parcel of banditti to plunder them; whilst, on the other hand, they see themselves threatened with ruin if they fail in their allegiance to the British Government.” ”

“ The young Pepperrell learned what little was taught at the village school, supplemented by a private tutor, whose instructions, however, did not perfect him in English grammar. In the eyes of his self-made father, education was valuable only so far as it could make a successful trader; and on this point he had reason to be satisfied, as his son passed for many years as the chief merchant in New England. ”

“ Those, who are acquainted with the Indian Manner of Life & making War know that one hundred of ’em under Cover of the Woods can confine a very large Frontier within their Garrisons, even tho’ they have Companies continually scouting between one Garrison and another: this is at present the Case of this Province & the other Colonies of New England & New York, tho’ the People there are us’d to the Woods, & the Skulking of the Indians behind the Bushes & in Ditches with their other Wiles, & have large numbers of the Militia constantly upon Guard for their Protection ”

“ Coulon was resolved, however, that at any risk a detachment should cross at once, to stop the roads to Grand Pré, and prevent the English from being warned of his approach; for though the Acadians inclined to the French, and were eager to serve them when the risk was not too great, there were some of them who, from interest or fear, were ready to make favor with the English by carrying them intelligence. Boishébert, with ten Canadians, put out from shore in a canoe, and were near perishing among the drifting ice; but they gained the farther shore at last, and guarded every path to Grand Pré. ”