Conquest of New France

“ Thus, instead of the support on which they calculated, the invading army was to encounter a resolute and united foe. Nor were the causes of Canadian loyalty far to seek. The French population, by nature loyal and content, were unwilling to sever the ties of noble monarchical tradition binding them to the past, and embark upon the troubled seas of American politics, there to be lost among loose and powerful majorities out of sympathy with their conservative ideals, their temperament, and those racial rights so fully acknowledged by England after the Conquest. ”

“ They were, of course, greatly aided by the fleet under Warren, and the achievement was a joint triumph of army and navy. New England alone, however, had the credit of conceiving and of arousing others to carry out a brilliant exploit.
Victory inspires to further victory. The British, exultant after Louisbourg, were resolved to make 88 an end of French power in America. “Delenda est Canada!” cried Governor Shirley to the General Court of Massachusetts, and the response of the members was the voting of men and money on a scale that involved the bankruptcy of the Commonwealth. ”

“ There was now no danger to the English in America from the French peril which had made insecure the borders of Massachusetts, of New York, of Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and had brought widespread desolation and sorrow. With the removal of the menace went the need of help and defenses for the colonies from the motherland. The French belief that there was a natural antipathy between the English of the Old World and the English of the New was, in reality, based on the fact of a likeness so great that neither would accept control or patronage from the other. ”

“ To men thus obsessed by the greatness of their own ruler it seemed no impossible task to overthrow a few English colonies in America of whose King their own was the patron and the paymaster. 29 The world of high politics has never been conspicuous for its knowledge of human nature. A strong blow from a strong arm would, it was believed both at Versailles and Quebec, shatter forever a weak rival and give France the prize of North America. Officers in Canada talked loftily of the ease with which France might master all the English colonies. ”

“ The state of New France was such as to demand the highest qualities in the man to whose rule it was intrusted: trade languished, agriculture was interrupted by savage aggression, and the very existence of the colony threatened by the growing power of the formidable Iroquois confederacy. At the same time, a plan for the reduction of New York was being organized in Paris, which would inevitably call for the co-operation of the colonial subjects of France, and, in the event of failure, leave them to bear the brunt of the dangerous quarrel. ”

“ The King was flattered into thinking that personally he was swaying the affairs 157 of Europe and took delight in deceiving his ministers and working behind their backs. While events in America were making war between France and Britain inevitable, France was being tied to an ally who could give her little aid. She must spend herself to fight Austria’s battles on the land, while her real interests required that she should build up her fleet to fight on the sea the great adversary across the English Channel. ”

“ The warships, hovering off the coast, would then enter New York harbor at the same time that the land forces made their attack. The village, for it was hardly more than this, contained, as the French believed, only some two hundred houses and four hundred fighting men and it was thought that a month would suffice to complete this whole work of conquest. Once victors, the French were to show no pity. ”

“ New England was a copy of Old England and New France a copy of Old France. There was, as yet, no “peevish and touchy humour” at either Quebec or Versailles in respect to political rights.
Canada, in spite of its scanty population, was better equipped for war than was any of the English colonies. The French were largely explorers and hunters, familiar with hardship and danger and led by men with a love of adventure. The English, on the other hand, were chiefly traders and farmers who disliked and dreaded the horrors of war. ”

“ They came for trade, planted themselves at the mouths of the chief rivers, unpacked their goods, and waited for the natives to come to barter with them. For many years the natives came, since they must have the knives, hatchets, and firearms of Europe. To share this profitable trade the French, now going overland to the north from Quebec, now sailing into Hudson Bay by the Straits, attacked the English; and on those dreary waters, long before the Great West was known, there had been many a naval 109 battle, many a hand-to-hand fight for forts and their rich prize of furs. ”

“ In the midst of it all, death was slowly creeping upon the central figure of so many stormy scenes. The treaty concluded at Ryswick in 1697, and proclaimed in Canada, improved the position of the [Pg 174] French in America, encouraging them to new aspirations of conquest. Already on the brink of the grave, the indomitable Frontenac cast his challenge in the teeth of New England, claiming the Iroquois as the recalcitrant subjects of Louis XIV. The gage was duly taken, and although the challenger could not await the issue, his visor remained closed till the end. ”

“ Lawrence and occupied the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. We can hardly doubt that the English colonies, united by a common deadly peril, could have held against France most of the Atlantic coast. But she might well have divided with them North America; and today the lands north of the Ohio and westward beyond the Ohio to the Pacific Ocean might have been French. The two nations on the brink of war in 1754 were playing for mighty stakes; and victory was to the power which had control of the sea. France had a great army, Britain a great fleet. ”

“ Catholics, whether English or Dutch, were to be left undisturbed if not too numerous and if they would take the oath of allegiance to Louis XIV and show some promise of keeping it. Rich Protestants were to be held for ransom. All the other inhabitants, except those whom the French might find useful for their own purposes, were to be driven out of the colony, homeless wanderers, to be scattered far so that they could not combine to recover what they had lost. With New York taken, New England would be so weakened that in time it too would fall. ”

“ The only regions to which England has any just claim are Acadia, Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay, ceded by France under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This weak cession all true Frenchmen regret and England must hand the territories back. She owes France compensation for her long occupation of lands not really hers. If she makes immediate restitution, the King of France, generous and kind, will forego some of his rights and allow England to retain a strip some fifty miles wide extending from Maine to Florida. France has the right to the whole of the interior. ”

“ Other colonies, too, were eager for a cause which had won a success so dazzling, and some eight thousand men were promised for an attack on Canada, proud and valiant Massachusetts contributing nearly one-half of the total number. The old plan was to be followed. New York was to lead in an attack by way of Lake Champlain. New England was to collect its forces at Louisbourg. Here a British fleet should come, carrying eight battalions of British regulars, and, with Warren in command, the whole armada should proceed to Quebec. ”

“ They could be bought off and bribed for a time, but there was never to be any such thing as their going back to their own country and letting France alone for good and all. But as they gained at length whole tracts of country, instead of the little wealth of a few men to take away in their ships as at first, they began to settle down in their new lands and to become conquerors and colonists instead of mere plunderers. Instead of continually ravaging and attacking the kingdoms, they slowly became the owners and occupiers of the conquered territory ”

“ The king of France, however, saw clearly what his next move should be, and he sent to propose peace to Henry on the basis of a restoration of conquests on both sides. Henry was ever ready for peace, and a new conference took place at Chatillon on the Indre, where it was found that Philip's proposition was the exchange of his conquests in Berri for those of Richard in Toulouse, and the handing over to him of the castle of Pacy, near Mantes, as a pledge that the treaty would be kept. ”

“ They traded with the Indians and acquired wealth, and for their greater convenience they made purchases in the Old World. Thus, from the first days almost, the New England Colonies were self-contained, while New France depended on Europe to a degree amazing and pathetic. This fact strikes the keynote of the French régime, explaining, as it does, most of the trials and tribulations of New France in its perennial warfare with the Iroquois, and in the later friction with New England. ”

“ The destiny of North America might, indeed, well have been other than it is. A France strong on the sea, able to bring across to America great forces, might have held, at any rate, her place on the St. ”

“ It was not only in the colonies and on the seas that the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had seemed merely a truce destined to be soon broken; hostilities had never ceased in India or Canada; English vessels scoured the world, capturing, in spite of treaties, French merchant-ships; in Europe and on the continent, all the sovereigns were silently preparing for new efforts; only the government of King Louis XV., intrenched behind its disinterestedness in the negotiations, and ignoring the fatal influences of weakness and vanity, believed itself henceforth beyond the reach of a fresh war. ”

“ In that time Pierre Radisson drew ever closer to me and to Ruth, sitting often with us and talking much of his travels and adventures, one hand on Grim and the other clasping mine or Ruth's. On one of these occasions I asked him about Gib o' Clarclach, called The Pike.
"The man is of your own country," answered Radisson, "though most of his life has been spent among the French. It was in New France I found him first, and he was a member of the party that went with me from Montreal to the fur country. He was but a lad then, and of evil ways, but a good fighter and of great resource. ”

“ Any presumption that Great Britain, after planning the great expedition against Louisiana, would have, within a few weeks following the final dispatch of the military forces, signed a peace treaty, recalling those forces from an attained, long-dreamed-of conquest, is a reflection upon the intelligence of the British Government of 1814-15. ”

“ The revolt of the American colonies stimulated the French government to join the rebels. The hope of doing evil to England has always been enough to excite the hostility of foreigners. France was in alliance with us; but what was good faith to the temptation of inflicting an injury on England? An act of intolerable treachery was committed; France, unprovoked, suddenly sent a fleet and army to the aid of America, and the French war began, to the utter astonishment of Europe. ”

“ The French Revolution had for some years been gathering strength. In the autumn of 1792 France had been declared a Republic; and the execution of the King American sympathy with France. on the 21st of January, 1793, was followed on the 1st of February by a declaration of war against Great Britain. The French also declared war against Spain, the power which now held New Orleans and Louisiana west of the Mississippi. The position in North America became at once very critical and very dangerous. Popular feeling in the United States ran strongly in favour of France. ”

“ A Royalist would say, 'Ah, it is very impolitic in the Allies to think of taking any territory or money from France, for good Frenchmen, united under the Bourbons, will become more formidable than the nation ever was under Bonaparte, and woe to Europe, in the course of a year or two, for what she now inflicts on us.' A military man would gurgle a sacré out of his throat, and anticipate the day of revenge, under some new leader, when France would show that she had not been beaten, although she had been betrayed.... ”

“ Up to this time the war was purely an American one. France and Britain were at peace, and neither country sent soldiers to help their colonies. It was the settlers, the farmers, fishermen and fur traders of New England and New France who fought each other.
And in this the French had one great advantage over the British. The French were united, the British were not. New France was like one great colony in which every man was ready to answer the call to battle. ”

“ In the barque was great store of furs bartered from the Indians, and her master, one de Croissac, sought only to win home again safe ere the Company's ships came from England in the spring.
They were warm-hearted men, these Frenchmen, and gave us of their best. I told de Croissac all our tale, whereat he marveled much, and promised to take us safe to Montreal, whence we could get ship for France or New England, and so home again. Moreover, he knew of the de Courbelles, and that Ruth's heritance was great. ”