Rupert's Land

“ The empire of the fur trade Adventurers was not confined to Rupert’s Land, as specified by their charter. Lords of the Outer Marches, these gay Gentlemen Adventurers setting sail over the seas of the Unknown, Soldiers of Fortune with a laugh for life or death carving a path through the wilderness—were not to be checked by the mere fiction of limits set by a charter. They followed the rivers of their bay south to the height of land, and looking over it saw the unoccupied territory of the Great Lakes and the Upper Mississippi. ”

“ Certainly Rupert looked different; so much so, that if they had been endowed with remembrance, the statues would scarcely have known him again, for now he was dressed in the flowing robes of an Arab sheik. These could not, as he knew, suffice to disguise his Western origin. Still, in a desert land, devastated by war, through which few travelled, they might, he hoped, render him less conspicuous to the keen eyes of wandering Arabs, or even of spies surveying his little caravan from the shelter of a bush or the top of a sand-hill a mile or two away. ”

“ The ship which had brought out these immigrants had also carried an able officer of the Company, Robert Semple, a man of parts and culture, who had been appointed to the chief control of all the factories in Rupert's Land.
Influence of the Nor'-Westers over the half-breeds.
The hostile feuds and lawless proceedings of the fur-trading "partisans" had convulsed the whole Indian country throughout its boundaries. The arrival of more immigrants only served to add fresh fuel to the flame. ”

“ The land is virginal, the wind cleaner than elsewhere, and every lake new-born, and each day is the first day. The flowers are less conscious than English flowers, the breezes have nothing to remember, and everything to promise. ”

“ Rupert did not turn squatter, but missionary. It was a great treat for him to have Etheldene to ride with him away out into the bush whenever he heard a tribe had settled down anywhere for a time. Etheldene knew all their ways, and between the two of them they no doubt did much good.
It is owing to such earnest men as Rupert that so great a change has come over the black population, and that so many of them, even as I write, sit humbly at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in their right mind. ”

“ Being married is a very fine thing if you've got such a husband as Rupert; but living along with your husband's people ain't so fine, if you understand me. You see, he's farmer now, and he will have his way—a terrible resolute chap where the land and the things be concerned. But sometimes his mother gets a bit restive at Rupert's orders, and sometimes she says, in her quiet way, as her husband never would have held with this or that. 'Tis a thought awkward now and again, because, you see, Rupert ban't the favourite, and never was. ”

“ Forty-five miles away on a steamboat from Albany returning New Yorkers hung over the rail and wondered if Judgment Day had indeed been sounded for the metropolis of the new world.
Deeply as he had abhorred the town, RoBards felt his heart ache for it now. Pity turned to love, and it seemed abominable that the work and the treasure and the destinies of so many poor people should be annulled in this pure wantonness of destruction.
Odd, that a man should love or hate a city or a nation, or feel sorry for a jumble of buildings or a stretch of land, a shore, or a hill. ”

“ This may have been due to the grey mist and drizzle which curtained off the horizon. But the land was always very slightly rolling, and sometimes almost as uneven as a Surrey common. At first it seemed to be given to mixed farming a good deal; afterwards to wheat, oats, and barley. But a great part is uncultivated prairie-land, grass, with sparse bushes and patches of brushwood and a few rare trees, and continual clumps of large golden daisies. Occasional rough black roads wind through the brush and into the towns, and die into grass tracks along the wire fences. ”

“ It was the signal for a new war.
The owners of the land fell into two classes: those who would not let the water pass through their demesnes at any [Pg 45] price, and those who sought to rob the city by unwarranted demands.
The farmers seemed to RoBards to comport themselves with dignity and love of their own soil, though Chalender denounced them for outrageous selfishness in preferring the integrity of their estates to the health of a vast metropolis. ”

“ You are in a foreign land, for the people have an alien tongue, short stature, the quick, decided, cinematographic quality of movement, and the inexplicable cheerfulness, which mark a foreigner. You might almost be in Siena or some old German town, except that Quebec has her street-cars and grain-elevators to show that she is living. ”

“ There are weather-beaten farm-houses, rolling country, thickets of trees, little hills green and grey in the distance, decorous small fields, orchards, and, I swear, a hedge or two. Most of the towns we went through are a little too vivacious or too pert to be European. But there seemed to be real villages occasionally, and the land had a quiet air of occupation. Men have lived contentedly on this land and died where they were born, and so given it a certain sanctity. ”

“ I have a client who lent a big sum of money on a Georgia plantation, slaves and crops and all. He’s afraid he’s been swindled—afraid the land’s no good—wants an honest opinion from somebody that knows soil when he sees it. So I’m sending you. And I’m sending your wife along to keep you out of mischief.”
“But Georgia! Gosh, that’s a million miles, ain’t it?”
“It’s nothing. You get the railroad part of the way. And it’s like summer down there.”
The farmer and his wife and Patty and Immy all stared at RoBards, and he felt as if he were staring at himself. ”

“ And he walked through the city, looking with great disdain at those riches which were within reach of his hand and which so much tempted his ambition before.
That dazzling brilliance began to disturb him.
"Here it seems," he said to himself, "there is nothing else but gold. Cursed metal, which has cost me my heart. Goodness me! Who will give me back my little heart?"
He looked for friends, but did not succeed in finding them, because those people had hearts of steel, and Rupert felt that that little fibre that remained of his own made him suffer atrociously. ”

“ It was a maxim of his that the arts of patience, of strategy, and parleying with the enemy should be left to statesmen and caitiffs; and it can be said with truth of Rupert that no one could possibly have acted more completely in accordance with his rule than himself. "Than Prince Rupert," wrote a chronicler at his death, "no man was more courageous or intrepid. ”

“ Rupert's thoughts were a mixture that morning, and flew from one thing to another: the ditch which he was to clean and repair; the condition of the reservoir; the meeting of the school board; the planting of the garden; the dance at the hall in town; the wonderful spreading properties of weeds—so on from one subject to another, until he came to a standstill, leaning on his shovel and looking over his farm and down to the town, fast growing into a city. From a hundred chimneys smoke was beginning to come, befouling the clear air of the valley. ”

“ You are too free with your threats and schemes, my man, for a healthy slave."
"I am as I am made," said Rupert. "No man can change his nature too suddenly. But being on this galley, I've her welfare at heart like yourself; as I tell you, even a slave can take pride in his work. And let me say to you, Señor boatswain, you've your rowers wastefully arranged. Your best men are next the rowlocks, or at a cleat in the middle of the loom, ay, or anywhere but where they should be, and that's at the oars' inner ends, next the gangway, where they could put government over the stroke. ”

“ For the intention of carrying him to that army, (in the West,) he has yet heard nothing of it, and, if he shall, he will without fail oppose it; and I may say truely that if he has a great kindness for any man it is for your Highness." [44] For the moment Rupert triumphed. Richmond, who opposed the plan for the West as strongly as the Prince could have wished, assured him that it was "but a dream," [45] and for a while it fell into abeyance. ”

“ We do not fall in with one another's ways, Monsieur. We seem to have been differently brought up."
In this manner, then, Prince Rupert and his humble secretary got their quittance from Tortuga, and put across the strait to the vast island of Hispaniola, where men of the French and English races hunt the wild cattle, and the Spaniards war against them with an undying hostility. It was in a lonely bay of this island that the blacks set them ashore, and at once the discomforts of the place gave them the utmost torment. ”

“ Somewhat of the same bewilderment has beset many people of late years in regard to any mention of Prince Rupert, the young seaport of the great North-West. One citizen of the United States to whom a rather unusual degree of cosmopolitan travel had been allotted by the Fates that appointed his not undistinguished destiny, and who enjoyed the well-earned admiration of a host of friends as being pre-eminently entitled to speak with authority on many abstract matters for which those less erudite cared little and, alas! ”

“ A letter from his father to the queen of Bohemia mentions with satisfaction the boy's gift for languages. In 1633 Rupert and his brother were permitted to accompany the prince of Orange during his campaign, and were present at the siege of Rhynberg. But Rupert's military training really began in 1635, when he served as a volunteer in the lifeguards of the prince of Orange during the invasion of Brabant. In 1636 Rupert followed the prince elector to England, and was received with great favour by his uncle. With the king he was entertained by Laud at Oxford, and on 30 Aug. ”

“ I knew they came to help me, and I grew tired of pageantry." He smiled at his own gravity, and reached out for his Crusader's sword. "Come," he broke off, "Coeur de Lion should be punctual to the tryst."
They came into the High Street, the three of them; and Rupert checked his horse with a thrill of wonderment. Not until now had he guessed what the strain of these last idle days had been. He saw the gallant sea ride into Oxford, as in his dream—saw it ride down to meet him, creamed with white horses moving at the trot. He was a free man again. ”

“ At the beginning of the war, however, Rupert's energy and activity were of the greatest value to the king's cause. His example inspired his followers: ‘he put that spirit into the king's army that all men seemed resolved’ (Memoirs of Sir Philip Warwick, p. 227) . With a small body of cavalry, which numbered at first only eight hundred horse, he traversed the midland counties, raising men and money for Charles. ‘Prince Rupert,’ writes a parliamentary historian, ‘like a perpetual motion, was in a short time heard of at many places at a great distance’ (May, Long Parliament, ed. 1854, p. 249) . ”

“ For the moment Rupert thought the man had been mocking him; but then he saw that the gangway was narrow, that the boatswain traversed it every hour on his official watch, and that the sleeping sailor at the further side would cause him to walk near the other edge, and so within hand-grips of the slaves who wanted the keys. So the Prince sat on his bench well satisfied, and the men near him, who had heard what had been said, waited in silence to get their share of any benefits which might befall. There is no reason to ask the slaves on a galley if they will join an insurrection. ”

“ Lastly, we have the Rupert of the Restoration; no longer sick at heart and desperately sad, but a Rupert who has out-lived hope and joy, disappointment and sorrow; a handsome man, with a keen intellectual face, but old before his time, and made hard and cold and contemptuous by suffering and loneliness.
{3}
The first few months of Rupert's existence were the most prosperous of his life, but he was not a year old before his troubles began. His father, Frederick V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, had been married at sixteen to the famous Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I of England ”

“ The growth of the sea power of England had received an impetus during the years of the Commonwealth, due indirectly to Rupert himself; for had not the Commonwealth been forced to protect itself against the pirate Princes, it would probably have cared less for its navy. [1] Charles II, like a true Stuart, cared for his fleet also, and took a keen interest in ship-building and other matters connected with the navy. In October 1662, he appointed Rupert to the Committee for the Government of Tangiers, together with the Duke of York, Albemarle, Sandwich, Coventry, and Pepys of famous memory. ”

“ For some weeks the Prince hovered about the Channel, waiting for an expected Dutch fleet; but the Dutch {304} out-witted him. By promising to keep within harbour, they persuaded the King to recall Rupert, and, in the meantime, privately ordered their Mediterranean fleet to sail for New Guinea. Thus nothing was done by the English, and the only warfare waged by Rupert was with his chaplain, of whom he wrote bitter complaints to Lord Arlington, the then Secretary of State. ”

“ Rupert was not, in short, a person who could be regarded with indifference. By those with whom he came in contact he was either adored or execrated, and it is remarkable that a man who made so strong an impression upon his contemporaries should have left so slight a one upon posterity. To most people he is a name and nothing more;—a being akin to those iron men who sprang from Jason's dragon teeth, coming into life at the outbreak of the English Civil War to disappear with equal suddenness at its close. ”

“ Rupert's greatness had been, in truth, thrust upon him, but having accepted it, he resolved to use it {238} for avenging his uncle to the uttermost. "Prince Rupert," declared a sailor of the Parliament, who had been his prisoner, "is not ashamed openly to profess that, provided he may ruin and destroy the English interest, especially the estates of the merchants and mariners of London, he cares not whether he gets a farthing more while he lives than what will maintain himself, his confederates, and his fleet." ”