Canada. John George Bourinot
the eulogy over his grave, the exact site of which is even now a matter of dispute.
What had the patient and courageous Frenchman of Brouage accomplished during the years—nearly three decades—since he landed at the foot of Cape Diamond? On the verge of the heights a little fort of logs and a château of masonry, a few clumsy and wretched buildings on the point below, a cottage and clearing of the first Canadian farmer Hébert, the ruins of the Recollet convent and the mission house of the Jesuits on the St. Charles, the chapel of Notre-Dame de Recouvrance, which he had built close to the fort to commemorate the restoration of Quebec to the French, the stone manor-house of the first seignior of Canada, Robert Giffard of Beauport, a post at Tadousac and another at Three Rivers, perhaps two hundred Frenchmen in the whole valley. These were the only visible signs of French dominion on the banks of the St. Lawrence, when the cold blasts of winter sighed Champlain's requiem on the heights whence his fancy had so often carried him to Cathay. The results look small when we think of the patience and energy shown by the great man whose aspirations took so ambitious and hopeful a range. It is evident by the last map he drew of the country, that he had some idea of the existence of a great lake beyond Lake Huron, and of the Niagara Falls, though he had seen neither. He died, however, ignorant of the magnitude, number, and position of the western lakes, and still deluded by visions, as others after him, of a road to Asia. No one, however, will deny that he was made of the heroic mould from which come founders of states, and the Jesuit historian Charlevoix has, with poetic justice, called him the "Father of New France."
[1] Brulé was murdered by the Hurons in 1634 at Toanché, an Indian village in the West.
VII.
GENTLEMEN-ADVENTURERS IN ACADIA.
(1614–1677.)
We must now leave the lonely Canadian colonists on the snow-clad heights of Quebec to mourn the death of their great leader, and return to the shores of Acadia to follow the fortunes of Biencourt and his companions whom we last saw near the smoking ruins of their homes on the banks of the Annapolis. We have now come to a strange chapter of Canadian history, which has its picturesque aspect as well as its episodes of meanness, cupidity, and inhumanity. As we look back to those early years of Acadian history, we see rival chiefs with their bands of retainers engaged in deadly feuds, and storming each other's fortified posts as though they were the castles of barons living in mediaeval times. We see savage Micmacs and Etchemins of Acadia, only too willing to aid in the quarrels and contests of the white men who hate each with a malignity that even the Indian cannot excel; closely shorn, ill-clad mendicant friars who see only good in those who help their missions; grave and cautious Puritans trying to find their advantage in the rivalry of their French neighbours; a Scotch nobleman and courtier who would be a king in Acadia as well as a poet in England; Frenchmen who claim to have noble blood in their veins, and wish to be lords of a wide American domain; a courageous wife who lays aside the gentleness of a woman's nature and fights as bravely as any knight for the protection of her home and what she believes to be her husband's rights. These are among the figures that we see passing through the shadowy vista which opens before us as we look into the depths of the Acadian wilderness two centuries and a half ago.
Among the French adventurers, whose names are intimately associated with the early history of Acadia, no one occupies a more prominent position than Charles de St. Etienne, the son of a Huguenot, Claude de la Tour, who claimed to be of noble birth. The La Tours had become so poor that they were forced, like so many other nobles of those times, to seek their fortune in the new world. Claude and his son, then probably fourteen years of age, came to Port Royal with Poutrincourt in 1610. In the various vicissitudes of the little settlement the father and his son participated, and after it had been destroyed by Argall, they remained with Biencourt and his companions. In the course of time, the elder La Tour established a trading post on the peninsula at the mouth of the Penobscot—in Acadian history a prominent place, as often in possession of the English as the French.
Biencourt and his companions appear to have had some accessions to their number during the years that followed the Virginian's visit. They built rude cabins on the banks of the Annapolis, and cultivated patches of ground after a fashion, beside raising a fort of logs and earth near Cape Sable, called indifferently Fort Louis or Lomeron. It has been generally believed that Biencourt died in Acadia about 1623, after making over all his rights to Charles La Tour, who was his personal friend and follower from his boyhood. Recently, however, the discovery of some old documents in Paris throws some doubt on the generally accepted statement of the place of his death.[1]
It is quite certain, however, whether Biencourt died in France or Acadia, young La Tour assumed after 1623 the control of Fort St. Louis and all other property previously held by the former. In 1626 the elder La Tour was driven from the Penobscot by English traders from Plymouth who took possession of the fort and held it for some years. He now recognised the urgent necessity of having his position in Acadia ratified and strengthened by the French king, and consequently went on a mission to France in 1627.
About this time the attention of prominent men in England was called to the fact that the French had settlements in Acadia. Sir William Alexander, afterwards the Earl of Stirling, a favourite of King James the Fourth of Scotland and First of England, and an author of several poetical tragedies, wished to follow the example of Sir Frederick Gorges, one of the promoters of the colonisation of New England. He had no difficulty in obtaining from James, as great a pedant as himself, a grant of Acadia, which he named Nova Scotia. When Charles the First became king, he renewed the patent, and also, at the persuasion of the ambitious poet, created an order of Nova Scotia baronets, who were obliged to assist in the settlement of the country, which was thereafter to be divided into "baronies." Sir William Alexander, however, did not succeed in making any settlement in Nova Scotia, and did not take any definite measures to drive the French from his princely, though savage, domain until about the time Claude de la Tour was engaged in advocating the claims of his son in Europe, where we must follow him.
The elder La Tour arrived at an opportune time in France. Cardinal Richelieu had just formed the Company of the Hundred Associates, and it was agreed that aid should at once be sent to Charles de la Tour, who was to be the King's lieutenant in Acadia. Men and supplies for the Acadian settlement were on board the squadron, commanded by Roquemont, who was captured by Kirk in the summer of 1628. On board one of the prizes was Claude de la Tour, who was carried to London as prisoner. Then to make the position for Charles de la Tour still more hazardous, Sir William Alexander's son arrived at Port Royal in the same year, and established on the Granville side a small Scotch colony as the commencement of a larger settlement in the future. Charles de la Tour does not appear to have remained in Port Royal, but to have retired to the protection of his own fort at Cape Sable, which the English did not attempt to attack at that time.
In the meantime the elder La Tour was in high favour at London. He won the affections of one of the Queen's maids of honour, and was easily persuaded by Alexander and others interested in American colonisation, to pledge his allegiance to the English king. He and his son were made baronets of Nova Scotia, and received large grants of land or "baronies" in the new province. As Alexander was sending an expedition in 1630 with additional colonists and supplies for his colony in Nova Scotia, Claude de la Tour agreed to go there for the purpose of persuading his son to accept the honours and advantages which the King of England had conferred upon him. The ambitious Scotch poet, it was clear, still hoped that his arguments in favour of retaining Acadia, despite the treaty of Susa, made on the 24th of April, 1629, would prevail with the King. It was urged that as Port Royal was on soil belonging to England by right of Cabot's discovery,