BOOKS BY
THOMAS B. COSTAIN
The White and the Gold: The French Regime in Canada
The Silver Chalice
The Magnificent Century: The Pageant of England
Son of a Hundred Kings
The Conquerors: The Pageant of England
High Towers
The Moneyman
The Black Rose
Ride with Me
For My Great Folly
Joshua: A Study in Leadership
(in collaboration with Rogers MacVeagh)
COPYRIGHT, 1954, BY THOMAS B. COSTAIN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
eISBN: 978-0-307-80957-5
v3.1
To All My Friends in Canada
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
CHAPTER I
John Cabot Speaks to a King—and Discovers a Continent
CHAPTER II
Before and after Cabot
CHAPTER III
Jacques Cartier Discovers Canada
CHAPTER IV
The Kingdom of Saguenay—Stadacona and Hochelaga
CHAPTER V
The Feud between Cartier and Roberval
CHAPTER VI
Samuel de Champlain, the Founder of New France
CHAPTER VII
Champlain at Quebec
CHAPTER VIII
Champlain, Organizer, Diplomat, Explorer, and Indian Fighter
CHAPTER IX
A View of Quebec in the First Days—Louis Hébert—Champlain’s Romance
CHAPTER X
The Coming of the Jesuits—The Formation of the Company of a Hundred Associates
CHAPTER XI
The Start of the Long Wars with the English
CHAPTER XII
Three Resolute Women and the Parts They Played—Madame de la Peltrie—Marie de l’Incarnation—Jeanne Mance
CHAPTER XIII
The Story of Ville Marie and How It Came into Existence
CHAPTER XIV
The Start of the Wars with the Iroquois—An Ineffectual Peace—The Tragic Story of Isaac Jogues
CHAPTER XV
The Destruction of the Huron Nation—The Jesuit Martyrs
CHAPTER XVI
Richelieu Dies and Mazarin Takes His Place—A Troublesome Period Is Reached in the Affairs of New France—A Strange Feud in Acadia
CHAPTER XVII
The Iroquois Gain the Upper Hand—The Mission to the Onondagas
CHAPTER XVIII
An Uneasy Peace—Charles le Moyne and the Beginning of a Great Family—Jeanne Mance Takes Matters into Her Own Hands
CHAPTER XIX
Adam Dollard and His Magnificent Stand at the Long Sault
CHAPTER XX
The Transfer of Montreal Island to the Sulpicians—The Appointment of Bishop Laval Leads to Clerical War and Begins a Great Chapter in Canadian History
CHAPTER XXI
Mazarin Dies and Louis XIV Decides to Rule for Himself—Colbert Becomes His First Minister—A Great Plan for Canada
CHAPTER XXII
The Grand Plan Comes to a Head with the Arrival in Canada of the Carignan-Salière Regiment and the Defeat of the Iroquois
CHAPTER XXIII
A Great Man Comes to Canada Who Is Neither Soldier, Missionary, nor Explorer—Jean Talon, the Able Intendant, Who Introduces the Elements of Normality
CHAPTER XXIV
The King Becomes the Paternal Tyrant of Canada, Making Regulations for Every Phase of Life—The King’s Girls—Rigid Police Restrictions
CHAPTER XXV
The Conflict over the Fur Trade—The Coureurs de Bois—The Annual Fair at Montreal—Opening up the West—Du Lhut and Nicolas Perrot
CHAPTER XXVI
Radisson and Groseilliers Leave New France and Go to England—The Formation of the Hudson’s Bay Company—Forts Are Established on the Bay
CHAPTER XXVII
The Divided Loyalties of Radisson and Groseilliers—The Policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company and Its Great Success
CHAPTER XXVIII
Frontenac, the Great Governor, Is Appointed—His Early Life—His Character
CHAPTER XXIX
Frontenac Takes Matters into His Own Hands—The Breaking of All Records in Building Fort Cataraqui—The Raising of the White Flag
CHAPTER XXX
La Salle, the Greatest of Explorers—Marquette and Joliet Discover the Mississippi—La Salle’s Only Friend, the Man with the Iron Hand
CHAPTER XXXI
The Building of the Griffin—La Salle’s Creditors Seize All His Assets—The Tracing of the Mississippi to Its Mouth
CHAPTER XXXII
The Seigneurial System Creates an Atmosphere of Romance—The Rise of the Seigneurial Class—La Durantaye—The Fabulous Le Moynes
CHAPTER XXXIII
Frontenac Places the Governor of Montreal under Arrest—He Becomes Involved in Feuds with His Fellow Officers—His Recall by the King
CHAPTER XXXIV
The Mistakes of Frontenac’s Successor—The Death of Colbert—La Barre Is Recalled—Meules Makes a New Kind of Money
CHAPTER XXXV
La Salle Embarks on a Wild Adventure—A Colony Is Founded by Mistake in Texas—His Death at the Hands of Mutinous Followers
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Duel between Denonville and Dongan—An Act of Treachery Makes War with the Iroquois Inevitable—The French Seize English Forts in Hudson’s Bay—Denonville Lays the Seneca Country Waste
CHAPTER XXXVII
The Grim Story of Iroquois Revenge—The Massacre at Lachine—Denonville’s Weakness
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Beginning of the English Wars—Four Titans and a Heroine
Introduction
THERE have been many histories of Canada, and some of them have been truly fine, but it seemed to a group of writers, all of whom were Canadians or of Canadian stock, who met a few years ago, that the time had come for something different. We all felt the need for a version which would neglect none of the essential factors but would consider more the lives of the people, the little people as well as the spectacular characters who made history, and tell the story with due consciousness of the green, romantic, immense, moving, and mysterious background which Canada provides. In addition there was a strong feeling—and this clearly was the governing impulse—that Canada’s rise to nationhood should be traced to the present day, when the land which was once New France and then the Dominion of Canada promises to develop into one of the great powers of the globe.
This, it will be allowed at once, was what might be termed a rather tall order. However, there was considerable discussion about it, both then and later, and the outcome was a plan to do a formidably long version, all the way from John Cabot to St. Laurent. It was to be the joint work of a number of Canadian writers, one for each volume, and perhaps as many as six volumes.
It fell to my lot to begin, and this volume tells the story of the earliest days, the period of the French regime, concluding near the end of the seventeenth century. It has been with me a labor of love. Almost from the first I found myself caught in the spell of those courageous, colorful, cruel days. But whenever I found myself guilty of overstressing the romantic side of the picture and forgetful of the more prosaic life beneath, I tried to balance the scales more properly; to stop at the small house of the habitant, to look in the brave and rather pathetic chapel in the wilderness, to stare inside the bare and smoky barracks of the French regulars. It is, at any rate, a conscientious effort at a balanced picture of a period which was brave, bizarre, fanatical, lyrical, lusty, and, in fact
, rather completely unbalanced.
No bibliography is appended because I found, when the time came to prepare one, that the point of no return had been reached. A list of roughly a thousand items—books, papers, extracts, manuscripts—which had been read or, at least, dipped into, would be of small value because of its very size. I shall content myself, therefore, with the perhaps obvious statement that in writing of this period two great sources constitute a large part of the preparation, that uniquely conceived and organized mass of remarkable material, the Jesuit Relations, and the crystal-clear reconstruction in Francis Parkman’s splendid volumes.
The second volume, which will deal with the period of the English and French wars, is now being prepared by Joseph Lister Rutledge, for many years editor of the Canadian Magazine and a fine scholar with the capacity to keep a great event equally great in the telling.
THOMAS B. COSTAIN
January 1, 1954
CHAPTER I
John Cabot Speaks to a King—and
Discovers a Continent
1
IT MAY seem strange to begin a history of Canada in an English city, a bustling maritime center of narrow streets in a pocket of the hills where the Avon joins the Severn. But that is where the story rightly starts: in the city of Bristol, which had become second only to London in size and was doing a thriving trade with Ireland and Gascony and that cold distant island called Iceland which the Norsemen had discovered. It starts in Bristol because a Genoese sailor, after living some time in London, had settled there with his wife and three sons, one John Cabot, or “Caboote” as the official records spelled it, a sea captain and master pilot of some small reputation. He arrived in Bristol about 1490, when the place was fairly bristling with prosperity and the streets had been paved with stone and the High Cross had been painted and gilded most elaborately, and out on Redcliffe Street the Rudde House stood with its great square tower, the home of those fabulous commoners, the Canynges, as evidence of the wealth which could be gained in trade.
It was not strange that little attention was paid at first to this dark-complexioned, soft-spoken foreigner. Bristol, aggressive and alive to everything, had been fitting out ships to explore the western seas in search of the “Vinland” of the Norse sagas and the legendary Island of the Seven Cities which had been found and settled more than seven centuries before by an archbishop of Oporto fleeing the conquering Moors with six other bishops. The waterfront buzzed with the strange new talk which had been on the tongues of sailors for years, the suddenly aroused speculations as to what lay beyond the gray horizon of the turbulent Atlantic. The men of Bristol doffed their flat sea caps to no one. What had they to learn from a mariner who knew only the indolent ease of southern seas, most particularly of the Mediterranean, where the leveche blew insistently across from Africa with a dank hot scent?
But then it became known that another of these bland-tongued fellows, one Christopher Columbus, had set sail westward from Spain with three small ships and had found land hundreds of leagues across the gray waters, and that because of this Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain were claiming all the trade of Cathay. Bristol recalled that this man John Cabot had been voicing the same theories which had induced Their Most Christian Majesties to gamble a fleet on such a thin prospect. Cabot also had said that the world was round and that the shortest route to Cathay and Cipango led straight west. They got out their charts and compasses now and with new respect listened to him expound his belief that where Columbus had landed was the midriff of Asia and that the way around the world would be found far to the north. This was heady talk. It meant that there were still lands and seas to which Spain could not yet lay claim, that the flag of England could lead the way to equal wealth and glory. It was decided to seek royal sanction for a venture well to the north of the route which the inspired Columbus had taken.
Henry VII was King of England at this time and he was not exactly popular in Bristol. In the year 1490 he had paid the city a ceremonial visit and had received a truly royal welcome; but on leaving he had shocked them by laying a fine of five per cent on all men worth in excess of twenty pounds. Their wives, he said, had broken some dusty and long-forgotten sumptuary law by dressing themselves finely in his honor. He had called this fine a “benevolence,” but the outspoken Bristol men had found other words for it. The seventh Henry, in point of fact, had little gift for winning the hearts of his subjects. The first of the Tudor kings was able and far-seeing, but he was cold, withdrawn, hating no man but loving none, incapable of much enthusiasm save for the gold he was accumulating through the efficient raking of the legal fork of Morton, his chief minister.
Henry was eager, it developed, to share in the spoils of the west and so letters patent were issued to John “Caboote” and his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius, to set sail with five ships, to be paid for with their own money, and “to seek out, discover and find whatsoever islands, continents, regions and provinces of the heathens and infidels in whatever part of the world they be, which before this time have been unknown to all Christians.” It was stipulated that they were to raise the flag of England over any new lands they found and to acquire “dominion, title and jurisdiction over these towns, castles, islands and mainlands so discovered.” The only restriction laid upon them seems to have been that they must not venture into the south, where they would be poaching on the Spanish domain.
The parsimonious King had carefully protected himself from any possible loss, but he stipulated nevertheless that he was to receive one fifth of any profits which might accrue. It was provided in return that the Cabootes were to have as their reward a monopoly of trading privileges and that Bristol was to benefit by being the sole port of entry for any ships which engaged in the western trade. This laid the financial responsibility squarely in the laps of the men of Bristol, and it was not until the following year that they were able to organize their resources for the effort. Early in May 1497 a single ship called the Matthew, a ratty little caravel, set out for the west with John Cabot in command and a crew of eighteen men; surely the meanest of equipment with which to make such a hazardous and important venture. It was with stout hearts and high hopes, nevertheless, that the little crew gazed ahead over the swelling waters of the Atlantic, their parrels well tallowed and their topmasts struck to the cap in the expectation—nay, the certainty—of rough weather ahead.
In the fifteenth century the mariner had few instruments to guide him on his course. When the weather was clear he could sail with his eye fixed on the North Star; if it was overcast he had to use the compass. The North Atlantic is more likely to provide fogs and gray skies than clear sunshine, and so it was the compass on which John Cabot had to depend. This meant that he did not sail due west, for the compass has its little failings anti never points exactly north. In the waters through which Cabot was sailing the variation is west of north, which meant that the tiny Matthew, wallowing in the trough of the sea, its lateen sail always damp with the spray, followed a course which inclined slightly southward. This was fortunate. It spared the crew any contact with the icebergs which would have been encountered in great numbers had they sailed due west; and it brought them finally, on June 24, 1497, to land which has been identified since as Cape Breton Island.
The anchor was dropped and the little band went ashore gratefully, their hearts filled with bounding hopes. The new land was warm and green and fertile. Trees grew close to the water’s edge. The sea, which abounded with fish, rolled in to a strip of sandy shingle. They saw no trace of natives, but the fact that some of the trees had been felled was evidence that the country was inhabited. All doubts on that score ended when snares for the catching of game were found. Perhaps eyes distended with excitement were watching the newcomers from the safe cover of the trees; but not a sound warned of their surveillance.
John Cabot, raising a high wooden cross with the flag of England and the banner of St. Mark’s of Venice (that city having granted him citizenship some years before), had no reser
vations at all. He was certain he had accomplished his mission. He knew that his feet were planted firmly on the soil of Cathay, that fabulous land of spices and silks and gold. Somewhere hereabouts he would find the great open passage through which ships would sail north of Cathay and so in time girdle the earth.
2
It is unfortunate that so many of the great men of early Canadian history are little else but names. John Cabot, who thus had become the discoverer of North America, is wrapped almost completely in the mists of the past. A few dates, a phrase or two from letters of the period, an odd detail shining out of the darkness like a welcome ray of sunshine; these make up the sum total of what is known about him. There is no record of his appearance, whether he was tall or short, stocky or thin. His nationality suggests that he was dark of complexion, but even this remains pure speculation. It is not known when and where he died, although it is assumed that he spent his last days in Bristol.
This much is known: that he and his faithful eighteen, all of whom seem to have returned alive, were given a tumultous welcome in Bristol and that all England joined later in the chorus of acclaim. Cabot became at once a national hero. He was called the Great Admiral and wherever he went, according to a letter written by a Venetian merchant residing in London, “the English ran after him like mad people.” He seems to have had a broad streak of vanity in him because he began to dress himself handsomely in silks and, presumably, to affect the grand manner. He distributed conditional largesse with a lavish hand, granting an island (to be chosen and occupied later) to this one, a strip of land to another. He gave it out rather grandiloquently that the priests who had volunteered to accompany the second expedition were all to be made bishops in the new land. From these details it may be assumed that he strutted and posed and made the most of his brief moment of glory.
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